The air in the Strategy Atrium felt different—not the charged energy of the training grounds, not the muted tension of the dining hall, but something colder. More deliberate.

  Amara stepped through the grand archway, the vast chamber unfolding before her in a breathtaking display of power and history.

  This was not just a place of learning.

  It was a place of war.

  The walls were carved with intricate, shifting reliefs—battles frozen in time, only to move when no one was looking. Each panel depicted a moment of conquest: soldiers advancing through burning landscapes, warriors clashing on shattered cliffs, commanders standing over fields littered with the fallen. The Citadel’s unspoken truth laid bare: survival was not about strength alone. It was about strategy.

  At the center of the chamber, rows of descending seats curved toward the sunken battlefield below. The layout mimicked the war councils of old—a place where leaders once decided the fates of nations. Now, it would decide the fates of students.

  And hers was already uncertain.

  She kept her expression neutral, but internally, doubt crept in like an unseen current.

  She had barely survived placement. Barely. And now she was expected to sit in the same room as those who had already mastered the art of war?

  She took a quiet breath, schooling her features into something impassive. If she looked like she belonged, perhaps they wouldn’t notice she didn’t.

  The instructor stood at the base of the atrium, a looming figure clad in dark battle robes. His voice, rough as storm-worn stone, cut through the murmurs.

  “Take your seats. You are here because combat alone will not save you. Strength can be broken. Magic can be depleted. But a mind that cannot be outmaneuvered? That is the true weapon.”

  A flick of his wrist, and the torches dimmed—shadows stretched long against the walls as a great holographic map materialized above the battlefield. Terrain shifted and rearranged in real-time: mountains rising, rivers carving through valleys, ancient ruins flickering in and out of sight.

  A battlefield ever-changing.

  “The Trials are not mere displays of power,” the instructor continued. “They are lessons in control. Lessons in knowing your limits—and exceeding them.”

  His gaze swept the room, settling on Amara just long enough to make her uneasy.

  She set her jaw.

  She already knew her limits. She had been living within them her entire life.

  A scroll snapped open in his hands. “Group assignments have been finalized. These will be your teams for the duration of this course—and for your Trial.”

  The tension in the room shifted. No one wanted to be placed with a weak link.

  Names were called.

  She waited.

  Then—

  “Aurelian, Trask, Delvian, and Thalor.”

  Amara exhaled sharply through her nose.

  Of course.

  Of course, they put me with my actual team. That’s literally the entire point of this class.

  Myles let out a low whistle from a few seats away. When she turned, she was met with his usual smug grin—one that deepened as he pointed to his lip and tapped the corner mockingly.

  Amara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The split from training last week hadn’t even fully healed.

  She lifted a brow. “Staring a little hard, Trask.”

  Myles only smirked. “Hard to miss.”

  Before she could respond, Orin exhaled sharply from her other side. He didn’t look surprised—just resigned.

  “Wonderful,” he muttered. “I get to spend even more time babysitting.”

  “Please,” Amara shot back. “We both know I’m your favorite.”

  Orin turned his head just enough to give her the flat, unimpressed stare that had haunted every grueling training session of the past few weeks. His expression didn’t waver, but the faintest twitch of his jaw betrayed amusement.

  Lorina, seated beside him, tilted her head slightly in consideration. “At least she listens,” she mused. “Unlike some.”

  She didn’t look at Myles, but she didn’t have to.

  Myles pressed a mocked hand to his chest. “That hurts, Thalor. Truly.”

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  Amara snorted, shaking her head.

  She’d spent the last few weeks being knocked into the dirt by Orin, dodging Myles’ cheap shots, and absorbing Lorina’s endless stream of blunt, eerily accurate advice.

  She was still the weakest link. That much hadn’t changed.

  But she wasn’t unfamiliar anymore.

  That, at least, was something.

  “Enough talking,” the instructor’s voice cut through the noise. “Your teams have been set. Now let’s see if any of you can actually think before throwing yourselves into battle.”

  The holographic terrain shifted again, flickering between deadly landscapes—swamps, icy cliffs, burning fields.

  Amara leaned forward slightly, pulse steady, thoughts already spinning.

  The Strategy Atrium fell silent as the holographic terrain finalized its shape—a sprawling battlefield of treacherous marshlands, jagged cliffs, and dense forests veiled in creeping fog.

  Amara’s gaze sharpened. No open fields. No safe ground. Every inch of the simulated terrain was designed to kill.

  Lovely.

  The instructor paced below the projection, his presence as heavy as the weight of the lesson to come.

  “These are real places,” he stated, his gravel-rough voice carrying to every corner of the chamber. “Not conjured nightmares. Not imagined horrors. Each Trial terrain is pulled from locations across Cindralis—places where people have died. Where wars have been lost. Where the unprepared were devoured by the land itself.”

  The words settled, cold and unwavering.

  Amara barely noticed. Her focus was elsewhere.

  Because she recognized something.

  It wasn’t the entire landscape, but fragments—a stretch of sun-bleached rock, the gnarled roots curling like skeletal fingers, the distant shimmer of something unnatural in the air.

  She knew this place.

  —A grand hall of polished black stone, moonlight pouring through an open ceiling. Shadows flickered along the walls, shifting with every step of the woman who moved before her.

  “Again.”

  Her mother’s voice had been sharp, measured. Not unkind, but unyielding.

  Amara had been younger then—smaller, weaker. The Threads had not yet wrapped around her wrist, but she had been expected to learn all the same.

  On the polished stone, a map was laid out—a projection, shifting with subtle movements of her mother’s hand. The same flickering terrain now hovering before her in the Strategy Atrium.

  The Shrouded Expanse.

  A lethal convergence of swamp, forest, and sinking caverns.

  Her mother had traced the edges with a single finger, eyes dark with something unreadable.

  “You will never step foot here,” she had said. “But if you do—”

  A pause. A flicker of something almost regretful.

  “—Remember what it takes to walk away.”

  The memory shifted—

  A different night. A different lesson.

  This time, the moonlight caught the Threads wrapped around her mother’s wrist, gleaming pale silver against her dark skin.

  “Do you understand why we wear them?” Selara Aurelian asked.

  Amara had frowned, tracing the shimmering strands with careful fingers. The Threads pulsed faintly under her touch, responding to her bloodline even though they did not yet belong to her.

  “They protect us,” she had answered hesitantly.

  Her mother exhaled softly. “Not just that.”

  The Threads shifted, uncoiling like living silk, curling up her mother’s forearm before weaving together again.

  “They are tools, Amara,” she murmured. “Aurelian women do not wield magic like others. We wield what is given to us. And what is given to us—”

  Her mother lifted her wrist, and the Threads darkened, absorbing the ambient light like a void.

  “—can change everything.”

  Amara had watched as the silver strands coiled tighter, pulsing in time with her mother’s heartbeat.

  “In me,” Selara continued, “they burn away toxins. No poison, no venom, no corruption can touch me.”

  She turned her wrist slightly, and the Threads pulsed again, returning to their normal sheen.

  “In others, they have reinforced bones. Strengthened magic. Granted foresight, speed, or silence.”

  She met Amara’s eyes then—a piercing, assessing gaze.

  “Each Aurelian woman’s gift is different. A reflection of who they are. Of what they will become.”

  Amara swallowed, staring at the Threads with renewed weight.

  She had always known they were more than ornamentation, more than mere tradition. But this—

  This was something else entirely.

  “Then what will mine do?” she had asked quietly.

  Her mother had smiled. But it was not a soft smile.

  It was knowing.

  “I suppose,” she had said, “you will have to find out.”

  The memory shattered.

  Amara inhaled sharply, dragging herself back to the present. The glowing terrain still hung before them, untouched by time.

  She had not yet figured out what her Threads could do.

  But whatever it was—it had started changing the moment she placed them on her wrist.

  “Elira would love this,” Myles murmured beside her, breaking the silence between their group. “A trial where the land itself tries to kill you? Feels like her brand of fun.”

  Lorina, arms crossed, studied the map without expression. “She’d burn half of it down before anyone else got the chance.”

  Orin, as usual, wasn’t entertained. “Focus.”

  Myles just grinned. “I am focused.” He gestured to the hovering display. “I’m very focused on not dying.”

  The instructor’s voice dragged their attention back.

  “This class is not about magic,” he continued. “It is not about brute strength. It is about how you think. How you anticipate. How you survive.”

  The terrain flickered, zooming into a specific section of the map. The marshlands came into view—twisting vines, uneven terrain, waterlogged pathways barely visible beneath the mist.

  Amara’s stomach tightened.

  That was where people died the fastest.

  “Your objective is simple,” the instructor said. “Make it across alive.”

  Murmurs rose across the chamber.

  Amara kept her expression blank, but she could feel her heartbeat quicken.

  A trial within a trial.

  They weren’t just being taught strategy. They were being tested before the real test even began.

  “Teams will be given limited resources. You will have weapons. But no magical enhancements. Just knowledge. The decisions you make will determine your success.”

  Amara’s lips pressed into a thin line.

  No magic enhancements.

  It was meant to be a handicap. A way to force magic users to rely on their minds instead of their power.

  For her, it was no different than usual.

  Myles exhaled dramatically. “Great. So we get to die before the Trials even start.”

  Lorina ignored him. “The landscape is shifting.”

  Amara blinked, refocusing. She was right. The marshland moved subtly, the waterline rising and falling as if breathing, the vines curling slightly before stilling.

  Not a static battlefield.

  A living one.

  The instructor’s gaze swept over the room. “You will watch. You will learn. And tomorrow, you will be placed into the field.”

  A low hum of tension settled over the students.

  Amara’s fists clenched beneath the table.

  Tomorrow.

  Her thoughts drifted back to the past weeks of training—of struggling against Orin’s brutal strength, of dodging Myles’ unpredictable footwork, of absorbing Lorina’s cold, surgical precision.

  They had pushed her. Beaten her down. Forced her to see how much she lacked.

  And she had learned.

  But was it enough?

  The instructor motioned toward the seats. “For now, watch.”

  Below, upperclassmen stepped into the projected terrain. The first simulation had begun.

  And Amara intended to memorize every move.