The heavy wooden door of the waiting chamber slams shut behind me, sealing out any noise from the outside. The silence is weirdly satisfying. My cohort the remaining first years of House Apophis is scattered around the dimly lit room like debris from a shipwreck. I pause at the threshold, letting my eyes adjust.
My hand still tingles from where Proctor Dengs hand was in mine. But for the first time in months, walking into a room full of people doesn't trigger a migraine of whispered violence. The voices are there, but they no longer try to force me to slaughter everyone.
"You look like you had fun, what's with the airy look my good man?" Lucian drawls, leaning against a weapon rack on the far wall. He's tossing a dagger into the air and catching it by the blade, over and over.
I look at him. To the rest of the Academy, Lucian is cold and aloof, a silent enforcer of mine who has showcased almost as much bloodlust and violence as I have. Here thought with just us his shoulders are loose, and that insolent grin is plastered across his face.
"Just a meeting," I say rolling my eyes, walking further into the room. "Though with the way you're handling that knife, I may be attending your funeral next."
Lucian snorts, snatching the blade out of the air. "Please. I could juggle these in my sleep. Besides, it keeps the nerves down. The sound of Zaria pacing is driving me insane."
I glance to the left.
Zaria is indeed pacing. She walks a tight line of three steps forward, a sharp pivot, three steps back. Her face is a mask of calculation, her eyes darting around the room as if looking for something.
"I am not pacing," Zaria snaps, not breaking her rhythm. "I am thinking!"
"You're wearing a hole in the floor," Dominic mutters from the corner. He's sitting on an overturned crate, arms crossed, staring at the ceiling.
"Shut up, Dominic," Zaria shoots back, her voice tight. "This is important! We can't fail and not be sent to help!'
"Individual testing is interesting though," Niko interjects. He is standing near the door, his large frame blocking the draft. "You would assume they would test us together but It makes sense I suppose if they only care about assessing individual lethality"
"Lethality," Vihaan repeats, the word rolling off his tongue like honey.
The voice comes from the darkest part of the room. Vihaan is sitting on the floor, legs crossed, meticulously running a whetstone along the edge of a curved karambit. The shhhk-shhhk-shhhk sound is rhythmic and grating. He doesn't look up. His dark brown hair falls over his alabaster eyes.
"They want to see if we can kill," Vihaan says softly. "That is the only metric that matters today."
"That is a gross oversimplification," Niko sigh's scratching his nose. "Strategy wins wars. Logistics win wars. If we go out there swinging blindly like animals, we are just... ineffective."
"They need powerful elites who can fight compently and are not stupid, that's all they want to see" Vihaan counters, a small, disturbing quirk touching his lips.
"I think we all need to relax," I say, keeping my voice low and steady. The command carries a weight I didn't think I had yesterday. "No need to start stressing about it we have a little time left before any of us go. The other houses will go first I'm sure' They love to go in order of house size." "Plus Luxor students will need to recite their entire lineage as they approach our honored guests.
Lucian chuckles. "True. 'I, Titus of House Luxor, third of my name, command thee, Fireball!'"
"And then he misses," Dominic adds smirking.
"But again the issue is serious guys," Zaria says, stopping her pacing to look at us. Her eyes are annoyed and demanding. "Have you forgotten the report Head Proctor Evanora gave? Forty percent of Verion gone in three days." 'Multiple mana crystals mines overtaken"
"Propaganda numbers," Dominic says, waving a hand. "They inflate the losses to scare us into fighting harder." "Do we really think the Empire suffered such heavy losses in an area we rely so heavily on for resources?
"No don't start with that shit," Zaria shakes her head. "Why would they do that?"
"Those underwater ships," Niko adds crossing his arms, Submersibles. It changes the naval paradigm completely. Our coastal batteries would be useless if the enemy surfaces inside the harbor with Elites and markless soldiers. They'd catch everyone off guard, so it's possible.
"It is chaos," Imara says, leaning forward from her spot on a bench. "Blessed be Aren the federation shall pay for it's atrocities."
"Where would they even send us?" Rye whispers from the corner. She looks small, curled up with her knees to her chest.
"They will send us to the front," Lucian says, pushing off the wall to stand next to me. "We will be at the brunt of all the fighting to retake the land back." "Remember what they told us when they chose for House Apophis, we have the potential to become spell breakers.
"Exactly," I agree. We don't hold defensive positions. We make the enemy afraid to hold theirs."
But how and where?" Dominic asks. "The federation has grip over the waters in that area now do they not? New ships and who knows how many awakened with water marks they have with them, clearly enough to bypass and kill our own."
"I hope i find them in the mines," Vihaan mutters, testing the edge of his blade against his thumb. A thin line of red appears. "Dark tunnels and close quarters. No room for any big spells just blades.
"You're disturbing," Zaria says, wrinkling her nose.
"I'm unique" Vihaan sighs his face perfectly straight despite the obvious leg pulling.
"We go where commanded" Imara states firmly "We fight chaos on behalf of the Gods."
"so what about the tests?" Rye asks "You really don't think they'll make us fight each other?"
"No," I reply. "Like we said they are testing individual competence and killing off or injuring potential Awakened soldiers is bad math."
"It'll be situational," I guess. "They want to see how we react to pressure how we think through problems. Maybe see if you are smart enough to run when needed. But this is all just my hypothesis."
"I don't run," Vihaan says flatly.
"Then you'll die," I say, looking at him. "And you'll be useless to me."
Vihaan holds my gaze for a second, then looks down at his knife. "Fair enough."
The heavy wooden door suddenly groans and the conversation cuts off instantly. The air in the room stiffens. The latch lifts with a heavy clank, echoing like a gunshot in the silence. The door swings open.