The journey from the plaza to the Aethelgard War College was not a ride. It was a climb.
We were herded, the twenty of us who had passed the Qualifier, and marched up the mountain. It was a long, winding stone path that the elites called the "Obsidian Stair." It was just... stairs. Thousands of them, cut into the black rock, slick with ice and exposed to a wind that had a voice and a personal hatred for my face.
With every step, the air got thinner, and the gray, familiar smog of The Dregs fell away. Down there, the air was thick, a blanket of soot and smoke. Up here, the air was so clean and cold it felt like swallowing glass.
After an hour, my lungs were burning and my legs were numb, but I didn't slow down. I wouldn't. The two guards herding us set a brutal pace. One boy from a low-merchant family stumbled, and they didn't stop for him. They just let him fall, and we all had to step over him as he wept on the stairs. I didn't look back.
And then, we were there.
The gates were not gates. They were a wall of solid black obsidian, thirty feet high, sharpened to a point. They didn't look like they were meant to keep people out. They looked like they were meant to intimidate anyone who dared to look at them.
They didn't swing open. They ground apart, a horrible, shrieking sound of stone on stone, revealing the heart of the fortress.
My breath hitched. This was not a school.
It was a tomb.
The entire courtyard was paved in cold, white marble, so polished I could see the angry, gray sky in it. The buildings were all black, vertical, and sharp. They were knives meant to stab the clouds. There was no color. No warmth. No life. Just black stone, white marble, and the gray, unforgiving sky.
It was silent.
In The Dregs, there was always noise: the groaning of the ironworks, the shouting, the bartering, the crying. It was the sound of people surviving.
Here, the silence was a heavy, cold blanket. It was the sound of absolute, unquestioned power.
"This way, rooks," a guard snapped.
"Rooks." That's what we were. New, stupid birds, brought here to learn, or to be torn apart.
We were led into a massive, echoing hall where Professor Varrick stood, his scarred face looking even more terrifying indoors. He was holding a stack of cheap, black tunics and pants.
"This is your uniform. This is your skin. You are no one," he growled. "You are not from your House. You are not from your slum. You are rooks. You will sleep where we say. You will eat when we say. You will fight when we say. And you will die if we tell you to. Am I clear?"
A few people managed a weak, "Yes, Professor."
"I can't hear you!" he roared.
"YES, PROFESSOR!" we all shouted, the sound echoing in the cold, vast space.
"You will be housed in the Rookery, east wing. Bunk assignments are on the wall. First trial begins at dawn. Do not be late."
He and the guards just... left. They abandoned us in the cold, echoing hall, a pile of uniforms on the floor.
A scramble started. People shoved and grabbed. I held back, waiting, and took the last one. It was stiff, smelled like lye, and was probably made for a man twice my size. I didn't care.
I found my name on the assignment list. Rostova, Anya. Rookery, Bunk 72.
The Rookery was just as bad as the hall. It was a single, impossibly long room with a vaulted ceiling, lined with at least a hundred iron-framed cots. There were no walls. No privacy. Just endless rows of thin, gray mattresses. A few other rooks were already there, sitting on their cots, looking as stunned and small as I felt.
I found Bunk 72. It was in the back, near a window that was just a slit in the stone, and it was... a cot. A thin blanket. A pillow that felt like it was full of rocks.
It was still the nicest bed I'd ever had.
I sat down. The silence was unnerving. I just wanted to close my eyes, just for a second...
"Well, well. What is this?"
The voice was high, clear, and sharp, like a sliver of fine glass.
I looked up.
Three girls stood in the aisle, framed by the cold light. They weren't rooks. Their uniforms were a deep, tailored black, made of a fabric that looked soft, like a shadow.
The one in the center was beautiful. She had hair like spun gold, pulled back in a perfect, tight braid, and eyes the color of a winter sky. She was all clean lines and expensive, casual cruelty. She looked like she'd never had a single speck of soot on her face in her entire life.
She was looking at me, but not at me. She was looking at me like I was a cockroach she'd just found on her polished floor.
"Seraphina," her friend, a girl with sharp, dark hair, whispered. "Is that her? The one from the plaza?"
The girl, Seraphina, didn't answer. Her nose just wrinkled. "I can't believe they let it in," she said, her voice carrying across the silent hall. "It's going to make the whole Rookery smell of ash."
My blood went cold. Then, it went hot. I stood up slowly. I was shorter than her, but I'd been in a thousand fights. She'd probably never even had to raise her voice.
"Got something to say to me?" I said, my voice the Dregs-rough growl I'd been taught to use.
Seraphina actually laughed. A light, tinkling sound. "Oh, it speaks. How... quaint." She took a step closer, looking me up and down. Her gaze was a physical, violating thing. "They say you unraveled the street. A fit, I heard. A chaotic, filthy little display. You shouldn't be in the tournament. You should be in a cage."
"At least I earned my way in," I shot back. "Instead of just being born into it."
Her smile froze. The cold-blue of her eyes turned to ice. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't have to.
"You are a brave little rat," she whispered, her voice a deadly-soft poison. "But rats who get brave get their necks snapped. This is your one and only warning. You don't belong here. Go back to your slum before you get hurt. The trials have a way of... removing... the trash."
She didn't wait for a reply. She just turned, her cloak sweeping the air, and glided out of the Rookery, her two little shadows trailing behind her.
I was left shaking, my fists clenched so hard my knuckles were white. The other rooks in the room were staring at me, their faces a mix of pity and fear. They knew I'd just been marked.
I sank back onto the cot, my rage fading, leaving only a cold, hollow exhaustion. I'd been here for an hour, and I already had an enemy. A powerful one.
"She's... she's right, you know."
I flinched. A boy was hovering near the end of my bunk. He was small, with a mop of unruly brown hair and a scrivener 's-ink stain on his thumb. He was wringing his hands, his eyes darting to the door where Seraphina had left.
"What?" I growled, my patience gone.
"Agh! Nothing!" he squeaked, jumping back. "I just... You shouldn't have talked to her like that. That's Seraphina val-Aris. She's... she's practically engaged to Caelen val-Valerius. The Archon's son."
I scrubbed a hand over my face. "I don't care who she's engaged to."
"Right! No! Of course not!" he stammered. "I just mean, she's... she's got power. Real power. Not like us." He nervously adjusted the spectacles on his nose. "I'm Rhys, by the way. Scrivener-magic. Illusions, runes. Nothing... nothing like yours."
He was looking at me with a terrifying awe, like I was a bomb.
"You're afraid of me," I stated. It wasn't a question.
"No!" he said, too quickly. "Well. Yes. A little. What you did in the plaza... no one's ever seen Anima like that. Not... not outside of the old horror stories. But it was also... brilliant."
I just stared at him. I couldn't figure him out. He wasn't mocking me. He wasn't trying to fight me.
He awkwardly dug into his pocket and pulled out a small, wrinkled package. "Here."
He tossed it on my bunk. It was a ration bar. Sealed. Clean.
"I... I swiped an extra one," he mumbled, already backing away. "You look... you look like you need it. Just... be careful of Seraphina. She's not the only one. They're all afraid of you now."
He turned and practically sprinted away, disappearing into the maze of cots.
I looked at the ration bar. It was probably more food than I'd had in the last two days.
I didn't trust him. I didn't trust any of them. But as I tore the wrapper open, the small, hard-won kindness felt almost as strange and dangerous as the cold, black fortress I was now trapped in.