The Crucible had opened. But battle was not its first language.
No, Drah-Zirn The Hollow Crown measured worth in order. In doctrine. In echoes.
The Vaulted Concourse had emptied into the Ardent Span, a massive cruciform complex of bronze-tiered halls and obsidian-vaulted ceilings. Here, raw aura could not suffice. Strength alone would not earn passage. This was the weighing ground of mind, of soul, of what whispered within the blood.
Hundreds were seated within the Test of Arcanum its sweeping gallery arranged like an arena. Scrolls burned with white-ink sigils before each candidate, penned in the ciphered tongue of the Realm's oldest orders. Their task was deceptively simple: to interpret, counterspell, and theorize applications. But the magic in the script resisted common logic. These were questions designed to unsettle philosophical riddles woven with binding syntax and lethal misdirection.
A single wrong interpretation could lead to mental scarring. Some who failed the Test of Arcanum never dreamed again.
Seren Kaer'Vhalor sat in the upper tier. Her fingers gripped the edge of her parchment as arcane flames licked at her skin. She had studied the destructive theorems of her house, the entropy models of Kaer'Rahl's dark flame, but the sigils before her felt foreign fluid, shifting, elegant. Not made for scorched minds.
Yet her brow remained furrowed with focus. This test was not for raw destruction, but for control.
Behind her, Lira Kaer'Vhalor wrote without pause. Glyphs swirled around her like petals in bloom. Theory, application, inversion she handled each line like a seasoned tactician, drawing upon her training in layered arrays and echo-bound loops. Where Seren fought against the chaos, Lira danced with it.
On the far eastern dais, Sorin Virellan's scroll had begun to smoke not from failure, but from overextension. He wasn't just answering. He was rewriting the examination. His veil-sight pulsed, bending ink into predictions, responses into constructs. His fingers never touched the quill. The script wrote itself.
Not far from him sat Elen Saevraen, alone, still. She hadn't touched the scroll.
The watchers almost disqualified her, until they noticed her shadow had begun reading it. Word by word. A thousand-year-old war chant hummed from her lips as the sigils twisted into comprehension. She communed not with knowledge, but with memory.
In the central tier, Vera Nhal'tir held her stylus in reverse. Each answer she gave was layered with time-laced delay the instructors wouldn't see the true ink until her final word fell. And when it did, the answers would unravel backwards through the scroll in perfect order, revealing her genius.
Around them, lesser heirs struggled. Some whispered prayers. Others bled from the nose. Tier II hopefuls like Mara Ashrakai and Varin Yhentharis scored high, but not transcendent. Their powers were impressive but not refined into the brilliance that Tier III demanded.
At the conclusion of the Arcanum, no names were called. Only a silent toll. One meant success.
From there, the initiates were directed to the Hall of Echoes a vaulted chamber laced with mirrors that reflected more than sight. This was the heart of the Crucible's soul-measurement, an ancient inheritance of Drah-Zirn.
The Echo did not judge strength it revealed essence. Each candidate stepped before the Echo Gate, and the chamber rang with a resonance that matched their nature. From that sound, their rank would be assigned. Tier II. Or Tier III. Or silence the worst fate of all.
Mara Ashrakai stepped forward first. Her Echo howled a shriek like laughter through shattered bone. Tier II confirmed. Her face gleamed with amusement, but her eyes twitched. She wanted more.
Varin Yhentharis followed. His Echo chimed with layered distortion, mirror after mirror breaking in cascading fractals. Tier II. Controlled. Calculated. Distant.
When Seren Kaer'Vhalor stood before the Echo Gate, a terrible heat swept through the chamber. Mirrors melted. The resonance was not a sound, but a scream of forging metal. Fire refined. Fire tamed. Tier III.
Lira Kaer'Vhalor's echo was almost silent like a blade unsheathing in reverse. Subtle. Deadly. Tier III.
Sorin Virellan caused the entire room to shimmer. Echoes wept around him, some showing glimpses of future selves. Tier III.
Elen Saevraen's Echo was not heard. It was felt. A dead weight, a pull into memory that made instructors clutch their hearts. Tier III.
Vera Nhal'tir did not move when her turn came. She had already stepped into the Echo's realm before her name was called. Time bent. The room pulsed. Tier III.
Only five emerged with that distinction. The others though strong, noble, determined were still within the fire. Still unrefined.
Then came the final measure.
A parchment floated to each initiate sealed with the mark of the Drah-Zirn Command Council. It did not bear rank or accolade.
It bore a single phrase:
Your Trial Begins in Three Days. Survive the Descent.
The real Crucible awaited.
And none would leave unchanged.