Chapter Text
Nestled between the crags of a great and ancient mountain, where the snow falls thick and the sun seldom lingers, there grows a flower small and wilted. Its petals are soft as velvet, a pale, sickly yellow, and from its heart extend eight long filaments, curled gently at their tips like fingers grown cold. They bow beneath the weight of the snow, trembling whenever the wind stirs, though the air around them remains still.
Upon an opposite cliff, balanced upon the very tip of a jagged stone, another flower blooms. Its petals are black as a starless night, its stem twisted and brittle, its roots burrowing deep into the earth, down where no sunlight has ever reached and no living thing has ever laid claim. It does not bow beneath the snow, nor does it tremble when the mountain winds howl. It stands tall and watchful, its thorns sharp enough to draw blood from the careless hand, and those who have seen it swear that it turns toward them as they pass.
The old folk of the mountain tell their children that the first flower sprouted from the body of a corpse, buried beneath the snow before the earth could be warmed by spring. The second, they say, grew from the narrow space between two great stones, where something had been buried long before the first creature drew breath. What that something was, the elders do not say. Some things, they insist, ought not be given names, for a name is a door, and not every door is meant to be opened.
The first, they say, blooms for the departed.
The second, for that which never departed at all.
And if you ask the elders which flower ought to be feared, they will look toward the mountain and tell you that fear is a foolish thing to measure.
For the yellow flower has been found beside the graves of those who died peacefully in their sleep, and beside the bodies of those who vanished screaming into the snow. It has bloomed where mothers have laid their children to rest, and where no burial was ever made. Some claim that it grows to mark the passing of a soul; others whisper that it grows to mark the place where a soul has been prevented from passing at all.
As for the black flower, there are those who swear it has never harmed a living creature, and those who will cross themselves at the mere mention of its petals. Shepherds have followed its dark blooms through the winter and returned safely to their homes. Others have followed the same path and returned with years missing from their memories, speaking of voices beneath the earth and footsteps that followed them down the mountainside.
The elders have never settled the matter.
They have only ever agreed upon one thing: neither flower is to be plucked.
For the mountain keeps what the mountain is owed, and no living thing may take without giving in return. Such is the oldest law, and such has it always been. Those who break it are seldom seen again, though, come spring, a new flower is sometimes found growing where they last stood.
Should you find the yellow flower beneath the falling snow, leave it be, and let its eight pale fingers point toward the heavens. Do not warm it with your hands, however gently it shivers, and do not weep for it, however pitifully it bows. The mountain has no need for your pity, and the dead have no use for tears.
Should you find the black flower growing where the stones divide, turn your eyes away. Do not count its thorns, and do not follow its roots into the earth. Above all, should you hear your name carried upon the wind while standing before it, do not answer. Pray that it has not yet turned its own toward you, and pray harder still that it has not already learned the sound of your voice.
For one shall bloom where a soul has departed, and one shall bloom where no soul should ever be. One shall wither when the spring winds blow, and one shall flourish when the cold winds blow. One shall bow its head when the sun returns, and one shall raise its face to greet the dark.
And should you ever find them both upon the mountain, blooming beneath the same moon, then bar your doors before dusk and draw your curtains against the snow. Lay no fires upon your hearth, speak no names beneath your roof, and should you hear three knocks upon your door, let the fourth go unanswered.
For the elders say that the flowers have never bloomed together.
Not once.
Not in all the years that the mountain has stood, nor in all the years before it, when the world was young and the earth had yet to learn the shape of death.
And if the day should come when their petals open side by side, when pale fingers stretch toward the heavens and blackened thorns reach down into the grave, then heed the words of those who came before you. Speak them softly, speak them faithfully, and pray that the mountain does not hear.
Eight shall reach for the heavens.
Eight shall grasp for the grave.
One shall call the wandering.
One shall call the waiting.
One shall bloom where the last breath dies,
One shall bloom where the old earth lies.
And neither shall know the name it bears,
Nor either the face of the one who hears.
For when the flowers blossom side by side,
The mountain shall wake,
The stones shall divide,
And all that was buried shall rise with the tide.
So heed the snow, and heed the stone.
Leave what blooms to bloom alone.
For what the mountain takes below,
No spring shall wake, no sun shall know.
Despite the constant chill that seemed to be rooted in his very bones, Scott was sweating quite profusely.
The cliff he was stood upon was tall, the dozen or so people milling about around him far too close as they all tried to make spaces for themselves, bumping into each other’s shoulders at every turn. The stone was a pockmarked black, baking in the heat of the morning sun. It didn’t help Scott was also dressed expressly in thick furs and a plush, handmade coat.
“Cross.”
Scott jolted, his head whipping up at the ringing voice in his head. The Professor, the large, dark scaled dragon was hovering above them, the shadow cast from his wingspan a slight reprieve as it blocked the scorching sun from Scott’s fair face.
“Cross?” Someone called. Scott couldn’t tell who, the voice was drowned out by a chorus of similar questions, all steadily raising in volume as people began trying to talk over each other to be heard. It was all rather overwhelming.
The dragon didn’t speak again, instead he flew off, making his way seemingly across a narrow path made of broken, jagged rocks that lead towards the mouth of a cave dug into the side of the dormant volcano ahead of them, a pool of steaming, bubbly lava covering the ground beneath.
They had to cross that?
There was a loud shriek, followed by a heavy splash and sizzling. A waft of cooking, burnt meat flooded through Scott’s nose. It reminded him of when his father had first tried teaching him to cook when he was little, roasting a small hare on a spit over an open fire. His father had stepped away for a time, telling him to continue turning the carcass so it wouldn’t burn on one side. By the time he returned, Scott was in tears, the smell of burnt meat making him nauseous as the rabbit, which had tilted and fallen down into the flames, sizzled. He’d burnt his hand trying to snatch the thing back out, badly enough that they’d had to stay in a nearby village through the winter, terrified he’d succumb or lose his hand had they tried returning home.
“She fell!” He was dragged back to the present at the screaming voice. “She fucking fell!”
People had begun scrambling up on the chunks of rock, clinging desperately to small handholds as they crawled over, trying to make it to the next before someone else trampled on them in their own dash up. Scott hadn’t noticed before, but more dragons had seemingly shown up, cloistering behind the slowly thinning group, snapping their large maws at stragglers, one even shooting up what looked to be a ball of something akin to fire, though it was a stark green, like that of a freshly sprung trees’ leaf, and bit into the ground with an acrid sizzle upon impact.
He watched as someone jumped, landing hard against the side of one of the rocks. He seemed fine, before something crumbled beneath his foot and he went tumbling down, his scream cut off when he went face first into the bubbling lava below.
The scream seemed to linger long after the man had disappeared beneath the surface, swallowed by the bubbling orange and red of the lava. For one terrible moment, Scott could do nothing but stare at the place where he had fallen, his mind refusing to reconcile the empty space with the very real, very horrible sound that had come from it. There was no body to pull from the molten rock, no hand reaching desperately for the edge, no opportunity for anyone to pretend that the man might have survived. Only the acrid smell of burning flesh, the hiss of the lava, and the terrible realization that they were all expected to keep moving.
Someone shoved past Scott, catching his shoulder hard enough to send him stumbling sideways. He caught himself against the cliff face, palms scraping over the rough stone, and immediately drew his hands back against his chest. His heart was beating so hard that he could feel it in his throat.
Move.
The thought came from somewhere distant, somewhere that sounded suspiciously like his father's voice. Scott swallowed.
He had been taught to move with grace. To hold his head high, to speak clearly, to never let an audience see him falter. His mother had insisted that a prince's composure was a kind of armor, and his father had taught him that fear was no shame so long as one did not allow it to make one's decisions for them. Scott had spent most of his life surrounded by people who bowed when he entered a room and servants who rushed to accommodate his every whim. He had never been particularly arrogant about it, he liked to think, but there was a difference between being told about danger and standing on the precipice of it, watching a stranger fall to his death because the ground beneath his feet had given way.
He had never seen someone die before.
Not truly.
There had been old men who passed in their sleep in Tegrith, women weeping at the edges of their homes as they buried a babe who never took its first breath, and there had been animals brought down by hunters in the forests surrounding Rivendell, but those were deaths he had been allowed to understand from a distance. They had been quiet, expected things, accompanied by hushed voices and solemn expressions. This was neither quiet nor expected. The man had been alive, had been standing only a few paces away, had probably woken that morning with the same expectation of seeing another sunrise as Scott had. Now he was gone, and the rest of them were scrambling over rocks as though the only appropriate response to death was to make certain it did not happen to them next.
Perhaps that was the only response that mattered here.
Scott forced his gaze away from the lava.
He needed to get across.
The path was a miserable excuse for one, if it could even be called that. Great slabs of dark volcanic stone jutted from the bubbling lake at irregular intervals, some broad enough to accommodate two people standing shoulder to shoulder, others little more than narrow ledges that would barely fit the length of his boot. The gaps between them varied wildly. Some could be crossed with a careful step, while others demanded a jump that would have been difficult even on solid ground, without the additional concern of a pool of molten rock waiting to swallow anyone who miscalculated. Heat rolled upward in shimmering waves, distorting the air above the lava until the rocks seemed to sway and shift beneath the morning sun.
There were dragons behind them, too.
Scott could hear their claws scraping against the stone, the occasional snap of enormous jaws, the low, rumbling growls that seemed to vibrate through the cliff beneath his feet. He did not dare turn around to look at them again. He had seen enough of their teeth to know that he did not particularly want to be close enough to count them.
"Go!" someone shouted.
Scott flinched as a body slammed into his back. He stumbled forward, his boots skidding over loose grit, and narrowly avoided going down on his knees. A hand caught his elbow, steadying him for half a second before its owner released him and darted past.
"Sorry!" the stranger yelled, already gone.
Scott barely had time to register the apology before another voice screamed from somewhere to his left. The crowd had thinned considerably, but those remaining seemed to have abandoned any pretense of order. Everyone wanted to be first across. Everyone wanted to be away from the dragons, away from the cliff, away from the dreadful possibility that they might become the next person to disappear into the lava.
Scott understood. Gods, he understood. But his legs felt as though they belonged to someone else.
He had been cold when he arrived, so cold that he had spent the better part of the journey to the volcano wrapped in his furs, his teeth chattering despite the warmth of the summer realm. The chill had always been there, a peculiar affliction that followed him even in the height of summer, and his father had long since stopped trying to convince him that a thinner coat would be more comfortable. Now, however, the heat was so oppressive that sweat ran beneath his collar, dampening the linen at his throat. His palms were slick inside his gloves. His coat, which had seemed perfectly sensible that morning, was rapidly becoming an instrument of torture.
He wanted to take it off.
He wanted to take off the ridiculous layers beneath it, too, and sit down somewhere cool and quiet until the world stopped spinning.
Instead, he stepped onto the nearest rock.
It was warmer than he expected. The sole of his boot met the stone with a faint, unpleasant tackiness, and he felt the heat seep through the leather almost immediately. He pulled his foot back on instinct, only to hear the growl of a dragon behind him taper into something deeper.
Scott's stomach dropped.
"Right," he whispered to himself, the word barely audible over the chaos. "Right. All right."
He stepped forward again.
The next rock was farther away than it had appeared. Scott stared at the gap, measuring the distance with the desperate concentration of someone attempting to solve a particularly complicated mathematical problem. He could make it. Probably. He had always been reasonably athletic, if not especially fond of the more physically demanding lessons his tutors had insisted upon. He could ride, fence, and climb trees when his brother dared him to, though he had never been particularly fond of heights.
Unfortunately, he was now discovering that a childhood spent climbing the ancient firs of Rivendell had not prepared him for leaping between chunks of volcanic stone above a lake of molten rock.
He jumped.
His boot struck the far edge, slipped, and sent a jolt of pain shooting through his ankle. Scott pitched forward with a strangled noise, arms windmilling as he fought to regain his balance. For one horrible second, he was certain he was going to fall. His fingers scraped against the rock, nails catching in a crack, and he threw his weight sideways until his other foot found purchase.
He landed hard on one knee.
The stone burned through his trousers.
Scott bit down on a cry and scrambled upright, chest heaving. His ankle throbbed, but it held his weight when he tested it. He was fine. He was perfectly fine. There was no reason to panic, no reason to look down, no reason to think about the fact that his hands were trembling so violently he could barely close them.
A shadow passed over him.
One of the dragons had lifted its head above the edge of the cliff, its long neck stretching toward the path. Its scales were a sickly shade of green, mottled with black along its jaw, and its eyes fixed on him with an intelligence that made Scott's skin crawl. A thin stream of smoke curled from its nostrils.
Scott froze.
The dragon opened its mouth.
He ran.
He did not think about the next jump or the one after that. He did not think about the lava or the man who had fallen into it, or the multitude of other people he’d been ignoring the terrified screams of as they too fell, or the fact that he was a prince of Rivendell and would probably be scolded by his mother for running about so undignifiedly if she could see him now. He simply ran, throwing himself from one rock to the next with all the desperation of a rabbit fleeing a hawk. His coat flapped against his legs, the heavy fur collar slipping sideways, and his breath tore painfully at his throat.
A blast of green fire struck the rock behind him.
The impact was accompanied by a deafening crack, and Scott felt the heat of it against the back of his neck. He stumbled, nearly lost his footing, and made a sound that would have been humiliating under any other circumstances. He didn't care. Nothing mattered except getting to the other side.
Then, abruptly, the path widened.
Scott scrambled onto a broad shelf of stone at the base of the cave entrance and collapsed against the nearest wall, both hands braced against the rough surface. His lungs burned. His ankle was beginning to swell beneath his boot, and his knees felt as though they had been replaced with something considerably less reliable. He bent forward, trying to draw enough air into his chest to think properly, and very nearly gagged when another gust of hot, sulfurous air swept from the cave.
He was alive.
The realization arrived with such sudden force that he almost laughed.
He was alive, he was alive, he was—
"Keep moving!"
Scott jerked upright.
A woman in a dark red tunic shoved past him, her face flushed and her eyes wild. Behind her, two other students were scrambling onto the shelf, one of them dragging the other by the back of his collar. Beyond them, the dragons were still snapping at the remaining stragglers, their claws clattering against the rocks as they advanced.
There was no time to recover.
Scott pushed himself away from the wall and followed the others into the cave.
The darkness swallowed him almost immediately.
It was cooler inside, though only marginally. The air smelled of sulfur and wet stone, with a peculiar metallic tang that settled at the back of his tongue. Somewhere ahead, water dripped steadily into a pool, each plink echoing through the cavern. The walls glittered with mineral deposits, catching what little light filtered in from the entrance and reflecting it in thin, silvery streaks.
Scott slowed, blinking until his eyes adjusted.
The cave was considerably larger than he had expected. Its ceiling arched high overhead, disappearing into shadows, and the floor sloped downward toward a chamber where several torches burned in iron brackets. Their flames were a peculiar blue, casting the faces of those gathered around them in an unhealthy pallor.
There were perhaps eight people ahead of him. More were stumbling in behind, coughing and swearing and clutching at their scraped hands. Scott counted them automatically, an old habit from his lessons in court etiquette and military history. One, two, three—
He stopped.
He had no idea how many people had started the crossing.
The thought settled heavily in his stomach.
He could remember the crowd on the cliff, the crush of shoulders and the frantic shouts, but he could not remember every face. He could not tell whether the people who had disappeared into the lava had been the only ones lost, or whether others had fallen before he had even begun moving. There was no professor standing at the entrance with a list, no reassuring voice calling out names, no indication that anyone intended to account for the missing.
Perhaps this was normal.
Perhaps this was what attending the Academy was supposed to be like.
Scott sincerely hoped not.
He tugged at the collar of his coat, attempting to loosen it enough to breathe, and immediately regretted the movement when the fabric pulled tight across his shoulders.
His wings ached.
They had been bound before dawn, as they always were when he ventured beyond the private rooms of the palace. His father had not been pleased about the arrangement, but he had not forbidden it either. The matter had been a source of quiet disagreement between them for years, ever since Scott's wings had begun to grow large enough that hiding them had become a daily exercise in discomfort rather than a simple matter of wearing a loose shirt.
Snowy owl wings were not exactly inconspicuous. They were broad, thickly feathered, and strikingly pale, the white of fresh snowfall broken by faint gray barring along the outer feathers. Even folded, they occupied a considerable amount of space, and Scott had inherited a particularly impressive span. The cloth wrapped tightly around them kept the feathers pinned against his back, concealed beneath his coat, but it also restricted his movement and made the heat considerably worse.
He had thought it would be manageable.
He had thought a great many things that morning, most of which had proven disastrously wrong.
Now, with his heart still racing and the scent of scorched stone filling his lungs, he was beginning to wonder whether he would make it through the day without either fainting or accidentally revealing himself to the entire school.
"First years!"
The voice rang through the cavern, loud enough to cut through the murmuring crowd.
Scott straightened instinctively.
At the far end of the chamber stood a man in dark robes, his arms folded behind his back. He was tall and narrow-faced, with a severe expression that suggested he had never been particularly impressed by anything in his life. His gaze swept over the gathered students, lingering briefly on the soot smeared across their clothes and the blood trickling from a cut on someone's forehead.
"Congratulations," he said flatly. "You have survived the first portion of the entrance examination."
There was a stunned silence.
Someone let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
The man did not so much as blink.
"Those who failed to cross are no longer candidates for admission. Those who made it through will proceed to the next stage of your assessment. If you are injured, you will inform one of the attendants stationed outside the chamber. If you are incapable of continuing, you will be escorted back to the entrance."
Scott stared at him.
The entrance.
The dragons were still out there.
He suspected that being incapable of continuing would not be an especially appealing option.
"Do you have any questions?"
Several hands rose at once.
The professor ignored them.
"Excellent. Follow me."
He turned and walked deeper into the cave.
For a moment, no one moved.
Then the crowd surged after him, and Scott found himself swept along with it, his boots scraping over the uneven stone as he struggled to keep pace. He glanced once over his shoulder, toward the distant entrance and the narrow strip of daylight beyond it.
Somewhere on the other side of that cavernous opening lay the path he had crossed, the lake of lava, and the dragons that had very nearly turned him into a cautionary tale.
He would have given quite a lot to be back in Rivendell.
He would have given even more to be back in Tegrith, where the winters were bitter and the roofs were old and the mountain winds howled through the narrow streets, but at least the greatest danger anyone faced on an ordinary morning was slipping on the frost.
His brother would have laughed himself sick if he could see him now.
The thought brought a sudden, painful ache to Scott's chest.
He wondered what his brother was doing. Whether he had reached his own destination safely. Whether he was enjoying the peace and quiet of the palace, or complaining about their mother's insistence that he attend another tedious diplomatic luncheon. Scott had left before sunrise, with only a brief farewell and the promise that he would write as soon as he arrived.
He had imagined his first day at the Academy would be difficult. He had anticipated awkward introductions, exhausting lessons, perhaps a few unpleasant encounters with students who recognized his name and decided that being a prince made him an acceptable target for their envy.
He had not anticipated watching someone die before breakfast.
The professor led them through a narrow passage, and Scott forced himself to look ahead.
He could not go home. Not yet.
His father had been so proud when the acceptance letter arrived, even if he had tried to disguise it beneath his usual stern expression. They’d all entirely ignored the fact that the letter itself was truly a required summons from the Summer Realm to send at least one child of noble standing from their empire to assist in the fight against what was a villain to all their kingdoms—they could have required one not of royal blood to go, but his parents were far too benevolent of leaders to ever do that.
His mother had spent an entire afternoon discussing what he ought to pack, and his brother had made a great show of stealing his favorite scarf in retaliation for being left behind, though Scott could almost see the gratefulness radiating off of him. The relief that he didn’t have to go. The palace staff had fussed over him for days, and the royal tailor had nearly had a fit when Scott insisted on bringing his old winter coat instead of the lighter garments prepared for the journey.
They did not tell anyone outside the select few advisors of the high council that it was practically just a draft. Their beloved prince was not going to some prestigious school of his own volition.
Everyone had expected him to do well.
Everyone had expected him to make something of himself.
Scott swallowed and squared his shoulders.
He could do this.
He was the son of Rivendell's king, the prince of a realm that had endured centuries of war and hardship, and the second heir to a name that carried enough weight to open doors in half the kingdoms of the continent. He had been raised to understand responsibility, to recognize the difference between cowardice and caution, and to persist even when the path ahead seemed impossible.
He could survive a school entrance examination.
Even if the examination involved dragons. And lava.
Even if the examination seemed to have been designed by someone with a personal grudge against the concept of student welfare.
He could do this.
Probably.
The passage opened into another chamber, this one illuminated by enormous crystals embedded in the walls. Their light was pale and cold, a welcome contrast to the oppressive heat behind them. Several wooden benches had been arranged along one side, and a handful of attendants stood near a table piled with bandages, bottles of water, and what looked like a collection of salves.
Scott's gaze fixed on the water.
He had never been so grateful to see a jug in his life.
"Sit," the professor ordered, gesturing toward the benches. "You will be given a brief respite before the next stage begins."
A collective groan rose from the students.
Scott sat down so quickly that his injured ankle protested. He hissed through his teeth, then immediately pressed his lips together when the girl beside him glanced over.
She had light pink hair tied into a messy braid and a smudge of soot across her cheek. One sleeve of her tunic was torn, revealing a long scrape along her forearm, but she seemed more irritated than distressed.
"That was insane," she muttered.
Scott looked at her.
She stared back at him for a moment, then shook her head in disbelief.
"Did you see that guy fall? Gods, I thought the dragons were going to eat us before we even got to the lava."
Scott's stomach twisted.
"Yes," he said quietly.
"Honestly, who does that? Who puts a bunch of first years on a cliff and tells them to cross a lava pit?" She leaned forward, elbows braced against her knees. "I mean, I knew this academy had a reputation, but I thought people were exaggerating."
Scott wasn't sure what to say.
He had been taught to be diplomatic, and there were several responses that would have been appropriate under ordinary circumstances. He could have agreed that the examination was unnecessarily dangerous, or suggested that perhaps there was some greater purpose behind it that they did not yet understand. He could have introduced himself, offered his name, and asked hers in return.
Instead, he found himself staring at the floor between his boots, thinking about the way the man's scream had ended.
"Yeah," he managed eventually. "I thought so, too."
The girl seemed to accept this answer, though she gave him a curious look before turning toward the attendants.
Scott reached for a cup of water.
His hand was still shaking.
He held the cup with both hands, hoping the tremor would be less noticeable that way, and drank slowly enough that he did not spill any down the front of his coat. The water was lukewarm and tasted faintly of minerals, but he scarcely noticed. He drank the entire cup, then sat for a moment with the empty vessel cradled between his palms, trying to persuade his heartbeat to settle.
His wings gave another painful twitch beneath their bindings.
Scott went rigid.
The movement had been small, little more than a reflexive shudder as his muscles cramped, but the cloth had pulled tight enough to make his breath catch. He glanced around carefully, searching for any indication that someone had noticed.
No one appeared to have.
The girl beside him was arguing with an attendant about whether she could have another skin of water. Across the chamber, two boys were comparing the burns on their boots, and a third student had fallen asleep against the wall with his mouth open. The professor stood near the entrance to the next passage, consulting a parchment with the same expression of profound dissatisfaction he had worn throughout the entire ordeal.
Scott let out a slow breath.
He could not afford to have his wings discovered here.
It was not that avian hybrids were unheard of. They existed throughout the realms, particularly in the northern territories and the mountainous kingdoms, where the bloodlines had mingled with the old sky-dwelling peoples for generations. But in the Summer Realm, they were uncommon enough to attract attention, and attention was precisely what Scott had been trying to avoid.
He had already spent enough of his life being looked at.
There were portraits of him hanging in the palace, formal likenesses commissioned by his mother and painted by artists who seemed determined to make him look more dignified than he felt. There were diplomats who watched him during banquets, measuring his expressions for signs of weakness or displeasure. There were courtiers who spoke to him as though every word he uttered was a declaration of royal policy, and visitors who seemed to expect him to perform some charming little trick simply because he was young and wore a crown-shaped clasp on his cloak.
Scott did not want to be a curiosity here.
He wanted to be a student.
He wanted to learn something that could not be taught by tutors in a palace, to make friends who did not care about his title, and to prove that he could stand on his own without a dozen guards hovering around him. He wanted, just once, to be allowed to make a mistake without someone immediately wondering what it meant for the future of Rivendell.
And so he had bound his wings.
He had wrapped them in cloth, hidden them beneath his coat, and told himself that it would be easier if no one knew.
Now, sitting in a cave at the foot of a volcano, with sweat trickling down his spine and his ankle throbbing painfully, he was beginning to question the wisdom of that decision.
"All right, candidates."
The professor's voice cut through the chamber again.
Scott looked up.
"Your respite is over."
A chorus of protests erupted around him.
The professor raised one hand, and the noise died almost immediately.
"You will now proceed to the selection grounds. There, you will be assigned your flight partners and begin the process of determining your place within the academy." His gaze passed over the assembled students, sharp and unyielding. "You will follow the marked path. You will not wander. You will not attempt to take shortcuts. And, should you encounter any creatures along the way, you will refrain from antagonizing them."
He paused.
"Unless you have a death wish, in which case I suggest you make it quick. We have a schedule to maintain."
Scott stared at him.
The professor turned on his heel and disappeared through the passage.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Then the girl beside Scott said, very quietly, "I think I hate this school."
Scott looked at her.
For the first time that morning, he almost smiled.
"That's probably sensible," he replied.
She snorted, rising from the bench and brushing the soot from her trousers. "Come on, then. If we're going to die, I'd rather not be the last one there."
Scott pushed himself to his feet, wincing when his ankle took his weight. He adjusted the collar of his coat, checked that the cloth around his wings remained hidden beneath it, and followed her toward the passage.
The next stage awaited.
Whatever that meant.
And somewhere, far beyond the ancient stone and the suffocating heat, the mountains of Rivendell stood beneath their eternal blanket of snow, their peaks glittering beneath a pale winter sun.
Scott thought of them as he walked.
He thought of the quiet forests, the frozen rivers, and the little yellow flowers that bloomed stubbornly between the rocks even in the dead of winter. He thought of his father's hands, broad and warm as they had guided him through his first clumsy attempts at swordplay, and his mother's voice, soft and patient as she taught him the names of the stars. He thought of his brother, who would undoubtedly be making a nuisance of himself in the palace kitchens by now.
He thought of home.
Then the passage turned, and the distant light of the selection grounds spilled across the stone before him.
Scott took a breath, squared his shoulders, and stepped forward.
He had survived the first test.
He could only hope the Academy had something less murderous planned for the second.
The walk had been surprisingly short—simply a jaunt through a slowly upwards sloping exit of the cave. It might have peaceful, another gentle attempt at allowing the rattled candidates a reprieve and a warmup for what was to come, had there not been arrows, tipped with sparked fire in a way Scott had never seen before, shooting at them from hidden alcoves high up in the walls.
He’d been near the back of the slightly dwindled group, shuffled between the same girl from earlier, along with two others—a boy who looked terrified to the point of passing out and a girl who looked scared, but mildly irritated at the same time. When the screams had started they’d quickly lost all hope of a quiet stroll.
The first arrow struck the wall beside Scott's head with a sharp crack, its tip bursting into a spray of sparks that scattered across the stone like fireflies. He flinched so violently that his shoulder collided with the boy beside him, who made a noise somewhere between a yelp and a strangled sob before promptly stumbling over his own feet. Scott caught him by the sleeve on instinct, hauling him upright just as another arrow shot from an alcove ahead, its burning tip leaving a bright orange streak in the air before it embedded itself in the ground between two candidates.
For a moment, nobody seemed to understand what was happening. The passage was narrow enough that the students could barely walk three abreast, and the sudden appearance of flaming projectiles had transformed their already unsteady procession into a tangled mass of flailing limbs and panicked shouting. Someone near the front screamed for them to turn back, someone else shouted that there was nowhere to go, and the girl who had been walking beside Scott swore with such impressive creativity that he almost forgot to be frightened.
Almost.
Another arrow struck the ceiling.
A shower of hot fragments rained down over the group, and Scott instinctively ducked, bringing one arm over his head. The movement pulled sharply at the bindings around his wings, and he felt the cloth tighten across the joints with enough force to make his breath catch. He straightened again, jaw clenched, and tried to ignore the uncomfortable pressure.
"Keep moving!" someone yelled from the front.
"Where?" the terrified boy beside Scott demanded, his voice breaking. "Where are we supposed to go?"
Scott would have liked an answer to that question himself.
The passage continued upward, its uneven floor sloping toward a bright opening in the distance. There were no side passages, no obvious places to hide, and certainly no convenient doors behind which they might wait for whoever was responsible for the arrows to develop a conscience. The alcoves were set high in the walls, their interiors dark enough to conceal both the archers and whatever mechanism they were using to launch their weapons. Scott could see the brief flash of metal whenever another arrow was released, but by the time he looked directly at it, the projectile was already hurtling toward them.
He had been taught archery. Of course he had been taught archery. A prince who could not recognize the trajectory of an arrow would have been an embarrassment to his tutors, and his father had been particularly insistent that both his sons learn to defend themselves before they were old enough to understand why it mattered. Scott could shoot well enough when given a stationary target, a clear line of sight, and a reasonable amount of time to aim.
Unfortunately, none of those conditions were present. There was no rhyme or reason as to why these magical arrows were striking so well—because there was no possible way that none of them were directly hitting anyone unless they actively moved into their trajectory—with no obvious human hand behind them. Scott was a good shot but not even he-
The next arrow whistled past his ear.
Scott made a noise he would never willingly acknowledge having made and ducked behind a taller girl in front of him.
"Sorry," he blurted, though he was not entirely certain what he was apologizing for.
The girl glanced back at him with wide eyes. "Are you hiding behind me?"
"No."
"You absolutely are!"
"I'm standing behind you."
"What’s the difference?"
"You're taller!"
She stared at him in outraged disbelief, apparently unable to determine whether that was supposed to be an insult or a compliment. Scott would have liked to offer an explanation, but another arrow struck the wall beside them, and the conversation ended with both of them scrambling forward.
The girl from earlier caught Scott by the sleeve as he passed her.
"Stop standing around!" she snapped.
"I'm not standing around!"
"Then stop doing it while you're moving!"
Scott had no idea what that meant, but he followed her anyway.
The crowd had begun to stretch out as the students hurried toward the opening, their earlier attempts to maintain some semblance of order abandoned entirely. Those who were faster surged ahead, while the injured and frightened struggled to keep pace. Scott's ankle throbbed with every step, and his coat seemed to grow heavier by the minute, the thick fur collar sticking uncomfortably against his damp neck. The heat of the volcano had followed them into the passage, though the air here was cooler, and the sweat beneath his clothes had begun to chill against his skin.
He wanted desperately to remove his coat.
He wanted desperately to remove the bindings beneath it, too.
His wings had started to tremble with the effort of keeping them folded so tightly against his back. Each movement sent another sharp twinge through the muscles at their base, and the cloth was beginning to feel less like a precaution and more like a punishment. He could feel the edges of his feathers pressing awkwardly against the material, trapped at angles they were never meant to endure.
Just a little longer, he told himself.
He had been saying that for most of the morning.
Just a little longer, and then you can rest.
An arrow struck the ground at his feet.
Scott leapt sideways, nearly crashing into the girl beside him, and caught himself against the wall with a hiss. The arrow's tip glowed a furious red, the sparks along its shaft crackling like miniature bolts of lightning. He stared at it for a fraction of a second too long before the girl seized his arm and dragged him onward.
"Do you want to get hit?"
"No!"
"Then stop looking at them!"
"I was trying to figure out what they are!"
"They're arrows, Scott!"
He froze.
The girl froze, too.
For one brief, absurd moment, the two of them stared at each other while the world continued to fall apart around them.
Scott had not told her his name.
He was almost certain of that.
He was very certain of that, actually, because he had spent the entire time since arriving at the Flight doing his utmost to avoid introducing himself to anyone. He had not offered his name to the professor, had not announced his lineage to the assembled candidates, and had certainly not gone about proclaiming himself the crown prince of Rivendell. The only person who knew his identity was the academy's administration, and even that knowledge was supposed to be restricted to the faculty responsible for the Summer Realm's political arrangements.
Yet the girl had just called him Scott.
His stomach gave an unpleasant little lurch.
"How do you know my name?" he demanded.
She blinked at him. "What?"
"My name. How do you know it?"
"I—" She frowned, visibly struggling to understand why this was a question worth asking in the middle of an arrow-filled passage. "You told me."
"No, I didn't."
"Yes, you did!"
"When?"
"Back there!"
"Back where?"
"On the bench!"
Scott stared at her.
She stared back.
Then, with the weary expression of someone who had somehow managed to acquire the most irritating traveling companion in the entire Summer Realm, she said, "You know what? Fine. Your name is—“
An arrow embedded itself into her throat, sparks fizzing against her skin, the wet thwap of the flint head against her muscles and the resulting gurgle cutting off whatever she was about to say.
She shoved him forward as she began to stumble, falling onto her knees with one of her hands groping blindly at her throat.
Scott, horrified, trying to ignore the fact he could see the tip of the arrow through the thin layer of skin and muscle between the outside and the inside sparking, not going out even though it reasonably should’ve been doused by the contact, stumbled over his feet and ran.
He had no opportunity to pursue the matter further in his head beyond a shrieking voice of terror telling him to run, run, go, save yourself and another equally as loud telling him to turn back for her, because the passage had begun to widen ahead of them, the distant light spilling across the stone in a broad, brilliant shaft. The final stretch was almost entirely exposed, with no alcoves or pillars to provide cover. Arrows flew through the air in quick succession, striking the floor and walls with enough force to send fragments of stone skittering across the ground. One embedded itself in the back of a candidate's pack, setting the fabric smoldering until the boy ripped it off and hurled it away with a shriek.
Scott did not look back.
He could hear the girl behind him, still gurgling and perhaps trying to drag herself further forward before even that noise ceased, and the taller girl from earlier’s panicked footsteps somewhere to his left. The fourth member of their little group had fallen behind and he could no longer see the boy with the pretty blue streak in his hair either, though whether it was because of injury or fear Scott could not tell. He wanted to turn around. He wanted to make sure they were all still there, that nobody else had fallen, that nobody else had been left behind in the darkness.
He wanted to do a great many things that were not particularly compatible with remaining alive.
So he kept running.
The opening grew larger with every step, until the passage finally spat them out into the open air.
Scott stumbled into the sunlight and nearly fell over from the sudden change in temperature. The air was cooler here, carrying the sharp, clean scent of pine and damp earth rather than sulfur and burning stone. He dragged in a breath so deep that his lungs ached, then another, and for a few precious seconds he allowed himself to believe that the worst was over.
Then something exploded behind him.
He whirled around.
The entrance to the passage had been partially obscured by a great stone archway, and the arrows were still flying from the darkness within. One struck the arch itself, bursting into a brilliant shower of sparks. Another embedded itself in the earth just beyond the threshold, its fiery tip hissing against the damp soil.
Scott stumbled backward.
"Keep going!"
Someone grabbed the back of his coat and hauled him away from the entrance, dragging him several feet across the ground before finally releasing him with a slow shove.
Scott staggered, caught his balance, and turned toward the person who had grabbed him.
It was the boy, shorter than Scott but just barely and broad-shouldered, with a face so pale beneath the soot that Scott briefly wondered whether he was about to faint. The boy released the back of his coat as soon as Scott was safely away from the entrance, taking a step back as though he, too, had only just realized what he'd done.
“Sorry,” he muttered, though he didn't sound particularly sorry. “You were standing right in front of the arrows.”
Scott stared at him.
“I was standing outside the arrows range.”
“Right. And they were shooting outside, too.”
Scott opened his mouth, then shut it again. He supposed that was a fair point, though he disliked the fact that it was a fair point. He had several perfectly respectable expressions, cultivated through years of formal dinners and diplomatic functions, and he was quite certain that none of them could reasonably be described as the face he was currently making. Whatever it was, the boy seemed to find it sufficiently entertaining to glance away with a poorly concealed smile.
Before Scott could defend his honor, the rest of the candidates began pouring out of the passage, and his attention was drawn away by the sheer number of them. They emerged in clusters, some limping, others clutching their heads or rubbing at their arms where the sparks had struck them. A few were laughing hysterically, their relief so profound that it had apparently bypassed any sensible response and gone straight to madness.
Scott understood that feeling rather well.
He looked for the girl who had been walking beside him.
He wasn't entirely certain why he expected to see her. Perhaps because she had been there only moments ago, because her voice had been so sharp and exasperated that it had cut through the chaos, because she had argued with him about something as utterly pointless as whether he had told her his name while arrows flew around them. It seemed impossible that someone who had been speaking to him one moment could simply cease to be there the next.
But the candidates continued to emerge, and she did not.
Scott's gaze returned to the dark mouth of the passage. The last few students stumbled through the entrance, followed by an instructor who barked something at them about keeping moving. Beyond them, the corridor was empty.
He remembered the arrow striking her throat. The sudden, terrible interruption of her words. The way she had shoved him forward before collapsing, leaving him with nothing but the sight of that unnatural greenish-red glow and the sound of his own frantic footsteps.
He had run.
He had heard her behind him, and then he hadn't.
Scott swallowed, his throat suddenly tight. He could tell himself that stopping would have accomplished nothing, that he would only have joined her on the ground if he had turned back, that there had been no time to think and no room to help. Every argument was sensible. Every argument was probably true.
None of them made the fact that he had left her behind any easier to bear.
He looked away from the entrance before the boy beside him could notice how long he had been staring.
The plateau stretched out before them, broad and open, carved into the mountainside and bordered by low stone walls and clusters of hardy evergreen trees. Beyond it, the landscape dropped into a vast valley, where rivers glimmered like silver threads between dark forests and distant ridges. The mountains rose around them in great jagged peaks, their upper slopes veiled in mist, and the sky stretched overhead in a clear expanse of blue.
It was beautiful.
Almost offensively so, considering what they had just endured to get there.
Scott could see why someone might build an academy in such a place. The view alone would have been worth the journey, had the journey not involved the distinct possibility of being cooked alive. The air was crisp enough to raise goosebumps on his arms, and the breeze that swept across the plateau carried the scent of wildflowers and pine needles and the cloying undertone of ash.
For the first time since arriving at the volcano, Scott felt something approaching relief.
He could breathe here.
He could think.
He could—
“Candidates!”
The professor stood at the far end of the plateau, entirely untouched by the chaos that had apparently become a normal part of his morning. His dark robes fluttered in the breeze, and he held a parchment in one hand while regarding the assembled students with the same dispassionate expression he had worn in the cave.
Scott's brief sense of peace evaporated.
“Gather in the center of the grounds,” the professor instructed. “You will be arranged according to your assigned groups. Any student who has sustained an injury requiring immediate attention will report to the attendants on the eastern side of the plateau. Everyone else will remain where they are until instructed otherwise.”
A dozen people began talking at once.
“Assigned groups?” someone repeated.
“What groups?”
“Are we not allowed to choose?”
“Can someone explain why we were shot at?”
The professor raised his voice.
“Your questions will be answered in due course.”
“When is due course?” someone muttered nearby.
Scott pressed his lips together.
He was beginning to suspect that the academy's administration had a very different understanding of the phrase student welfare than the royal council back home.
The candidates shuffled toward the center of the plateau, forming a loose and rather disorganized crowd beneath the watchful gaze of several instructors. Scott stayed near the edge, hoping that he might somehow avoid drawing attention to himself if he simply stood still and looked uninteresting enough. It was not a particularly dignified strategy, but dignity had taken something of a beating over the course of the morning, and he was prepared to make concessions.
He tugged at the front of his coat, trying to loosen the fabric around his throat.
The breeze helped a little.
His wings, unfortunately, were still aching.
He shifted his shoulders carefully, attempting to ease the pressure without moving enough to attract notice. The cloth had begun to dig into the skin around the base of his wings, and he could feel the muscles trembling with fatigue. He had been bound for hours, and the exertion of crossing the lava and running through the passage had only made matters worse. If he did not loosen the bindings soon, he was going to have a very serious problem.
If he did loosen them, he was going to have a different kind of problem.
Scott stared out across the valley and tried not to think about it.
“You look like you're about to faint.”
He glanced toward the voice. The boy from the entrance had settled nearby, rubbing a hand over his face in an attempt to wipe away the soot.
“I am not.”
“Right. You just look like that.”
“I've been told I have a perfectly ordinary face.”
“By whom?”
Scott hesitated.
“My family.”
The boy snorted. “Well, they're hardly unbiased, are they?”
Scott found himself rather unwillingly agreeing with him.
The boy glanced toward the entrance, and whatever amusement had been lingering in his expression faded. For a moment, they stood in silence, listening to the distant voices of the instructors and the restless murmuring of the assembled candidates.
“Do you think everyone made it out?” the boy asked.
Scott's fingers tightened around the edge of his coat.
“No,” he said quietly.
The boy didn't ask him to explain, though he could see the way he turned to look at him from the corners of his eyes. There was a sudden look of pity and lingering fear that made Scott’s skin crawl.
He was grateful that he didn’t inquire further. He wasn't sure he could have managed it without saying something he would regret, and he had no desire to describe what he had seen. He could still remember the girl's face, the startled confusion in her eyes, the way she had looked at him as though she had been about to say something important. He hadn't even learned her name. He had no idea where she had come from, whether she had family waiting for her, or whether anyone back home would ever know what had happened to her.
She had been a stranger, and now she was dead.
The thought sat heavily in his chest.
Scott had known, in the abstract, that people died. He had been raised on stories of wars and battles, of brave knights and fallen soldiers, of kings who had sacrificed their lives to protect their kingdoms. His tutors had taught him about strategy and casualties, about the terrible arithmetic of warfare and the necessity of making difficult decisions.
But there was a difference between reading about death in a book and watching it happen to someone who had been standing beside you a moment before.
He wasn't certain he would ever understand how people learned to live with that difference.
A sharp whistle interrupted his thoughts.
The professor was calling for the candidates to arrange themselves into lines, and Scott reluctantly turned away from the passage. Whatever had happened behind him could not be undone. He could only hope that the instructors would explain what they had just been subjected to, though he was beginning to suspect that expecting a reasonable explanation from anyone at this academy was a hopeless endeavor.
He followed the others toward the center of the plateau, keeping his head down and his coat pulled tightly around himself.
He had come here hoping to be ordinary.
So far, he had witnessed two people die, been nearly burned alive, and acquired the distinct impression that the academy considered all of this perfectly acceptable introductory material.
He missed home with an intensity that surprised him.
He missed the quiet forests of Rivendell, the familiar chill of the mountain air, and the palace hearth where his mother would undoubtedly be sitting by now, wondering whether he had eaten enough that morning. He missed his brother's teasing, his father's stories, and the comfortable certainty of knowing that, no matter how difficult the day became, he would eventually be able to return to a place where he was safe.
Here, he had no such certainty.
Here, he had only a borrowed name, a pair of aching wings hidden beneath his coat, and the growing suspicion that surviving the journey to the Flight had been the easiest part.
At the far end of the plateau, beyond the line of instructors, stood a series of enormous gates set into the mountainside. They were made of dark wood reinforced with iron, their surfaces carved with intricate patterns resembling feathers, claws, and curling flames.
Something moved behind them.
Something large enough that Scott could feel the faint vibration of its footsteps beneath his boots.
He stared at the gates.
Beside him, the boy went very still.
“Oh, no,” he whispered.
Scott swallowed.
The gates began to open.
From somewhere beyond them came a dragon's roar.
Scott closed his eyes.
For one brief, desperate moment, he thought of home. Of Rivendell's snowy peaks and quiet forests, of the warmth of the palace hearth, of his brother sprawled across the sitting-room sofa with his boots on the cushions despite their mother's repeated protests. He thought of the little yellow flowers that bloomed between the rocks, stubborn and delicate and entirely unconcerned with the terrible things happening around them.
Then the roar came again, closer this time, and Scott opened his eyes. Several more roars followed only seconds after.
Whatever waited behind those gates, he was going to have to face it.
He only hoped it did not expect him to fly.