[soft chair shift]

  Muna: That must have been… a lot. Reconciling with your father. Seeing your mother awake, and then having to leave her anyway.

  [page turns]

  Muna: Emotionally overwhelming.

  Esra: It was. But… not in a bad way.

  Muna: Not in a bad way?

  Esra: Overwhelming, yeah. But it sort of… cleaned my head. Put everything in the right place for what came next.

  [pencil scratching resumes]

  Muna: So. The Trial Camp. What was it like when you arrived?

  Esra: [exhales] None of us were ready.

  Muna: You, Lyra and Berk?

  Esra: Any of us. We stepped off the road and it was just… people. An ocean of them.

  Muna: How many?

  Esra: Thousands, maybe. Or it felt like thousands. Enough that you stop counting and just think: by the stars, we are so many.

  [cloth rustle]

  Esra: Lyra, Berk, and I could barely breathe in that crowd, let alone fit in it. And the list. The list to be called. We had to go to the registry, confirm that we were there, and then wait.

  [Esra exhales again]

  Esra: The line was huge. It was hot. We were hungry, thirsty. At one point, the three of us sat in the dust, just waiting. It already felt like a trial.

  Muna: And the experience itself? How did it feel?

  Esra: I don’t know where to start.

  Muna: Try.

  Esra: I can try.

  [small laugh]

  Esra: But I’ll fail.

  Muna: Try anyway.

  Esra: It was a world none of us had ever lived in. You grow up on Maria-Se thinking you know what or who you are but…

  [He pauses.]

  Esra: …we didn’t. We knew nothing.

  [glass set down]

  Esra: Better if I start from the beginning. As I said, it was very hot...

  TRANSCRIPT §06 | Esra Ann × M. Dragustea | Summer 554-4-4 | Antares

  Lyra pulled at the collar of her robe, skin flushed, fingers fanning useless air toward her throat.

  “By all the stars,” she muttered, unbuttoning her robe just enough to let her breathe.

  Esra sagged beside her, wiping sweat from his brow with theatrical misery. “I’d trade anything for a cup of water,” he said, voice dry, then added in a pitch-perfect imitation of Lyra, “—or at least a breeze.”

  Berk appeared out of the mass, grin wide and unbothered, a slip of paper held between his fingers. “Done. Name’s on the list.” He rolled his shoulders once. “Now we wait.”

  Lyra shot him a look. “How are you not suffering like the rest of us?”

  Berk shrugged, dust settling around his feet as he dropped down beside them. “Perks of being an orc. We adapt to any weather.” His smile got cocky. “Can’t say the same for you soft-flesh.”

  Lyra surveyed the crowd, squinting against the glare, fingers still fanning her cleavage. “How much longer do you think this will drag on? I'm dying here.”

  Esra tipped his head back, listening past the noise, past the complaints and laughter around them. Somewhere ahead, names were being called. “I’m more concerned we won’t hear our turns when the officers call us."

  Berk pushed himself to his feet and shaded his eyes with one broad hand, studying the mass of mages and banners ahead. From where they sat, the stage was nothing but flashes of movement and rising dust.

  “No chance of getting closer,” he muttered. “But they are starting to clear down the numbers.”

  Lyra’s eyes followed along the field; figures were being quietly guided away, heads lowered, shoulders tight. “Already?”

  Berk nodded. “When I registered, a group of elven girls were leaving. They didn’t look happy.”

  Esra exhaled slowly. His fingers traced an absent pattern in the dirt. “So it really comes to the use of all four elements.”

  Berk dropped back down beside them. “Fire. Earth. Water. Wind.” He ticked them off on his fingers. Then, almost casually, “Word is, if you show more than four, they don’t bother questioning you, you can just walk right through the gate”

  Lyra tipped her head back, squinting into the light. “So that’s it?”

  Esra snorted. “Sounds easy.”

  Berk didn’t answer. He leaned back instead, palms sinking into the dusty ground, eyes fixed on the sky “Air’s the problem.”

  Lyra turned toward Berk. “You’ve done it before.”

  Esra nodded. “We all saw you doing it. You can do it again.”

  Berk huffed, a sound halfway between a laugh. “Maybe.” He glanced sideways. “Worst case, one of us gets to walk back home and tell our folks who made it.”

  Esra shifted closer, close enough that their shoulders touched. “You’re going to kickass through every element,” he said. “And when this is done, we’re celebrating. All three of us with fresh, delicious hug jugs of water.”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Berk finally gave in to a smile. “I do like your optimism, pretty boy.”

  “Please, stay!”

  The cry cut through the heat and noise, desperate enough to turn heads.

  A man answered, voice low, already pulling away. “Don’t do this. You’ll be fine.”

  Lyra rose onto her toes. “What’s going on?”

  Berk shaded his eyes with his hand, frowning. “I can’t see anything.”

  “Please,” the girl said again, closer now, words tumbling over each other. “Don’t leave me, please. Not you too.”

  “I have to go. A trial is waiting for you. You got this.”

  Then her voice broke louder. “Lollie and Jaja will take you in. They will. Just— Jericho, stay.”

  His reply came flat. “I can’t.”

  “But I need you.”

  “You don’t. Believe me. You don't. I wish—”

  She cut him off in the worst possible way. “But I love you.”

  “You don’t, Sunbeam. I am not the one.”

  The words rushed out, desperate. “What did I do wrong?”

  There was no answer, just a final, “Goodbye, Princess.”

  Lyra craned her neck, trying to spot them. “That’s nasty,” she said. “On trial day? He broke up with her on her trial?! Girl, you deserve better!”

  Berk shook his head. “Stone-hearted.”

  Esra said nothing.

  His attention drifted away from the voices, the heat, the dust. Sadness settled in him without warning and misplaced, as if it had missed its intended home and lodged in his chest instead.

  He didn’t know why it was there. He only knew it wasn’t his.

  The heat changed.

  Light dulled, and a breath of wind passed through the crowd, carrying the smell of wet stone. Someone gasped.

  Rain fell.

  Not hard. Just enough to darken the ground, to erase footprints almost as soon as they were made.

  Lyra laughed and tipped her face upward. “By all the stars—it’s raining!”

  Water slid down Esra’s hands. He didn’t lift his head.

  One by one, names were called, footsteps turned away, and the space between bodies slowly widened. The rain faded with the same quiet patience it had arrived, drops stopping unevenly, leaving only darkened earth and the faint shine of wet skin under the sun.

  Lyra had slipped into sleep against Berk’s shoulder more than once, waking only long enough to shift, mumble, and settle again. Berk didn’t move. He simply adjusted his weight to keep her from sliding, eyes half-lidded, patient as a rock.

  Esra stayed quiet.

  His bare feet pressed into the cooling ground that should have felt like relief. Instead, he kept rubbing his toes against the dirt as if something clung there that wouldn’t shake loose. He replayed the day in fragments: words spoken, words left unsaid, a joke that landed badly, the look on a stranger’s face. What was it? None of it fit together. None of it explained why his chest felt hollow when nothing had gone wrong.

  Somewhere ahead, another name echoed. Esra barely heard it.

  “Ann?”

  Berk’s voice nudged him from his thoughts. Esra blinked once, then again.

  “What?”

  “You’ve been quiet.”

  Esra shrugged. “I’m fine.”

  Lyra stirred, a soft yawn escaping her mouth as she pulled herself off Berk’s shoulder. She rubbed at her eyes, hair sticking to her cheek. “Did I miss it?” she mumbled. “Is it my turn?”

  Berk glanced toward the stage. “Any moment now.”

  They all turned as one.

  With the crowd smaller, the platform was finally visible. A boy stood barefoot at its centre, arms raised, sweat carving clean lines down his spine. Flame bloomed from his palms, bright but too eager, curling upward in arcs. The heat reached even where they sat.

  Then he faltered.

  The fire wavered as he shifted his stance. He tried to reach for something else, but nothing answered. His hands stayed empty.

  A figure in black stepped forward. The mask caught the sun and threw it back in a glare. The officer leaned in, said something Esra couldn’t hear.

  The boy lowered his arms.

  He walked off the stage without looking back.

  “Another one bites the dust,” Lyra said with a smirk.

  Berk snorted. “Careful, little mermaid.”

  She turned on him at once, finger already lifting. “I am not a mermaid. I’m a Mere. How many times do I have to—”

  The name hit the field like a struck bell.

  “Lyra of the Red Sea!”

  The colour drained from her face. But, in a heartbeat, she jumped to her feet.

  “That’s—” she swallowed. “That’s me.”

  Berk straightened. Esra rose with him, the ground still damp beneath their bare feet. Together, they moved forward until the rope line stopped them.

  Lyra didn’t look back.

  She crossed the open ground alone and took the stairs two at a time.

  A figure stepped out from the shadow of the stage.

  She was smaller than Lyra by a full head, wrapped in black that drank the light. A fall of dark blue hair slipped loose at her temples, stark against the metal mask that hid the rest of her face.

  Lyra felt the space tighten around her.

  “Welcome, Lyra of the Red Sea,” the officer said, “This is your Trial of Elements.”

  The officer raised one hand. Around them, the air shifted. Four pedestals stood at the edge of the platform. Flame curled within one. Another held clods of dry dirt. Water turned slowly in its bowl. The last pedestal had a bowl of nothing but air.

  “Your task is simple: demonstrate control over the four elements. Fire. Earth. Water. Wind.”

  The officer’s hand moved again, this time downward.

  Lines etched into the stage glimmered faintly where rain had traced them clean. A pentagram cut into the wood beneath Lyra’s bare feet.

  “You will remain within the marked space at all times. Do not step beyond it. “You may draw from these four elemental pedestals.”

  The officer turned slightly, indicating each in sequence. “Or you may use your hands, your breath, or everything or nothing at all.”

  The Magi faced Lyra again.

  “Whatever you use must be yours alone. Do not draw beyond the boundary. Keep each invocation contained. Stable. Long enough for me to observe. If you lose control, stop. If I tell you to stop, you stop.”

  The officer did not move.

  “Failure to control any of the four elements will immediately terminate your trial. But we do invite you to return and retry next Summer.”

  A slight tilt of her head. Blue hair shifted against dark metal.

  “Do you understand the rules?” She waited for Lyra to reply

  Lyra answered with a single nod.

  “Then begin.”

  Lyra stepped into the centre of the markings and let herself breathe.

  Fire shifted at the edge of her vision. Earth waited, quiet. Water rolled in its bowl. Air brushed against her face, clinging to her sweat.

  Her eyes dropped.

  The black robe that Esra stitched caught the light along the seams. Careful work. Care she didn’t want to ruin.

  Without hesitation, she reached for the buttons.

  The robe slid from her shoulders and pooled at her feet. She stepped out of it, bare skin, toes curling slightly.

  Lyra gathered the robe in her arms and crossed the short distance to the officer.

  “Could you hold this for me?” she said, pressing the folded fabric into the officer’s hands. “I don’t want to ruin it. It’s new.”

  The officer didn’t react.

  For a heartbeat, the only movement was the slow curl of flame in the nearest pedestal and the faint lift of blue hair where it escaped the mask.

  “Thank you,” Lyra added, already turning away.

  She broke into a light run, bare feet slapping softly against the wood while breath jiggled freely as she returned to the centre of the markings. She planted herself inside the lines, rolled her shoulders once, and lifted her chin.

  The fire answered first.

  It climbed from its bowl in a slow coil. The flame curved toward Lyra like a living thing, its heat stopping a breath from her skin. The fire did not burn her, nor did it touch her.

  Light fractured along her outline, breaking into countless bright scales of flame that were assembling themselves where her body stood. Her shape remained, but it was no longer flesh and bone that held it. She was fire now, defined by heat and motion, every line alive with flickering light.

  Then the flame thickened.

  Ash formed along the surface, pale at first, then darker, clinging where the fire had passed. It hardened, drying into shape. What had moved moments before now held still, a figure cast from embers and cinders, suspended in its own afterimage.

  Stone followed.

  The ground beneath her cracked with a low sound. Fragments lifted free, drawn upward, circling the form that was now supported by air. Slabs and shards hovered in quiet defiance of gravity, orbiting.

  Water came last. It did not rise. It fell.

  A sheet of it poured from the pedestal and crossed the stage, breaking against the suspended ash and stone. Where it touched, the cinders dissolved, running dark along the ground.

  The water did not stop. It washed over Lyra’s form and changed it.

  Her outline blurred, then thinned. Bones shifted beneath the surface like remembered shapes. For a breath, the figure standing there was no longer hers.

  An old fae man stood in her place, spine bent, white beard braided, eyes deep with the olds that had learned patience.

  The water passed again.

  The fae became a child, slender and bright-eyed, ears too large for that face. Their smile was wide.

  And then the water fell away.

  Lyra returned to her form.

  The field had gone quiet.

  “Lyra is a shapeshifter,” Berk said, the words leaving him more like a question than a statement.

  Esra didn’t look away from the stage. “You didn’t know?”

  Berk huffed once, faintly. “I’m not the one sleeping with her. But she was…” He searched for another word and failed, settling instead on the truth.

  “Magnificent,” Esra said, simply.

  Berk nodded. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  A cough broke the stillness behind Lyra enough to pull her back from her momentum.

  “I think you want this back.”

  The officer stepped forward and extended the robe.

  Lyra blinked, heat rushing back into her cheeks as she took it. “Oh— thank you, Sir… Ma’am… Sir?”

  The mask tilted, just a fraction.

  “Officer Lolth.” The officer answered. “You passed. Welcome to the Trial of Elements.”

  Lyra’s hands stilled on the fabric. “But I thought we needed to wait for the end. For the announcement.”

  Lolth’s head turned slightly toward the pedestal, then back to her. “For those who showed more than four elements, there is no need to wait. You are a shapeshifter. You don't need me to say more.”

  She gestured toward the far gates with two fingers. “Talk to Kaela at the entrance. She will assign your cabin.”

  Lyra frowned as she pulled the robe back over her shoulders. “Cabin? It’s not tents?”

  For the first time, something shifted.

  Lyra couldn’t see Lolth’s mouth, but she heard it. A curve in the voice. A dry, private amusement slipping through the metal.

  “Why,” the officer asked mildly, “do you have a specific preference?”

  Lyra didn’t answer.

  She dipped into a fast, clumsy bow and bolted.

  Bare feet slapped against the wooden planks as she tore down from the stage, arms thrown high, laughter spilling ahead of her.

  “I passed! I passed!”

  Her voice reached them before she did.

  Esra barely had time to straighten before she collided with him, momentum knocking the breath from his chest. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her weight all joy and relief, and she laughed again, breathless.

  “I passed!”

  Then, without warning, she kissed him.

  Esra froze for half a heartbeat, hands hovering uselessly at her sides, the crowd roaring somewhere far away as she pulled back, eyes shining.

  A voice boomed from the stage, “Berk Ves’Wasser.”

  Berk exhaled once, then rolled his shoulders. “Well,” he said, glancing back at them, mouth twitching. “Here goes nothing.”

  He turned and started toward the stairs.

  

  “[…] VII – A Magi carries all deeds, promises, and wishes. But only those it can achieve. […]” from the Handbook of Advanced Elemental Theories and Practical Applications for the Trial of the Elements by Professor Edgar O. Duvencrune