Am I about to be used for another test?
The question echoed loudly in my mind as I stared at Ysara, my body still aching from the night spent on cold stone and the lingering weakness that refused to leave my limbs.
"What do you want, Miss Ysara?" I asked carefully, choosing my words the way one chooses steps on thin, cracking ice.
"I heard you weren't able to get a room yesterday," she said calmly, her tone almost conversational. "How do you feel?"
Of course I feel terrible, I answered silently in my head, the words sharp and bitter. I feel like I've been run over by every cruel intention this academy possesses. I feel weak, humiliated, and so exhausted that even standing feels like a small miracle.
But I wasn't about to hand her my weakness on a silver plate, especially not when I was already barely standing on my own two feet.
"I'm okay," I said instead, keeping my voice as steady as I could manage.
She studied me for a long moment, her eyes sharp and assessing, like she was weighing something invisible in the air between us. Then she asked, "What did you learn?"
What did I learn?
That only power survives here.
That kindness is optional at best, and deadly at worst.
That weakness is not just frowned upon... it is a death sentence.
But I didn't say any of that.
"I learned that weakness can't survive here," I replied quietly, the words tasting like ash on my tongue.
A slow, satisfied smile touched Ysara's lips. "Very good."
"Thank the Moon Goddess you understand that weakness won't survive here," Irene added coldly, her voice slicing through the morning air like a blade.
I was certain now, this woman had a personal issue with me. I just couldn't remember ever offending her. Or maybe my mere existence was offense enough.
Still, I said nothing.
I wanted to see where all of this was heading.
"We already know who you all are," another female professor said, one whose name I didn't know yet. Her voice carried the weight of long authority. "There's no need for introductions."
"Out of the hundred and four of you standing here," a male professor continued, his tone even and detached, "only forty-nine will remain in the academy."
A ripple of shock passed through the crowd like a visible wave.
Most of the students wore the same expression I did, tight jaws, widened eyes, disbelief barely restrained behind fragile masks of composure.
All except Ashriel.
He looked completely unbothered, as if the announcement was nothing more than a mild weather report.
And maybe two or three other people I didn't know yet.
But why forty-nine?
What frightened me wasn't the number itself.
It was the question clawing its way through my chest, sharp and insistent...
How exactly were they planning to choose us?
I was still lost in my thoughts, turning the terrifying question over and over, wondering what kind of cruel mechanism they had designed, when one of the professors finally spoke again.
He was the one who seemed to care for Ashriel. The quiet, long-haired man with the weary eyes and the heavy aura of someone who had seen far too much.
This was probably the first time he had addressed the students directly.... if we were even considered students at all.
Maybe warriors.
Or soldiers.
Since we would eventually be fighting for our lives in Morvalis.
Nyx, focus, my mind snapped at me. That's not the real problem here.
The real problem was simple and terrifying...
I had no powers.
"You will all be tested against one another," the man said evenly, his voice carrying clearly across the wide field. "You will fight until only a few of you are left."
I stared at him, my chest tightening painfully.
"Do we need to kill each other?" I asked before I could stop myself.
The words slipped out, too blunt, too forward, too honest for a place like this.
"Exactly," Ysara replied smoothly. "Just as Mr. Asher has said." She gestured toward him in what seemed like a proper introduction of our handsome, burdened professor. "For now, there are one hundred and four of you. You will be paired evenly. Anyone you face, either they die, or you do. That is the only way to survive."
The world tilted beneath my feet.
"Can't we just go back home?" I asked, genuinely bewildered, my voice cracking slightly at the edges.
There's no way I can fight anyone in my current condition, I thought desperately. I can barely stand as it is. How am I supposed to survive a death match?
"Since you were sent here," one of the male professors said coldly, "the only way home is to survive three years in this academy. Otherwise, there is no going back."
"Don't mind him," Irene cut in casually, her voice light but laced with something sharper. "You're not prisoners."
She said it like it was supposed to be comforting.
"You can always go home after surviving each mission to Morvalis. As long as you return alive, your weekends will be spent at home, celebrated."
She said it like it was a gift.
Like it was supposed to make us feel grateful.
It didn't.
Especially not for me.
"How are we supposed to pick our partners?" a girl asked from somewhere in the crowd.
She was the same lady whose minion had baptized me the day I woke up here, the leader of that first group. She carried an authority so heavy it seemed to press into the air around her. One of her minion clung to her side like a silent shadow.
"That's a good question, Miss Varyn," Irene said. Then she continued smoothly, "You'll pick from this."
A small, ornate can appeared in her hand.
Just like that.
Wait, my mind stuttered. By my calculation, Irene is supposed to be a pure vampire.
Can vampires conjure things from thin air?
I kept my thoughts to myself. They had never helped me before.
"There are fifty-two straws in here," Irene continued, holding the can up so everyone could see. "Each one has a name written on it."
"But there are one hundred and four of us," a student pointed out, asking the same question forming in my head. "Why only fifty-two straws?"
"Writing all your names would cause unnecessary confusion," Ysara answered with that same practiced smile that had once fooled me. "So we write half first to avoid triangle fights. We want this to be fair."
Fair.
The word tasted like poison on my tongue.
"If I may ask," Miss Varyn spoke again, her gaze suddenly sharp and cutting as it landed on me. "Why is this thing here?"
She pointed directly at me.
Did she just call me a thing?
I blinked slowly and pointed at myself, just to be sure.
"Don't be rude, Miss Varyn," Mr. Asher said calmly, his voice low but carrying the weight of quiet authority.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Asher," Miss Varyn said stiffly, though her eyes never left me. Then she continued, her voice dripping with open disdain. "But we all know this lady has no power. She cannot be considered any kind of being at all. So why is she even allowed to share the same air with us?"
The field went deathly quiet.
That… still wasn't enough reason to reduce me to a thing.
"That doesn't give you the right to call me a thing," I said, my voice trembling despite my best efforts to keep it steady. "I have water and blood running through my veins. I'm flesh and bone, just like you."
I hadn't planned to do it, but I found myself looking her up and down, my lips forming a small, defiant pout.
"Enough. There's no need to fight," Irene said, stepping in like a mediator.
But the slight curve of her lips betrayed her.
She was enjoying every second of this.
"As we all know," Irene continued smoothly, her eyes flicking toward me with barely concealed satisfaction, "there is a being among us who is neither werewolf, vampire, human, nor witch."
Her gaze lingered on me.
"To be fair, she will be the first to draw a straw."
Shouldn't I be the one not drawing at all? I thought bitterly. Why am I the first?
Still, I stepped forward.
If I was going to die, I would do it with whatever dignity I had left.
"Do you really think it's fair for her to fight?" a voice called from the back of the crowd. "She doesn't have powers at all."
I couldn't see the speaker, but the voice sounded… strangely familiar.
"Of course we will be fair with her," another female professor replied calmly. "Her parents specifically informed us that she is skilled with all forms of fighting weapons."
My breath caught in my throat.
"They also brought her weapons," the professor continued, "and personally pleaded that we hand them to her."
She stepped forward and placed a familiar leather-wrapped bundle into my hands.
Every weapon I had ever earned through hardship and secret training lay beneath that cover.
It was true, I was good with weapons.
But not because I had been born gifted.
I had learned by watching the warriors in my pack from a distance, standing far enough away to observe every movement, every strike, every mistake. At first, I only mimicked them in secret, practicing alone in hidden corners of the estate.
Then I was caught.
When I was dragged before my father, my mother had simply told them to let me be, as long as I didn't cause trouble. So they ignored me instead. Pretended I didn't exist.
And still, I learned.
But I had never fought anyone head-on.
Not really.
And certainly not beings with supernatural powers far beyond my own.
My fingers tightened around the leather bundle until my knuckles turned white.
Then I heard Ysara's voice again.
"So, to be fair," Ysara said calmly, "Miss Vaeloria will be allowed to pick one weapon she is skilled with before we begin the game."
Game?.
I almost laughed out loud, the sound bitter and broken in my throat.
I am about to die, and they were calling it a game.