The training yard had been cleared and raked by the time we arrived for the evening session, all traces of my sandy destruction from earlier in the day smoothed back into neat, unremarkable earth. I appreciated the discretion. I did not appreciate that Malcolm Crawford was already there, positioned near the front of the gathering crowd with the practiced ease of someone who always arrived early enough to claim the best spot.
He caught my eye and smiled. I looked away.
The apprentices had arranged themselves in a loose circle, and at the center of it stood a man I hadn't seen before. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and perhaps sixty years old, dressed in a robe of deep gold that caught the last of the evening light. His hair was silver-white and pulled back, and he stood with the stillness of someone who had never once felt the need to fill silence with movement. Around him, the air felt different—denser somehow, like the pressure before a thunderstorm.
Chancellor Archer.
He let the silence hold for a long moment after the last apprentice had found their place. Then he raised both hands, palms upward, and moved them slowly apart. Above each apprentice's head, a small light appeared. Mine was green, soft and flickering like a candle in a mild wind. Drew's, across the circle from me, was a clean silver-white. The others ranged across the spectrum: deep amber for fire, rich brown for earth, and pale blue-gray for water.
I stared up at my little green flame and thought, unbidden, of the sandbags. Ask rather than tell, I reminded myself.
"The elements are everywhere," Chancellor Archer said, his voice carrying without effort—the kind of voice that had never needed to raise itself. "In many forms, from before man was man. The elements already moved in balance long before we learned to reach for them. If you are here today, it is because your element is present in you—not as a tool you wield, but as a nature you carry."
He lowered his hands, and the lights faded.
"An element is not a symbol of status. It is not a mark of superiority over those who do not carry one. It is power and responsibility in equal measure, and any apprentice who forgets the second half of that will eventually be corrected by the world itself."
I was smiling before I caught myself. He wasn't wrong. He just sounded exactly like—
"Why are you smiling, Lady Clark?"
Every head in the circle turned toward me. I felt the weight of it the way you feel a sudden change in temperature.
"Because what you just said is so true," I said, keeping my voice steady. "With great power comes great responsibility. It's... a principle I've encountered before, in a different form."
A beat of silence. Chancellor Archer regarded me with eyes that were dark and unhurried and gave nothing away. "Indeed," he said. Then: "You will work in pairs for this evening's exercise. Senior apprentices may choose first."