Praxton sighed again, reaching down to take a sip of water from his qido. “All right, boy,” Praxton finally said. “Despite the pain—despite the shame—I will admit that you’ve worked hard. The Sand Lord knows you haven’t any talent to speak of, but at least you did something with the small amount you have. Give up this stupid decision to run the Path, and tomorrow I’ll offer you the rank of fen.”

Fen. It was the next to lowest of the nine sand master ranks; only underfen—the rank Kenton had been offered the four previous years—was beneath it.

“No,” Kenton said. “I think I want to be a mastrell.”

“Aisha!” Praxton cursed.

“Don’t swear now, Father,” Kenton suggested. “Wait until I run the Path successfully. Then what will you do?”

Kenton’s defiant words were more optimistic than his heart, however. Even as his father raged, Kenton felt the questions resurfacing.

What on the sands am I doing? Eight years ago no one thought I could even be a sand master, and now I’ve been offered a respectable rank in the Diem. It isn’t what I wanted, but …

“Boy, you’re inept enough to make the Hundred Idiots look brilliant. Running the Mastrell’s Path won’t prove anything. It’s meant for mastrells—not for simple acolents.”

“The Law doesn’t say a student cannot run it,” Kenton said, thoughts of his inadequacy still strong in his mind.

“I won’t make you a mastrell,” Praxton warned. “Even if you find all five spheres, I won’t do it. The Path is not a test or a proof. Mastrells run it if they want to, but only after they’ve been advanced. Your success will mean nothing. You’ll never be a mastrell—you aren’t even worthy to be a sand master!”

Praxton’s words burned away Kenton’s doubts like water in the sun. If there was one person who could fuel Kenton’s sense of defiance, it was Praxton.

“Then I’ll be an acolent until the day I die, Lord Mastrell,” Kenton replied, folding his arms.

“You can’t be a mastrell,” Praxton reiterated. “You don’t have the power.”

“I don’t believe in power, Father. I believe in ability. I can do anything a mastrell can; I just have different methods.” It was an old argument, one he had been making for the last eight years.

“Can you slatrify?”

Kenton paused. No, that was one thing he couldn’t do. Slatrification, the ability to change sand into water, was the ultimate art of sand mastery. It was wildly different from sand mastery’s other abilities, and none of Kenton’s creativity or ingenuity could replicate it.

“There have been mastrells who couldn’t slatrify,” Kenton replied weakly.

“Only two,” Praxton replied. “And both were able to control over two dozen ribbons of sand at once. How many can you control, boy?”