Kneeling over the windborne woman with her power flooding me. Watching her head explode and feeling the warm spatter of her blood mingling with the rain on my face. The crack of thunder overhead and the terror beating in my chest.

I blink, reminding myself where I am to wash away the memory.

I breathe in the summer air on the wind that carries a faint scent of flowers and the distant pines beyond the walls of Confluence. I look over the high wall we’re standing on at the fields outside campus—fields that are already filling with hundreds upon hundreds of Empire carriages.

Each of those carriages carries an offering. I watch them emerge, dirty, confused, and scared. I see them being herded into groups. A year ago, I was down there, feeling what they feel.

A year ago, I had no fucking idea what was in store for me. I grin to myself. I suppose I could say the same right now.

“Well?” the boy presses, reminding me of his idiotic question.

A flame of rage lights in my stomach. I turn my gaze to him. “How many people did I kill?” I repeat. “As many as it took to protect the people I cared about. No more, and no less.” I let my words linger, scanning my eyes across the group. Maybe some part of me wants to reassure them, but I can’t bring myself to. They’re about to face a nightmare, and there’s no point lying to them about it. “This place wants to strip away your humanity. Turn you into a weapon for someone else to wield. The question you should be asking is how to stay sane. How to stay who you are.”

These aspirants I'm guiding now were part of the morning batch, the first to survive the trial. They've been issued uniforms and are being assigned quarters while the next group faces the elementals. Just as it happened when I arrived a year ago—an efficient machine designed to process and test hundreds in a single day. The only difference is that I arrived after the legacies and aspirants were processed last year. This year, we’re all given jobs to help lead them to the right places.

"Evasive response," Typhon observes, materializing beside me in his flying fish disguise. He hovers at my shoulder, scales gleaming with iridescent blue in the morning light. “But clever. Better to let them think you massacred scores of fellow students than admit you only truly killed one windborne.”

“We both know that wasn’t my intention.”

Amusement passes to me through our tether. Typhon is, in the most respectful terms possible, a bit of a bitch. He loves nothing more than pushing my buttons.

“A bit of a bitch…” he muses. “Others would call me first of my name. Lord of the tides. Rightful heir to the water throne. And yet you⁠—”