I remembered one time when my parents forced me to see a doctor because I had pain in my legs. I was ten years old, barely a teen, and I had to undress in the hospital room to let the man check me through and through. Being stared at like that was deeply unsettling, greatly uncomfortable, and it felt like torture.

  Here, it was worse.

  I could feel piercing gazes all across my body, sizing me up and down as a hunter may train his eyes on particularly easy prey. They seemed to be trying to find a hole, something to latch onto in case we ever crossed paths in the future. My shoulders slumped at the attention. My back prickled with insidious fear.

  And yet I held my chin high and activated soul vision. That was the best I could do to show I could hold myself against these chosen.

  Auras flashed in the ethereal world of souls. All dozen of them, painted in rich silver, meaning that they were deep into the Silver Grade. About half of them were Mages. Those didn’t give me a look, let alone bother to study me. They wore pompous smiles, with their expectant eyes gazing up at the platform, probably waiting to see their Master.

  I did the same. Other than the teachers, who all looked somewhat stiff from here, there was no one else.

  “This year we have four new additions to our slowly growing team,” the Headmaster Magnus said once he ensured all the chosen were lined up perfectly. “Of those, two are chosen to be fit to serve as Hall Masters. I’m especially proud that we have managed to recruit a true master in the field of Heartforce, and he will be replacing our late Master Farrow as a Hall Master. Here’s Archmage Deandruis!”

  Murmurs erupted across the students. People rose in expectation, wide eyes staring up at the platform. Even the chosen beside me, who were just busy trying to look as cool as possible, stirred in reaction.

  “A true master in Heartforce?” I heard one mutter, a muscular guy nearly the size of an ox. “A Celestial Heart Mage? I’ve never heard his name.”

  “Ah!” said a particularly small-nosed young woman, her green eyes basically sparkling with expectation. “I wonder if he is the one who picked me?”

  “You wish, witch,” said the guy who stood beside her, glaring down with a scoff. Strange that he looked like the male version of the girl. “He must’ve picked me. You don’t have it in you to dedicate yourself to the Heartforce.”

  “Why are you being mean like this?” the girl said, crossing her arms. “Is it because I told Father about that staff? You shouldn’t have brought that thing here. You know that.”

  “That was our great-grandfather’s Celestial staff!” The guy’s nostrils flared. “A peerless treasure worthy of a genius. You were just jealous because I’d managed to steal that thing. You know what? You’re a little weepy rat for telling—”

  The girl moved in and planted a strangely gentle-looking elbow into the young man’s stomach, which made him nearly double over and promptly shut his mouth.

  “Jerk,” she said shortly after. “They wouldn’t have let you take it inside, anyway. I’m tired of being constantly exposed to your stupidity. Let’s not talk while we’re here, okay?”

  Alright, those two were definitely related somehow, but that wasn’t important now. Because we had a tall guy walking across the platform like a true king, his robe flashing with a purple so rich it hurt just looking at him. Everybody in the hall, the teachers included, seemed to be taken by his aura, as if spellbound, and I couldn’t blame them at all.

  Why?

  Because this was the best-looking man I had ever seen. He had a chin for days, a jawline so sharp it could cut you through. His nose was neither too small nor too big, and it fit into his face perfectly. His clean face matched with his dark hair in melodic harmony. He looked like a soap opera star, except he had real strength and palpable gravity in the way he carried himself.

  “Just call me Dean,” he said as he pulled himself in front of the platform and addressed the crowd with a clear voice. “I’ll be taking some of you into my… hall.”

  Then he winked.

  I heard a bunch of girls scream from the back.

  The handsome bastard flicked his hair, then glanced down at our little group of chosen in the manner of a megastar granting the first-row audience a treat with his eyes.

  Expectation boiled within my chest, which didn’t make any sense since I wasn’t a Mage. I didn’t have talent in Heartforce. This guy wouldn’t in a million years choose me. Then why, in the Creator’s name, did he keep staring at me?

  “Pleasure to meet you all,” he said simply, then turned and took his place by the normal teachers at the back.

  “He didn’t choose anyone?” the girl from before said, clearly disappointed. “He is too handsome…”

  I knew that not every Master had to choose a student, but based on the reaction of the chosen crowd, it seemed that the girls in particular hoped to become his disciple. It was odd. Celestials were not average people, as nearly all of them were centuries old. This guy probably had some magic applied to his face to look this young.

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  Weirded out a little, I waited as the other Masters were called into the giant hall. The already-known Masters didn’t get a huge reaction like this Heart Celestial, but instead, their presence stilled the hall right away. People respected them deeply. I, on the other hand, found them a bit lacking compared to the Celestials I knew.

  There was one woman who was stupidly gorgeous, though. Her name was Eleanor, and she was a Celestial Elemental Mage. She got my attention not because of her overly revealing clothes, her full figure, or anything like that. It was just that she picked the bickering pair from earlier and personally gave them their capes, forest green with a pair of gleaming eyes stitched onto the back with golden threads. They looked exactly like her own eyes.

  This went on and on, and I started to get a bit scared. The Bloodbound’s daughter got picked by an arrogant-looking guy who had his facial hair cut much like a wolf’s. She didn’t look happy, but I could tell that she was pretty gassed up by how hard she clenched her hands as her Master presented the cape. It was crimson. The girl belonged to the Crimsonpale Dominion. Not much of a coincidence there, I supposed.

  The Dravian girl, who I thought could be my cousin, was picked by a middle-aged man whose steps shook the whole platform. He was clad in a robust robe of red and purple, and his eyes were sharp as an eagle’s. He picked the girl, threw her the cape, then walked briskly back to the line, his pate shining under the candlelight.

  In the end, I drew in a sharp breath and pinched my nose. It wasn’t fair that they made us wait like this. What was the deal, anyway? I mean, yes, the chosen got what they deserved and people applauded, but we could’ve done this in some other place with… fewer people.

  All this noise and the—

  I froze. I looked around myself. Nobody was there. I was alone. The other chosen had already returned to their seats. How did I miss that? Why did I miss that? Why the hell was I alone?

  Help.

  Help me!

  I shuffled nervously to the side, thinking perhaps I could inch my way back to Keralth and Valar without anyone noticing. That was a no-go. When I looked back, I saw them staring at me. Keralth even gave me a thumbs up. What was this guy and his fingers? Where did he learn that, anyway? This wasn’t Earth. Mages and Knights shouldn’t gesture at people with their fingers.

  “This year, we have found ourselves in a rather unique situation,” the Headmaster’s voice boomed in my ears. Too loud. I jerked back in panic, staring senselessly about myself, before I saw that our dear Headmaster, who dwelled in chaos mana or something, was pointing at me with his eyes. “We have been blessed by a talent rarely seen in centuries, or should I say, rarely allowed to be in the presence of the public?”

  He laughed. The guy really laughed as if he had made the joke of the year. But people were staring. Their eyes drilled painful little holes across my back. I flinched. I cried inward and let out a silent scream. From the outside, though, I must have appeared a solid rock as I kept my poker face. That wasn’t because I could take the pressure. It was simply my face muscles. They were frozen.

  Thank the Creator for that.

  “We have a budding Runemaster in this very hall!”

  That was the last nail in the coffin. I was dead.

  Chairs groaned loudly as people shot to their feet. The teachers blinked in unified shock, as if just then an ugly baby had popped out from nowhere. Except, they weren’t looking at the non-existing baby, but at me. I was the ugly baby. I mean, I wasn’t a baby, but damn, they were looking at me.

  “A Runemaster?”

  “Hail the Creator… Is he here because—“

  “Don’t say his name!”

  “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

  The whispers were too loud. They felt like loud gongs banging beside my ears.

  Why did I think I’d be ready to be in a crowd? Just because I’d learned how to kill beasts and people? Trained with a bunch of Celestials for more than ten years? Studied the intricacies of Runecraft and devised my own runes out of simple ink?

  God damn it. There was nothing social about those experiences. My Mother and the rest of her gang might’ve prepared me for a life out in the wilds, but this was not it.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “We shall now let the Master and disciple unite in this once-in-a-millennia occasion,” the Headmaster continued, his smile slowly giving way to a strict expression. He raised his hands toward the crowd. “Silence.”

  It got quiet soon enough that you could hear a pin drop. Confused and horrified, I simply waited there like a scarecrow. Master and disciple, huh? So I was finally about to see this grim reaper of a Runemaster whose mere name seemed to be enough to give people an anaphylactic shock.

  Golden lights flickered into existence. They looked like swirling dots dangling from the high ceiling, sparkling like morning rain cleaving across the cloudy sky. I looked up, as everyone did, but there was nobody there. The gleaming drops of light continued swirling down toward me, building in volume, blending into one another before finally taking hold of me.

  They were warm across my skin, like embers from a recently quenched fire. Not too hot that it hurt, but they still made me flinch. I waited, though. That was the least I could do. I waited for something to happen, and soon, my patience was rewarded by a gleaming cape that floated right before me.

  It was beautiful.

  Laced with golden trimmings and adorned with small, multi-faceted jewels around the hems, this cape looked like something a royal prince would wear. Its initial sparkling golden hue lost its glamour soon enough—thankfully—turning into a muted color that was somewhere between dark brown and black. On its back, written with forceful strokes, were the words “Twelfth Concordance” that seemed to be alive with burning lights.

  I didn’t have to be a Runemaster to know that this cape was runed, but thanks to my soul vision, I could actually see the ritualistic strings etched across its back. It was an archaic sequence, probably too high for me to practice, but the meaning was simple enough.

  It basically said, “The New Brother of the Concordance.”

  I instinctively reached out to feel its magical surface, but before I could do that, the cape moved on its own, wrapping itself around my shoulders and fitting squarely to my body. It felt like a personally tailored piece that was meant for me, and me alone. That gave my chin a few extra inches.

  Suddenly, the attention I got from the crowd, the nervous expectation boiling in the pit of my stomach, and the sheer anxiety of being in this sort of social occasion… were gone. Replaced by a blissful amazement. I could feel the excitement instead, with my Bloodline having gone completely still, my heart calm like the surface of an undisturbed lake.

  It was the cape, I soon realized. Something about it gave me strength. Made me stand taller and instilled in me a completely baseless, yet somehow undeniable confidence that I could, if I wanted, do everything with this thing on my back.

  It was still silent in the hall by the time I managed to wake up from my momentary stupor, only to find a crowd of hundreds staring straight into my face. This time, though, I met their eyes with my own.

  There was nothing here for me to be scared of.

  ……

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