Two years ter.

  The mess hall roared with voices and ironware, a hundred bowls cttering against trestle wood while stew steam rose in curls that smelled of bone and rosemary. Light snted through the high windows and made small wavering suns in the grease on every spoon.

  At a bench near the rear hearth, three bodies leaned shoulder to shoulder, ughing at nothing in particur. Lucen cimed the end, his blonde hair forever refusing to lie ft as if lightning still lived in it. Across from him sat Soso, narrow and neat, with the posture of a schor and a soldier both. Between them, Esmeralda stared into her bowl and stirred the same piece of carrot around the surface as though tracing a glyph.

  Soso’s ughter trailed off. She watched Meme a beat longer, then set down her spoon. “What’s wrong?”

  Meme did not look up. “It's just… things aren't turning out the way I hoped.” The words were soft. “My... my parents told me what would happen. But I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”

  Lucen’s grin fell. Soso went very still.

  In two years, Meme had broken every bar pced in front of her. She ran faster, struck truer, solved the glyph-byrinths that left others gss-eyed and sweating. Field tasks came back with her reports crisp and her clothes clean, and her name—on the days it appeared at all—was the smallest word on the page.

  The other words were rger. Donor. Patron. Cousin to. Son of. Daughter of.

  When she worked beside those words, the work became a communal miracle, an achievement shared out like bread. When she worked behind them, the miracle was theirs alone. And because she was younger than most by years, the bookkeepers found it convenient to ignore her. Thus it stood that Lucen and Soso now kept pace with her... on paper.

  Lucen twirled his cup in his hands, eyes narrowing. “Your guardian. The guy who brought you here is a big deal. He's coming today for evaluations, right? There’s no way they can ignore you today.”

  Soso’s head turned. “No.” She didn’t bother to soften it. “She should keep a low profile. At least until we’re ordained. Once we’re saints, they’ll have rules to follow. Right now we're just dumb kids.”

  Lucen folded his arms. “I don’t have the patience for that, Soso. We’ve been holding back for so long. If not today, when? Let’s show them everything.”

  He looked back at Meme and jerked his chin toward the door that would lead to the testing ground. “Especially after what they’ve done to you. If the three of us go all out, they can’t pretend not to see it.”

  Meme’s mouth tilted, not quite a smile, not quite a snarl. “Don’t worry, Lucy. I was already pnning to give them one more chance. If I don’t get what I’ve earned after today—” She let the sentence trail off, the unspoken collecting like thunder in the rafters.

  Soso’s brows knit. “What do you mean?”

  Meme only smiled, this time with teeth. Soso looked away first, and the bad feeling that had been living behind her ribs ached more.

  The hall’s far door banged open. A young Inquisitor stood framed in the light. “Esmeralda!” he called. “With me. A bishop wishes a word.”

  Meme rose, wiping her hands on her napkin. Lucen scowled. Soso’s jaw twitched.

  “I'll be back,” Meme murmured—and followed the Inquisitor out.

  The side chamber smelled of wax and iron. A bishop in somber grey waited by a narrow table.

  “May the Thorns guide your way,” he intoned.

  “And yours,” Meme answered.

  He smiled with all the warmth of a winter sun. “There is great excitement today. The stands are filled. Benefactors, clergy, and Inquisitors of repute. One benefactor in particur has given most generously these past years. Their son performs today.”

  Silence stretched a single breath. Meme did not fill it.

  The bishop folded his hands. “We would like him to stand out.”

  The bishop’s smile was all warmth.

  “You are the only one who might outshine him,” he said. “So, as a courtesy to our most generous patrons, perhaps you might temper your dispy. Show skill, yes, but not brilliance. Let the boy have his moment.”

  Meme inclined her head before the anger in her chest could betray itself. “Of course, Father. Everything for the Thorned Path.”

  She turned to leave.

  “Take heart,” the bishop called after her, voice light as if to cheer her. “There is always next year.”

  Meme stopped. Slowly, she looked back. “What do you mean?”

  His smile deepened, but his eyes had gone cold. “Even if you simply passed today—simply passed—the youngest Saint in history would be you. That alone would steal his light. Best, then, if you wait your turn.”

  Her forced smile returned, carved and bitter. “I understand,” she said.

  She walked the corridor.

  When she reached the tunnel where Lucen and Soso waited, rage fred across her face like heat lightning.

  “What happened?” Soso asked at once.

  Meme didn’t look at her. “Lucy,” she said, “go wild.”

  Lucen’s grin returned like a bde leaving its sheath. “Finally.”

  “Because I’m giving everything,” Meme said.

  Soso exhaled. She closed her eyes for a breath, then another, as if bracing on a moving deck. She said nothing. The worry in her face said enough.

  The testing ground opened like an amphitheater cut from pale stone. In the stands, Inquisitors sat in serried ranks beside priests and abbots, their robes making a garden of grey and umber. Nobles occupied the shaded arc under the eaves, their rings catching the sun, their whispers precise as knives.

  On the sand, lines were chalked for circles and distances, targets and measures. This was not an exam of learning. This was a harvest. The observers were here to decide which fruit was ripe and which should be left to hang another season.

  Candidates presented themselves by name. Pledges were spoken. Modest dispys won modest nods. Young men and women bowed and left the field with shoulders proud or slouched in shame.

  Then the benefactor’s son walked to the center, and the air changed.

  He had broad shoulders and a strong jaw. He was 18 years old, rather young for a potential Saint, so there was cause for his pride. He drew his circle and raised both hands, and the sky above him lit with fire—sheets of it, rolling over one another until the whole arena seemed roofed in fme.

  It was not wild, not ruinous; the bze spread in perfect symmetry, a bnket of controlled dawn. Shadows vanished. Every stone glowed as though the ground itself had been cast in amber. His arms fell, and the fmes died in perfectly controlled precision.

  When he finished, the silence was immediate and pleased.

  Soso was called next.

  She walked out as if the ground belonged to her—quietly. At the center, she lifted her hand and breathed in, and the air answered with a low, eager rush. Her glyphs were small and exact.

  Wind unfurled. It caught her hair and her sleeves and built itself, yer upon yer, until the banners over the eaves strained against their poles and the chalk circles lifted from sand and spun in rings around her feet like white birds.

  Then—at the peak, at the breath that would turn wonder into fear—Soso drew the wind tight and bled it out. It burst in a clean, controlled bloom that left every loose thing in the arena rippling, not broken.

  The saints’ observers nodded together. Meme’s own guardian rose and leaned forward, eyes bright. “More than one for the mantle today,” he murmured.

  Beside him, a bishop smiled as one might smile at a child’s drawing. But that smile did not reach his eyes.

  Soso slipped back into the tunnel, calm-faced, though her hands still trembled. Lucen bumped her shoulder. “You are better than him. You just don’t show it.”

  Soso let her head hang a moment, the line of her neck thin and elegant. “Not yet.”

  Lucen’s jaw tightened. He gave her shoulder a quick rub, half comfort, half frustration. “That’s the problem, Soso. You’ve got too much to lose.” His grin cut sharply, fierce. “Me? I’m an orphan. Nothing to lose but my patience. So I’ll go out there and do what you can’t.”

  He turned when his name was called, stepping to the center with easy arrogance. The cloudbank began to move even before he lifted his hands. The sky darkened, while his smile brightened. A glyph burned under his boots, lines clean as cut gss.

  “Holy Bolt,” he said, and his voice rang.

  Vaylora surged up through him like a geyser. Lightning sketched its own lines of gold backed by a second, whiter gold that made the eye ache. The bolt came obeying the circle under his feet, not seeking to kill him but to crown him: a column of hammered light that fell and swallowed him whole.

  The ground shattered outward in a jagged halo. For a breath, he was a silhouette inside a sun. Then the light bent—not into ruin, but into him. It ran along his arms and ribbed his shoulders and yered itself over his skin until he stood in a dripping cuirass of radiance that hissed. With a snap, the lightning spat skyward, splitting the clouds in a jagged scar.

  No one cheered. Fear held the air too tightly. Even the saints in the stands rose.

  The bishop nearest Meme’s guardian did not rise. He smoothed his cuffs into pce, every fold exact. For an instant, rage fshed in his eyes — there and gone again, buried under composure.

  Lucen left the circle with a cocky tilt to his mouth and a tremor still in his hands. He caught Meme’s eye and fshed teeth. “Go give them a show, little freak.”

  Her name was called.

  Vaylora answered before she did.

  It wasn’t a fre so much as a tide. Those closest to her took an involuntary step back; the ones in the stands leaned forward. Lucen braced a palm against the tunnel wall. Soso’s breath hitched.

  Esmeralda walked. With each step, the cracks Lucen had split in the ground drew themselves shut. Grass licked up in thin green tongues, then burst into small white clover flowers. At the lip of the circle, a sapling showed itself.

  The murmurs turned to a hush as they stared on in awe.

  She stopped at the center.

  “All those present who are not sure of their faith,” she said, voice carrying effortlessly, “leave the stands.”

  The command struck like a thrown glove. Nobles forgot themselves enough to look openly at one another. An abbot’s mouth opened, and he did not find a word. Somewhere, a ugh fled its owner and became a cough.

  Meme lifted her hands. Glyphs whispered to life in the air. The words she spoke were older than the empire itself, a tongue that made men straighten against their will.

  “Serein var Leth,

  Among the thorns, among the crowned, hear.

  Aelion, bright-hearted, unclose the veiled.

  Let falsehood wither; let clean hearts stand.

  By blood remembered, by light restored—

  Open your eyes.”

  Something unfolded above her. The figure that came was not a person, not quite, but it wore the suggestion of one: height, hands, a face turned down. Its eyes were closed. Wings folded around them.

  The being opened its eyes.

  Meme’s guardian had gone pale. “Divine Judgment,” he breathed. “The light of crity. It spares the faithful, but for the corrupted, there is no hiding, no pleading. It unmakes the sin at its root.” His voice dropped further, as if admitting it to himself was dangerous. “It takes three saints to summon it… three working as one. And she—” He broke off, staring. “She did it alone.”

  She then procimed,

  "Divine Judgement."

  Light broke, not outward but everywhere at once. Colors separated from their shadows.

  Those who had come with their hearts tidy felt it pass over them the way wind passes through grass. Those who had been wicked and thought themselves clever felt it like a knife.

  A man among the nobles made a small, surprised sound and colpsed. A priest three rows down from Meme’s guardian raised his hands as if to block the light; the light went through them like water, and he went down on his knees, eyes streaming—then smiled through the tears.

  Near the eaves, another figure—older, rings heavy—stood very straight until the light id its hand upon him. There was no blood. No scream. Only a soft undoing, and a thud as he fell where he stood.

  The light gentled. The figure closed its eyes. The wings folded. Meme’s hands lowered.

  Silence held. Then the noise returned in a wave. Not cheers, but horror.

  In the stands, Meme’s guardian knelt, head bowed, not to her but to the light that had brought judgment. One by one, other saints bent. An abbot followed. A line of Inquisitors went to one knee.

  The bishop who had corrected his cuffs did not kneel. The smile he found was perfect. It looked like forgiveness and reverence were paired.

  Meme stood, breath ragged, hair pstered to her cheeks. She did not look triumphant. She looked furious. Because the Bishop still lived.