Fractured

03. Induction

Anya arrived at the main hall early and took a seat at one of the empty tables in the middle of the room. Echoes of footsteps and the distant sound of doors closing and students talking punctuated the quiet. For a moment, she considered leaving the room and exploring the grounds some more, but was stopped by the thought of trying to find a place to sit once the hall started to fill closer to the Induction Ceremony.

Instead, she passed the time by watching countless dust particles dance in the beam of light that cut sharply across the room. She was struck by the familiarity of it. A similar beam would pass through the kitchen window back in Dunhaven, though there the light shone through in the early morning hours. Despite the miles between her and her home, she felt herself pulled back there in an instant.

She was always the first to rise, heating water for the thistle and elderberry tea before anyone else stirred. Their kitchen was small but cozy, with a stove that was always a little too quick to cool and cupboards that never closed quite right. Yet every morning, as the light grew stronger and the dust motes swirled around her, there were small moments where it had felt perfect. Her father would be the first to join her, always with a soft grunt as he settled into his chair, followed by her mother, who took her tea on the go as she moved quietly but efficiently to prepare their breakfast. Last to arrive was her brother, bleary-eyed and yawning, brown curls askew, often complaining about his lukewarm tea. She wondered who was heating up the water now. How quickly had everyone's routines reshaped around her absence? She brushed aside the thought and pulled herself back to Elderwood, where students were slowly filtering into the hall.

As the hall began to fill, students once again clustered into their familiar groupings. It was evident from the bits of conversation she overheard that many of them had grown up together in Suncrest, their bonds forged through years of private schooling, attending the same midseason festivals, and facing off on the Ripple Ball fields.

Many of them were recounting wildly exaggerated stories from their Passage. One boy loudly proclaimed that he had come face-to-face with a bristlemane boar, that he was mere inches from the spiked, razorsharp hairs that provided an armor against predators and, apparently, the wandering elite. Another group claimed they encountered a pack of silvermane wolves and had only escaped by climbing a nearby tree. Anya did her best to resist rolling her eyes at this— silvermane wolves haven't lived in Eldara for centuries. In fact, as far as Anya knew, they only existed in the far-off nation of Miridian, where the northernmost region experienced an endless winter suitable for the arctic wolves. Still, nobody else seemed to question the story's veracity.

The most grating stories were those of the everyday hardships the students experienced for the first time on their journeys. One girl explained, almost teary-eyed, that she had to mend her own torn clothing using a needle and thread, a mundane task that proved unexpectedly challenging in her untrained hands. Several students animatedly shared their struggles with trying to start a campfire amid the relentless rain. They described their repeated, futile attempts to ignite damp wood and maintain a flame, which inevitably led to frustration and a series of cold meals. It wasn't lost on Anya that the challenges they dramatized were everyday realities for many families in Dunhaven, including her own, whose limited access to magic had ensured such struggles were less of a novelty and more of an inevitability.

Her eavesdropping was interrupted when a wiry boy with a mop of strawberry blonde curls and an eager expression slid into the seat beside her.

"Wren," he said, leaning closer to make himself heard over the din of the now-crowded hall.

"Sorry?" Anya questioned-- his words had been lost in the cacophony.

"I'm Wren!" he repeated, louder this time, his eyes bright. "Wren Hawthorne."