Damien sat on the edge of his bed holding his sister’s letter and read it again. He’d been studying at The Tower for a little over three years and would be taking his final exam in an hour. Ann said she had no doubt he’d pass with flying colors and have all his restrictions removed. That would be nice since Jen wanted him to come home for the summer solstice the day after tomorrow and celebrate with her and Dad. Unless the masters removed his restrictions he wouldn’t be allowed to leave the tower.

He grimaced and tossed the parchment on his desk. It would be great to see Jen and Lizzy again, but he didn’t know what sort of reception to expect from Dad. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. Now that there was no chance of him becoming a warlord there’d be no pressure on either of them. They could just be father and son rather than master and student.

A quick pace around his little room did nothing to relieve his anxiety. He stopped in front of his footlocker, dug out a pair of thin leather gloves, tossed his tunic on the bed so it wouldn’t get sweaty, and pulled on the gloves. A pair of curved sabers appeared in the air in front of him. Damien grasped the hilts and ran through some basic forms. He’d discovered after his duel with Sig that if he wore gloves he could grip weapons he conjured himself, as long as they didn’t actually touch his skin.

He leapt, spun, and twisted, swirling the blades around his body. Lost in the movements, his worries fled to the back of his mind and vanished, at least for a few minutes. A thin sheen of sweat soon covered his chest. Though he’d never be fast enough to stand toe to toe with a warlord, Damien felt pleased that he’d maintained his form for three years without a sparring partner.

After a couple of minutes he stopped and blew out a breath. “Enjoying the show?”

“I didn’t think you’d noticed me.” Ann pushed the door the rest of the way open and sauntered in. She wore one of her typically snug, low-cut dresses. “With everything a sorcerer can do, why do you insist on using those swords?”

Damien reabsorbed the energy in the blades, stripped off his gloves, and dug a towel out of his trunk. Why did he keep using swords? With what he’d learned the last few years he could destroy a small army with a thought, but somehow the sword still called to him. “I guess it’s the discipline. To be a good swordsman you need perfect focus and balance. When I do forms it drives out all other thoughts.”

He finished drying off and reached for his tunic. It jumped out of his hand. He looked up at Ann, who smiled. “No need to put that back on so soon.”

Damien shook his head. He’d have to introduce Ann to Lizzy, they were a lot alike. With a thought he formed a bubble around his tunic and severed whatever thread of energy she’d attached to it. He pulled it back to his side of the bed and threw it on.

She stuck out her bottom lip. “You never let me have any fun.”

“Staring at your students without their shirts on might get you into trouble.”

She looked around. “There’s no one here but us. Are you going to turn me in?”

Damien grinned. He thought of Ann as an older sister; a somewhat perverted, often inappropriate older sister. He’d never do anything to get her in trouble and would happily cut the throat of anyone that did. “Of course not. Should we head up? Eli’s probably just getting started.”

She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I suppose, if you’re not going to leave your shirt off so I can enjoy the view, we might as well.”

They left Damien’s room and headed for the stairwell. It was fifteen floors up to the testing chamber. Damien could have jogged up easily enough, but Ann wouldn’t appreciate it, especially since she wore her ridiculous four-inch heels. “Want me to handle transportation?”

“Save your strength for the test.”

Damien raised an eyebrow at that. He could replenish any power he used carrying them up in seconds and she had to know that by now. “Is it that bad?”

She turned serious for the first time. “No, it’s not bad, exactly, just challenging. I know you can handle it. You’re the most gifted student I’ve ever trained and your power still terrifies me a little.”

She conjured a little basket around them and it lifted them up one floor after another, until they reached the fifteenth-floor landing. The basket vanished and Damien opened the door for her. Beyond the door waited a short, black-stone hall. No silver broke the dark surface of the tiles. A little shiver ran through him. The atmosphere gave him chills.

At the end of the hall a black door marked with a rune of forbiddance blocked their path. Except on test days, no one but the high sorcerers entered the chamber. A few feet from the door, as though to lift some of the foreboding a student must feel on his approach to the testing chamber, rested a pair of perfectly ordinary leather chairs.

Ann sat in one, but Damien was too anxious to sit down. He paced the short hall, eager to get on with it. After his tenth trip back and forth Ann said, “Will you please sit down? You’re making me nervous.”

He sat beside her and patted her knee. “Sorry. I don’t do well with waiting.”

“I see that. Have you heard from your friend?”

“Not since he left this spring.” John had passed his tests and gone north to apprentice to the master healer in the northern army. He’d also be stationed close to his father, which might be good or bad depending on the general’s mood. “I’m sure he’s fine. John has a knack for getting along with people. So, how does one go about becoming a high sorcerer?”

“It’s simple enough. Every ten years all the sorcerers in the kingdom come to The Tower for the gathering. Any full sorcerer interested in the job can stand for high sorcerer. We then hold a vote and the five with the most votes become high sorcerers for ten years.”

“I thought there were only four high sorcerers?”

“We select five then they chose amongst themselves who to promote to archmage. The archmage heads to the capital to advise the king on supernatural matters and oversee the Crimson Legion, the sorcerers in charge of protecting the king. There’s a lot of politics involved and most sorcerers aren’t interested in the job. That’s why Lidia has held the post of archmage for the past sixteen years.”

The black door creaked and swung open. Damien leapt to his feet a moment before a slumped-over Eli walked through. He looked up at Damien and shook his head. He’d failed. Damien clapped him on the back as he headed for the stairs. Eli was a solid sorcerer, and even if he failed this time he could try again in six months and pass it for sure.

“Damien St. Cloud.” A disembodied voice spoke from inside the testing chamber. “It’s time.”

He glanced at Ann, who shook her head. “You’re on your own. I’ll be here when you finish.”

Damien entered the dark chamber and walked to a circle of light in the center of the room. Looming over him, one at each of the four cardinal directions sat the four high sorcerers. Three women and one man, all older than Ann, but not by as much as he’d expected. He put them all in their late forties or early fifties.

He bowed to each in turn then clasped his hands behind his back and waited. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Mistress Ann has recommended you for the final examination,” the Master of the South said. “Do you feel you are ready?”

Damien faced the master. “Yes, sir.”

“Very well,” the Mistress of the East said, her voice almost as deep as the master’s. “You must demonstrate competence in four of the six primary skills. Where do you wish to begin?”

“Shielding.” Protection and attack were Damien’s strongest skills so he planned to start there and make a good first impression.

“Form your shield and we will attack. Resist as long as you can,” the Master of the South said.

Damien conjured a golden globe around himself, wasting neither time nor energy to make it invisible. He spent a quarter of his power on it and felt certain it would hold against anything but a full-power assault. Energy blasts from each master struck his shield in succession.

Their attacks didn’t even cause it to flex. So far so good.

Next they attacked it together. Dents formed, but the shield held.

Damien let out a breath. A moment later a golden giant appeared, a club in its hand. It swung down at him and an instant before it struck he reinforced the top of the sphere. The club skipped off without breaking through.

“Well done,” the Mistress of the North said. “You pass the first test.”

Damien reabsorbed the shield energy remaining and diverted some of the power from his personal shield to restoring his core. It wouldn’t take long for his power to replenish.

Damien passed attack easily, hitting multiple moving targets and shattering every shield they conjured. Detection was harder, but he found the poison in every sample they brought and neutralized it. He was almost through. Sweat stained his tunic and stuck it to his back.

“Next?” the Mistress of the North asked.

“Shaping.” Damien took a few deep breaths to steady himself and a chunk of stone floated down from somewhere in the darkened recesses above him. “What do you wish me to make?”

“Whatever you like,” the Mistress of the East said. “Impress us.”

Damien studied the stone, both with his eyes and his soul force. It was taller than it was wide and a couple of fissures ran through it. If he hit those wrong the rock would crumble and he’d fail the test. Luckily for him both flaws ran along the edge of the stone so he could use most of it. When he had the image of what he wanted firmly in mind he sent out streams of soul force and carved.

He had no sense of time as he worked, his focus on the task absolute. When he finally finished, a statue of a nude, winged female sat on the floor. The face was a little crude and the feathers on the wings could have used more texture, but overall it was a pretty good likeness of Lizzy.

Around him the masters applauded. “The finest example of shaping we’ve seen from a candidate in many years. That’s four passed out of six,” the Master of the South said. “Congratulations, you’ve passed your final test.”

The master looked at the three women and each nodded. He continued. “We remove all restrictions from you. You are now free to use your powers at your discretion. Finally, you’ll need to find an experienced sorcerer to mentor you for two years of field work before you’ll get missions of your own. Well done.”

The door behind him opened, he bowed to each of the masters, and left. Ann stood beside her chair, a worried frown on her face. Damien grinned and she smiled. “You passed?”

“Sure did. All credit to my teacher. How long was I in there?”

“Three hours. I was afraid they’d killed you for a little while.” They went back downstairs in her basket. As they descended Ann asked, “What will you do now?”

“I’m going home for a visit. Jen invited me for the Solstice festival and I’m eager to see her and Lizzy.”

She leered at him. “You’re not afraid your lover has moved on in three years?”

Damien had never told Ann that Lizzy was a spirit bound in his father’s sword and he didn’t feel the need to now. “I don’t think so.”

“Well if she has, let me know. After today you’re not my student anymore so anything goes.”

Damien shook his head and the basket hit the second-floor landing. She never quit. “Thanks. Though I’d be too afraid of the other guys to try anything with the object of their affections.”

She laughed, hugged him again, and rose up to the sixth floor and her apartment. Damien sighed. When he got back from The Citadel he’d have to find an apartment in the upper levels. He was a sorcerer now, which meant he couldn’t stay in the students’ rooms anymore.

He made the familiar walk back to the room he shared with Eli and pushed the door open. His roommate lay on his bed, an arm over his eyes. When Damien entered he rolled on his side. “How’d you do?”

“Passed. Took damn near three hours. What happened to you?”

“My shield broke, I missed half the moving targets, and my construct lost its mock battle.”

Damien winced. He’d failed attack, shield, and conjuring, the three primary skills for a sorcerer, not good. “What about the rest?”

“I passed detection and shaping no problem and I could have passed healing, but I failed the other three first.”

“Sorry. Want some advice?”

Eli shrugged, sighed, and said, “Sure, what could it hurt?”

“Chose one of the three you failed and focus on it for the next six months. When the time comes you’ll have your skills ready to go.”

Eli got up and they shook hands. “Thanks, Damien, you’ve been a good roommate and friend. I suppose I’ll get a new bunkmate now.”

“Only for six months, then you can get an apartment on my floor, whichever one I end up on. I’m heading out for a few days. See you later.”

“I saw your sister’s letter on your desk. You must be excited to finally go home again.”

“Yeah, excited and terrified, the same as when I arrived here.”