The glow from the Valley at night was truly breathtaking, Cassiel had to grudgingly admit.

There were many years she had felt resentful of that soft yellow-orange glow, the only sign of the Sunlight Crystals that grew deep in the heart of the canyon. It had symbolised everything she missed out on, everything her peers had that she had been refused.

She shifted minutely in her position on the overhang, swinging her legs slightly as they dangled over the several-hundred foot drop. Then she flexed her one crystalline wing, stretching out the hovering, shimmering silver shards that lead directly into her left shoulder blade.

Despite the lack of muscle, skin or nerve endings - despite the distinct spatial gaps between the under-wing shards - there was a certain relief that came with extending her wing after holding it closed for a long period of time.

It helped, Cassiel decided as she gazed into the upper echelons of the glow that Valley scholars called the Sunlight Aurora, that even at this distance she could feel the warm suffusion of strength that proximity to the Sunlight Crystals provided.

She had felt that suffusion for as long as she could remember - a tingling vitality that spread, first from her wing, into the thick shard implanted in her shoulder blade, and then outward through her entire being, muscle and blood and bone and skin and everything.

The shard implanted in her right shoulder blade, conversely, felt nothing. It was dead, dull, empty, a necrosed limb that she constantly found herself wanting to rip out and shatter. The scholars, of course, said that the muscle had, ‘grown around the failed Implant,’ and that, ‘it would be safer to leave it in.’

Never mind that she woke up every other hour in the night whenever she inevitably rolled on to her back and it jabbed deeper into the muscle.

It was the absence of the suffusion in this dead knife-in-her-back, Cassiel concluded, that had really caused the resentment in the first place.

She sighed, stood up, straightened her uniform, and began the short walk back into the Valley proper.

It was a conclusion she had come to many times before, she knew, over periods of - well, Cassiel hated the term sulking, and brooding was hardly any better - complentation, perhaps, during her breaks from lessons and long, boring hours helping out around the shop.

She would pass that very shop soon, she knew, as she reached the edges of the town/village/city and began to proceed towards her residence - a set of communal housing designed for Implanted orphans. It was typically designed to last for perhaps six years, as you trained in the academy from age ten to sixteen - after which an Implanted typically either joined the Guardians or became apprenticed to one of the resident Elite.

Cassiel had just turned sixteen, and it was looking increasingly like neither of those things would be happening. Not that she had ever expected anything different.

Cassiel had been one of the orphans to become Valley Wards - children Implanted by the Academy at the Ministry’s request so as to have a guaranteed corps of Guardians to help protect the Valley from external threats. When one of her Implants had failed, however, the Academy had immediately given up on ever granting her further Sunlight Crystal Implants. Already much of the mining efforts were taken up by the noble families, and there were strict limits on how much even they were permitted to take, so as to prevent over-mining. Sunlight Crystals would gradually grow over time - but the risk of running down the supply of them too fast was ever-present.

That was their justification, at least. There still seemed to be enough for some nobles to afford vanity Implants, with no specific combat application.

Not that Cassiel was bitter.

She unlocked the door to her one room living space and flung herself onto the bed, being careful not to land on her dead Crystal.

Tomorrow, she would be going back to Academy lessons for the last few months before graduation, where everyone else would either be joining the Guardians or getting specialised training from a true master of their Implants.

She sat up, and pulled the elegantly-scribed letter from its place on her desk into her hands, eyes flickering past the unimportant main paragraph, before re-reading the final lines for what felt like the dozenth time.

You have not been offered re-entry into the Academy.

You have not been offered entry into the Guardians.

You have received no offers of apprenticeship.

Everyone except her.

She lay back and held her left forearm silently over her eyes, willing them with a force borne of years of resentment to stop. Watering.

She stayed locked in that position until sleep stole up on her, and then she fell into dreams of failure and abandonment.

***

The next day at the Academy was nearly unbearable. Her fellow students were crowing over their letters, or commiserating if they had been required to repeat their final year. The majority of the of the Valley Wards - the kids she had grown up alongside - were entering the Guardians. Most of the noble kids had been guaranteed apprenticeship by their House, if not necessarily by their parent. Others - the more exceptional Valley Wards, the more talented non-nobles - had secured external apprenticeships, assigned to or chosen by the current Elites so as to ensure the continuation of their Heritage Crystals.

And then there was her.

The cripple.

Even now she was an outsider to their excited cliques, excluded even by the children she had once thought friends, back in the Nursery. Once it had become clear that she wouldn’t be joining them on the path to Elitism, they had turned their backs on her, one and all.

They probably hadn’t even noticed her burning hatred for the lot of them. Somehow, that made it worse.

Lessons continued apace, ignorant of her inner turmoil. Teachers spouted history and politics - attack by so-and-so thirty years ago, repelled by such-and-such Elite, reformation of blah-blah-blah.

Cassiel didn’t see the point in paying attention, now. It felt like the last shred of hope, the one she hadn’t even known she’d clung onto, had finally fallen away, and now she could see how pointless it all was. It just made her angry.

Only when their Implant instructor walked in did she start paying attention again. Juediel was, at the very least, worth paying attention to - she had studied Sunlight Crystal Implants in a practical capacity for longer than their class had been alive.

A long time ago, Cassiel had hoped that Juediel held the secret to expanding her own Implants - maybe even generating her own, new set. But it had become increasingly clear that she needed secondary Implants for that, and not even Juediel was willing to waste Crystals on the pity case.

So now, Cassiel just tried to take in everything Juediel said, and apply as much as was relevant.

“Today,” she announced, “we will be working on practical usage. Many of you will have received your Guardianship or apprenticeship offers - that means that you will be making use of your abilities in the field. Before your new teachers try to drill their personal methods into you, I want to make sure you have your foundations solidified. Which means a flying day.”

Simultaneously, everyone in the class erupted into cheers.

Cassiel stayed silent.

The rest of the class were already pushing their way out the door, eager to reach the overhang and get started. Cassiel trudged after them, eyes downcast, arms straight and rigid at her sides.

This was the worst part of living in the Valley of the Crystal Sun. Every other Implanted citizen was constantly crossing from one side of the canyon to the other with ease. Their wings, by the time they were twelve, were big enough for the sustained flight and levitation the Crystals permitted.

Except her. True flight was forever out of Cassiel’s reach, forever locked beyond the dead chunk of mineral in her back. Levitation was also a no-go - the most she would ever be able to manage was a sustained glide.

Worse, the Academy teachers were even more restrictive. They permitted not even that, did not allow her to even try out her gliding - ‘there was simply too much risk,’ they claimed, with condescension cast all over their faces.

So flying days were forever days when Cassiel had to sit on the sidelines and watch her peers show off, get personal instruction, and have fun.

She sat cross-legged on the canyon’s overhang, wing hanging lazily onto the grass, and watched.

Flight manoeuvres were first - in formation, in pursuit, and in partnership. Many of them - mostly the Valley Wards - took the opportunity to race, play tag, or dive-bomb unsuspecting students and knock them into free-fall.

Juediel permitted a little of this, but once the dive-bombing became vengeful, she stepped in and moved everyone on to target practice.

One thing Implants allowed was for their bearer to sort of charge their suffusion, typically into a single shard, before discharging this build-up in a blast of energy - a Sunshot. Cassiel knew that some Elites preferred continuous beams, or scattering dozens of weaker blasts, or high-intensity precision shots, or-!

Well. Not that Cassiel read every Elite report in the Valley, but- when something was forever locked off to you, the urge to know more about it became overpowering.

She watched as her fellows lined up, being careful to aim for the target rings that had been carved into the canyon walls, and let loose. Most of the class were competent enough now, at least, to hit their target maybe three-quarters of the time. The Noble students did even better than that, typically - apart, of course, from Danion, who was taking the time to blast his name into the pockmarks left by his Sunshots.

The canyon was the preferred locale for practice - the presence of the Sunlight Crystals, deep below, helped recover from the exhaustion of generating Sunshots, and Juediel always said that resting in their presence left you overfilled afterwards, gradually expanding the amount of the suffusion you could hold at any given time.

Once the targets had been abused to Juediel’s satisfaction - and once Danion had been sufficiently reprimanded - she moved everyone on to sparring practice.

The other students were partnered up - or put into a rotating trio, since the numbers were uneven without Cassiel - and set to practice. The aim was typically to land a hit on your opponents wings, using a weakly-charged Sunshot, since that could interfere with their flight and send them into a momentary free-fall. Whoever caused more drops before Juediel called for everyone to switch would win.

“They’re enthusiastic, at least,” Juediel’s voice sighed, from over Cassiel’s shoulder.

Cassiel started-- she hadn’t even realised the teacher wasn’t in flight anymore.

“But most of them lack a certain… killer instinct,” she continued, taking a seat beside Cassiel.

“I… suppose,” Cassiel muttered.

“Mm.” Juediel turned her body to face Cassiel entirely.

Somewhat unnerved, she did the same.

“I’ve seen you practice,” Juediel said, and Cassiel’s whole body stiffened.

“Wh- what do you-?” she tried to protest, suddenly panicking that even that would be forbidden to her, but Juediel cut in.

“You work a damn sight harder than a lot of these kids, I’ll give you that,” she said. “And you never hold back.”

“... You always said that giving your all would force your body to take in more as it recovered,” Cassiel murmured, eyeing Juediel cautiously.

The teacher let out a surprised chuckle. “That I did,” she said, “and you’ve been putting that knowledge to work for… what, six years now?”

“Almost seven,” Cassiel muttered, ducking her head in embarrassment.

“It will have been worth it,” Juediel said, then made to stand up. Before she fully straightened, however, she paused and sat back down.

“You know,” she began, steepling her hands beneath her chin. “A little while from now there’s going to be a… tournament, of sorts, that invites people from all across Inara to take part. The Ministry - well, the Noble Houses, in truth - have decided to send a delegation - a few Elites, a few Guardians, and… a few for the under-eighteen bracket.”

Cassiel levelled a confused look at her teacher.

“Now, obviously it is primarily the House heirs that will be assigned, but… should a student accidentally tag along, hiding until that delegation was a fair distance from the Valley, then the chaperone would be forced to bring them along.” Juediel smiled pleasantly in response, even as Cassiel’s confusion slowly dawned into realisation, and then excitement.

“Yes, absolutely, I would-!” she began babbling, surging forward to her knees and clasping her hands, but Juediel cut her off again.

“Of course, the chaperone would not be permitted to bring her along in any official capacity, but a lot can happen before a tournament. And, of course, should a tag-along put on a good showing at any point, perhaps a chaperone would be willing to advise re-assessing previous assumptions about… apprenticeships, even… Implants?” Juediel paused for a moment, and Cassiel gaped at her. “Well,” she continued, “just a thought. Not a promise- a thought. Understand?”

Cassiel nodded vigorously, enthusiastically, and Juediel smiled at her, stood, and took off.

For once, Cassiel barely heard the glee of her peers as they frolicked in the air above her.