A wash of multicolored light filtered through the cracked stained-glass window set high in the monastery wall. It painted the gathering with a dreamlike quality that, while certainly beautiful, did little to settle the butterflies in Diya’s stomach.

  “I congratulate you, initiates, on passing the Trial of Death,” said a woman wearing a veil weaved from cerulean-hued flowers. “My name is Junira, and I am the coven’s foremost expert in the scrying arts.”

  At this, the other two initiates sitting next to Diya bowed their heads subtly in what appeared to be a sign of respect. Noticing the other’s gestures, she quickly dipped her head as well.

  Junira glided over to a cabinet, her long blue dress billowing behind, and returned with a basket full of reagents. “Passing the Trial, means that each of you has at least some attunement to the art of scrying. This morning, I will show you the basics of this sacred art and we will gleam an insight into the aptitude you may have dormant inside of you.”

  Setting the basket of reagents upon a low obsidian table carved in the shape of an unfurled lotus, Junira began lighting a ring of candles. Tendrils of smoke clawed at the air and without another word the woman in the cerulean veil unclasped a copper brooch and let her dress fall silently to the floor.

  Diya’s eyes bulged, face flushing red like a rose in bloom. She shifted her stare to the cobblestone floor, then peeked over at the other two initiates who were watching like this was just another normal day at work. Sometimes when an absurd situation presents itself, one’s first thought is to address the elephant in the room immediately, this was not one of those times. Interrupting the woman about to instruct Diya on how to harness magical powers to ask her about why she was naked felt like it might be perceived as obnoxious—or at the very least uncouth.

  Therefore, Diya shifted her eyes from the floor back to the woman now wearing only a cerulean veil.

  “First,” Junira said, her voice soft but carrying easily through the chamber, “you must understand that scrying is a dialogue, not a command. You do not grasp the world’s secrets by force. You invite them. Offer them the courtesy of being heard. After all, what more does anyone or thing truly want then to be heard and understood.”

  She reached into the basket and withdrew three small bowls made of hammered silver. Each one was filled with a scoop of black sand, an amethyst crystal, and a small tangle of stonemoss. Seeing the stonemoss brought Diya back to that night in her house when Zoralia had performed the scrying ritual.

  “Clay,” Junira called gently.

  An initiate with a scar down his cheek—tall, dark haired, with trembling hands—stepped forward. Junira gestured at him then toward the bowl. He understood and quickly removed his clothes, brushed his tangle of hair out of his face, and stepped forward, accepting the bowl.

  “Take a candle. Breathe in. Focus on a place that lives in your memory. Let the world answer in whatever way it wishes. Then when you are ready, set the stonemoss alight with the candle’s flame.”

  He nodded, inhaled shakily, and sat meditating in silence. He closed his eyes. A moment later he brought the flame down and set the stonemoss ablaze. For a few seconds, Diya swore she felt the air tighten with anticipation, sensing each of the initiates holding their breath.

  The tension built as they each waited for what would come next. Perhaps his hair would change hue, or they would all begin levitating, or a violet flame might envelope the room. But nothing so incredible happened in the slightest.

  Instead, in a rather unimpressive and anticlimactic moment Clay’s concentration cracked. His shoulders slumped. His eyes cracked open, wide and embarrassed.

  “I saw nothing,” he whispered.

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  Junira’s expression did not harden, rather it seemed to soften. “It is no failure. Scrying takes time. Today is only your first invitation.” She placed a reassuring hand briefly on Clay’s shoulder, as though anchoring him. “You will keep practicing and when the time is right, Mother Nature will embrace you.”

  Clay obeyed, cheeks flushed, avoiding looking into anyone’s eyes.

  “Rami.”

  The other initiate stepped forward with the cautious confidence of someone who wasn’t certain she should have any. She removed her dress, took a candle and the bowl, then inhaled deeply, closing her eyes. The silence stretched once more.

  Then Rami inhaled sharply. Her eyes shot open and they glowed like the light of a hundred moons on the blackest night.

  “I see the clouds behind the city skyline, the ancient boar rumbles beneath my feet, gulls wheeling overhead. The township Sanglier,” she murmured in awe. “My… childhood home.”

  Junira allowed herself a faint smile. “A clear vision for a first attempt. Impressive.”

  Rami released the breath she had been holding and stepped back, her eye’s glow fading as she returned to her seat. Pride radiated from her in nervous pulses, and Clay gave her a small, supportive pat on the back. Diya didn’t know her, but she offered a slight smile and head nod anyway.

  Then Junira’s gaze settled on Diya.

  “Your turn.”

  Diya swallowed. Her hands had gone cold, and her heartbeat thudded in her ears like a warning drum. She stepped forward, telling herself her legs were steady even though they trembled beneath her.

  Her hands shook as she slid her clothing off and accepted the bowl. It would be perfectly fine for her powers to take time to develop like Clay’s might. Though she only had a finite amount of time to grow stronger so she could save her home. Who knew what life back home might be like under the rule of that madman, Arjun?

  The pressure grew and grew inside of her until she felt like a teapot ready to scream.

  “Breathe,” Junira instructed. “And remember that sight comes through surrender, not strain.”

  Diya set the stonemoss alight and inhaled, closing her eyes, and opening her mind.

  Nothing came.

  No tension in the air, no echo of magic, no explosion of power. Just an expanding emptiness where she hoped her vision would be. Her throat tightened.

  I can’t do this. I can’t. What if the Trial was a mistake? What if Tamsin was wrong about me? What if I’m just a fraud destined to fail her people? What if I’m just a failure who doomed her own father to hang? She thought.

  She drew another breath, deeper this time, fighting the urge to open her eyes and accept her humiliation.

  Still…only silence.

  And then—

  A humming heat warmed suddenly against her skin. A soft vibration bloomed beneath her ribs, threading outward like a string pulled taut. Diya’s breath froze in her throat as darkness swelled behind her closed eyelids, thick and heavy, before it split, like silk tearing.

  A vision crashed into her, like a wave against the rocks.

  Not the tranquil images Rami had conjured. Not the quiet mystery Junira had promised.

  Smoke and ash. The sound of boots thundering against stone. A banner snapping in a dry wind.

  Ghanesha. Her home.

  She recognized the sloping rooftops of the Spice Quarter, now shadowed by patrols in black armor. A street vendor’s cart smashed against a wall. Children crying, armored hands dragging their families away in chains, as their homes burned. And there, at the center of it all, Arjun hovered, shielded by his strange, alien silver armor, rising like the smoke from the burning homes.

  The vision yanked her closer. No longer was she an eagle watching from above, suddenly she was one of the crying children. She staggered, gasping.

  A voice echoed through the smoke. Then Arjun’s stare fixed on her. He aimed his glowing energy weapon at her. “You can’t stop progress, little star.”

  His cruel laugh filled her head, echoing out, then he fired his devilish weapon at her.

  “No—” Diya choked, the word barely a sound as she was enveloped in blue flames.

  The vision snapped shut like an aperture closing.

  Light rushed back into the monastery chamber. Diya’s knees buckled, and she fell to the ground. Gasps rippled through the initiates.

  Junira’s veil of cerulean flowers swayed as she stepped closer, studying Diya’s face with an unreadable expression. “What did you see?”

  Diya tried to form words. Her breath shuddered out instead. The image of her home—her people suffering under Arjun’s rule—still burned behind her eyes.

  She forced herself upright.

  “I saw Ghanesha,” she whispered. “And it’s… it’s in danger. More than before. Arjun’s grip has tightened. They’re separating children from their families.”

  A hush fell so complete, that it seemed to swallow the room.

  Junira regarded her for a long moment, trying to make sense of her panicked words, then bowed her head slightly—not in dismissal, but acknowledgment.

  “A rare strength of sight,” she said quietly. “And a heavy truth to witness.”

  Diya’s hands shook.

  The vision’s final moment lingered in her mind. The knowledge that the world she had left behind was crying out for her.

  And that she couldn’t answer. At least not yet.