Then.

  Silenos didn’t like these strangers, not one bit. They were all too…Smug. Thought more of themselves than they ought to have, and talked funny. It was like being lectured in cursive. They looked like him, at least. Sharing the bronze-brown skin and dark eyes of his village, but that was all they had in common. Especially now. Silenos’ village was changing before his eyes, buildings demolished and replaced with new ones, people herded around for “evaluation”.

  He was one of those people, except the strange outsiders had taken one look at him and barked something about “anomalous brilliance”. That sounded about right to him, but it’d led to his being separated from the rest of his people and dragged off somewhere else. Then walking, a lot. Walking through one building to another, shuffling onto strange birds that stayed too still and didn’t flap their wings to fly, then riding inside the bellies of those birds to be taken somewhere else. Where he’d walk again.

  There had only been one other person for company on the journey, meeting Silenos somewhere around the third bird he was ushered onto and staying with him from that point onwards. About his age of eleven, the boy was tall but reedy, seemed to quiver with every moment as if expecting the air itself to strike him and never met anyone’s eye.

  Silenos didn’t like him, found him annoying right off the bat. But he struck up a conversation, because the alternative was hours of silence.

  “What’s your name?” He asked. The boy actually shrinked back from him, not meeting his eye as he answered.

  “Juragai.” He murmured.

  “What are you doing?” Silenos demanded. “Why are you acting as if I’m about to bite you? We’re just talking.”

  The boy still didn’t meet his eye, nor did he lean forwards again. “Sorry.” He replied, still not meeting Silenos’ gaze. It cast a pulse of fury through him, left his teeth grinding, but Silenos buried the irritation and just moved his eyes ahead.

  As the journey progressed, he did get more conversation from the boy at least. He was also from a settlement conquered by this House Shaiagrazni, though his had been a more defended city. Juragai felt a stab of worry as he heard the name “Erogyn.” It was one of the more martial places in the region, home, he had heard, to at least a hundred thousand warriors sustained by magically-grown crops, and the casters to support them.

  But the way Juragai told it, they’d fallen in less than a day. Just who were these people they were heading towards, and what did they want with him?

  Silenos was to find out before long.

  The great metal bird began to descend, and Silenos was granted a look out of its window as it did. He saw an impossibility sprawling out beneath him. A city the size of a country, buildings like mountains, spires caressing the skies themselves. It was all constructed with the most bizarre architecture he’d ever seen. Impossible shapes and structures he couldn’t begin to guess at the solidity of towering over the streets, which all measured wide enough that a whale might lie across their breadth.

  The boy called Juragai and Silenos were, for once, of a mind as they saw it draw closer. Falling completely silent. This wasn’t a group of strangers they were approaching, it was a civilization of…Of Gods.

  As the bird finally stopped on the ground, they were ushered out of it and swiftly towards one of the buildings. A building Silenos realised, as he approached, was by far the tallest, measuring what he could only estimate was literally miles high. His mouth dried at the sight, hanging open, eyes wide with disbelief. A glance at Juragai showed the other boy had fallen close to catatonia.

  Of course, both of them continued walking. How could they not?

  Wide halls surrounded them within the building, displaying an infinity of wonders Silenos had no context to name, let alone understand. Great monsters that seemed frozen in place, artefacts humming and spitting sparks where they clung to a wall, works of art, grotesqueries of nightmare, every shade on the spectrum of awe seemed displayed upon the walls.

  To his shame, he found himself snaking closer to Juragai as the two of them continued on, guards shepherding them up through the building. The boy reciprocated. When they reached the stairs, a question occurred to Silenos.

  “We’re not going to the top floor are we?” He frowned.

  “You are.” One of their custodians grunted.

  “But we can’t!” Silenos frowned. “My legs will give out, it’s too high!”

  “Just walk.” The man’s voice was low, hard. He was not making a request. Silenos grimaced, and began the ascent.

  And yet, it was over in under a minute. Just a few dozen steps took Silenos to a sprawling room with transparent walls that looked out over every angle of the spectacular city, and seemed suspended above the streets below by…

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  Miles.

  He felt suddenly queasy, these people didn’t even need to obey the laws of space itself. No wonder they had faced no resistance.

  “We’re on the highest floor.” He croaked.

  “Second highest.” Juragai frowned, Silenos glanced at the boy.

  “What?”

  “S-Sorry.”

  “Just explain it, what do you mean second highest?”

  The boy looked at his feet, as if embarrassed. “It just…Is, you know? I felt the…Power that was doing whatever needed doing to send us this high so fast, and it wasn’t wrapped around the top floor.”

  Silenos glared at him. “You’re telling me you felt that from outside, when you could see the whole building?”

  He’d felt something, he admitted, but only now, inside and surrounded by it.

  “Time for talk is over.” The guard cut in. He was an ugly creature, tall and broad, flesh seemingly encased in biological armour. Silenos shut up promptly as he spoke. “Follow.”

  Of course, they followed. Silenos had always prided himself on being a strong-willed, rebellious soul. A day in the company of House Shaiagrazni had taught him better than that. Fear, apparently, would teach a person things they never even wanted to know about themselves.

  The guard took them to the first of their trials, a test of will. They held their hands over flames and retracted them only when given permission. The intent was for most to fail, and merely see how long they could obey. Silenos passed easily, he learned, more than tripling the average time. Juragai barely succeeded.

  Their next test was worse still, much worse.

  Control. Silenos was taught the basics of grasping his magic and giving it direction, then he was forced to do so on a scale of millimetres and instants. He was hurt when he failed, and hurt more when he succeeded. Pressed to a point of racking agony so great that every coherent thought was a trail in and of itself. He was closer to Juragai’s performance in this regard, able to exceed most of the tested still, but far from easily. If anything he was surprised to see how well the other boy did. Perhaps his spinelessness was not actually spine-deep. Though perhaps it was.

  More tests came, then more still. Silenos passed each one by far. Juragai passed most by a hair, failed some, and succeeded at others by a greater margin still. In the end there was only one left- the examination of magical prowess and intuition.

  It felt strange. Casters had always been a distant thing to Silenos, not known to his tiny village. Juragai seemed more comfortable with the prospect, though he himself claimed to have never even suspected himself to be countable amongst them. An impoverished child apparently, one without the resources or time needed to hone mana. Now the damage of that deprivation would be seen.

  Both of them placed their hands upon a gem of humming, unsettling power and waited. Silenos watched his stone discolour, light green hues bleeding into its glassy transparency. He waited for the entire volume to change, but it didn’t. Only a fraction, a fifth, perhaps more or less. He glanced up at the attendant, concern hitting him, but they seemed far from disapproval. Shocked, even.

  “Congratulations, prodigy.” She croaked. Silenos felt that word echo around in him.

  Prodigy.

  Apparently one fifth was more than most managed, a great deal more. He grinned. Prodigy. It was far from unfitting, and it sat with him as he glanced over to Juragai.

  And saw the boy’s own crystal was still having colour oozed into it. Crimson, rather than Silenos’ green. One fifth of it changed, then one quarter. Then, he thought, close to a third. Silenos looked to the attendant and saw pure disbelief upon their face, a tremble in their body, a blistering awe shining out from behind their eyes.

  “I…Must notify my superiors about this.” She gasped, practically sprinting away. Silenos scowled at Jurgagai when they were alone.

  “Sorry.” The boy mumbled.

  “For what?” Silenos snapped. “You didn’t do anything, I’m still special.”

  Still almost as special. Silenos tried to hide his frustration, but it probably slipped out anyway. Fortunately he wasn’t left with it to fester for long. The attendant returned, and several guards returned with her.

  “This way if you please.” She began, eyes flitting between Silenos and Juragai, face…Tight. Posture somehow wary, head dipping slightly as she spoke. If Silenos didn’t know better, he’d have assumed it was reverence he was getting from this woman. But adults weren’t reverent to children. It just wasn’t done. Was it?

  House Shaiagrazni were a strange lot…

  They followed the attendant as she led them into a smaller chamber, walls marked with odd sigils, and at a single gesture it hummed with power. Power Silenos could feel, now that he’d been inducted into at least the very basics of magic. It whipped them away. Upstairs.

  The top floor of House Shaiagrazni’s tallest tower was not as high as Silenos would have thought. It was higher. Higher by far, peaking well over any of the clouds and struck by wind currents so strong they were actually visible. He shuffled into it absently, staring out at the broad windows, the indulgent decoration, the power on display everywhere.

  Could I have this one day?

  It was a sudden thought that even he couldn’t identify the origins of, but irresistible in its promises. Perhaps he could. He’d surprised the attendant, been called a prodigy. That couldn’t happen often, right? Whatever the average was to become a Shaiagrazni caster, he had to be above it, right? Quite a bit above it. So…

  One day, perhaps he could. One day perhaps he could be amongst the most powerful beings…Anywhere, ever. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that, enticement aside. It felt too big. Too dangerous. Keep your head down and know your place, that was what he’d been taught.

  But now the people who’d taken control of his village without effort or delay were telling him his place might be very high, indeed.

  The thought was interrupted as Silenos and Juragai came to stop before a tall, bronze-skinned woman of wavy black hair and almost incandescent-pink eyes. She was quite literally the most beautiful thing- human or otherwise- he had ever seen, and she smiled.

  “Good evening, worms.” She said happily. “I am Mistress Kammani, Ancestor of the Shaiagraznian Science, Dominator of Reality and Progenitor of Arts Most Ancient, Elder of House Shaiagrazni. I will be your master from now on, teaching you both the art of Shaiagraznian magic.”

  Juragai, surprisingly, spoke first.

  “I…I don’t think I could learn-”

  “-Do not be humble.” She interrupted, sternly. “It is immoral. Now, what are your names?”

  A pause, then they both, as one, realised how awful an idea it would be to keep her waiting. They told them.

  “Silenos.” Kammani echoed. “I like your name. Well, Juragai and Silenos, prepare yourself for your studies. You are inducted aspirants of House Shaiagrazni now.”