Jansu's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

The day Jansu turned fourteen, the academy handed him a graduation trial no other student would ever face. He read the scroll twice at his own doorstep, a small shrine of pale stone that glowed under the moon. Flowers spilled from clay pots around the steps. Inside, his ledger tracked one dream: rise from initiate to disciple, then to archon, and one day rule Skylian. He would build a kingdom where wrongdoers feared him too much to sin. But the scroll named three trials for him. Every other student faced one. He found the old man tending a strange tree behind the shrine grounds. Its bark burned with shifting colors, and tiny flowers flashed like sparks before vanishing. Aldric Thornweave had once served as court mage, before the academy pushed him out. Now he pruned dead branches with steady hands. "They gave me three," Jansu said. He held out the scroll. "The council did this because of what I am. Because I have no family name to protect me." Aldric did not look up. "They gave you three because they are afraid of you already." He cut a branch. It bled bright sap. "Good. Fear works both ways, boy." "I want to pass. Not fight the whole council." "Then pass in a way they cannot erase." The old mage turned. His glasses caught the moonlight. "The trials test essence, will, and control. They expect you to fail the third. Every student channels through the academy's stones. You will not." Jansu frowned. "I have no other source." Aldric tapped the glowing tree. "This drinks from the ground here. So does the shrine. So do you, if you stop begging their permission." He pressed two fingers to Jansu's golden armband. Warmth spread up the boy's arm. "Draw from the land. Not their altars. Then they cannot cut you off mid-trial." The trials came at dawn. Jansu passed the first with clean essence and the second by refusing to yield. For the third, the council severed the flow from every stone. The other students would have crumbled. Jansu knelt, pressed his scythe blade into the soil, and pulled power straight from the earth. Light poured up the shaft. He rose and finished the working while the council watched, silent and pale. He graduated an initiate. But the trial changed everything. The council had seen a fourteen-year-old bend the land without their stones. Now they whispered his name in the halls, and not with pride. That night Aldric met him at the shrine steps. "You won," the old man said. "And you frightened them. They will not let an initiate like you climb quietly." Jansu looked at his scythe, still warm. "Then let them watch me climb loud." "They already sent word," Aldric said. "A senior disciple will challenge you tomorrow. To put you back in your place."