Regan froze when a centipede crawled out of a crack in the wall, but in an instant, hunger out weighed her fear. Quietly, Regan toed across her chamber, weaving between furniture and loose clothes. Her chamber was more like a prison than a room: gray walls coated with cracks and mold, twelve identical bunk beds squashed together to fit the most children in the least space, and iron bars covering the windows. Those iron bars were studier than the entire building.
In the kingdom of Scaldril, if you want to know how prosperous an area is, just look at how flammable its buildings are. At the heart of the capital, Castle Arragon was constructed entirely of hydra glass, partly to ward off dragon attacks, mostly to ensure the high nobility never suffered long without a shiny surface to admire their in-bred reflections. Half a mile away, the stone buildings began, saved for a slightly less intolerable class of people – the merchants, doctors, and clergies. Meanwhile, Regan lived on the outskirts of the city wall, in a district called the burrow.
The burrow was populated by peasants and serfs, and its wooden buildings rattled against each other with every breath of wind. It was the kingdom's most populated district, and it grew hotter and more cramped with each passing day, especially during the summer months. But even though the heat was as scalding and unforgiving as its people, the burrow loved summer above all other seasons. It meant the qualifying tournament for the Blood Moon Festival would begin.
Silently, Regan crouched, lowering herself to the centipede's level. Just as she lunged, it darted back into the crack. Regan's eyes narrowed to slits. She would need some bait to draw the centipede out. That was how Iris found Regan, raving about how delicious her fingers tasted as she wiggled them through the crack.
"Regan!" Iris said. Regan had only met Iris a few months ago, after Iris' mother became too sick to care for her. Since then, they have become fast friends. "It's almost eight!"
Regan jerked away from the centipede, realizing she and Iris were the only ones left in the chamber. If they missed headcount, Miss Agnes would kill them. Or worse, refuse to serve them breakfast. The girls hurried out, but the other orphans weren't in the kitchen. They were clustered on the stairwell, sticking their heads through the railing to peak at the doorway. A strange woman was talking to Miss Agnes. While Miss Agnes was short and squat, her dress eaten by moths and dust, the woman was tall and graceful, and her long, bright gown looked as if it had come straight from the tailor's.
"Is there anywhere we can get some privacy?" the woman said. The orphans groaned quietly when they heard her accent. It was polished with the crisp inflections of the capital, a stark contrast to the guttural tones used in the burrow. Obviously, adoption wasn't on the table. No one from the capital wanted some dusty street rat. And no dusty street rat escaped the burrow, the endless cycle of poverty. Once you were born there, you were stuck for life, from womb to tomb.
"Only the kitchen, but the children are supposed to eat soon," Miss Agnes replied.
"How many nine-year-olds do you have?"
"Three."
"Just three? The DRA will be over before the children get hungry."
"It's the DRA," the orphans echoed among each other, along with 'Divine', 'dragons', and 'no chance in hell'.
Technically, everyone had two chances in their lifetime to score a place in the Blood Moon Festival. Once, at eighteen years old, by winning the qualifying tournament. But more often than not, victors of the qualifying tournament died within seconds of entering the Blood Moon Festival. To have any shot at surviving, much less bonding with a dragon, competitors had to start young and dedicate their childhoods to studying combat, dragons, and the Divine. That was why the second entryway had far more promising prospects: at nine years old, pass the Divine Readiness Assessment. Court officials tested every nine-year-old in the kingdom, and if they had high enough levels of Divine, a carriage whisked them away to begin training in the capital.
Suddenly, Miss Agnes turned to the stairs. The orphans ducked out of view, clapping their hands over their mouths. "Elice! Iris! Marcus!" Miss Agnes shouted. "Come down here!"
Three children sheepishly emerged from their hiding places. The official held the kitchen door open for them but didn't spare a glance their way. She stared out the window, tapping her foot, no doubt counting the seconds until she could test one of the nicer districts – a district where the children had a chance of passing the DRA. The Divine was like money. Hard to acquire unless you're born with it, and you don't live in the burrow if you had it.
Someone pinched Regan's shoulder. Regan turned around to find Angelo glaring down at her. He was the oldest orphan at fifteen, and his parents had left him a small inheritance, just enough to buy a pair of spectacles. Having your own possession was a novelty in the orphanage. The rest of them had nothing to call their own, not even the clothes on their backs, which had seen three or for previous owners before ever touching their skin.
"Why are you starin' for?" Angelo said with a sneer. He had failed his DRA six years ago and still made it everyone else's problem.
"I'm not," Regan muttered, loosening her grip from the railing.
"You don't actually think you have a chance next year, do you?"
"'Course not."
"The Divine is valuable. Your parents wouldn't have thrown you away if you had any."
"They didn't throw me away," Regan said.
"Then what happened to them? Why are you here, Regan Black?" Angelo put special emphasis on her name. He knew how the caretakers had chosen it: Regan was the street she was discovered on as a babe, and Black was the default given to all orphans, bastards, and unclaimed children. But just because she was unclaimed didn't mean she was unwanted. There were a hundred other reasons someone could lose their child.
"They didn't throw me away," Regan snapped, with an edge to her voice now.
Angelo only smirked, as if her anger proved his point.
That night, as the other orphans crawled into bed, Regan and Iris curled on their sides, facing each other. "What was it like?" Regan whispered. "Was it scary?"
Iris shook her head. "The official pulled out a book – The Complete History of Scaldril – and ripped the first page out. Then she told us to lift the paper above our heads without touching it. So Marcus started huffing and puffing. 'It moved without me touching it,' he said, 'put me in the Blood Moon Festival.' Then we all had to stand against the wall in silence while the lady glared daggers at us."
"And the whole time," Marcus muttered from the bed over. "All I did was wonder which duke she murdered to be assigned the slum rats of Skid Row."
"How were you supposed to make the book move?" Regan said.
Iris binked. "Huh?"
"I mean—" Regan stumbled over her words, flushing. She should have worked the question into the conversation better, made it look like the thought had just occurred to her. In reality, it had been eating away at her all day. "Did she give you any instructions on how to do it? I'm not asking for any particular reason. I'm just curious, is all."
Iris' lips curved. "You're dying to try it, aren't you?"
"No!"
Iris shot her a knowing glance.
"Maybe," Regan relented.
"The lady said some stuff about a third hand. To reach for the paper with our real hands, but then use our third hand to reach from a well deep inside our gut."
"Like this?" Regan said, extending her hands. She didn't hear Iris' response. She was too busy searching for the well, the third hand, or whatever mystical crap would get her the hell out of the burrow. For a moment, it was useless, like feeling your way through the dark without any clue what you're searching for. But then, Regan sensed that she found something, as if she wanted it so badly she wished it into reality. Suddenly, the pillow lying between Regan and Iris twitched.
Regan turned to Iris, her eyes wide. "You did that," Regan accused.
Iris held up her hands, proving she wasn't moving the pillow. The pillow twitched again. Regan's mouth fell open. She had tried tapping into the Divine as a spur of the moment what-if, like jumping high to see if you can fly, or picking up a twig and pretending to be a knight. Never in a million years had she actually expected it to –
Iris yanked off the bed sheet, revealing that she had the pillow sandwiched between her thighs, using her legs to move it. Iris burst into a fit of giggles, and before Regan knew it, she was laughing, too.
"Go to bed!" Angelo shouted from the other side of the room. He grabbed a loose button off the ground and hurled it at them. Iris dove under her covers. Regan threw a hand up to protect her face, and the button froze mid-air. It hung ten feet off the ground as if suspended from the ceiling by an invisible string. The orphans rose out of their beds, gasping. Angelo stumbled back, his face the color of spoiled milk.
"Ghost!" Iris shrieked.
"No, you fop," Marcus said, pointing at Regan. Regan had frozen in shock. Black had flooded into her eyes, swallowing the whites whole, and her palm was splayed out, facing the floating button. "It's her. Regan has Divine."
There was a beat of stunned silence. Then all fifteen orphans scrambled out of bed, flooding Regan with questions. How long have you been Divine? Really? How could you not know until now? Can you pass the DRA? Will you be whisked away to the capital? Trade your life in the slums for a shot at greatness? Regan answered each question with the same three words. I don't know.
"Can we call the official back?" Elice said. "Maybe she could give Regan the test a year early."
Angelo scoffed. "The official's long gone. She couldn't book it out of the burrow fast enough."
Marcus perked up. "I know! We have a copy of the book in the cellar. Regan can try to lift the page now, and then we'll know if she'll pass when the time comes."
The Complete History of Scaldril was one of the most popular books in the kingdom, put in every orphanage and publicly owned building, along with The Nine Holy Tenets and Rise of Aaragon the Great. The orphans tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to wake Miss Agnes. The cellar door creaked as Marcus opened it, and his candle illuminated a small, cramped room. A bookshelf was pushed against the back wall, empty except for a few books, medical aid, and cleanware. Marcus pulled The Complete History of Scaldril off the shelf, blowing a fine layer of dust and cobwebs off the cover. But before he could rip the first page out, Angelo stopped him.
"What are you doing?" Angelo said.
Marcus raised his brows, surprised Angelo even had to ask."Ripping a page out?"
"That's just the first round, to weed out the weaklings. Once you get the first page over your head, the official makes you do a hundred, and then the whole book. But since this is only Regan's second time using the Divine, I don't think it's fair to make her do all that extra work, do you? What if she tries herself out?"
Marcus' grip loosened from the page. "I suppose not..."
"Be more considerate next time," Angelo said, yanking the book out of Marcus' hands and placing it in front of Regan's feet. He caught Regan's eye, a smile playing over his lips. "Good luck."
The orphans formed a circle around Regan, quietly chanting her name. But Regan did not move. She stared at the book, her face pale, her hands hanging useless by her sides. What if catching the button had been a fluke? What if the next time she reached for the well, she found nothing? From across the circle, Iris shot her a reassuring smile. You got this, she mouthed.
Regan swallowed her nerves and shut her eyes, thinking about what Iris told her. Search deep inside yourself for that well, that ticket out. When Regan opened her eyes, black had swallowed the whites whole. The orphans ooed and awed. Arne started to clap, only for Angelo to cuff him on the back of his head. Glaring, Angelo held a finger to his lips and pointed at the door. Miss Agnes would bust through at any second if they got too loud.
A little more confident now, Regan reached for the book, both with her hand and her mind. When her Divine wrapped around the book, it was the strangest feeling. There were supposed to be only five senses, but the Divine created a whole new category. Indescribably strange, yet not in a bad way. Despite Angelo's warnings, the orphans' whispered chants grew louder as the book twitched and slowly rose.
At an inch off the ground, Regan gritted her teeth, her whole arm shaking uncontrollably. The Complete History of Scaldril was much harder to move than a button. It was thick as a brick and twice as heavy. The orphans exchanged wary glances among themselves. The book was nowhere near her head, and Regan was already sweating. At this rate, there was no way she would pass the DRA. Sure enough, as soon as the book rose above her ankles, Regan lost control of her wrist. The bone snapped back with a pop, and the searing pain rocking up her arm was bad, but the sight of the book falling stung a thousand times worse.
All the cheering died out. The orphans filed out of the cellar, offering Regan pats on the back and nice-tries on the way out. Soon, it was just Regan and Iris. Regan still had not moved away from the book, nor taken her eyes off the cover.
"Regan?" Iris said in a small voice. "Please don't be upset. I know it's disappointing, but–"
Regan ripped a page out of the book.
"Regan!" Iris gasped.
Regan turned around, and Iris stopped short, stunned by the look on her face. Regan was grinning ear to ear, her eyes dancing. "I'm not upset," Regan said. "This is the best day of my life. I still have a year until I take the DRA. I'll start small, lifting a page over my head, and then I'll add a few more each day until I can lift the whole book."
Iris' face lit up. "That's brilliant!"
"Shhh," Regan hissed, sending a nervous look at the door.
Iris giggled. "The next time the official comes, you're going to make The Complete History of Scaldril run laps around her."
"Shhh," Regan repeated. But now she was smiling too.
"Promise you'll come back and visit after they take you to the capital."
"Visit? No way. I'll take you with me, and we'll rent a place."
"Rent?" Iris echoed, her brows raising. "You'll be rich, stupid. Buy it."
"Maybe a mud hut..."
Iris shook Regan's shoulders, trying to shake some sense into her. "Buy a cottage. A nice cottage."
Regan grinned, catching onto Iris' enthusiasm. "Why stop there? Let's get a house."
"A manor!"
"A villa!"
"A castle!"