Chapter IV

  Carina

  The second day of the assessment arrived faster than I expected.

  Today’s focus was weapon skills.

  I felt a spark of excitement when I heard that.

  Weapons were one of the areas where David and I had trained the most over the past six months. Our parents had pushed us hard, and even though it was exhausting sometimes, it had made us much stronger.

  All the apprentices gathered in one of the large training halls inside the Gifted headquarters.

  The room was enormous. Weapon racks lined the walls, filled with swords, spears, bows, and other weapons I didn’t even recognize. Fully trained Gifted stood around the room, watching us carefully.

  We were divided into groups based on our primary weapon.

  Since my main weapon was darts, I joined a group near the center of the hall.

  Our instructor stepped forward.

  “Dart positions,” she announced.

  I straightened immediately.

  The instructors began calling out position codes—each weapon had its own set of movements and stances that every trainee needed to master.

  “Position Two!”

  I shifted my stance and lifted my arm.

  “Position Five!”

  I pivoted smoothly and adjusted my aim.

  The instructors walked slowly around us, watching everything. They studied our posture, our balance, and how quickly we reacted to each command.

  It felt a little like a dance.

  Except one mistake could mean failing the assessment.

  Still, this part felt natural to me. I’d spent years practicing throwing darts at targets Dad set up in the backyard.

  Eventually the drills ended, and we were given a short break.

  As soon as we were dismissed, I spotted David across the hall and walked over.

  “How did yours go?” he asked.

  “They did position calls for darts,” I said, grinning.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  David looked at me suspiciously.

  “You look incredibly happy. What happened?”

  “I hit almost every bullseye,” I said proudly.

  His eyebrows shot up.

  “That’s amazing!”

  I shrugged, but I couldn’t hide my smile.

  “What about you?”

  “It went well,” he said. “But with swords it’s harder to tell how well you did.”

  That made sense.

  With darts or arrows, you could see exactly where you hit the target.

  Swords were different.

  Then David groaned slightly and rubbed his arm.

  “Oh right,” he said. “I still have to do my secondary weapon.”

  “What was it again?”

  “Battleaxe.”

  I winced.

  “Good luck with that.”

  He laughed.

  “Thanks.”

  The next day brought the physical assessment.

  This time, all the apprentices were gathered together again.

  In the center of the training arena stood dozens of combat dummies.

  Each of us was assigned one.

  The rules were simple.

  Defeat the dummy using only your body.

  No weapons.

  No powers.

  Just strength, speed, and skill.

  Once you defeated one dummy, another would immediately take its place. The instructors counted how many each apprentice managed to defeat.

  At first it didn’t seem too difficult.

  But these dummies were much stronger than the ones we had practiced with at home.

  Every time one fell, the next one seemed faster… or stronger.

  Soon sweat was dripping down my face.

  And this was only the first part of the test.

  After the physical assessment, we were given a long break.

  David decided to talk to some of the other apprentices, and I followed him.

  We ended up meeting several people, but three stood out the most.

  The first was a girl named Livia.

  She had the power of Water.

  She seemed calm and thoughtful, and when she practiced, small streams of water curled around her hands like living ribbons.

  Then there were Kamaron and Randall.

  They were siblings.

  Kamaron controlled Shadow, while Randall had the power of Fire.

  What surprised me the most was something we quickly discovered.

  All of us had been born to two Gifted parents.

  Gifted marriages were supposed to be extremely rare, yet somehow three couples had children around the same time.

  Maybe that wasn’t a coincidence.

  Later, we decided to practice our powers together.

  Livia stood across from me and launched a controlled blast of water toward the ground near my plants.

  To my surprise, the plants reacted immediately.

  They grew faster.

  Stronger.

  “That’s incredible,” Livia said.

  “Your water helps them grow,” I realized.

  Nearby, David was training with Kamaron and Randall.

  Small sparks of electricity flickered around his hands as he practiced directing his power more precisely.

  From what they told us, their parents had focused more on weapon training, while ours had focused more on powers.

  That gave David a slight advantage.

  He even showed them a few tricks he had learned.

  When Livia and I returned, we were both excited.

  “When we combined our powers,” I said, “they became stronger. Much stronger.”

  Livia nodded eagerly.

  “Way stronger.”

  She also told us something interesting.

  She was homeschooled.

  Her parents taught her everything—normal subjects and Gifted training. Since she didn’t attend a regular school, she had more time to practice her abilities.

  Then we decided to try something more advanced.

  Power beams.

  Beams were pure energy—light channeled directly from a Gifted’s elemental power.

  Each beam had its own color depending on the element.

  It was considered one of the most advanced abilities a Gifted could learn.

  Randall groaned.

  “Why are we even doing this?”

  Carina—me—crossed my arms.

  “This is one of the most important skills,” I said. “It’s probably going to be part of the assessment.”

  David nodded in agreement.

  “We need to train.”

  Randall sighed dramatically.

  “Okay… but it’s probably going to be really hard.”

  He wasn’t wrong.