The moment after my victory, the notion that I could split the mountains that surrounded me in half if I truly willed it struck me.

  If I could do what I had just done, there was nothing beyond my limits.

  Sam appeared on the snowy riverbank to my left. I could hear the low rumble of his voice over the low roar of the river and knew he was speaking to me, but his words did not make sense to my ears.

  I stumbled out of the shallow water towards him, the charms clutched in my right hand like I would die if I let them go. The snow under my feet was not trampled or slick like it had been at the deeps. It rose to my knees with every footfall and I carved two Autumn sized tracks straight through it.

  “Sam! Look at me! Who is the petulant child now?" I called down to my familiar as I strode past him. Whipping my left arm out to my side, I tore the end of my bright blue cord from the rocky riverbed behind me and sent it rolling out over the snow. When it stopped, I flicked my wrist forward and sent my will coiling through it.

  With an audible crack when it met its end, it bit the trunk of an evergreen in front of me and tore into its wood like it was made of thin paper. Snow came crashing down like a burst bag of flour and splinters of bark pelted the surrounding ground.

  “My lady you-“ Sam growled as he threw his big blue body against my still wet legs.

  I drew my arm back and snapped it forward again, Sam's words lost on me in my motion.

  Rolling my wrist outwards and taking long steps forward, it snaked towards the tree for a second time.

  The tip of it did not deal another explosive blow to the trunk or send another plume of snow shaking down from the partially uncovered branches.

  It wrapped once, twice, almost three times around it and I pulled it tight into the wound I had already made.

  "Samsara, I have decided that I no longer enjoy this tree where it stands. I think I will move it." I said and threw all of my weight back to fell the then naked evergreen.

  It was I who was felled.

  The tree moved so little and I pulled so hard, that all I managed to do was bring myself to my knees.

  "My lady." Sam growled again from my side.

  I shook my way back to my feet and reached inside myself for my aura.

  I wanted it to fall and it hadn't.

  That was a slight so devious that If I lived for a thousand years, I could not forgive it.

  Cold, sharp like the taste of blood, as bright a blue as I had ever seen, my new found color crystalized with my will and pressed against the seals that ringed my flesh.

  Through the channel in my left palm, I coursed ever more power through my cord and slowly pulled it taught once again.

  The blue grew brighter from my hand, down the length of my working, and through the coils around the tree. It was so brilliant, I could not look at it for more than a moment without the glowing shape hanging in my eyes when I turned away.

  I would have what I wanted. The tree would fall purely because I wished it to. I would not be denied.

  A slow swell of sharp cracks, like the gradual downpour of a sudden rain, came from the tree as my cord tightened around it. The tearing trunk split from the weight of its branches and the evergreen crashed back into the waiting arms of its still snowy brethren.

  Powdery white havoc bloomed in the forest near The River Eae.

  A great cloud of disturbed snow hung clean against the mottled grey sky. The arrogant tree that had so foolishly defied me took a second and half of the branches of another down with it. With an impact so loud that it echoed off the mountains, my wooden enemy hit the ground and was defeated.

  My bright blue cord shone through it all, my will made manifest.

  "Victory!" I shouted as I threw my arms straight up in celebration and laughed. The mountain peak closest to me needed to find a way to move before I reached it or it would suffer the same falling fate.

  I turned to look at my familiar, hoping that he would deem the very difficult thing I had just done worthy of a compliment.

  I hated to admit it, even to myself, but the few times I had earned praise from him had left much too great a mark on me.

  The big blue cat had turned his back and was slinking away through the trees that had not earned my ire.

  “Samsara! Stop!” I shouted, my words laced with my power.

  How dare he not pay attention to me.

  As if one of the lich's horrid hand horrors had petrified him with their putrid black breath once again, he became utterly still mid step and tipped over.

  Before I could command him to return to me and to praise me for what he had just witnessed, I was snatched from where I stood and dragged down into the snow.

  As if I weighed nothing at all, two hands picked me up under my arms and brought me to a tree on the edge of the cloud of snow. They sat me ass first onto the snow, the hem of my thin white dress too short to cover me, and pressed my back against the trunk.

  A familiar face appeared in front of me.

  He had one white eye. A leather patch concealed the other save for the ends of the wicked scar that marred it. Stark white hair hung down over the shoulders of his black robes and the hilts of his black and white swords jutted out from his hip.

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  “Shhh.” My guard hushed me with a finger pressed against his lips.

  “Unhand me!” I shouted as I began coiling my cord around my wrist as quick as I could.

  “Your glamor has faded. I do not understand what you have just done, but you must not be seen like this.” Alexei said simply, his posture relaxed and his voice calm.

  "Oh." I stopped my coiling.

  I sat the silver moons on the ground beside me and brought the ends of my hair into my sight with my free hand.

  None of the black that should have been there, was.

  In its place was my natural, glamorless, red. The seal on my palm showed all nine of it's colors and I knew my features had returned to my face.

  Somehow, I had passed the trial.

  I had done all I could do to be accepted into Lun Arcanicil.

  None of that would matter if every single maiden and precept near The River Eae learned that I was not who I said I was.

  I am Ire Ap Viven. My Mother is dead. I have never known my father. My hair is black and I could not pick myself out of a crowd if my life depended on it. I thought to myself as I closed my eyes and brought my power to my face.

  The sound of someone running towards us through the snow found its way to my ears and I looked up to see Precept Jasna looking down at me with wide eyes.

  Alexei raised his finger to his lips for a second time. "Shhh. Speak of this to no one, not even Cherith."

  The downy haired sorceress met my guards eyes and nodded, the blue feather atop her black hair almost glowing as disturbed snow settled around it.

  "Forget what you have seen. It is better for you if you do not know." Alexei spoke again.

  Precept Jasna nodded and turned away from us.

  I closed my eyes again and did not open them until I was certain I was no longer myself. Three more times I repeated the thoughts. I dulled and darkened every part of me until all that was left was Ire.

  "Call for her." Alexei said after peering down at me with his single pale eye for a long moment. He stood and walked backwards from where he had placed me, one hand resting on the hilt of his white sword.

  Most of the snow I had stirred up had settled. The white plumes no longer filled the space between the evergreens. Even without the obscuring wreckage, the wolfish man disappeared.

  One second, he was there.

  I blinked.

  He was gone, leaving nothing but his footprints in the snow as proof that he had ever been there at all.

  “Here, Shanti!” Precept Jasna called and waved.

  "Hey." I said, looking up at her and rolling the fingers of my left hand against my end of my bright blue cord.

  She looked down at me. "Yes?"

  "Aren't you glad I didn't listen to you?" I asked and felt a smile come across my face. I took the silver charms back into my hand and squeezed them until the points of the crescents dug into my palm.

  She gave me nothing in response but the roll of her eyes.

  Precept Shanti came into my sight, her hands shoved into one of the near infinite pockets of her overcoat. Her icy blue scarf covered her face and she pulled it down as she lowered herself to the snow beside me.

  “I thought," A yawn so consuming that she almost fell backwards took her. When it was done, she ran her hands through the messy curls of her hair and gave herself a small slap on the cheek. "Sorry. I thought we were all done for the year. Has your aura ever had color before?"

  "Never." I lied. It had never had the color that it did then, but she could not know that.

  "Well, we are happy you get to be with us. Aren't we, Jasna?" Precept Shanti asked.

  "Overjoyed." Jasna sighed. She had turned her back to us and was looking towards where Alexei had vanished.

  Precept Shanti's half lidded eyes looked over the destruction I had brought to the mountain forest and let out a lazy chuckle. "She seems strong. She'll be in your class before you know it."

  "Doubtful." Precept Jasna sighed again.

  "You can let go now, Maiden Ire. You’ve done enough and holding it any longer will only make it worse.” Shanti said as she patted my knee with her coat sleeve covered hand.

  “Make what worse?” I asked, squeezing my cord and the charms in each of my hands as tightly as I could. I had worked so hard for both, why would I let them go?

  "You're afterglow. You've felt the loss after using your aura before, yes? It gets worse once you have found your color," She said, her hands finding their way back into her pockets. "That's why I’m here. I’m going to help you through it, but we cannot begin before you let go.”

  “What happens after I do?” I asked for far more reasons than Precept Shanti knew.

  She answered with the things she thought I wanted to know and an easy smile. “Jasna and I will take you back to camp and I will see you through your sorrow. Once you are yourself again, we return to Lun Arcanicil. You will have a few days to become settled. There will be the new moon ball for you and your sisters. Then your journey as an underwitch will truly begin.”

  With all that I was, I hoped it would be that simple.

  The precepts did not know because she could not know, but I was not inexperienced when it came to the after effects of using my power.

  I did not have my necklace with the tiny glass vial that held Glim's dust and a lock of Anna's hair. Unlike Maiden Tana, I had followed the instructions for the trial to the letter of the letter. Anna was hopefully tucked away in our little shack. If she had not gotten bored, she was probably reading by the stove and wondering when I would return.

  Both were far beyond my reach.

  I had never done quite as much with my power as I had during my assault on the arrogant tree.

  The loss and afterglow that came for would be one of the worst I had felt.

  If I stayed on the ground and kept the cold that was creeping back to life through my numbness close at hand, maybe I could keep myself under control. If I could stay on the temper tantrum side of my afterglows and avoid the sinking my teeth into the nearest throat side, all would be well.

  With a heavy sigh, I let my focus slip away from me and lost touch with the cold place I had created in my soul.

  The end of my cord crumbled to dust in my hand. It slipped through my empty fingers and glittered atop the white snow. From my hand, the coils I had wound around my wrist collapsed and piled into a knuckle deep mound. Like the fuse of one of Adrian's fireworks, my cord fell away in the same shape it had been laying as I withdrew my will from it.

  I watched as my power turned into bright blue line of dust that snaked across the disturbed snow it had created

  In all of my life that I could remember, I had only ever seen one or two things that were more beautiful.

  When the tapered end of it joined the rest, the loss that took me came quick and strong.

  My head snapped back weakly. If it had not been for Shanti moving more quickly than I would have thought her capable of doing, it would have been the trunk that I hit instead of her pocket padded sleeve.

  "There we go," She said through a yawn. "You've done enough."

  Both precepts watched me as I sat silently and waited for the rage of my afterglow to take me. No matter how weak I felt from the loss, I had to stay in control if I did not want to hurt them.

  The rage never came

  There was no heat of anger or sudden lashing out. I did not ball my fists or stamp my feet. No one's throat got torn out.

  In its place came a weight so heavy that it settled over my heart and shattered it like thin ice.

  A sudden sob racked my chest.

  I was sinking.

  I was sinking beneath the surface of the snow and would be swallowed by the ground underneath me.

  I began to cry.

  I began to cry and knew that I would never stop again.