Chapter 1 The Public Humiliation

Sisily’s POV

I thought I had every damn thing under control, but no. I really feel like shit right now.

My hands were already in the air, fingers trembling as the heat built up in my palms.

"Sadirum haxposuk sinable..." My voice rose a little louder, cracking on the last word as sweat dripped down my neck and soaked into my high velvet collar.

I had just one task. One fucking task. Cast a standard High-Flame Invocation, keep it contained inside the brass circle on the floor, and prove to the snobs in the high balconies that I wasn't a total disgrace to the Vladimir name.

Instead, the magic in my chest wasn't flowing like a nice, polite stream. It was boiling. It felt like I had swallowed a jar of live hornets, and they were tearing their way through my ribs.

"Control your breath, Candidate Vladimir," Proctor Hallow’s voice echoed across the silence of the Grand Hall. He stood ten paces back, holding his silver staff like a shield, his sharp nose turned up as if he could already smell my failure.

"I am controlling it," I gritted out through my teeth.

Liar.

Above us, sitting in the dark stone gallery, was the High Warlock Council. Dozens of clean robes, gold crests, and cold, judging eyes. Right in the middle sat my father, High Warlock Alistair Vladimir. His posture was stiff, his gloved hands resting on the gold railing. He wasn't even blinking.

My hands shook harder. The spell formula was somewhere in my head, but my brain was scrambling it. High-tier casting needed precision. It wanted math, Latin roots, and perfect focus. But my magic didn't give a fuck about math. My magic moved on instinct and temper, and right now, my temper was at an all-time high.

"Sadirum... haxposuk..." I muttered again, trying to force the energy into the neat little box the textbook swore it belonged in.

The air around my palms turned dark purple, snapping with wild sparks. The brass circle on the stone floor started to hum, the carved lines glowing a weak, flickering red.

Come on. Just stay in the damn ring.

"Focus on the structure, Sisily," my father's voice didn't carry across the hall, but I could hear it in my head anyway, heavy with that smooth, awful disappointment he used whenever I didn't act like his perfect little puppet.

The purple light in my hands spiked. The heat jumped from a warm burn to a blinding heat in half a second. My vision blurred. The hornets in my chest broke free, surging down my arms in a chaotic wave.

"Candidate Vladimir, balance the energy!" Hallow shouted, taking a sudden, panicked step back. "Balance it now!"

"I'm trying, you old bastard!" I screamed. The words tore out of my mouth before I could stop them.

The magic snapped.

A loud THUD shook the stone room. Then, the spell exploded outward, completely ignoring the brass ring. A wall of purple fire blew straight off my palms, hitting the examiner's raised wooden desk.

The thick wood split with a sound like a thunderclap. Glass bottles of test liquids shattered all at once, raining sharp pieces across the platform. The leather chair behind the desk went flying back, crashing into the stone pillar and bursting into flames.

I was thrown onto my ass, my back hitting the floorboards hard. The air was knocked out of my lungs, leaving me gasping for breath on the floor.

Smoke filled the Grand Hall—thick, dirty, and smelling terribly of burnt hair and chemicals.

I coughed hard, pushing myself up on my elbows. My hands were scraped raw, red stinging lines running across my palms where the blast had torn my skin. My hair had fallen out of its neat pins, hanging in dark, messy knots around my face.

Through the black smoke, I saw Proctor Hallow.

He hadn't been knocked down, but he looked like he had been pulled out of a fireplace. His clean white robes were covered in black ash. A blob of burnt liquid was dripping off the tip of his nose, dropping onto his shoes with a wet noise.

Shit. Shit. Shit. What the fucking hell have I done now?

Panic hit me hard. I scrambled to my feet, my knees shaking so badly I almost fell right back down. I shoved my hair out of my face, wiping my bloody palms on my skirt, and forced my mouth into the fakest, most pathetic smile I could manage.

My voice jumped way up into pure, fake noble manners. "I... I am so terribly, deeply sorry, Proctor Hallow! The air currents in the room… they… they must have messed with the spark. An unexpected shift in the air! I didn't mean…"

"Silence," Hallow rasped.

He lifted a shaking, ash-covered hand to cut me off. He wasn't shouting. That would have been better. Instead, his eyes were dead, narrowed into tiny slits of disgust as he looked down at his ruined robes, then at the burnt heap that used to be his desk.

He walked over to a small table near the wall, where a clean sheet of paper sat inside a silver frame. He picked up the iron seal, dipped it into thick red ink, and turned his head to look at me one last time.

"Sisily Vladimir," he said, his voice loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. "Lacking control. Lacking discipline. Dangerous to the Arcane Order."

Stamp.

He brought the iron stamp down hard. The magic in the red ink flashed, burning the word REJECTED in thick, smoking letters straight through the paper.

The sound of that stamp felt like a punch to my chest. My breath caught in my throat. The degree was gone. The title was gone. Everything I had spent the last four years trying to force myself to do was lying in a pile of black ash on the floor.

Quiet whispers spread through the upper balconies. Slowly, against every smart instinct I had left, I tilted my head up and looked at the high gallery.

The other warlocks were looking away, whispering behind their long sleeves or shaking their heads. But not my father.

High Warlock Vladimir stood alone at the center railing. He didn't look angry. He didn't look outraged. His face was completely smooth. But his eyes were full of something much worse. Ashamed. Disgusted that his bloodline had produced something so broken.

He didn't say a single word. He just leaned forward, rested his gloved fingers on the gold bar, and tapped his index finger twice against the metal.

Tap. Tap.

The exact same thing he did to a servant who spilled wine before having them dragged away.

He turned his back on me, his long cloak swinging behind him, and walked out of the hall without looking back once.

My fists squeezed so tightly at my sides that my short nails bit straight through the raw cuts on my palms, drawing fresh drops of blood. Heat rushed up my neck, burning away the cold fear in my stomach.

He fucking deserved it, I thought, my heart hammering in my ears as I stared up at the empty spot where he had just been standing. He and his stupid, perfect council deserve to get blown to pieces.

I looked down at my burnt boots, surrounded by broken glass and scorched wood. The heavy doors at the back of the hall creaked open, and two guards stepped inside to walk me out of the building like trash.

I swallowed down the bitter taste of ash and took a shaky breath.

Damn it... I'm completely done.