Chapter 4.1 The Test

Although she tried to fight it, Rowan knew it was time to unpack her belongings from the Vestiguem. She’d been hoping a new plan would present itself - one where her past would neatly fold into the future - but that hadn’t happened and she was annoyed with the boxes, like this was somehow their fault. Getting home late from the Dead End, she stubbed her big toe on a particularly heavy box, causing her to let out a loud yelp. Diane came running into Rowan’s room like she’d cut off her finger.

“What’s going on, what’s happening?” Diane said in a tone that inferred her daughter might be dead.

“I just stubbed my toe on this box, mom. It’s heavy. Can you help me move it?” Rowan asked.

“Yeah, let’s avoid any more broken toes and late night howling,” Diane said laughing to herself, she looked to Rowan only to be met with the serious, flat facial expression she was accustomed to seeing from her daughter.

“Yes, lets,” Rowan said. They bent down together and picked up the box when something small and metallic fell to the ground. Once they set the box down, Rowan searched the floor and found her Regulator pin just underneath her bed. It had bounced a great deal when it fell from the box.

“This old thing,” Rowan said showing Diane.

“You should be proud of that pin. Whether you believe it or not, it’s important, “ Diane responded.

“That was a rough day. I had an awful nightmare the night before too. I don’t think that helped the events of that day much either,” Rowan said thinking about the day she became a registered Sage. She hadn’t thought of it in a long time, it was a memory she wasn’t keen to recall. But that nightmare, she continued to have all these years later. Her mind flowed back to the day of her Sentinel Exam.

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The night before her final test at the Academy, the Sentinel Exam, Rowan dreamt she was alone in a small rowboat, drifting on a black mirror of water that stretched to an unseen horizon. The only sound was the gentle lapping of waves against the hull and the distant cry of a solitary gull. Above her, the sky was a void—no moon, no stars—only a suffocating darkness that pressed in from all sides.

She reached out and ran a trembling hand along the boat’s railing. The wood was slick and cold, as though it had been carved from ice. A shiver ran through her, and for a moment she thought she saw orange flickers reflected in the water’s surface. Leaning over the edge, she could see her reflection in the dark mirror of the water. She looked at her reflection for a moment, searching for something she was unaware of. Finally fixating on her eyes, she felt a chill race up her spine. There was mischief there. It was a familiar glint in her eyes, but there was something she didn’t trust in her reflection. Reaching down, she broke the glass surface of the water with her fingertips. Skimming it quickly, the ripples created by her fingers distorted her reflection. A sound from behind distracted her, causing her to turn suddenly. Had she not been distracted, she would have seen a white hand breach the surface of the water, missing hers by only a second or two.

The sound that had caught her attention, a low crackle, suddenly became a strong gust of wind that turned into a swirling tunnel. With only seconds of warning, the boat erupted in flames. Heat roared up around her, searing her cheeks and turning the night sky into a hellish glow. The water hissed as molten embers struck its surface, sending up plumes of steam. Rowan scrambled to her feet, heart pounding, but the deck pitched wildly. Splinters snapped under her boots. The railing singed her hand, and she recoiled, her scream swallowed by the crackling inferno.

As the flames consumed the boat, Rowan’s lungs filled with the choking scent of burning resin and smoke. She opened her mouth to call for help, but she was met only with silence. Before the boat slipped beneath the waves, Rowan sat straight up in bed, unable to breath. When she finally drew a breath, her choking had turned to a deep cough, her lungs ached.

She sat for a second trying to catch her breath. After she mustered a few controlled breaths, she felt a twisting in her stomach. Like it was filled with live worms. But today, she didn’t have time to sit in her nerves, she looked over to her alarm clock, 8:00 am glowing in blue. She was running late. This was not the morning to be late.

—-

 The Hall of Echoes loomed behind her as she twostepped down the marble corridor. Figures of Regulators from centuries past were carved into the giant columns that marked the threshold of the hallway. Rowan sometimes felt them following her with their eyes of stone. Today, she could feel them boring holes through her skin. It was always cold outside the Hall of Echoes, but the usual chilly breeze she felt while passing by the Hall was absent. Rowan felt a warm sensation on the outside of her arms as she passed the Hall this morning, likely an effect of the cold sweats Rowan was experiencing in the moment.

Outside Wren Hall’s auxiliary gym, graduates milled like prey before the kill. The hall echoes with excited chatter, whether they were taking bets on their results or when they emerged from the gym with their Regulator pins in hand, held up to the sky like they’d won an Olympic gold medal. To Rowan, it was little more than a participation trophy, every Regulator got one. It was the result that was worth celebrating.

Rowan felt a special kind of calm when she saw her friend Nelly still waiting to take her exam. She dropped her bag on the ground and sat a safe distance with her body turned toward Nelly.

“I can’t tell you what a relief it is that you’re here,” she said to Nelly excitedly.

“Oy, it feels like I’ve been here for hours,” she said while looking down at her watch. “Is that the time? Ten after nine? I’ve been here since ten to eight. Pffffft,” Nelly let out an aggravated sigh.

“Are you shitting me? I woke up at eight! I had this crazy nightmare, I must’ve turned my alarm off while I was still half-asleep,” Rowan said, slightly embarrassed at her tardiness. Nelly was always punctual, Rowan liked that about her.

“Can you believe we’re taking our Sentinel exam? I can’t tell you how done I am with all these tests. Luckily, we don’t have to study for this one,” she said to Rowan. “Which I find strange,” she went on, “that this is the test that decides our whole future. I call bullshit. We sit in a chair with those electric patch thingies on our temples like Frankenstein’s monster while they shock us.” She put her hands straight out in front of her mimicking the monster, her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth, “then based on our reaction, it’s decided for us? It’s all pomp and circumstance, if you ask me.”

“Yeah, but no one asks us,” Rowan responded, laughing. “Seriously, though, if this test decides everything – the work I’ll devote the rest of my life to – why did I kill myself studying for theory and field work for the last two months?”

“To impress mommy?” Nelly said looking sideways as if Rowan was about to punch her in the gut.

“You’re an asshole. But you’re not wrong,” Rowan responded, her chin to her chest.

“Fuckin’- a right. We take written and verbal exams to determine our class and then this blows the rest of that out of the water. Then we have to walk out of there with those dumb smiles plastered across our faces like we actually give a shit,” Nelly said pointing at a group of students who were exchanging pins. “They get just as excited about Pokémon cards.” Rowan burst into a fit of laughter.

Each student received an oblong pin featuring a polished obsidian stone set in a silver backing when they started the academy at age 12. As part of their uniform, they were required to wear their pin on the left lapel of a white button-down shirt under a green sweater vest accompanied by black slacks or a skirt. Students, of course, nixed the uniform after graduation, but their Regulator pins would be with them forever. Like a small extension of abilities, a representation of some place in the world.

After each student finished their exam, the results would burn brightly, like a welder burning an image into the stone. The symbol that developed was their destiny, or so they were told from the time they were too small to comprehend it all.

One by one they vanished inside, emerging moments later clutching regulation pins as though reborn. Each bright pin hit like a death knell in Rowan’s chest.

“BARCLAY! Rowan Barclay!” The administrator’s voice cracked like a gunshot. Every head turned. The air grew thick—heavy with expectation and something fouler.