RUST AND AETHER - The Stone Eggs of Affinity
The noon sun hung over
The noon sun hung over
Platform 1 like a hot iron plate, baking the dust until it tasted like crushed gravel and stale copper.At the center of the flagstones stood six oval monoliths.
They didn’t look like eggs so much as ancient, petrified dragon hearts—grey, smooth, buried waist-deep in iron rings bolted directly into the mountain’s bedrock.
They felt dead.
But everyone in the forty-thousand-strong crowd knew better.
Touch one with even a spark of elemental latent blood, and the mountain would scream it back at the sky.Barnaby
Jakes—the heavy-set inspector whom the older disciples called “The
Bear”—leaned his broad back against a wooden post, squinting through the glare.
His leather coat smelled of stale tobacco and salt pork.
He didn’t look at the candidates; he looked at his parchment, flicking ink off his quill with a thick thumb.”Drake!” Barnaby barked, his voice sounding like two millstones grinding together. “Gideon
Get up here and stop preening!”A tall, broad-shouldered youth detached himself from the front rank of the elite line.
Gideon wore a tailored coat of golden-yellow silk, embroidered with white tiger crests that caught the glare of the noon sun.
He didn’t walk so much as stomp onto the platform, boots ringing against the granite with heavy confidence.”Watch carefully, scrap-eaters,” Gideon muttered toward the lower-class queue, a smug curve on his lips.He thrust his right hand onto the first stone—the
Egg.For a second, nothing happened.
Then, deep beneath the platform, a iron gear seemed to catch.Clang.A pillar of pure, razor-sharp golden light blasted upward from the stone, tearing through the heat haze.
It rocketed twenty, thirty, fifty meters into the sky, singing the mountain air until it hummed like a plucked wire.
A sharp breeze whipped outward, cutting small nicks into the sleeves of the nearby proctors.”Metal element,” Barnaby drawled, not even bothering to look up as he scratched his feather across the scroll. “Super-A Grade.
Fifty-meter beam.
Next!”The crowd exhaled in a collective, breathless gasp.
Fifty meters on a primary stone was staggering—most noble heirs barely nudged fifteen.
Gideon smirked, tossing his chin high as he stepped back, rolling his knuckles.”Sterling!
Sterling!” Barnaby grunted.The crowd stirred again, but the tone shifted from awed mutters to soft, reverent hushes.
Fiona stepped past
Gideon without offering him so much as a glance.
Her crisp blue robes swished gracefully against her ankles, untouched by the dust that clung to everyone else.
She looked cool, almost unnaturally serene under the blistering heat.She paused before the third stone—the
Egg—and laid three long, porcelain fingers against its dull surface.The stone didn’t just ignite; it breathed.A sixty-meter column of cerulean light erupted skyward, cascading outward at the top into a shimmering curtain of cool, misty vapor.
A wave of refreshing moisture washed over the stifling platform, instantly dropping the temperature by ten degrees.
The sunlight caught the blue mist, throwing rainbow arcs across the front rows of the audience.”Water element,” Barnaby announced, his eyes lingering on the blue light for a fraction of a second before he spat a streak of brown tobacco juice onto the flags. “Super-A Grade.
Sixty meters.
Move along, girl.”Fiona withdrew her fingers, her face a tranquil mask, though her chest swelled slightly under her pale blue bodice.
As she turned back toward the staging ring, her gaze brushed over the crowd of ragged, sweat-drenched applicants waiting near the rear.
It wasn’t hatred in her eyes—it was absolute, casual indifference.
To her, they were simply part of the mountain’s furniture.”Number 9989!” Barnaby’s voice rasped out. “Julian
Finch!”Silence trickled through the front ranks, followed by a ripple of dry snickers.”Finch?
Isn’t that the sweeper kid from the
Dregs?” “The one who works the trash cliffs?
Why’s he wearing an iron scrap on his back?” “Look at his tunic—it’s scrubbed so thin you can see his collarbone!”Julian paid the murmurs no mind as he walked up the low stone steps.
The heavy iron sword strapped to his back thumped rhythmically against his spine.
His hemp tunic was clean—washed in the cold mountain runoff that morning—but frayed at the wrists, the coarse cloth clinging to his chest in the noon heat.In his mind,
Kaelen gave a snort of utter disdain. ‘Listen to these low-grade flies buzzing, kid.
Put your hand on the stone and let them taste what a real framework looks like.”Careful, boy,’ Mistress
Vanya’s voice chimed in, smooth and laced with dangerous humor. ‘Don’t burst the stone open.
We don’t want to blow up the fat proctor.’Julian ignored both of them, drawing a steady breath of ozone-tinged air.
He stepped up to the first stone—the
Egg—and laid his bare palm flat against its grey surface.The stone remained stone.
Dead.Not a single spark of gold.
Nothing.”Metal:
Zero,” Barnaby announced drily.A chuckle broke out near the front row of the noble section.
Julian didn’t pause.
He moved smoothly to the second stone—Wood.
He pressed his hand down.Pitch blackness.
The stone sat under his palm like a lump of cold coal.”Wood:
Zero.”The chuckles turned into open, unrestrained laughter.”Is he broken?” a boy in a red velvet tunic jeered. “Did he think sweeping dust qualifies him for
Aether?”Julian moved to the third stone—Water.
The stone that
Fiona had just turned into a sixty-meter fountain of light.
He laid his palm against it.Nothing.
The grey surface seemed to swallow the light around it, remaining black, cold, and utterly lifeless.”Water:
Zero.””Hey, scrap-boy!” someone shouted from the back. “Try touching the trash bin!
Maybe you’ve got an affinity for filth!”Julian felt the sweat trickling down the back of his neck, but his pulse stayed steady.
He took two steps to the fourth stone—Fire—and pushed his palm against the curved rock.Darkness.
Not even a trail of smoke.”Fire:
Zero.”By the time
Julian reached the fifth stone—Earth—the laughter had become a roaring wave of social execution.
Drake was shaking his head, a disdainful smirk plastered across his face.
Sterling hadn’t even stayed to watch; she was already walking toward the higher resting pavilion, her back turned to the platform.Julian placed his hand on the
Egg.The stone remained pitch black.
Five stones.
Five absolute, pitch-black duds.”Earth:
Zero,” Barnaby barked out, letting out a long, weary sigh as he prepared to cross
Julian’s name off the parchment with a single, brutal slash of red ink. “Alright, kid, that’s enough.
You’re a total blank.
Five duds in a row.
Step off the platform and clear the way for someone who actually has blood in their veins.”