The leaves crunched beneath Lucy's boots as she pushed through the underbrush, following the trail of broken branches and disturbed soil. The forest had grown quieter in the past few hours.
Ten minutes left.
She ducked under a low-hanging branch and froze.
Footsteps.
Not the frantic running of someone fleeing a fight. Multiple sets, moving in unison.
Lucy crouched behind a thick oak and peered through the leaves.
"What in the world..."
The clearing ahead looked like something out of a nightmare.
Dozens of students milled about in an organized chaos. They weren't fighting, they were working. Moving in pairs, collecting golden coins from dead bodies, carrying them back toward the center of the clearing like ants bringing food to their queen.
And there she sat.
Neila Shaw.
Her pristine white uniform was immaculate, not a speck of dirt. Her bright blonde hair was tied back in neat twin-tails that caught the afternoon light like spun gold.
She lounged on a crude throne made from lashed-together branches and scavenged wood, one leg crossed over the other, looking for all the world like she was attending a garden party.
"This is a borderline cartel," Lucy muttered. "She's using them like slaves."
Her fists clenched.
A boy limped forward, young, maybe fifteen, his uniform torn and bloodied, and dropped a handful of golden coins at Neila's feet. They scattered across the grass with soft, metallic clinks.
Neila stared down at him with an expression of profound boredom. "How many points did you get?"
"I-I got ten."
"Ten." Her voice was flat. "You couldn't get any more?"
"I couldn't- I mean, I tried my best. I fought as hard as I could-"
"You fucking dumbass." Neila sighed, a theatrical sound that echoed through the clearing. "I told you to steal. There's a clear goddamn difference."
The boy's shoulders hunched. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry my ass." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. "We have ten minutes left, and you've brought me ten points. What am I supposed to do with ten points?"
"Please." The boy dropped to his knees, bowing so low his forehead touched the grass. "Don't hand me over to them. I'll do anything. Anything."
She lifted her leg and pressed the heel of her pristine white boot against the back of his head, pushing his face into the dirt. Not hard enough to hurt, just hard enough to humiliate.
"Good boy," she purred. "Now go fetch me some more points before I give you up to them."
The boy scrambled to his feet and practically fled back into the trees.
Lucy had seen enough.
She stepped out from behind the oak, branches snapping beneath her boots, and walked into the clearing with her chin raised and her crimson eyes blazing.
"You're enslaving them, Neila." Her voice cut through the clearing like a blade. Students who'd been carrying coins froze mid-step. "What happened to you?" She rubbed her temples. "Actually, never mind. You haven't changed."
Neila's eyebrows rose, a slow, mocking smile spread across her face. She pointed at herself with both index fingers, adopting an expression of theatrical innocence. "Me? Enslaving them? How could you say such a thing?"
"I'm looking right at it."
"I'm not enslaving anyone, do I look like I would ever do such a thing?" Neila uncrossed her legs and leaned back in her throne, arms spreading along the armrests. "They're willingly aiding me in exchange for my protection. It's called a deal, Lucy."
Lucy's gaze swept across the clearing. The students standing at the edges, watching with hollow eyes. The boy who'd been on his knees, now limping back into the trees. The girl with the blood-crusted mouth, staring at nothing.
"This looks like an ant farm," Lucy said. "Do you really think of yourself as their queen?"
"I am their savior, I'm practically their Goddess." Neila stood, brushing imaginary dust from her uniform. "I spared their lives. I ensured they wouldn't be handed over to the government after the exam. What more could they possibly want?"
"Freedom, maybe?"
"Freedom?" Neila laughed. It was a sharp, brittle sound. "We're witches, Lucy. We're fundamentally different from humans. Our souls are stronger and we have magic. And yet-" She spread her arms wide. "-we're being controlled by them, hunted by them. The government started this. You're looking at the wrong person."
Lucy's mana flared. A crimson aura erupted around her, making the grass at her feet shrivel and the leaves on nearby trees curl.
"I'm not letting you keep them."
Neila sighed, a long, exhausted exhale. "I'm giving them purpose. Left to their own devices, they'd be drained of their energy by the government within a year. This way, they have a chance."
"A chance to be your slaves."
"A chance to survive, Lucy. I don't support slavery." Neila stepped down from her throne and walked toward Lucy, her heels sinking slightly into the soft earth. "The first lesson we're taught as witches is to be selfish, to be selfish is to let your soul grow, to let your mana increase." She stopped a few feet away and tilted her head. "You think I want to do this?"
"You're lying."
Neila's expression didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes.
"I can see through you," Lucy continued. "Every word out of your mouth is a lie. I'm not stupid enough to fall for your tricks."
Blood rippled from beneath Lucy's feet, a crimson tide that surged across the grass and wrapped around Neila's ankles, her calves, her knees. The viscous liquid hardened into chains of crystallized blood, binding Neila in place.
"Shut up already."
Boom.
Neila snapped her fingers.
The sound wasn't loud, it was sharp. A focused point of compressed air and mana that struck the blood chains dead-on. They shattered like glass, shards of crimson scattering across the clearing.
The shockwave hit Lucy square in the chest and sent her flying backward. She hit the ground hard, her vision swimming, her ears ringing.
By the time she pushed herself up, Neila was standing over her.
"Being the Walker's bitch must be really exhausting," Neila said, cracking her neck. "All that shit about goodness. Doesn't it get tiring?"
Lucy's hand curled into a fist. Blood pooled beneath her palm, dense, viscous, ready to strike.
"Shut up." She forced herself to her feet. "I don't care what you say about me, but you shouldn't be using people like tools, you shouldn't treat them like they aren't even human."
"Shouldn't I?" Neila crouched down, bringing her face level with Lucy's. Close enough that Lucy could see the flecks of silver in her blue eyes. Close enough to feel the mana radiating off her, a low, constant pressure that made Lucy's skin prickle. "Did you know that if I just let these idiots go free, they'd be picked up by the government within a week? Used as batteries until there's nothing left."
"At least they'd be free."
"Free to die?" Neila shook her head. "Some righteous freedom."
Tendrils of blood shot toward Neila's face, fast, sudden, aimed at her eyes. Neila swayed to the side, dodging each one by inches, her expression never changing.
"Is this another attempt at manipulation?" Lucy demanded.
"Manipulation implies deceit." Neila sidestepped another tendril. "I'm being completely honest. I never lie. I'm protecting them and they're ensuring my victory. That's more than the government would ever give them."
Lucy's blood arrows filled the air, dozens of them, each one sharpened to a razor's edge. She flicked her wrist, and they flew.
"Vigil Hexa."
Neila clasped her hands together. Translucent hexagons materialized around her—shimmering barriers of compressed mana that caught each blood arrow mid-flight. The arrows shattered on impact; the hexagons flickered and died in return.
One for one.
"You know," Neila said, lowering her hands, "you could have learned that spell. It's not family-locked. Anyone with decent mana control can use it." She tilted her head. "Such a shame you were never taught."
Lucy's jaw tightened. "I taught myself."
"Clearly, your control is sloppy."
Another wave of blood arrows. Another wave of hexagons. They were burning through mana now, each exchange eating away at their reserves.
"This was designed by my ancestor, Elara Shaw," Neila called out over the crackle of shattering barriers. "Back when defensive spells were slow and clunky. She streamlined the whole process."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because knowing how my barrier works makes the risk higher." Neila smiled. "And the higher the risk, the higher my mana output becomes temporarily. It's a neat little feedback loop."
"That doesn't even make sense."
"It's an Oath I made with myself."
Neila's foot surged with mana. She dashed forward, faster than Lucy could track and grabbed the side of Lucy's neck, pulling her into a brutal kick to the ribs.
Lucy hit the ground, the grass shook and her vision blurred.
When she looked up, Neila was standing over her, silhouetted against the gray sky, her twin-tails swaying in the breeze.
"I'm going to reach level ten," Neila said. "And once I do, I'm going to fix this world myself."
"Your methods are wrong." Lucy pushed herself up, blood dripping from her split lip. "Fear isn't freedom."
"Isn't it?" Neila crouched again, her blue eyes gleaming. "Your brother, Dominic. He's going to be the head of the Walker family one day. Do you think he got there by being nice? By caring about the little people?"
"I don't care about my elder brother. I care about them." Lucy gestured at the students huddled at the edges of the clearing. The ones who were watching with wide eyes and trembling hands. "They deserve better than this."
"Better?" Neila laughed. "Better than what? You don't even know them."
A spike of blood shot from behind Neila, faster than before, faster than any of Lucy's previous attacks. Neila twisted at the last second, but the spike caught her cheek, chipping off a piece of flesh.
Blood welled from the wound.
Neila touched her face, staring at the crimson on her fingertips. Her expression didn't change, but something in her posture shifted.
They circled each other, the grass flattening beneath their feet, the air growing thick with mana. The students had retreated to the edges of the clearing, pressing themselves against the trees, not wanting to be anywhere near the collision that was about to happen.
"Vigil Hexa."
Neila's hexagons materialized, dozens of them, floating around her like a protective cocoon.
Lucy raised her hand. Blood rose from the ground, not in tendrils this time, but in a wave. A crimson tide that surged toward Neila like a living thing.
The hexagons caught it, each one absorbing a portion of the wave, shattering in sequence. But there were too many hexagons, and the wave was too large. The last few hexagons held, just barely, and Neila emerged from the spray of blood with her uniform still pristine.
"You remind me of a certain someone that always followed me around, a shame I didn't see her this time, I guess she doesn't really want to see me right now."
Neila snapped her fingers.
Lucy raised her hands in preparation for the blast.
But nothing came out.
19 hertz, right at the threshold of human hearing.
Lucy felt it in her bones before she heard it in her ears. Her head began to ache. Her vision blurred. Her hands started twitching uncontrollably.
"Infrasound," Neila said, walking toward her slowly.
Lucy pressed her hands against her ears, but it didn't help. The frequency was inside her head now, rattling around her skull like a trapped bird.
"I know you despise this system too, Lucy." Neila's voice was softer now, almost gentle. "I know you hate what the government does to us. We're not so different, you and I."
"We're nothing alike."
"Aren't we?" Neila stopped a few feet away, her blue eyes searching Lucy's face. "You want to protect people. So do I. The only difference is that I'm willing to take more….risks than you are."
"You're exploiting them."
"How many times do I have to say this?"
"You expect me to trust you!? Don't you remember what you did?"
"I can't believe you're still hung up on that peasant girl, why would you care so much for a mere maid."
"She was my friend damn it".
Lucy's eyes blazed brighter, crimson bleeding into gold. The blood beneath her feet rippled and surged, forming chains that shot toward Neila's ankles, her wrists, her throat.
Neila snapped her fingers. The chains shattered.
Lucy punched her in the stomach.
Neila doubled over, the air leaving her lungs in a sharp gasp. Lucy followed up with an elbow to the back of her neck, driving her toward the ground.
Neila caught herself on one knee.
"That-" She coughed. "—was really uncalled for!"
"You started it."
"Fine," she said. "You want to do this the hard way?"
She stood.
Her mana surged.
The air grew thick and heavy, pressing against Lucy's skin like a physical weight. Neila's blue eyes blazed with an intensity that made Lucy's blood run cold, not from fear, but from the sheer pressure of her presence.
Then-
BRRRRRING.
A bell rang out across the forest, loud and clear and impossibly deep. The leaves rustled. The ground shook. And a voice echoed from the sky, amplified by magic and broadcast across the entire exam zone.
"The Entrance Exam is finally over! One hundred and thirty-three students remain. Congratulations to the top eighty, you will be accepted into Hex Academy. The remaining forty will be taken by the government for..." The voice paused. "...special purposes. The thirteen of you who didn't pass will be rejected and given a separate assignment."
Neila looked up at the sky, her blue eyes reflecting the gray afternoon light.
"You hear that?" she said. "It's over."
Lucy wiped the blood from her lips and stood up straighter. Her body ached. Her head throbbed. But she was alive.
"Tsk," she muttered.
Neila raised an eyebrow. "That's all you have to say?"
"What else is there? I can't shove my hand into your face anymore."
They stood there in the clearing, surrounded by fallen students and scattered coins, as the announcement faded into static and the forest began to stir with the sounds of students emerging from hiding.
"Well," Neila said, brushing off her uniform, "That was that."
Final Rankings
1st-Neila Shaw- 398 points
2nd-Dominic Walker- 301 points
3rd-Kira Aamon- 267 points
4th-Sarah Williams- 266 points
5th-Lucy Walker- 265 points
6th-Hoshimi Shirogane- 264 points
7th-Edward Nio- 256 points
8th- Seraphina Shaw- 253 points
9th- Aya Lin- 250 points
10th- Akari Clover- 248 points