The official looked at Aldric for the first time.
Not the way he had looked at the other children — a glance, a mark in the ledger, a name already forgotten. This time the man's eyes stayed. He studied Aldric's face with something that was not quite warmth but was no longer indifference. Then he looked past him, to the family standing behind.
"Your son?" he asked.
Tomas stepped forward. "Mine." His voice was steady, but Aldric heard the tightness underneath it.
The official nodded. He set down his quill and turned in his seat to face them properly — a small thing, but it changed the way the air felt around the table. He was no longer working through a list. He was speaking to people.
"The Aether Stone confirms magical aptitude," he said. His tone had shifted. Still measured, still official, but the edges had softened. "It tells us your son carries the ability to use magic. It does not tell us what kind. For that, he'll need a full assessment at the regional testing centre in Cresthill."
Maren's hand found Aldric's shoulder. She did not squeeze. She just held on.
"What happens at Cresthill?" Tomas asked.
"They use a different set of tools — crystals designed to identify which school of magic the aptitude belongs to, and which branch or element within that school." The official reached into his coat and drew out a folded sheet of paper, sealed with a circle of dark wax. "This letter grants your son access to the full assessment. Present it at the testing centre. They'll be expecting someone from this circuit."
He held the letter out. Tomas took it carefully, as though it weighed more than paper should.
The official looked at Aldric again. Then at Maren. Then at Tomas, holding the letter with both hands.
"I know this is sudden," he said. His voice was quieter now. Not gentle — he was not a gentle man — but there was something in it that had not been there when he rode into the village that morning. "But there is nothing to fear. The assessment is simple and painless. Your son has been given a gift. The programme exists to make sure that gift is not wasted."
Nobody in the square spoke. The official held the silence for a moment, then turned back to his table, closed his ledger, and began packing the Aether Stone into its leather case.
"Within the week," he said, his voice returning to its official register. "Don't wait longer than that."
He buckled the case, untied his horse, and rode out of Ashford without looking back. The dust from the road settled behind him. The village stayed where it was, the way it always did.
The walk home was short and very long. Tomas kept the letter in his hand the whole way. He did not put it in his pocket. He did not fold it further. He carried it the way a man carries something he does not fully understand but knows is important.
Maren walked close on Aldric's other side. She had not spoken since the stone lit up. Her silence was not empty. It was full of things she was not yet ready to say.
Corbin fell into step behind them. "Well done," he said quietly. The words came a beat too late.
Inside the house, the family gathered around the table. Tomas set the letter in the centre of it — the wax seal facing up, dark against the pale wood. They sat around it the way they might sit around a fire in winter. Something that demanded attention. Something that changed the shape of the room.
"Cresthill," Tomas said. "That's a day's walk. Maybe less if you leave at dawn."
"I can't leave the farm for two days," he added, more to himself than anyone. "Not with the lower field half-turned."
Maren looked at him. "Someone has to go with him."
The silence that followed was the kind that waits for someone to fill it.
* * *
Nobody came to the door that evening. Aldric had expected them to — neighbours, the Harmon family, old Wessler with his questions. But Ashford kept its distance. The village was thinking, the way villages do. Quietly, behind closed doors, where opinions could form without being heard.
The family sat around the table. The letter lay between them. Nobody had opened it.
"This has never happened before," Maren said.
She was right. In all the years Aldric could remember — and all the years his parents could remember before him — no official had ever come to Ashford to test children for magic. People who had the gift discovered it on their own, or they didn't. That was how it had always been. Families with money might seek out a mage or an academy recruiter in the cities, but no one came to the villages. No one tested farming children.
"Why now?" Tomas said. He was looking at the letter, not at anyone. "The war ended thirty years ago. The empire's been at peace since before we were born. What's changed?"
No one had an answer. The question sat in the room alongside the letter, equally heavy and equally sealed.
"Maybe they're just being thorough," Corbin offered. "The Emperor wants to know what he's got."
Tomas shook his head slowly. Not disagreeing — just unconvinced. Emperors did not send officials to every village in four kingdoms out of thoroughness. There was a reason. There was always a reason. But whatever it was, it had not been shared with the people of Ashford, and it would not be.
Maren looked at Aldric. "Are you alright?"
He nodded. He was not sure if it was true, but it was the answer she needed.
The hearth crackled. Outside, the evening sounds of the village carried through the walls — a door closing, a child called in for bed, the low murmur of someone else's family having someone else's conversation about the same thing.
A knock came at the door. One knock. Patient.
Tomas opened it. Edran stood on the step, his walking stick in one hand. He did not wait to be invited in. He stepped through the doorway, ducked under the low beam, and looked around the room the way a man checks the weather — quickly, with the ease of long practice.
He saw the letter on the table. He looked at Tomas. Then at Maren. Then at Aldric.
"I'll take him," he said.
Tomas opened his mouth, but Edran was already talking past him. Not unkindly. Just simply, the way he always spoke when the matter was already settled in his mind.
"You can't leave the farm. She's needed here." He nodded at Maren. "Cresthill's a day there and a day back. I've walked worse roads for worse reasons."
"Father —" Tomas started.
"It's not a question, son."
The room went quiet. Not the uncomfortable silence of disagreement — the settled silence of something falling into place. Maren's shoulders dropped by a fraction. Tomas looked at his father for a long moment, then nodded once.
"First light," Edran said to Aldric. "Pack light. The road's easy."
He left the way he came. One knock, a few words, and gone. The door closed behind him and the house felt different — not lighter exactly, but steadier. As though someone had placed a hand on a table that had been rocking and held it still.
Later, after the fire had burned low and the house had settled into its nighttime quiet, Aldric lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. The thatch was dark above him. Through the wall he could hear Corbin's breathing, already slow with sleep.
He held his hand up in the dark and looked at it. The same hand that had touched the stone. The same fingers, the same lines across the palm. Nothing about it had changed. But something had, and he could not put it back.
He thought about what his father had asked. Why now? What's changed? The Emperor ruled from somewhere so far away that Aldric could not picture it. Whatever reasons that man had for sending officials to villages like Ashford, they were not reasons Aldric would ever be told.
He closed his hand and let it fall. Sleep came slowly, and when it did, he dreamed of a pale stone glowing in the dark.