CROWNED IN ASH

AERIS

Most people say your eighteenth birthday is when everything changes.

The year you become independent. The year people start to take you seriously The year you stand tall in your own skin and step into whatever future you’ve dreamed of.

This morning should’ve felt special. My birthday. The kind of day where someone bakes you a cake, or you sleep in, or you get hugged a little tighter.

But in Virelia..that kind of birthday only exists in fairytales. Here, turning eighteen doesn’t mean parties or laughter or dancing under the stars.

It means expectation.

Pressure.

Fear.

Eighteenth birthday is the beginning of something brutal.

I sat alone on the stone wall behind our estate, staring at the mist curling above the grass like smoke from an invisible fire. The sun was just beginning to rise, streaking pale gold through the clouds. Everything felt too quiet like the world was holding its breath, waiting for something awful to begin.

The wind tugged at the hem of my cloak. My fingers were cold. I pressed them against the stone, grounding myself in its stillness.

I didn’t feel different. Not older. Not stronger. Just…

“Aeris!”

The shout came just as a burst of magic tore through the fog.

I barely turned my head before a sharp blast of water slammed into my side, knocking me clean off the wall. I landed in the grass with a wet, graceless thud. My shoulder stung. Water soaked my cloak, my hair, my skin. I gasped from the shock of it.

“Oops,” a too-sweet voice said, followed by a giggle. “Didn’t see you there.”

Kaelia.

Of course.

I looked up to see her standing a few paces away, her fingers still crackling faintly with shimmering blue energy. Water magic...Controlled and Focused. Deadly if she wanted it to be.

My twin sister.

She stood with her weight shifted to one hip, a picture of elegance in her fitted navy-blue training gear. Her long braid shimmered in the morning light, not a strand out of place. The smug tilt of her mouth made it clear she wasn’t sorry.

She cocked her head. “You really should work on dodging, you know. If that had been a real attack, you’d be halfway to death by now.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” I muttered.

“Oh, relax.” She smiled, stretching her fingers as water flicked off them like dew. “Consider it a birthday gift. A wake-up call. You’ll thank me when the Trials begin.”

My breath caught.

The Trials.

I looked away, hoping she didn’t see the flicker of panic in my eyes.

“Kaelia,” my mother’s voice floated through the open kitchen window, brisk and sharp. “Stop attacking your sister.”

“I wasn’t attacking her,” Kaelia replied, still smiling. “I was motivating her.”

Mother didn’t respond, which meant she probably agreed and just didn’t want to say it outright.

Typical.

Kaelia turned back to me, her tone turning light. “It’s a big week, little sister. We’re eighteen now. You know what that means.”

Yes. I knew.

I’d been dreading it for years.

In a few days, every eighteen-year-old in Virelia would gather to face the first Trial at the Aetherian Academy. The first test in a gauntlet of deadly challenges that decided your future. The Trials weren’t just a formality. They were brutal, and people died every year. It wasn’t a secret. It was the price of potential.

The strong advanced.

The weak were… forgotten.

I’d known about what this week meant since I was ten and overheard the servants whispering about a girl who never returned. Eight years older than us. Bright, brilliant, destined for greatness—until she entered the Trials and vanished like so many before her. No body. No funeral. Just a name struck from the records and a family who never spoke of her again.

I’d known since I was twelve and my father forged Kaelia her first enchanted weapon. Since I was fifteen and the council started whispering about who would become the heir.

Since I was sixteen and my powers first began to twist.

The Trials weren’t just tradition. They were the rite of passage for the magically gifted in Virelia. A gauntlet of lethal tests designed to separate the elite from the expendable. People die in them every year.

And if you passed? You earned your place in the academy.

Kaelia was ready. She had been for years. Her magic had manifested early, and she’d spent her life training, dueling, and dazzling everyone who watched her.

And me?

My magic had always been strange. Unstable. Flickering at the edges of my control like a half-lit flame. Sometimes it didn’t come at all. Other times, it burst out wild and dangerous—once nearly setting my room on fire when I was eight.

Father called it a defect.

Mother didn’t talk about it.

Kaelia mocked it.

So I stopped trying.

“You’re not even going to say anything?” Kaelia asked, watching me with that same unreadable expression she always wore when we were alone. “No big speech about how you’re going to prove everyone wrong?”

I stayed quiet.

Her smile faltered for a second, then returned sharper. “You know, you could always back out before the first trial begins. No one would blame you. It’d save you the embarrassment of failing in front of everyone.”

I flinched.

She didn’t need to say it, but she would’ve anyway: failing would bring shame to our family. One daughter rising, the other falling—it would be a scandal. Our parents wouldn’t be able to walk through the capital without whispers trailing behind them.

She didn’t have to say what we both knew: failure wouldn’t just reflect on me. It would stain our family’s name.

We were daughters of the Thalorian line—an ancient, prestigious magical bloodline with more champions than any other family in the eastern territories. Our name was carved into the walls of the Capitol, gilded into the academy’s halls. We were expected to be perfect.

The Trials are a choice. Technically

If you were content with a quiet life, a simple job, anonymity—you could stay behind.

But I couldn’t.

Not with my family name.

The one time I whispered to my parents that I didn’t want to compete—that I didn’t want to go at all—I remember what happened like it’s scorched into my memory.

Father’s face turned red with rage, the veins in his neck pulsing as he shouted about disgrace and wasted potential..

My mother had gone cold and disgusted. She called me an embarrassment.

That night, I sat under this same sky, shaking and ashamed, while Kaelia celebrated inside after completing her first elemental summon.

My parents would rather see me die trying than sit at home and bring disgrace to our name.

I slowly got to my feet, still soaked through, and brushed damp hair from my face. My sister turned and walked back toward the house without another word, the training yard swallowing her shadow like it always did.

I watched her go.

Kaelia had been born to shine. People noticed her when she entered a room. She spoke, and they listened. She moved, and the world seemed to bend around her. Even her magic obeyed her like it was part of her soul.

And me?

I was the leftover twin. The one who flinched at loud voices and stayed up late reading dusty spellbooks I couldn’t cast from. The one who couldn’t summon a single spell without it fizzling out or sparking wild and wrong.

The one who didn’t belong.

I didn’t want to think about the Trials.

But Kaelia was right about one thing.

The countdown has begun.