The five kingdoms of the realm had been separated for ten millenia after the mountains rose. No one knew then what caused it, only that one day the five rivers separating the land had dried up and risen into towering peaks seperating the lands. The magic had only apeared after that, every person blessed according to their nation. It had been ten thousand years since then and no one had crossed the mountains since. Expeditions had been sent almost every decade, all lost before reaching the kingdom on the other side.

Floria, the western kingdom of earth magic.

Aqaiar, the southern kingdom with water magic.

Lavarior, the nothern kingdom blessed with fire magic.

Airvion, the eastern kingdom given air magic.

And the centeral kingdom of Rayvordia, not blessed with any magic.

Amelia Vesteria woke up on her 18th birthday in the early morning sunrise to violent rumbling. She tried to go back to bed. That was before she heard the village bells chiming relentlestly from the town square. Groggily, she pulled herself from her bed, rubbing her eyes until they stung. Amelia lived on the southern edge of Rayvordia, only a mile from the mountainline. She looked right, to where the mountainline had been for her entire life and far before, only to see the skyline dotted with trees beyond a river that could have been a mile wide itself.

She stood with the rest of the townsfolk, the world lit only by the barely risen sun and candles that townsfolk held in trembling hands.

"Hello all."

A cracking voice groaned into all of their ears.

"By dawn in a month's time, each of your villages is to send a representitive to the centre plinth of Rayvordia. That is where the Trials of the Realms will begin. Failure to do so with result in your immediate deaths."

With that the headache subsided and the voice exited their heads. All eyes turned to her in the morning sun.

Of course they did, she was the weird kid who always used sticks like swords and practiced every fighting technique she could learn. She was one of the only children in the village, and the only person at all between the age of 15 and 22.

"Amelia."

Her father's voice rang out from where he was stood on almost the other side of the group.

They didn’t say her name.

For a moment, Amelia was certain she’d misheard. The townsfolk stood in a tight knot near the square, murmuring prayers and half-formed plans, and the dawn breeze carried the smell of riverwater and ash. The village elder cleared his throat once, then again, and finally spoke.

“Edrin Hale will represent us.”

The name landed like a stone dropped into still water.

Edrin.

Amelia turned slowly, her fists already clenched, and saw him standing near the well—tall, broad-shouldered, a farmer’s son with hands rough from honest work. He looked as stunned as anyone else, mouth slightly open, eyes darting as if searching for an exit.

Why him?

Amelia felt heat crawl up her neck. She had trained for this. Not for the Trials—no one had ever believed they would truly come—but for anything. For danger. For the day the world finally changed. She had scars on her palms from wooden swords and bruises she never bothered to hide. She knew maps, legends, old expedition journals copied so many times the words had blurred.

Edrin barely knew how to hold a blade.

“But he’s strong,” someone whispered behind her.
“He’s calm,” said another.
“And he’s got family,” the elder added softly, as if that settled it. "He can face off against any magic bravely."

Family. As if Amelia didn’t.

Her father didn’t look at her. That hurt more than the decision itself.

Edrin protested, of course. Anyone would have. But the elder laid a hand on his shoulder and spoke of honor, of survival, of how Rayvordia needed someone steady—not someone reckless, not someone who dreamed too much.

Amelia stared at the mountains—or where they had been. The open land beyond still looked wrong, like a lie the world hadn’t finished explaining. Somewhere past the trees and the wide river were kingdoms of magic and wonder. Somewhere past them was glory. History. Proof that she had been right all along.

Edrin would get all of it.

That night, Amelia sat alone at the edge of the village, sharpening a blade that had never tasted real battle. She imagined Edrin standing on the central plinth, cloaked in importance, chosen by forces beyond understanding. She imagined him returning changed—respected, admired, spoken of in lowered voices.

She imagined him surviving.

She did not yet know that the Trials were not meant to be won.

And she did not yet know how badly she would wish she had been chosen instead.

Amelia went down to the river after that. It's what she always did, when she felt like she could kill someone she was so angry. She skimmed stones over the blue waters, trying to breathe, until the in, out, in, out lined up with the gentle skip-skip-skip of stones running away on the current.

She didn't hate Edrin, she just couldn't bare the reality of it. E-D-R-I-N. H-A-L-E. It didn't sound like a warrior's name. It wasn't a warrior's name. It would only ever be a farmer's name. It all felt wrong. Amelia's name should have been called out. Amelia. Amelia. She'd been imagining her name wrought in blood and glory ever since she was little.

Her mother used to tell her about The Trials as though they were some almost forgotten folklore. Her Mum had shared the same passion for swordwork, and in the evening they had worked out together. She still had the scar on her arm from where a spar had gotten a little too lively. She'd apologised hundreds of times over, but Amelia had insisted she didn't mind. And she didn't. It hurt like hell, at first, but it made her believe that she was actually a warrior.

But now her mother wasn't here anymore. And all she ever wanted was to see her daughter be a Knight in shining armour. Amelia had promised it would happen, every day. And then suddenly, her mother was six feet under, but Amelia still promised on all the days where she'd come and put fresh hyacinths on her grave.

And now...now that promise was gone too.

There were things her mother never told her. Some of it was the lack of knowledge. Most of it was the need to protect her daughter from the brutality of the gods. To turn vengeance into a fairy story. To soothe her own fears as much as Amelia's.

Edrin Hale learned the truth of the Trials before the first day had fully ended.

The central plinth of Rayvordia was not a place of ceremony or honor. It was a scar carved into the earth—a ring of black stone veined with old cracks, as though the ground itself had tried to flee and failed. Representatives from villages across the kingdom stood in uneasy silence, none of them meeting each other’s eyes for long. There were no banners. No cheering crowds.

Only watchers.

They stood beyond the circle, half-seen. Shapes that hurt to look at directly. When they spoke, it was not with sound, but with pressure—like hands closing around Edrin’s skull.

Begin.

The ground split.

Stone plates fell away and the chosen were dropped into darkness, bodies colliding with rock and each other. Edrin hit hard, the breath torn from his lungs, and lay gasping as screams echoed through the cavern below. Light flared overhead—not warm firelight, but something cold and white that revealed the space around them.

There were too many of them.

Too few weapons.

And no instructions.

The first death happened within minutes. A boy from the northern fields panicked, ran toward a narrow tunnel, and triggered something hidden beneath the stone. There was a sharp sound—metal snapping shut—and then silence where his leg had been. Edrin didn’t look away in time. He heard the boy beg. He heard the trap reset.

That was when Edrin understood: this wasn’t a test of strength or courage. There was no glory here.

Edrin made his first kill on the third day.

It wasn’t heroic. It wasn’t even a fight.

A woman lunged for the same narrow ledge he was clinging to, eyes wild with hunger and fear. They locked eyes for half a breath, both knowing only one could stay. He shoved her away.

The sound she made when she hit the rocks below followed him for weeks.

When the fire trials came, the survivors were herded into Lavarior’s domain—where flames moved like living things and heat stripped thought from the mind. Magic there was not a gift. People burned screaming because they stepped wrong, because someone else panicked, because the land itself rejected them.

Edrin learned to keep his head down. To move when told. To ignore the cries.

That was how you survived.

Sometimes, in the brief moments before exhaustion claimed him, Edrin thought of Amelia.

He imagined her standing at the edge of the village, fists clenched, eyes blazing with envy. He imagined her believing she would have done better. That she would have fought harder, lasted longer, been braver.

The thought almost made him laugh.

Amelia trained with sticks and stories. The Trials stripped you of both. There was no skill that saved you from choosing who died when resources ran out. No technique that prepared you to step over bodies you recognized.

And Amelia, unaware, only told the filtered bits of truth and glory that the watchers saw fit to relay, still mourned the promise she had made to her mother. She was unaware that her other's greatest with was for her to never take part.