The Six of Cups

By the time Clara reached the doors of the Royal Archives, she had not slept in nearly twenty hours. Her vision swam at the corners with the memory of the ballroom's glitter and the burn of Zarek's words still faint on her skin. There had been no rest, only a bleary hour slumped over Celia's borrowed notes and a last, desperate attempt to memorize the difference between aurum and orichalcum, as if a single mineral could save her life.

The hallway outside the archives was silent, the torches replaced by flickering orbs that floated above the gold-veined marble like tired ghosts. Lue waited at the junction, and when he saw her approach, he straightened to parade attention.

"Ready, Your Highness?" Lue said, though his eyes betrayed none of the sarcasm she had come to expect from her brother's friends.

"No," Clara replied. "But let's pretend I am." She offered him a smirk. He didn't return it.

Lue led her to the archway and held the door open for her. Beyond it, the air was cool, the hush absolute but for the subtle, impossible-to-place hum that all magical places acquired with age. Ancient oak shelves ran from the stone floor to the arched ceiling, the wood darkened almost black by centuries of candle smoke and magical residue. The scent of old parchment and ozone clung to every surface. Reading tables were arranged beneath high windows, each one illuminated by a sunbeam bent precisely by some patient enchanter decades ago.

Felix waited at the far end, already seated behind a desk that looked more like a minor fortification than furniture. He wore the standard issue of the court mages—blue robe, too many rings on his fingers—but today, his collar was crooked, and there were ink stains on his cuffs. His olive-green eyes gleamed behind thin spectacles.

Clara's steps echoed as she crossed the room. Lue waited by the door, arms folded, ready to catch her if she tried to bolt.

"Good morning, Princess," Felix said, in the same tone she imagined he used for wild cats and children with knives. He gestured to a padded seat across from him. A neat stack of parchment awaited her, weighted at the corner by a chunk of obsidian. There was also a quill—already sharpened, a bottle of green-black ink, and what looked like three sugar cubes wrapped in foil.

"Is the sugar for emergencies?" Clara asked as she dropped into the chair. The soft upholstery only deepened her exhaustion, and she fought the urge to nap right then and there.

Felix steepled his fingers. "It is to bribe the pixie in the lamp. If the light goes out, feed her one and she'll come back." He said it deadpan, then flicked his gaze to her left hand, and the ring that gleamed there. "Are you fit for the exam, or shall I call for a healer?"

Clara flexed her hand, the skin around the ring raw but not bleeding. "I'll live," she said. She didn't mention the way her finger had throbbed all night, the dreams that came and went with fevered insistence.

"Very well," Felix said. "This is a written assessment. You will have one hour. The topics are: general principles of magic, the Four Elements and their cycles, the history of magical theory, the history of Solarian magic, practical applications in governance, the uses of magic in battle, and, of course, the list of forbidden magics." He rattled off the list with the boredom of a man who had seen it copied wrong on every exam for a decade.

Clara nodded, too tired to banter. She unscrewed the cap of the ink and began.

The first question was a disaster: Define the difference between arcane and elemental magic, using at least two examples from contemporary Solarian practice.

Clara's mind sputtered. Wasn't all magic "arcane" by definition? Or was "arcane" the umbrella, and "elemental" its subset? She scratched out a paragraph about river mages and kitchen witches, then panicked and started over. The second attempt was worse, but she left it—her mother always said to never erase a first instinct, even if it was wrong.

The next question was even more challenging: Outline the Four Elemental cycles and explain the seasonal impacts on their use. She remembered a pie chart Celia had once drawn, covered in pastel watercolors. Clara had spent the whole afternoon poking holes in the logic of the diagram—if air and water fought in the winter, who was supposed to win?—and then thrown the chart at Celia's head when she lost the argument.

Clara wrote that anecdote down. Then, realizing her error, tried to reframe it as "case study: familial conflict as a metaphor for elemental tension." Maybe Felix would appreciate the humor. Perhaps he would set her paper on fire.

The rest of the test passed in a blur. There were names to recall, treaties to list, and a diagram to label with the correct ley line terminologies. She remembered nothing. At one point, her mind drifted, and she saw herself at seven, perched on a windowsill with Atlas, who was teaching her how to tie a rope harness out of a bedsheet. He'd said, "Knowledge is good, but it's useless if you can't improvise." She'd believed him, then, and wondered why no one ever tested her on the bedsheet trick.

By the time Clara reached the section on forbidden magics, Clara was ready to surrender. But this part—at least—she knew by heart. The names of the banned spells had been recited to her every birthday, every equinox, every time a visiting mage so much as mentioned necromancy in passing. She listed them, spelled them correctly, and added a footnote about the one time she'd seen a curse unspool in the palace kitchens after a cook had muttered about "raising the dead soufflé." For the first time since entering the archives, she smiled.

Felix called "Time," and Clara dropped the quill as if it had burned her. Her hand was cramping. The tip of her ring finger was purple. She slid the packet across to him, and he weighed it in his hand, as if testing its worth in gold.

"Please wait," Felix said, then began to grade the papers. Not with a red pen, but with a complex series of hand gestures and whispered cantrips. Each answer shimmered for a second, then either turned green or stayed white. Sometimes, the entire page flashed red, and Felix's mouth drew tight.

He finished in under a minute, then stacked the pages neatly and set them aside.

"Clara," he said, and now his tone was less that of a wildcat tamer, and more a parent ready to deliver very bad news. "You have passed. Barely. But this is not sufficient for your station."

Clara slumped. "Is there a ceremonial hand amputation, or do you just tell the whole court I'm an idiot?" She asked in a tone of defeat.

Felix did not smile. "You failed both sections on Solarian magical history. You missed every date, and half the names were made up." He pointed out with disappointment in his tone. Clara had never heard Felix this disappointed before.

Clara opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it. She just sighed.

"You barely passed on elemental theory, and your application of magic to governance was… creative, but ungrounded in fact." He hesitated. "The forbidden magic section, though. Full marks." He added, begrudgingly. However, she needed to know more than just what the forbidden magic was to rule.

Clara's lips twitched. "If there's a prize, I want it in writing." She commented, for a moment, she was proud that she had at least entirely passed one section.

Felix stacked her exam with a snap and did not reply to her. "You will retest in two weeks. I will send Celia to help you if you promise not to throw pie charts at her." He stated as he glanced down at Clara, who was still sitting in the desk chair.

"Depends on the chart," Clara said. The words sounded more tired than she meant.

Felix regarded her for a moment, and Clara caught, beneath the impatience, a trace of concern. "You cannot rule Sol if you do not understand its magic, Clara. Books matter. Not all wisdom is won in gardens and arguments." He advised her. His brow furrowed slightly, he had already told her this, perhaps a dozen times by now.

Clara nodded. She knew he was right, and that was what stung the most.

Felix rose, bowed his head, and swept from the archives with the silent dignity of a man who'd spent his life around sullen teenagers. Lue, waiting by the door, gave her a glance that was either sympathy or pity—Clara couldn't tell.

Clara sat at the desk for a long time after, listening to the soft hum of the archives and the tick of her own pulse in her ears. Her eyes drifted up to the stained glass windows, where the morning sun filtered through in dappled gold. For a moment, she imagined herself as Queen, sitting behind a bigger desk, with more complex questions and no one left to tell her what to do.

The thought did not comfort Clara. But she refused to let herself cry. Not here, not in the heart of the library, with the whole world waiting for her to screw up. Instead, she pressed her bruised hand to her chest and promised herself she'd do better next time, even if it killed her.