Over the past two months, her frustration had built to unbearable levels. It shouldn't be that difficult. All it took was a pinch. A strategic pluck, and the power could be hers.

Cara breathed in and puffed the air back out. Breathed in, sighed it out. The rest of her class sat silently on cushions around the room, eyes closed, hands dancing through the air. They looked so serene, so graceful and confident.

When she looked at her own hands, Cara didn't see serenity or grace, only utility and mundanity. These hands had chopped wood, hauled rocks, and built fences. How were they now expected to precisely pick at the strings of magic flowing through the Arcanum? These were tools of force, not precision.

Yet she had never been one to give up, either. Not to say she didn't seriously consider it, especially when others began to accept their mundanity and walk out those heavy iron doors during the first few weeks of training. The class initially contained 12 members of her tribe, all those who had turned 17 in the last year. Everyone had their chance to determine whether they were among the Chosen, the lucky few who could pull, tie, weave, and follow the threads of magic surrounding the sacred sites. If a student declared themselves Mundane, giving up and walking out before the two-month trial period was over, that was it. They were never again permitted to enter a sacred site like the Arcanum.

The first hopeful Trials had walked out after only a week, before anyone had even successfully plucked the strings. One success early in the second week prompted a wave of five Mundane declarations. Over the next six weeks, three of the remaining four Trials presented as Chosen, leaving only Cara as undetermined.

The wave of uncertainty hit her that second week, building momentum into the third week and crashing violently into her on the fourth. Some in her tribe vocally opposed the two-month time limit, since practically all Trials who presented as Chosen did so in the first four weeks. What was the point of torturing hopefuls any longer than that?

"What is the point of me torturing myself any longer?" she muttered on a loop for the entirety of the fifth week.

The sixth week was just numbness.

Seven days left. Six. Only five now. Four.

With four days left, something changed. Not something in the strings--they remained as elusive as ever. Something in Cara. She passed beyond despair and entered acceptance. She did not accept that she was Mundane or accept that her time was up. She accepted herself. She accepted her rough, work-hardened hands. She accepted her past and the unknown nature of her future.

Cara drifted. Physically, she was sitting on her pillow in the Arcanum. But internally, she swayed and flowed throughout an endless world. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, that world grew to contain strings of light. Cara's hand floated to the nearest one and gently stroked it.

With no warning, the power was there. It came with no explosion of sensory overload and no gradual buildup. It was just... there. And it was Cara's.

In the Arcanum, the proctors watched aghast as the last hopeful, the hardened worker girl, smiled and touched forefinger and thumb in front of her. The air glowed between her fingers with an unlikely brilliance.

Cara was Chosen.