Black Insignia: Within the Frost

They burned the village. I was twelve. I was hiding in a wooden chest while my mother killed the things that came for us. She killed fourteen of them before they killed her. She told me to live. I walked three days to the capital. My family closed the gate in my face — my own family, looking through me like something tracked in from the road. My uncle Marcus found me. He brought me home. In two years I'll be fourteen. The kingdom marks every child at fourteen — Fire, Earth, Wind, Water. The element that decides what they're worth. I won't get one of those. My mother knew why. She just didn't live long enough to tell me.