Kevin Wade Johnson
2023
My fifteenth summer brought anxiety, and the possibility of change. What kind of change, and whether there would be any, I couldn't be sure. My parents were smallholders near one of Oriania's thousand villages, keeping bees, with a sideline in timbering. Helping with the beekeeping had made me patient; helping with the timbering, well-muscled; helping with my five younger brothers and sisters, commanding. That last might have been a problem if not for the patience. Patient or not, that summer was more nerve-racking than any I'd known before. It wasn't that my mother was admitting that I'd already learned what she could teach of swordplay, since she'd never been more than serviceable, by her own account. After all, if I were going to take over the holding someday, I wouldn't need great weapon skill. No, it was that my voice was finally starting to change. I was finally starting to get some facial and body hair, finally beginning physically to become a man. I thought about it, as I so often did, as I stood outside in the late spring sunshine and took off the facial net and other beekeeping gear, leaving me in my freeholder green linens. Becoming an adult. That meant, if I had one of the Seven Talents, now is when it would begin to show. Now. Anytime now. Could I be Talented? Could I be one of the Charming? That would certainly help with minding the younger ones. *No, no chance. They're so rare, especially outside the royal family.* Or might I be Iron? I didn't know that I wanted a lifetime of being a guard, but it would fit with how I had some brawn. *And they're by far the most common.* I could be one of the Savants, I supposed. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what others were thinking. *Not likely, they're almost as rare.* Better that, though, than being a Toxin or Displacer. Having to always mind what I touched? I couldn't like the idea. Likewise a Duplicate. I wouldn't want to resemble whoever had most recently impressed me. No, if I had a Talent, I had to hope I w
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