Chapter 9. Practical Exam

The benches were stone, set in a row along the eastern edge of the plaza beneath an awning of woven branches that filtered the morning light into warm bars across our knees.

The spot Metys had saved us was at the far end, mostly empty now because she’d gone off somewhere — talking to her Shadow, getting water, I wasn’t sure. Eydric sat down, then I sat down beside him while our Shadows took up positions a few feet behind us and went still.

Eydric didn’t say anything.

I didn’t say anything either, because I was trying to think of what to say, and the longer I thought about it, the harder it got. He’d just pulled me out of a swarm of strangers and I owed him something for that, but everything I came up with sounded either too formal or too pathetic, so I sat there with my hands on my knees turning phrases over in my head while the silence got heavier.

This was… excruciating.

I turned in my seat and looked at Eydric’s Shadow, because she was at least a problem I could solve. Her face was much friendlier than Gowyn’s: softer around the eyes, with lines that suggested she smiled often when she wasn’t on duty.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t think I caught your name earlier.”

“Sera, Young Lord.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Sera. How are you finding all of this?”

She tilted her head, considering the question, and then she did smile, just a little.

“It’s been a long day already, and it isn’t yet noon. But it’s a good day. I’m proud of him.” She nodded toward Eydric without looking directly at him. “He worked hard for this.”

Eydric grunted softly, but I could see the corner of his mouth lift.

I turned the other way and looked at Gowyn.

“Gowyn? How are you finding it?”

“Fine, Young Lord.”

He didn’t add anything. He stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, waiting for me to require something else of him.

“… I see.”

I turned back to face forward and tried very hard not to look like I’d just been stonewalled by my own attendant in front of company.

Eydric was looking at Gowyn now, studying him openly without bothering to hide it.

“Your Shadow looks like an Aridis.”

I nodded as Eydric leaned forward slightly. “Are you an Aridis?”

“Yes,” Gowyn said.

That was all. He confirmed it and waited for the next question, which apparently was going to come from me, because Eydric was looking at me now with one eyebrow raised.

I turned in my seat to face Gowyn properly.

“Gowyn.” My voice came out smaller than I wanted it to. “What’s our relationship? Are you from one of the branch families, or—”

“I am your cousin, Young Lord.”

Oh…

“I am the son of Vaerys Aridis. Your father’s older brother.”

Oooh…

My uncle Vaerys. The one who had been heir until I was born, and the elders had decided that my father, who had produced the Axiom, deserved the higher seat. I had never met him. Nobody had ever told me his name. For two days I had been sitting across from his son in a carriage, while his son opened doors for me, bowed when I entered rooms, presented documentation at checkpoints on my behalf, and not once had he…

“Gowyn, I—”

BRRRRROOOOOOOHHHH

My words drowned in the sound of the horn before I could finish. Three long, deep blasts that rolled across the plaza and cut clean through whatever I’d been about to say.

I leaned slightly back toward Gowyn without looking at him.

“We’ll talk about this later.”

“As you wish, Young Lord.”

I didn’t have time to do anything about his reply, because everyone in the plaza was already moving toward the centre of the courtyard where the third blast of the horn had pulled them. Eydric stood up, so did I, while Sera and Gowyn fell into position behind us, and we walked.

The crowd condensed as the benches emptied and by the time we’d reached the front of the gathering, every surviving candidate from the morning was packed into rough rows facing the same balcony where Gressil had stood before, and nobody was talking anymore.

The doors opened.

Gressil walked out first, his robes and spectacles and expression unchanged from earlier. Veyra and Bryce followed. They took their positions at the railing, and Gressil rested his hands on the stone and looked down at us.

“Candidates.”

The plaza went absolutely still.

“The preparations for the practical examination are complete. I will explain the rules once and I will not repeat myself. If you miss something I say in the next few minutes, you will go into the grounds without it, and you will discover the consequences in person. I suggest you listen.”

I straightened my spine without thinking about it.

“You will be sorted into teams of three. The teams have been assigned by the faculty. You will not be told why your teammates were chosen for you. They are your teammates, so you will work with them, you will defend them, and the loss of any one of them will cost you points.”

He paused.

“Each team will be issued a badge per member upon their announcement. The badge identifies you as a candidate in the practical examination. If you lose your badge, by any means whatsoever, you will be removed from the grounds and the exam will end for you. Guard it as you would your life, because in this exam, it is.”

A murmur tried to start somewhere in the crowd but Gressil’s eyes flicked toward it, and the murmur died.

“Each team will receive a map. The map shows you the terrain of the grounds, the boundaries, the extraction points, and the major hazards. It will not show you flag locations, nor will it show you supply caches. It will also not show you side objectives. You will find these things by exploring.”

He held up a folded scroll, briefly, then lowered it.

“Twenty flags have been hidden in the grounds. There are thirty teams. You will do the math.”

He waited for a bit, then…

“A flag is worth thirty points to every member of the team that brings it back to extraction. Each team may claim only one flag. Attempting to claim a second will result in a penalty severe enough that you will not benefit from greed. The moment a flag is touched, the team that touched it becomes visible on the maps of every other candidate in the grounds, identified by their team number. You will not see other teams on your own map. You will see only your own number, lit up for everyone else’s eyes. You might be hunted from the moment your fingers close around the cloth.”

I felt a wave move through the crowd as a hundred candidates absorbed that.

“Stealing a flag from another team is permitted. Ambush is permitted. Combat is permitted. You may form temporary alliances with other teams, you may break those alliances, and the proctors will not intervene in any of it, but there is one exception.”

His voice didn’t rise, but everyone in the crowd leaned forward.

“If you attempt to kill another candidate, the proctors will know. We have spent six hundred years developing the techniques to distinguish combat intent from killing intent, and we are very good at it. The penalty for attempted murder during the practical examination is permanent disqualification, immediate extraction, and a black mark on your house’s record that will follow your family for a generation. There is no appeal, nor defence, nor second chance. Do not test this.”

The silence after was heavier than before. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but why would anyone want to kill anyone in a simple exam? Right?

“Severe injury will also result in extraction. The proctors stationed throughout the grounds will decide when a candidate’s condition has become dangerous. You will not negotiate with them. You will not refuse them. If they decide you cannot continue, you cannot continue.”

He let that one hang.

“Side objectives are scattered across the grounds. Shrines, beasts, puzzles. Each completed objective is worth one point. They require effort, time, and skill. You may complete as many as you wish. They are intended for teams who fail to secure a flag and need to recover what they can.”

Behind him, Veyra had taken out a fresh scroll and unfolded it.

“The examination begins at ten o’clock and ends at midnight. Any candidate still inside the grounds at midnight will be automatically failed and extracted. You will be transported to the entry points shortly after the team announcements conclude. From there, you will advance under your own power, in your team formations.”

He lowered the scroll and looked out across us.

“That is everything you need to know. The rest, you will learn in the grounds, or you will not. Master Tull will now read the team assignments.”

He stepped back as Veyra stepped forward.

She didn’t introduce herself or add anything to what Gressil had said. She simply lifted her scroll and began to read.

“Team One. Aaren of House Corven. Bellis of House Nerin. Calen of House Marsh. Approach the balcony to receive your team token, your map, and your badges.”

The three named candidates moved out of the rows and walked forward. They didn’t know each other. I could see it. They didn’t look at each other, and they walked side by side without coordinating. Three strangers about to spend fourteen hours together in the woods.

“Team Two. Dessa of House Vashren. Ferren of House Hoyl. Lir of House Solenne.”

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Lir stepped out from a few rows ahead of me. The faculty had not put her with Rael. They had separated the two Solenne candidates I’d noticed so far, which felt deliberate.

The teams kept coming. Two. Five. Eight. Eleven and so on. I watched Metys called for Team Six, paired with two boys I didn’t recognize, and she caught my eye across the plaza and gave me the smallest nod before she walked forward. I tried to nod back without looking like I was reaching for her.

Fourteen, sixteen, nineteen. Each new team was a small scene in itself. Relief on some faces, dread on others. And anxiety on mine, as my name was still not called, and I wondered who I would end up with.

Twenty-two, twenty-five, twenty-seven…

What if… what if I was last? What if the faculty had specifically arranged for me to be last, so the entire plaza could watch my team get pulled together one piece at a time? What if—

“Team Twenty-eight. Howl of House Aridis.”

Oh, that’s me!

A ripple moved through the crowd. Aridis this, Aridis that. They were going to do that every single time, weren’t they.

I stepped forward two paces and waited for the rest.

“Eydric of House Vael.”

Oh, thank God.

Relief hit me before I’d processed it. I was reasonably sure I could trust Eydric if I could trust anyone in this place. One real ally. I could work with that. Eydric stepped forward and stopped beside me, his face giving away nothing.

“Rael of House Solenne.”

God! What are you doing?!

I did not let my face change, but inside my chest a small, cold feeling settled into place.

Of course it was Rael. The Solenne boy who had probed me during the introductions and nearly made me look like a fool in front of strangers.

For some reason, this felt to me like no accident at all.

Rael walked out from a few rows back, stopped on my other side, glanced at me briefly with that polite expression of his, then winked, which caught me off guard.

“Team Twenty-eight, approach the balcony.”

We walked.

A proctor was waiting at the base of the balcony, an older woman in dark robes with a brass tray balanced on her forearm. Three small iron badges sat on the tray, each one stamped with a single glyph at its centre, alongside three folded squares of parchment.

She lifted the first badge with two fingers and looked at me.

“Your name.”

“Howl Aridis.”

“Step forward.”

I stepped forward and she placed the badge against the centre of my chest, directly over my heart, and pressed it gently into the fabric of my tunic. There was no clasp or pin that I could see, but when she removed her hand, the badge stayed where she’d put it, fixed in place by something I couldn’t feel.

“Thank you,” I said.

She had already moved on to Eydric, who gave his name, stepped forward, and accepted his badge with the same quiet thanks. Rael’s was last. The proctor placed it on his chest, glanced briefly at his face, and turned back to her tray without comment.

A second proctor handed Eydric a folded map. A third pressed a small bronze disc into Rael’s palm. Our team token, with the number twenty-eight stamped into the metal in deep, clean lines.