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Across the court, twelve hundred faces answered him in twelve hundred different ways.

Some stood rigid with attention, drinking in every word like it mattered more than breath, students who'd clearly heard stories of Cordaelae the Ashgrave their whole lives and were only now realizing the man matched the legend. Others had already gone glassy-eyed, the speech rolled past them the way opening speeches always did, a few jaws cracked open in badly hidden yawns, that got quickly smothered behind a hand or a sleeve.

Erynae stood straighter than most, she was weighing every word for its truth. Beside her, Rhovyn's attention had drifted briefly toward Ryska who was very much attentive, then dragged itself dutifully back to the platform.

“Today’s examinations shall determine who stands here the day after tomorrow in uniform rather than travelling clothes," he said. "The assessments are honest, hard, and fashioned to discover that which cannot be taught. The seed of what each discipline requires, which either lives in a person or does not. Some among you shall not pass, and that is no judgment upon your worth; it is only the knowledge of where your seed lies, and it may not lie where you imagine it does," he paused a second.

"The written examination begins at the second bell in the Ashwing Hall, all disciplines together, for the theory of war sorts not by color, and neither do these examinations. Practical assessment tomorrow morning for those who pass today's examination," he looked over the court one final time. “Welcome to Aethoria.”

At his final words, the court broke into motion, the low murmur of a thousand held breaths finally let go and they all turned toward the stairways rising on either side of the Grand Court.

Two staircases, wide enough that entire crowds could climb them shoulder to shoulder without slowing, curved up from the court toward Ashwing Hall, set high above like it had been built to watch over everything below it. Students split instinctively toward one side or the other, somewhere in the crowd on the right, Ryska climbed alone, while drawing eyes she no longer bothered pretending not to notice.

The Ashwing Hall opened up above the stairs, it was high ceilinged vast hall lit by long banks of windows that ran the length of both walls. Benches stood apart from one another in careful, rows, spaced wide enough that no candidate could easily glance at another's paper even leaning sideways.

Twelve hundred seats were arranged in sets of four, infantry, cavalry, archers, medics, running the full length of the chamber row after row. But the order was never the same, no two students from the same discipline sat next to each other anywhere in the hall, aiming more to remove the comfort of familiarity than to prevent cheating.

Erynae from second bench glanced toward the bench ahead of her, where a boy sat rigid, and kept bouncing one knee bouncing hard enough to rattle the bench itself.

She leaned forward slightly. "You're going to break that bench before the bell even rings."

Bram twisted around. "Sorry, I just..." He swallowed hard. "I've never sat this exam before."

Erynae huffed a laugh and tilted her head slightly. "Did you apply, or did your guru put your name forward for the invitation?"

Bram glanced back at her. "My guru registered me. I didn't think I'd actually get called."

"So, your guru," she raised an eyebrow, "who's trained you for ten years, knew you'd meet the criteria to earn Aethoria's invitation."

He let out something that was almost a laugh, and his shoulder relaxed a little. "That's a generous way to put it."

Before Erynae could answer, a hush swept through the hall, proctors filled in from the side doors carrying bundles bound in colored twine matched to the discipline seated before them. Twelve hundred students fell quiet almost in unison, the last murmurs died as papers were set down bench by bench with brisk, wordless efficiency.

Last through the doors came an elf woman, Bowkeeper Amaeren, she crossed to the front of the hall and turned to face the chamber.

"Seven questions and two hours," she let that sit a moment. "The first five are theory of war, shared by all disciplines alike. The last two are specific to your chosen path."

She clasped her hands before her. "We have ten sensory mages among the invigilators, they would know if you attempted to cheat, and your paper would freeze the instant they did," she said. "Every word on it locked to the page, unreadable, unmarked, until this hall stood empty again. You are here on your own merit; you shall stay here on your own merit," her violet eyes swept the rows once more. "That is Aethoria."

She fell silent, and for a moment the hall answered only in glances, heads turned briefly toward strangers on either side with wordless exchanges between infantry and archer, cavalry and medic, to see if rest of all felt the same weight of it settle in.

She raised both hands, and along the walls the ten sensory mages mirrored the motion in unison, murmuring words too low to carry. A faint shimmer passed over every bundle of papers in the hall at once, and the twine loosened as if some invisible knot had simply ceased to exist.

The bell rang.

Twelve hundred hands reached for their papers in the same breath, parchment rustled through the hall like wind through dry leaves, and the Ashwing Hall fell into the particular silence of twelve hundred minds beginning to work at once.

Rhovyn began reading the questions. It was a habit his father had drilled into him from his earliest school years. Seven questions, he sorted them in order by difficulty, and the fourth one took the crown.

'Your enemy possesses stronger cavalry, stronger archers and infantry equal to your own. Name the terrain, the weather, the hour of day, and the single tactical error on their part that would grant you a path to victory. Explain why waiting upon that error is itself a strategy, why it holds, why it fails. Name a war in which such a thing was attempted, what became of it, and what odds you would give to the man who chose it.'