2

“Rhovyn,” Erynae stopped and looked back at him. “The desk is not going to register itself.”

“Coming,” he tore himself free of the thought and followed after her and together, they registered at Solmaere before making their way to Tev's Inn for breakfast, two lanes south to Aethoria.

Teram, a broad-shouldered Human man of fifty at one, brought them stew and bread without being asked. He had served examination candidates for forty years and had long since learned what they hungered for before a word left their mouths.

“Your first time?” He leaned lightly against their table.

Rhovyn cast him a sidelong glance, he found it amusing that a man of Teram's age, who had lived within a sight of the academy for years, should ask so foolish a question. Everyone knew the examination granted no second attempt, and therefore it was everyone's first time.

“Eat, and do not think,” Teram offered. “The ones who spend the hour before the examination trying to solve it in their heads are always the ones who walk through the gates already weary,” and with that he returned to serving the other students.

Erynae glanced towards Rhovyn and found him doing precisely the thing Teram had warned against. She saw it in the set of his jaw alone. She had known that jaw since she was Eight, knew the expression it wore whenever curiosity ceased to be curiosity and began becoming obsession, but she said nothing, for years had taught her that Rhovyn listened least whenever someone tried to interrupt a question taking root inside his mind.

Silence, where Rhovyn was concerned, had become its own discipline, and so she abandoned the battle before it had begun. Her attention drifted instead towards the endless stream of boys and girls arriving from every corner of Myris, each carrying a letter and a future they did not yet know.

The wind bored with Rhovyn's endless thoughts and Erynae's silence drifted away in search of something more interesting. Having witnessed this day every year for four hundred and twelve years, she knew well that it always brought with it a few souls worth watching and surely enough, she found an Ashfolk boy wandering the Aethoria district.

Bram Laebaedore had never before set foot in Aldaene, and the city had apparently decided to announce that fact to everyone except Bram himself.

It was enormous, impossibly loud, and smelled of nine different things at once. Twenty minutes had disappeared while he searched for the university gates, which the admission letter had confidently declared were visible from anywhere in the Lower City. Bram had begun questioning both the honesty and the eyesight of whoever had written that sentence and walked directly into someone turning left at a crossing.

“Watch yourself!”

A Halfling woman stood outside a bakery with a wicker basket balanced upon one arm. She frowned by instinct, but one look at Bram's thoroughly bewildered face dissolved the irritation into sympathy.

“Lost?” she asked.

“Painfully,” Bram admitted. “Where are the university gates?”

“One street south from here,” she pointed down the road. “Turn left there, and Aethoria's gates stand no more than twenty paces beyond.”

“But someone told me to go two streets west,” Bram stared at her.

“Nuisance,” she looked personally offended on behalf of the city. “Aldaene does not have west or east,” she laughed, shaking her head. “We give directions by north and south. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either a foreigner... or amusing themselves at your expense.”

Bram's face fell into wounded disbelief, and she sighed the sigh of a mother rescuing an unfortunate child from his own misfortune.

“Come along,” she started walking. “At this rate, you'll wander into the harbor and enlist in the navy instead of the university.”

Bram laughed despite himself and hurried after her. She led him through two streets where warm bread cooled upon windowsills, beneath stone archways woven thick with ivy, and into a broad avenue where banners bearing the crest of Aethoria fluttered above the road.

“There,” she stopped at the crossing and Bram looked up.

The gates of Aethoria rose before him in white stone, so immense they seemed less like an entrance than a promise carved into the sky itself, and his mouth fell open. “I walked past this.”

“You walked around it,” the Halfling corrected kindly, smiling as though she had watched a hundred first-years do precisely the same. “Welcome to Aldaene, infantryman.”

“How did you...”

“Good shoulders. Boots that have earned their living,” she pressed a warm bread roll into his hand. “You have not broken your fast this morning.”

He had not. He had been too anxious to eat anything at all. “Thank you,” he said, and meant it with his whole heart.

“Pass the examination,” she turned down the street.

Bram stood there for a heartbeat, still holding the warm bread in both hands, and then the realization struck him with embarrassing force.

“I never asked your name,” he spun around. “Wait!”

The Halfling woman was gone; vanished into the impossible crowd of locals and scholars as though Aldaene itself had swallowed her back into its heart.

Some cities welcomed strangers with gates; Aldaene seemed to welcome them with nameless kindness, he smiled at that and ate the roll, remembering his mother's question when he had told her of his decision. She had loved him too dearly to speak the truth and so she had asked only whether he was certain.

He had told her no, but that he meant to try all the same and he still meant it, more now than when he had first spoken those words.

He crossed the grounds of Aethoria and joined the line of Vaerhold, registered himself and read the card aloud once more.

Infantry Disciple, 312

Bram Laebaedore, Maruna, Joharra

He stepped away from the desk and looked across the twelve hundred people gathered around him, every one of them appearing far more certain than he felt. He decided they were all pretending, and the thought improved his spirits considerably while h e found an empty place near the eastern bridge and waited alone untilthe examination bell tolled.

Conversation broke at once as stewards stepped forward and led the cohort through the North Wing of Vaerhold Academy, where Aethoria's administration offices occupied halls older than memory. They passed through corridors lined with sealed doors before emerging beside Ashwing Courtyard, at the staircase overlooking the courtyard, the stewards halted the lines and began guiding the candidates up towards the examination hall.

Two staircases, broad enough for entire crowds to climb shoulder to shoulder without slowing, curved upward towards Ashwing Hall, set high above as though it had been built to watch over everything beneath it. Above, the hall opened vast, morning light poured through long banks of windows that stretched the full length of both walls. Benches stood apart in careful rows, spaced wide enough that no candidate could glance upon another's paper, even leaning sideways.

Twelve hundred seats had been arranged in repeating sets of four, infantry, cavalry, archers, medics, stretching the length of the hall row after row, yet the order never repeated. No two students of the same discipline sat beside one another anywhere within the chamber, for the arrangement sought less to prevent cheating than to remove the comfort of familiarity built on common ground of their path.

Erynae glanced towards the bench ahead of her where a boy sat rigid bouncing one knee bouncing, she shook her head and leaned forward slightly. “You're going to break that bench before the bell even rings.”

"Sorry," he twisted around at once. “I... I've never sat this examination before.”

Nobody here has, she wanted to say. “Did you apply yourself?” she asked instead.

“My Guru registered me," he bit his lip and glanced around. "I never thought I'd actually be called.”

“So,” she raised an eyebrow. "Clearly, you weren't registered for nothing.”

A smile found his face, and he whispered softly, “I am Bram.”

“Erynae,” she returned the smile but before she could speak further, a hush swept through the hall.

Stewards entered from both doors carrying bundles, followed by Bowkeeper Amaeren, she crossed to the front of the hall, and stood facing them.

“You have two hours," Amaeren began. "Sensory mages stand watch over this hall, and those hours will be spent in honesty. They will feel the slightest fracture of intent, the smallest reach toward deceit, before your hand has even finished the act," her gaze swept the rows without haste. “The moment you attempt to cheat, your paper will be bound, and it will remain bound until this hall stands empty once again,” she folded her hands before her. “Aethoria welcomes you all, but these grounds are earned. Earn the ground upon which you stand.”