by P. T. Hylton
Zane met her eyes one more time, then turned and walked away.
For the first time, the proctor looked at Zane. When her mentor had disappeared down a corridor at the end of the room, the proctor turned to Lily. “The first thing you have to understand is that it’s your decision when you take the exam. It’s not too late to reschedule.”
Lily took a slow breath to calm her nerves before speaking. “No. I’m ready.”
He nodded toward the corridor where Zane had disappeared. “It’s not his decision. You’re entitled to years of additional study. Even if you do pass, you’ll be starting your career with far less experience than your peers. If he’s pressuring you in any way, we can reschedule and find you a new mentor. One who takes the process more seriously.”
She steeled herself and met his gaze. “I said I’m ready.”
His face hardened. “Then follow me.”
He led her to a small room furnished with only a wooden table and chair. There was a glass of water on the table. He motioned to the chair. “Sit.”
She did. Her heart was racing now, and she cursed herself. She never got nervous during tests. She’d been one of the few who hadn’t thrown up before taking her Tens. But this test…
Von Ridden’s words came back to her. This was a test designed to defeat people who were good at tests.
The proctor nodded toward the glass of water. “Drink.”
She reached out with a shaky hand and grabbed the glass. It was cold against her skin.
“The test doesn’t begin until you drink,” the proctor said.
She nodded and, before she could reconsider, gulped the water down in one long drink.
“Good,” the proctor said. “When you next open your eyes, the test will already be in progress. You have two hours from the time you wake.”
Lily had a moment to wonder what drug they’d used in the water. Savven herb? No, this was acting on her far faster. Her limbs were already heavy and it was more difficult to open her eyes after each blink. Impressive stuff.
With that thought, she drifted into a deep sleep.
***
Lily woke with a start and with the sudden realization something was terribly wrong. Her hands were tied behind her, and her head was cloudy. It took her a moment before she remembered. The placement exam.
She squeezed her eyes shut, forcing down the panic and fighting the urge look around at her surroundings. Not yet. This test would determine her future, and it was already underway. There was no room for fear. No one believed she’d pass this test, and if she wasn’t at her best, they would be right.
She took a moment and focused on her breathing, trying to block out all the sensations (coarse rope rubbing against the raw skin of her wrists, her shoulders straining from the way her arms were secured behind her), the sounds (was that dripping water?), and the smells (musty—yes, that must be water she heard). It was difficult, but one-by-one she shut out the stimuli assaulting her senses until there was only her breathing.
Then, slowly, she opened her eyes.
The room was not what she’d expected. Not at all. She’d imagined the test would take place in a large pristine space where she would have to fight off a group of attackers while some old men watched and graded her technique. This was not that.
The room was small and dim. The walls were made of rough-hewn stone and they were damp with moisture. The floor was hard dirt. It reminded her more of her parents’ cellar than something she’d expect to find in the Ferox Great Hall.
But there was a comfort in it. She was not a woman made for fine places and expensive things. She’d dug in the dirt and shoveled manure from the time she could walk. This was her kind of place.
And suddenly the nerves were gone. If they thought they could intimidate her by tying her up and throwing her in a dank basement, they didn’t know Lily Rhodes.
The ropes were tighter than the ones Von Ridden had tied the day before. She inched her hands up and breathed a sigh of relief as she felt the sticky texture at the small of her back. Von Ridden had secured the small hooked blade there with a special gum dyed to exactly match her skin color. If they’d searched her, they’d missed it.
It took her two minutes of picking at the spot to pry the hooked blade free and another three minutes of sawing at the rope before she was able to cut through it. With her hands free, she was able to escape the rope binding her ankles much more quickly. She wedged the blade into her waistband and began inspecting the room.
It quickly became apparent that she hadn’t finished her escape. This small cellar had no exit. There were long thin slits near the ceiling that let in a bit of light. If she couldn’t figure out anything else, she could climb the ten feet or so to the slits and try to dig her way out by widening the gap. She could use the hooked blade. But time was a factor here. She probably had only one hundred and ten minutes left to complete this thing.
She had to make a decision: start working on the slits immediately or find another way. After a moment’s thought, the choice was clear. They wouldn’t expect her to have the blade, so expecting a student to dig her way out was a stretch. No, there was something else here, something she was missing. This wasn’t part of the escape; it was part of the deductive reasoning portion of the exam. It was a puzzle.
Lily walked the perimeter of the room, not rushing, taking in every inch. She was looking for some sort of irregularity. But it wouldn’t be obvious, not in this exam. These stone blocks bulged randomly, so maybe what she was looking for was not an irregularity, but a pattern. Humans created patterns, even when they didn’t mean to.
A few paces later, she saw it. A stone exactly like the one next to it. A pattern in this wall of chaos. She dropped into a squat and ran her hands across the stones. There was something on the stone to her left. A slight indentation. She pressed on it and felt a click.
And the wall moved ever-so-slightly inward.
She sprang to her feet and pushed on the wall, and, to her relief, it moved inward. It seemed to be mounted on some type of wheels. When it was wide enough for her to pass, she stepped through. There was a short staircase leading up, and she followed it.
She crouched in the shadows at the top of the steps and looked out at a courtyard surrounded on all sides by towering stone walls. Was this an open space inside the Ferox Great Hall? Had they designed the building with a courtyard in the center? It was difficult to tell from this angle, but those stone walls appeared to be roughly the same height as the Great Hall.
The courtyard was a stark contrast to the cellar she’d just escaped. This place was all sunlight, manicured grass, and the smell of spring.
On the other side of the courtyard, directly across from her, was an open doorway shrouded in shadows. And in the middle of the courtyard, between her and the doorways, stood four ferox.
They were all dressed in black, the traditional garb ferox had been required to wear a century ago. They all held swords, and they stood back to back, one facing each of the four walls, their faces blank and their eyes able to see every inch of the courtyard.
Lily didn’t need a proctor to tell her what was required of her in this portion of the exam. She needed to get past the ferox and through the door on the other side.
There were two options: open battle or try to sneak past them. Zane had often accused Lily of being overly confident when it came to her fighting skills, but she wasn’t stupid. There was no way she could defeat four ferox herself.
On the other hand, sneaking past them through an open courtyard in broad daylight didn’t seem within the realm of possibility either.
She sat crouched in the stairway for a full five minutes before she finally saw her way through. The sun was in the southeast, so the south and east walls provided a nice shadow. There was a small ledge that ran along the courtyard wall ten feet up. If she could get to it and make her way along the south and east walls, she might have a chance. They weren’t exactly covered in darkness, but there was a thin shadow
she might be able to squeeze into. If she could do that, she’d only be exposed as she made her way to the exit along the northern wall.
The walls in the stairwell were narrow, and she was able to brace herself with her left arm and leg against one wall and her right arm and leg against the other. She slowly crawled her way to the ceiling, inching one arm up the wall, then the opposite leg, then the opposite arm, and so on. She flattened herself against the ceiling of the stairwell, still holding herself up with an arm and a leg against each wall, and worked her way to the opening out onto the courtyard. Her arms were shaking by the time she reached it.
This would be the moment when they’d be most likely to see her, because she’d have to move fast, and the human eye is very good at detecting movement against a backdrop of stillness. She hoped there’d be enough shadows to cover her passage.
She took a deep breath and reached through the doorway with one hand. She felt around for a panicky moment, then her figures closed on the ledge. Without stopping to think, she reached through with her other hand, grabbed the ledge, and pulled her body through. In one fluid motion, she was in the courtyard, hanging from the ledge, and altogether too exposed. She put her feet on the wall next to the doorway she’d passed through, found footholds, and scurried up to the ledge. When she was up, she pressed her back against the wall and did her best to huddle in the scant shadow there.
She watched the ferox in the center of the courtyard for a long while until she was almost sure they hadn’t seen her. Then she started moving. The cover provided by the shadows wouldn’t be enough for most people, even most ferox apprentices, but stealth had always been one of Lily’s strong suits. She glided along the ledge, wearing the shadows like a cloak. She moved quickly and confidently, even through the gaps in the shadows on the north wall, and the four ferox in the center of the courtyard never spotted her. When she reached the other side, she crouched down, grabbed the ledge, and used it to swing through the doorway, landing softly in the much more accommodating darkness lingering there.
Without looking back, she walked through a short passageway and into a second, smaller courtyard.
Directly in front of Lily, there was a tall archway. A brick path led through it. Finally, she thought, something easy.
She started toward it, then stopped. This was her placement exam. Why would anything be easy?
She scanned the walls on either side of her with a more critical eye, and she saw something. A strange curved brick built into one wall. A curved she recognized. It was a tangle.
Zane had taught her to spot tangles long ago. They could be made from a variety of materials and disguised as almost anything, but all tangles would have a distinctive curve somewhere on them. Lily didn’t pretend to understand exactly way, but it fit with what Von Ridden had told her. He’d said all tangles gather magic and hold it to themselves. Maybe the curve at an exact angle was part of what made it work the way it did.
She realized there wasn’t just one tangle in the wall to her left. There were dozens. Maybe hundreds. The wall was lined with them. They were spaced at odd intervals along the stone.
Lily let her gaze drift slowly up the wall all the way to the top. That was a long way. Longer than she’d ever climbed. So, of course, she knew that was the way she was meant to go.
The climb might have taken her ten minutes; it might have taken her forty. It required her perfect concentration. Finding each new handhold and foothold was a challenge. It was as if the walls had been specifically designed to be climbable, but only barely. Then there were the tangles. They were everywhere. And often they were hidden from view by carefully placed protrusions in the stone.
Lily had to move slowly and carefully, never placing a hand or foot without carefully inspecting the spot and making sure there was no danger.
Finally, she pulled herself over the side and onto the roof of the building. She allowed herself to lie there for a moment. While climbing, she’d been unaware of anything but the task at hand, but now she realized she was dripping with sweat and her arms and legs felt like they’d turned to water.
A moment later, she noticed the man standing across the roof. He was tall and built as solidly as the stone wall she’d just climbed. Even at this distance, she could see he wore his hair in the distinctive style of a Cragsman, shaved bald but for a small knot on the top of his head. He stood frozen, his gaze fixed on her.
She’d never met a Cragsman before. The stories she’d heard were likely wildly exaggerated. Supposedly, they were a people trained for combat from the time they could walk. They didn’t know their parents. The children were taken from their mothers at birth and raised as a pack. Theirs was a culture where the one who ruled was the one who could fight the best. All was decided through combat.
Lily had just enough time for these thoughts to pass through her mind before the man began sprinting toward her. He was halfway across the roof before Lily responded. She rolled to her feet and took an easy defensive stance. She had to stay loose in this fight. This man was certainly much stronger than her, and she wasn’t sure she had much of a speed advantage, either. The big boy could move. He lunged, both arms extended like he was trying to tackle her.
She was surprised by the clumsiness of the attack. She stepped to her right and pulled back her fist, intending to drive it into his nose. But before she could, the man did a seemingly inhuman pivot and grabbed her leg. He gave her leg a sharp twist, and she hit the stone surface of the roof, protecting her face with her hands.
To Lily’s surprise, he then let go of her and stood up. She rolled quickly away from him and hopped to her feet, ignoring the burning pain in her hands.
The man grinned at her and lunged again. She tried to swivel out of his reach, but he was too fast. He wrapped one arm around her neck and used the other to deliver a punishing series of lightning-quick kidney punches.
He wasn’t trying to kill her, Lily realized. He was trying to hurt her. To see how much pain she could take. And that was a question she wasn’t sure she wanted answered. She needed to end this quickly.
She was thinking too much. She’d assumed he was slow because of his size. She’d assumed he was dumb. She’d been wrong on both counts. He was out-thinking her and out-maneuvering her. This was not a time for a well-conceived plan. This was a time to release the fury she usually kept buried inside. She’d have to hope her training did the rest.
She threw her head back as hard as she could and felt it connect. She didn’t hear the crunch she’d been hoping for; she’d missed his nose and connected with his cheekbone. But it was enough. He cried out and loosened his grip.
She slipped out of his grasp and spun, delivering a mean left hook to the same cheekbone she’d hit with her head. She threw a jab. Then another. Then another. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, not really, but it was enough to keep him off balance.
Suddenly her left knee exploded with pain, and she realized he’d kicked her. Her mind was on fire with agony, but still the thought remained: How had he moved so fast?
She needed to end this now.
She crumpled to her knees, just as he’d expect her to, and as she fell, she got her bearings. They were only a few feet from the edge of the roof. And, on the edge, she saw a spot that curved in a particular manner. She knew what that spot was, though she didn’t know exactly what it would do.
As soon as her hand touched the stone surface of the roof, she sprang upward. The big man took a step back, expecting an uppercut. Instead, she hooked her arm around his neck, much the same as he’d done to her, and used his backward momentum against him, twisting him so he fell.
As they tumbled, she kept twisting, angling him under her. At the moment they landed, just as the impact rocked him, Lily slammed his face against the tangle hidden on the edge of the roof.
She felt heat coming from the tangle under the Cragsman’s head.
He howled in pain.
Lily jumped back preparing for her next attack, but the attack never
came. The man clutched the left side of his face, the side that had touched the tangle. Through the gaps between his fingers, Lily could see black, charred skin, as if it had been burned in a fire.
He screamed again.
From behind Lily, a man said, “I must admit, I am impressed.”
Lily spun, and she saw the exam proctor, his charcoal colored cloak swaying gently in the breeze. She wondered how long he’d been standing there. She raised her fists, preparing for his attack.
“I’m not here to fight you,” the proctor said. “You’ve proven yourself in that regard.”
The big man wailed in pain, and the proctor looked at him sharply.
“Cline, that’s enough!” the proctor said.
Cline’s wail turned to a whimper.
The proctor turned his gaze back to Lily. “You proved yourself capable of escaping the ropes. Albeit with the help of a sharp tool of some sort.” She started to speak, but he held up a hand. “You got it past me, so that won’t be held against you. You found the hidden door in the cellar. You made it past four ferox undetected. You proved your knowledge that the easiest path isn’t the best. You climbed, avoiding tangles. And you defeated a Cragsman in combat.”
Lily rubbed a hand over her kidney. God, did she hurt. “The way I understand it, their position in society is based on their fighting ability. So if he’s a servant of a foreign Ferox Society, I’m guessing he’s not exactly the toughest Cragsman out there.”
The proctor nodded his agreement. “Even still, not many could do what you did. You’ve proven yourself.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed. She sensed something else coming. “So I pass?”
“Not yet.” The proctor reached into his cloak and pulled out a long dagger. He tossed it, and it landed at her feet. “One more task remains. You need to show you are able to end a life.”
She turned and looked at the Cragsman, on his knees and clutching his face.
“Do it,” the proctor said, “and this is over. Take the dagger and kill him. It’s what you’re trained to do. Now show me you can do it.”
