Chapter 2 — The Assessments
They rang the bell at first light, a single metal note that rolled across the south fields and through the stone ribs of the academy like a cold tide. Elora joined the stream of cadets filing out from the barracks, boots striking the frost-hardened path in an uneven rhythm.
The assessment yard lay ahead—a rectangle of trampled earth and chalked lines, divided into stations by rope and flag. To the west, three combat rings flashed with the glint of practice steel. To the east, a row of trestle tables held scales, mortars, and stoppered vials for alchemy. In the center, a squat outbuilding had been cleared for the espionage trials: shuttered windows, a door banded with iron, two instructors pacing like metronomes outside.
"Eyes front," an officer barked, and the murmur dropped to a nervous hush.
They lined up by barracks. Elora found Cassian lounged a half-step behind her, all lazy grin and impossible posture, his longer hair falling untamed across his brow as if even gravity had to bend to his charm. He flicked it back with a practiced toss of his head, grinning like the yard had been built for him. On the end of the line stood the man with green-and-gold eyes, broad-shouldered and silent, his gaze taking in everything.
An instructor with a scar like a pale thread from ear to collarbone stepped onto a crate. "You were told on your first night," he said, voice carrying without strain, "that this academy does not polish you—it separates you. Today is the start of that separation. You'll complete rotations at each station. By dusk, you'll be assigned a specialty. Fail to meet the standard, and you will be reassigned to infantry."
A ripple of unease moved through the yard. Everyone had heard the word before; it still landed like a blow.
"Rotation order is posted," he continued. "No talking across lines. No trading tests. No theatrics." His eyes slid, briefly, to Cassian. "Begin."
They broke apart, the yard blooming into motion. Elora checked the slate nailed to a post—Barracks Sixteen: Espionage → Combat → Alchemy → Policy. Her mouth went dry. Of course they would throw her at the locked room first.
A woman from her barracks nudged her, a small smile tugging at her lips. "You'll be quick," she whispered.
"We're not supposed to talk," Elora murmured back, though she couldn't help returning the smile.
At the espionage station, the shuttered outbuilding looked like any storage shed from a distance. Up close, the hinges had been freshly oiled, the keyhole burnished by many attempts, and the stone threshold bore faint scuffs where boots had dragged a body—hers, if she failed. Two instructors paced a tight path, crossing each other every twelve heartbeats. An hourglass on a barrel bled sand with unkind speed.
"Name," the nearer instructor said.
"Elora." She kept her hands loose at her sides. Fear tightened the fingers; loose hands obeyed.
He gestured to a small leather pouch. "Tools. Pick, tension bar, coil wire. There is a token inside marked with a red thread. Retrieve it and exit. Time is six minutes. You may not injure the guards." His mouth thinned. "You may render them unable to continue patrol, provided there is no blood."
Elora nodded. The rules had edges. She could work with edges.
The second instructor's boot clicked; the patrol began. Elora waited until they passed the door—twelve heartbeats—and crossed in the wake of their rhythm, becoming an echo rather than a note. She slid the pick and bar into the lock. It was an honest lock, old but stubborn, with a shallow bite that wanted to pretend it held. She felt the pins with her fingertips more than with the metal, coaxed them until the core turned and the latch slipped with a sigh that sounded too loud in the morning air.
Halfway. She cracked the door and slid through. The interior smelled of old grain and oil. A single lantern on a nail gave just enough light to show a table, a chest, three shelves—and, tucked into the lamplight's shadow, a second door no wider than a shoulder. Not in the center where an obvious thief would look. In the seam.
She went for the seam. A whisper of steps outside shifted too soon—the patrol out of tempo. Elora froze, her hand on the hidden bolt. The door behind her swung wider; a guard's silhouette cut the light.
"Stop," he said, bored, as if he'd already caught a dozen like her today.
She moved. Not the panicked scramble that got you struck across the mouth. She pivoted in, catching his wrist with one hand and the back of his neck with the other, stepping inside his reach. The choke wasn't pretty; pretty took time. She tucked her forearm under his jaw, braced her knuckles against her own bicep, and compressed. His breath hitched. She counted—one, two, three—felt the fight shudder through him and then ebb like a tide. When his knees softened, she eased him down and dragged his weight into the wedge of darkness behind the shelves. No blood. No sound beyond a dull thud that the other instructor didn't hear over his own steps.
Elora let out the breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding and slid the bolt on the narrow door. Inside, a small table held a shallow bowl, a folded cloth, and a scatter of tokens. She didn't waste time sifting. She tipped the bowl onto the cloth and snapped the fabric so the tokens jumped and spun; red flashed, the thread tangled around a copper coin. She palmed it. On her way out, she returned the other tokens to the bowl without counting—leave the room as you found it, and the next cadet wouldn't be punished by a mess she'd made.
She slipped back through the door, eased it shut, and rejoined the rhythm of the patrol. Twelve heartbeats. She turned the latch, stepped into the yard, and set the coin on the barrel with the neatness of a ledger entry.
The instructor stopped the hourglass with a finger. He looked at the coin, then at her, then at the door. "Time: three minutes, twenty-one seconds." He made a mark on his slate. "And your guard?"
"Asleep," Elora said.
The thread-scarred instructor's mouth almost twitched. "She'll do," he murmured to his partner, not quite quietly enough.
Elora didn't smile until she'd circled back into the wind and the noise of the yard. Her hands had started to shake; she let them, then shook them out and tucked them into her sleeves as if she were cold instead of flooded with something like relief. When she glanced across the field, she caught a single look from him again—flat, measuring. No nod. No approval. But his gaze lingered a heartbeat longer than it had to before he turned toward the combat ring.
Around them, the instructors barked for the next cadet to step forward. The sparring rings were filling now, blunted blades flashing in the sun. Elora fell back into line, her pulse still unsteady from the shadows of the locked room, and tried to steady her breath. Combat was next.