41 - THE TEST

The testing house was split into many small, square rooms, each with a single table and chair. I was immediately led into one such room, told to sit, and then left alone.

I leaned back in the chair, rolling my shoulders, loosening my body. I was full of tension. Not just because of the test, but because of everything. I knew nothing about this place. How it worked. Nor who all these other young men and women were. All I knew was that they were the heirs to all the most powerful families. People of power. Of influence. Individuals who would crush me without hesitation if I got in their way even for a second.

I scanned my surroundings. Plain, except for a map of the world pinned to the wall directly in front of me. There, the red borders of the Autarchy, dominating the entirety of the continent of Telemir, except for a few patches to the far west, where the Free States were still refusing to bend the knee. But they would. It was only a matter of time. From what I’d overheard in Tymora, the Autarch was gearing up to launch a new attack against them, and he intended to lead it personally.

Then, to the east of Telemir, another continent, the two separated by the Abyssal Sea. Only half of this second continent was visible—the other half hadn’t been properly mapped yet.

Valakor.

An incomprehensibly vast land of jungles, desserts, desolations, and the ruins of past civilizations. A place of blood magic and monsters. Of slavers and savage tribes. Of pirates, and of human sacrifice. A wild continent. Just thinking about it set my curiosity ablaze. There would come a day, I had no doubt, when Marak attempted to bring it into the fold of the Autarchy. He would sail across the sea with his armies and lay waste to it until it surrendered to his will. If such a thing was even possible.

I could help him do it, I thought. I could help bring the world together, unify it all beneath one flag—

But should I?

To the north, a third continent, smaller than the other two, and dominated by the Sihalian Empire. The Empire that had allied itself with the Autarch, then betrayed it, and then, later, after a brutal war, allied itself again. I wasn’t sure what the current state of relations between the two empires was. The books I’d studied back home had all been too old, too out of date.

And the world changed quickly. Especially these days.

An old woman limped into the room, smiling pleasantly at me. She placed a piece of paper in front of me, then a quill and a pot of ink.

I raised my eyebrows. “This is the test?”

She just kept smiling, and then waddled back out of the room.

I frowned down at the paper. Questions were laid out in a list, with enough blank space for the answer. That, I supposed, was good enough for me. I picked up the quill and read the first one.

When returning home one night, your wife/husband is robbed and badly beaten. What do you do?

My frown deepened. This was not the sort of question I’d expected. This wasn’t academic. Unless it was a trick of some kind. I reread it several more times, searching for a clue or hidden meaning. But there was nothing except for the simple, matter-of-fact question.

An emotional test, then. That, I supposed, made sense. After all, the purpose was to sort us into Houses.

I spent a second pondering the hypothetical. There were a lot of different ways to react. How would I react?

I imagined that Felice was the woman in question. I imagined her swollen, bleeding face, and clenched my jaw. My fist tightened around the quill. If someone did that to her, I’d kill them. No doubt about that. And then I’d do something useful with their bones. Perhaps I’d turn them into a chair.

I wrote that down, or at least most of it; I left out the part about the bones.

The next question: you are made an offer: immortality, but at the price of a thousand, random lives. What do you do?

I grimaced. Not as much of a hypothetical as the creators of the test might’ve supposed. Even still, I considered it. My answer had to be no. Immortality was inherently in defiance of the Philosophy of Death. It upset the natural balance.

The next question took the form of four different, strange shapes, accompanied by, circle the shape with the greatest surface area.

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I had been tutored well in geometry, and knew the requisite formulas. Quickly, I performed the calculation, showing my work, as I’d been instructed to do since childhood. The answer soon revealed itself and I promptly wrote it down and moved on to the next question.

While attempting to put on your boots, you notice a deadly spider curled up within. How do you react?

I made a face. A stupid question. There was only one way for any reasonable person to act.

Unless that was part of the test: weeding out those who were unreasonable.

More questions along those lines followed. Then, a series of logic puzzles. Then geography questions, science questions, history, literature, and an assortment of other subjects. Many of these I was poorly versed in. Sweat dripped from my brow. If I’d known more about the Houses, I could’ve manipulated my answers based on what House I wanted to be in. But with my current understanding, that would’ve been pointless. And it occurred to me that it was possible they somehow accounted for it. Maybe it was even another layer of the test. Or maybe I was simply overthinking it.

I was just about to answer the next question when the door burst open.

Two wardens appeared, grim-faced, holding heavy batons.

“On the ground,” one growled. “On your hands and knees. Now.”

I slowly stood, heart thundering. “What? Why? What did I do?”

“We know exactly what you did,” one hissed, grip tightening on the baton. “Now. On the ground. Make this easy for us.”

I backed away from them, muscles tensing. I could take them, but not without using necromancy, and if I did that, everything would be ruined. My cover would be wrecked. Operatives would come for me. The Autarch would view me as a failure and my chances of infiltrating his government would be gone. I’d have to run. And then what?

Control, I heard my mother whispering. Control, Aurion. There’s a rage inside of you. A hunger. But you must be controlled at all times. Do not let that spark turn into an inferno.

My shoulders sagged.

And then a thought occurred to me. An absolutely obvious thought.

A grin split my face. “I’m an idiot. This is just a test.”

The two wardens paused and exchanged a look.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “that took me a little too long to figure out. Your acting was impeccable. You almost got me.”

The two wardens immediately changed their posture. One returned the grin. “Don’t sweat it. You’d be shocked by how many don’t figure it out.”

His partner, however, seemed a little put off by the fact they’d been figured out. Without saying anything else, they left the room, closing the door far more gently than they’d opened it.

I lowered myself into the seat. Slow, deep breaths.

Lucky that I’d had a moment to think. If I had reacted purely out of instinct and turned them inside out…

Well.

I returned to the test, but now found myself unable to concentrate. Adrenaline was still surging through my veins. Once I filled up one piece of paper with answers, I flipped to the next. Then to the next. There were, in totality, at least a hundred questions, some of them bland and unsurprising, others so esoteric and seemingly random that it strained my mind to even try to guess at what purpose they served.

Once I finished, I put down the quill. I was braced for some other physical test, something like the two wardens. But nothing else happened. I supposed it would’ve been too obvious. You can only do that trick once before the person in question begins to expect it, at which point it’s ruined.

Soon enough, the old lady returned to collect the papers.

“Wait here,” she said. “We need to go over everything, then we’ll return with your House.”

“Wait…” I said. I cleared my throat. “How, exactly, do you determine the House from these answers? Some of the questions are so…arbitrary.”

She simply smiled at me benevolently, took the sheets of paper, and once again left me to simmer in silence.

I drummed my fingers against the table. Part of me hoped that I’d get House Fury, if only so that I could be with Mezamir. I doubted we’d stay friends for long otherwise, assuming the Academy was anywhere near as competitive as I suspected it was.

It took far less time than I’d been expecting for the old lady to return. When she did, she held something in her hand.

A pin.

My heart pounded. In life, one often came across moments when the road forked off in different directions. Each direction represented the alteration of reality. The changing of one’s entire life and destiny. Sometimes it comes down to a choice. Sometimes, like now, there was simply nothing one could do except for play with the cards they’d been dealt.

I was about to find out exactly what path my immediate future was going to take.

“A fascinating collection of answers,” she said, eyes twinkling as she looked at me. “And I do apologise for taking longer than usual. Myself and the other determiners were a little…puzzled. You could have fit into two Houses equally, by our metrics, but ultimately, we used subtle patterns in the flow of your answers in order to settle on one.”

I let out a breath. I didn’t care about the context. I just needed to know the answer. Now.

Wryly, I thought, and that means I’m unlikely to get House Patience.

The old lady placed the pin on the table.

Red-tinted gold caught the pale light flowing in through the single window.

The pin was forged into the shape of flames, writhing angrily. Amidst the flames, black, as though charred, was a closed fist.

The lady said, “House Fury.”