Minutes felt like hours that seemed to go on forever. Ezril and the remaining children labored under the bright sun in their repetitive strikes under Talod's command.

After an unending length of time spent on arm jarring strikes, Talod had them line up. Ezril studied his wooden sword as they waited for their next command. He knew very little about swords, and he knew even less about the various designs. The only weapons to ever appeal to him lived in his memory of his journey with Urden and the swords of Alduin design all the soldiers at Green Horn wore. He had snuck into Teneri’s room at one point in time and had seen different swords hung on the wall of her closet. Most of them had been longer than he had been tall.

They'd all presented themselves in various sizes, sharpened on both sides. It gave them a double-edged ferocity. But what had caught Ezril’s eyes was neither them nor the elegantly curved swords with the inscription sword of Anda crossed over each other and sharpened on one end with no visible sign of use, unlike the others.

No. What had caught his attention had been the black bow that had rested on a table against the wall. Its string was black as night with hints of silver threading along it from end to end, as if the weaving was mixed with metal. Then, he had dare not touch it.

He'd kept the knowledge from Teneri for fear of drawing her anger. After all, she had always told him to stay away from her room when she wasn’t around. Ezril was still swaying in the tides of his thoughts when he was shoved from them.

"Step forward, Vi Antari."

Talod's order brought Ezril out of his memory and he proceeded to the spot the priests cane referred. He faltered once before getting there.

Talod held Ezril’s gaze as Ezril lowered himself to a stance. The feeling of disdain ebbed away as Ezril watched the man's brown eyes move ever so gently. Everything seemed to fade, leaving them alone in the moment. Ezril with his wooden sword and Talod with his cane.

In an instant, Talod attacked. His movement blurred in Ezril's eyes. It reminded him of mere moments ago when he’d received his first stroke of the priest’s cane. Ezril raised his sword to the side, protecting and predicting Talod's strike. The priest’s cane came down hard on Ezril’s chest. It sent Ezril to the ground gripping his chest in excruciating pain.

"Useless!' Talod bellowed, "Alniv, come and show him how it's done."

Olbi Alniv reminded Ezril of the son of a farmer that had once visited Teneri. He was tall and muscular, easily towering over his peers. Teneri had spoken to the father while the boy stayed with them for almost half the day before they had taken their leave. Ezril wondered if the boy before him had also been the son of a farmer left with no choice but to toil the fields.

Olbi took his place. Father Talod moved. The crack of cane on soft flesh filled the air. Olbi went down harder than Ezril.

"Divine Enuvie!" Talod called, shoving Olbi with his foot as the boy struggled with his crawl away from the space.

The boy who'd been crying earlier stepped forward. He looked timid as a sheep. He held his weapon close to his chest. Talod stood straight and assessed him until he stopped in place, wooden sword still clutched to his chest.

"Do you intend to fight like that?" Talod asked.

"No, s-sir... Father."

Amidst the stutter, the boy possessed an obvious brogue indigenous to the Noolsi tribe situated somewhere in the lands of Ut’helli, north of the kingdom.

"I see Ut’helli still makes 'em cute." A gentle smile tugged on Talod's lips.

Ezril was surprised to see the man smile as he and his mates awaited the battle.

Talod moved. There was no finesse in the action. It was the wildness of a beast in rage. He moved fast. His feet seemed to take a single step yet he covered the distance in it, his movement a blur. The sound that reverberated through the air stunned Ezril as if he had been struck when Talod’s cane came down on Divine. A greater sense of panic flooded him at the sight of the boy.

Divine sat on the floor, bleeding from a gash in his head. It stained his black hair in crimson red. To Ezril’s greater surprise, the boy made no audible sound. He sniffled in his pain but no sob escaped him. None of the boys moved from their place and Ezril, ignoring the rage that built in him, imitated their actions.

He would take his cue from the collective until he knew enough to act as an individual.

In the same order, each boy stepped forth to engage in a spar Ezril could only view as an excuse for pointless brutality. Divine, proving to be the only real fatality of them all, stood in his place, blood dripping very slowly from the gash in his head.

When it came to the turn of the last child, Darvi Tenshaw, a boy of average build with a full set of brown hair on his head, Father Talod moved first and without preamble. The boy jumped out of the way rather than make an attempt at defense as the others had done and Talod missed, only to attack again. His movement blurred then, moving too fast for Ezril's eyes to follow as he struck at Darvi.

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The sharp crack of wood against wood was audible as Darvi raised his weapon. It intercepted Talod's on its path, but the attack, proving stronger, sent Darvi staggering back.

It was a simple break in action but Talod moved no more. He simply stared at Darvi with his cane in his hand.

Ezril found himself watching the way the priest wielded his cane whilst waiting like everyone else for the finishing blow, the one that would signal an end to the spar. But it didn't come. Talod simple fixed Darvi with a gaze Ezril was all too familiar with as the boy found his footing. It was one a few adults back home had directed it at him once before: a mixture of disgust and acceptance. Talod adjusted his grip on his cane and, instructing them to follow him to the dining hall, walked away. Darvi, it seemed, would experience no injury.

They followed obediently. One of the boys walked alongside the boy bleeding from his head as Ezril watched from his place at the back of the group. Darvi walked a few paces ahead engaged in an almost lively conversation with a boy Father Talod had called Alric Norsa.

Father Talod led them to a dining hall in the darkening evening.

The hall was filled with older boys laughing and engaging each other in friendly banter. The tables lined up from the door to the wall on the far end of the hall. The density of brothers of the seminary reduced as the tables grew closer to the end. The table at the end housed priests eating in grim silence, five of them in totality. Ezril was fairly certain it couldn't the be sum of all the priests in the Seminary.

What laid before them not only proved to goad at their bowels but also at their minds. The meal was bountiful. The only time Ezril had seen so much food in so much assortment was when Green Horn’s mayor had thrown a feast for one celebration or the other.

A subtle glance revealed the looks on the faces of the other children. What Ezril saw assured him that the consuming hunger and fear of being the subject of a test was not restricted to only him.

"If food is before you,” Olbi said, biting into an apple, “you best eat."

It was all they needed. They took their place at the table and caution was left to the cautious, which they no longer were.

Everyone ate in their hunger. Ezril noticed one of the children setting food aside. He recognized the boy as the only one that had walked with Divine. Salem Thrysis was his name. Ezril remembered it easily. The sight of the pale white of his skin was blemished by the bruise on his hand no doubt from one of Father Talod' strokes. Accompanied by that was the realization that Divine was not in the hall. The calm state with which the boy selected the food spoke volumes. It hinted at the possibility of him knowing where the other boy was.

"Fattening us up like pig for a feast, eh?"

Ezril raised his head from the piece of pig meat he was shoving into his mouth. Alric was the one who had spoken. Beside him Darvi ate with the control of a child who was in the presence of guests. Shamed by the sight presented to him, Ezril slowed his gusto, as one would a horse from a gallop to a canter.

"Pig for feast is wrong perception," Olbi corrected. "Ox for field, 'tis better choice of words."

A while later Divine walked into the hall. A piece of clean cloth was wrapped around his head. He approached the table, observing as he neared it... or rather, searching. He smelled of something strong, something akin to forest trees and muddy swamp.

He took a spot beside Salem and began eating. It was only after Salem had studied the boy for a moment did he ask, "Does it hurt?"

Divine raised his hand to the bandage reflexively. He stopped it before it made contact. "No," he replied, a reassuring smile on his face.

Liar, Ezril thought.

A while later he realized the boy beside him had slowed his eating. He wondered if the boy was full.

He was a skinny child narrowly Ezril’s height. His lack of enthusiasm seemed more from a mental distraction than the state of his bowel. Catching Ezril's eye, the boy hesitated in what seemed a state of cognitive dissonance. Then he leaned in.

"What is perception?" he asked quietly. It was almost a whisper.

Ezril wasn't certain how to react to the question. He didn’t know if he should be impressed by how long the boy had pondered on the word or shocked at the boy's absence of knowledge of the word.

He considered keeping to himself to be the best course of action. Thus, he conceived to ignore the boy and return his full attention to his food. He made contact with the boy's mud brown eyes and his mind betrayed him. There was so much trust in them. He wondered how a boy that had just gone through the same day as he'd experienced could still trust.

"It's how a person sees things," Ezril found himself explaining.

"How a person sees things," the boy mused. "A pig and an ox.” He nodded. “Thank you."

Then he returned to his meal, his enthusiasm fully restored. Ezril doubted the boy had understood. But choosing to prevent any further conversation, he returned to his meal, his gusto lost somewhere in the exchange of words. He spared the boy a discreet look, remembering his name, Olufemi.

"So you're mistborn?" the boy who seemed oldest of them asked. "That's all the priests have been talking about all day."

It took him a while, but in the end Ezril recalled the boy’s name to be Takan. Like himself, Talod seemed to have also taken a liking to flogging the boy. Still, there was little sense of kinship there. So Ezril offered Takan no answer. After a while of waiting, and a realization that none would come, Takan returned to his food.

The cleaning of the hall after meals was left to the youngest. Ezril and the others had to stay longer than everyone else. They swept, cleared the tables, and cleaned the plates.

Done with the hall, they proceeded to cleaning the latrines under the inspection of Father Talod who had returned towards the conclusion of their meal. Moving the feces proved a tasking job on their nostrils and earned some of the boys a flogging or two here and there for spilling some before getting to the garden. There, they were disposed of to be used as fertilizer in later days.

Wash up was an unsupervised event. They were directed to a place they would attain buckets. With them they drew water from a well and bathed in a building demarcated into stalls by weaved straws.

Climbing the stairs back to their room proved a greater task than it had in the morning. As they climbed, every part of their body bore them down, willing them to fail at the trivial task. Topped by the activities of the day, they were all without strength by the time they reached their room. Still, each of them navigated their way through the darkness of the night, collapsing in their beds.

Ezril’s mind wandered to his travels with Urden as his back ached from the imprint of the bamboo bedding beneath his too thin mattress. He found himself thinking, instead, of how best to better his sleeping arrangement. Almost reaching a solution, his mind buckled under the fatigue and he abandoned the thought for tomorrow. Tonight, he was too weak for anything.

His mind drew a name as his hand wrapped around the insignia he had received from Father Azet. Zaar’d. It made him think of inconsequential things children often thought of. For instance, getting a pet wolf.

In mere heartbeats, sleep claimed him.

And so did a nightmare that would prove to be the first of many.