“What does he do?”
Brycon gave her a conspiratorial glance, shifting in his seat. “He controls intelligence networks, psychological warfare, and interrogation.”
Swallowing the bite of eggs in her mouth, Lory’s eye bounced back to Falcrest, but the captain had left the table.
Breakfast was followedby formation in a large courtyard, where the roughly four hundred students fit by standing nearly on each other’s feet. The sun was just rising over thehigh walls enclosing the space, burnishing the limestone pyramid to the west in glistening light.
Ashlings had been called to the front of the group, where they stood in several rows of thirty people each, behind them the thornlings—not even half of their numbers, and at the very back, a single line of tested, the final rank within the Ashthorn before they graduated as ashmarked at the end of the year.
“Don’t worry,” Observant Eye called out, addressing the student body from yet another dais, where he stood, feet casually braced apart and his hand on the pommel of the sword at his hip. “There will be plenty of space in a month or two.” He laughed at his own joke before accepting a notebook from a woman with a silver square insignia on her shoulder.
To Lory’s left and right stood Tabi and Thal, both of them at attention like they’d been training for this moment their entire lives, while Lory still struggled to keep a straight posture.
“Now they’ll split us into colors.” Tabi had barely finished speaking when Observant Eye flipped open the book and started reading.
“Ashen, Nyla. Blackroot, Taren. Grivor, Maes.”
As the Master of Steel called out thirty names, Lory’s head flipped left and right from her position in the last row of ashlings, marking how people shifted and straightened. After over thirty names, he finally looked up, scanning the crowd with disapproval. “Red.”
Before Lory could realize what that was supposed to mean, he lifted his hand, and a murmur ran through the firstfew rows of formation as on those over-thirty shoulders, a red-framed gray square appeared.
Observant Eye was already reading again, another thirty or so names he sorted into green, repeating the procedure with the hand-lifting and insignia appearing, only this time, the named students got a green-framed gray square.
Lory adjusted her stance,
“Bellmont, Aiden. Grivor, Jarek. Dray, Ronan. Heener, Thalric.”
Thal squirmed a little but held his head high.
“Moonfell, Eira. Ngala, Tabitha.”
Tabi threw back her shoulders, pride shining in her gold-flecked eyes as she glanced at Lory for a split second, while in the background, the Master of Steel continued his list until he arrived at, “Seine, Brycon,” and, “Vednis, Elory.”
Again, he lifted his hand, and Lory’s skin heated the slightest bit where the fabric of her shirt melted from black to gray on the outer edge of her shoulder, just by the seam of the sleeve; then a thin blue frame stitched itself around the square now decorating what she assumed was her uniform—even two sizes too large.
Two more times did the Master of Steel repeat the procedure, sorting over thirty ashlings into each color, until the front rows were marked in red, green, blue, yellow, and purple.
“Ashlings are dismissed to follow the lines on the ground. You’ll receive instructions.”
“It’s true,” Tabi whispered with surreal delight, pointing at the colorful lines forming beneath their feet as the first rows of formation dissolved. “They actually paint the soil with magic.”
Before Lory could think about what exactly that meant, Thal tapped her shoulder—“Blue.”—and led the way along the blue line appearing directly in front of them.
Tabi and Lory followed, Frost right behind them as they headed for one of five doors at the side of the yard where the pyramid blocked the view.
Sucking in a deep breath of morning air, Lory tried to orient herself. The sun stood still low in the east, and the pyramid was northwest of the yard, but without the help of another landmark, she couldn’t possibly tell if this was anywhere near the city. What she could tell, though, was that she was two levels above where she’d woken up, and it took her exactly two minutes and seven seconds to get back to the bathing room where she’d washed off the dirt and blood of the Dunaii streets. That sort of sense of orientation even the most brutal academy in Brestolya couldn’t take away from a street rat veteran.
They followed a corridor with stripes of soft light lining the ceiling, the same kind Lory had seen the night before in the bathing room. Magic, she assumed, because the blue line running along the corridor seemed to be more or less of the same making. A three-minute walk later, the line ended in a room large enough to fit at least double the number of ashlings.
“Where’s Ricca?” Brycon asked as they waited for leadership to show up.
“Yellow.” Thal examined the square on his shoulder with intense interest. “How do they do that?”
“Magic,” Tabi suggested, a patronizing expression on her face that made Lory almost grin.
“Very funny.” Thal tugged on the insignia while Lory studied the layout of the room.
Three windows, all on the east, but no view on anything other than the same high walls enclosing the courtyard. The door they’d entered through seemed to be the only door. Smooth limestone floors and walls, and no furniture but the pedestal at the other end of the room, where Frost was standing with a guy Lory believed was Ronan Dray. No easy escape route with the long hallways connecting everything, and most of all, she had no idea where to even find an exit.
