Chương 27: Chapter 26: Midterms

By the time Crownspire pinned the examination timetable to every noticeboard, Elizabeth had burned through two practice sacks. The first had split along an old seam. The second had survived Lightning Needle but not Kellan deciding that a target which swung at one speed taught very little. He added a second line to the pulley, changed the angle whenever Elizabeth grew comfortable, and once dragged a metal stand close enough to the firing lane that the developing path reached for it instead.

Elizabeth dropped the cast before the charge formed. Kellan put the stand back where it had been and said nothing. Most of the improvement came from decisions small enough that Elizabeth would once have ignored them: waiting half a second longer, leading the sack instead of chasing it, dropping a connection when the room offered the charge somewhere easier to go. Kellan increased the difficulty whenever she stopped thinking about it.

Two mornings later she was still considering one of those aborted shots when Samuel Veyne put her on her back in Combat Foundations. Elizabeth had read the shift in his shoulder correctly, moved before his feet committed, and even caught his wrist. Samuel had expected the counter and used it to turn her. Dain told her to get up, so she did. The weeks collected that way. New chalk marks appeared on the cellar floor. Bruises faded and returned.

Examination timetables went up around Crownspire, and conversations in the dining hall shifted from ordinary complaints to field boots, reserve routes and who was likely to panic first. Ruby, meanwhile, had acquired a temporary workshop bench and become harder to find than Elizabeth. On the Wednesday before midterms, Elizabeth was alone in the Materials laboratory going over a heat-loss calculation when Ruby arrived with two bowls balanced against her chest and a copper strip tucked behind one ear.

She put a bowl down beside Elizabeth's hand.

"You're eating this." Elizabeth looked at the stew.

"I have dinner in North House."

"Had. They cleared it forty minutes ago." That explained why the corridor outside had been so quiet. Elizabeth moved her notes aside. Ruby sat, took the copper strip from behind her ear and turned it beneath the lamp while Elizabeth ate. Fine dark lines branched across one edge.

"The slow-cooled batch," Ruby said.

"The one that stopped cracking?"

"It found something else to do." Elizabeth took the sample. Most of the staining followed the grain, but not all of it. Along one edge the pattern broke sideways.

"That side touched the cooling block." Ruby nodded.

"I realised after I'd already blamed the alloy." They spent several minutes going through the furnace log. Ruby had changed the cooling rate twice and forgotten to record one tray position, which irritated her far more than the failed sample itself. Elizabeth suggested insulating the outer edge and repeating only that batch. Ruby wrote it down. Then she reached over, took Elizabeth's spoon from where it had stopped halfway to the bowl, and put it back in her hand. Elizabeth looked at her.

"Carry on," Ruby said. Elizabeth did. The conversation stayed on the alloy for a while. Ruby's original plan had been a cheaper material for delicate alchemical fittings. Now she was testing how mana exposure altered failure along the grain and had three pages of questions she had not possessed a month ago. The workshop authorisation she had once kept crisp and flat was folded into the front of her notebook, softened at the creases.

When they ran out of immediate things to argue about, Ruby began packing her samples.

"You'll still be there after the reserve?"

"At your presentation?" Ruby glanced up.

"Yes."

"I said I would."

"I know." She tied the cloth around the copper strips, then retied it because the first knot was loose.

"You've been disappearing a lot." Elizabeth waited. Ruby did not ask where.

"Just come back in one piece," she said, still looking at the knot.

"I need somebody unpleasant in the front row." Elizabeth smiled.

"That can be arranged." Ruby left before the stew was finished. Elizabeth ate the rest cold. Three evenings later, Elizabeth went to the map room for a reserve chart and found Daniel Reed copying one. He had chosen the largest table. The academy survey map covered most of it, weighted at the corners with books, while Daniel worked in a stitched notebook made from paper that changed colour every few pages. His pencil was barely long enough to sharpen again. Elizabeth stopped at the edge of the table.

"There are reserve copies at the desk." Daniel's hand paused.

"They charge for those." It was the first thing he said before looking up. When he saw her, his posture changed.

"Lady White." Elizabeth glanced at the notebook.

"How much?"

"Two silver." She looked again at what he was drawing. This was not an ordinary copy. Wells and culverts had been added beside the contours. Slopes were marked with short notes. One retaining wall had false double echo written beneath it, and a patch of low ground carried three different comments about wet clay.

"You added those." Daniel covered none of it this time.

"They matter to Echo Tracker."

"How?" He hesitated, then pointed at the retaining wall.

"If something moves over solid road, I get one kind of return. Stone over a hollow can feel like movement twice because the vibration transfers down through the support. Timber does it too, but differently."

"You know which is which?"

"Sometimes." That answer seemed to bother him. He flipped back two pages and showed her a rough mine section.

"I need more examples. Crownspire teaches us to use the skill in open ground because it's easier to mark. Roads and tunnels aren't open ground."

"You want tunnels?"

"Survey work." The speed of the answer made him look down at the map. Elizabeth waited, but this time not to make him uncomfortable. He had started tracing a culvert again.

"The Crown employs surveyors," he said after a while.

"Roads, bridges, mine inspections. Boundary work. There are private companies too."

"Which do you want?" Daniel rubbed graphite from the side of his finger.

"Whichever takes me first." He glanced at her, perhaps deciding whether that sounded too desperate.

"The scholarship is reviewed every year." Elizabeth understood the rest before he explained it, but Daniel did explain a little. His father worked at a mill. His mother sewed for several households. Crownspire covered most of his fees because of Echo Tracker; his family had borrowed for what remained. He did not tell her how much. Elizabeth did not ask. Instead she pointed at the mismatched paper.

"You made the notebook?"

"My mother stitched it. Offcuts." That explained the different pages.

"She hates wasting anything," Daniel added.

"Paper. Thread. Candle ends." He gave the pencil a small turn between his fingers.

"She says window light is better for sewing anyway." This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Elizabeth looked at him. Daniel shrugged, embarrassed now.

"It isn't." He changed the subject himself and showed her a section of road where packed earth and fractured stone produced similar first returns. Once he was talking about Echo Tracker, he stopped choosing every word before saying it. He tapped the table with the back of his pencil to demonstrate the difference, frowned at the result, moved two books underneath the map, and tried again. Elizabeth stayed longer than she had intended. The written examinations began on Monday. Most passed without incident.

Mathematics left her with enough time to check every calculation twice. Applied Alchemy included a distillation procedure Crownspire taught in a way Elizabeth considered needlessly cumbersome, so she wrote it exactly as taught. There was no reward for improving a method inside an examination. Kingdom History and Law was less straightforward. The final question occupied the top third of the page.

Why did the Divine Sovereign entrust the ordering of the System to King Aurelian rather than distribute its authority equally among the people of Vespera? Elizabeth rested her pen against the paper. The examiner was not asking whether the story was true, useful, or politically convenient. The examiner wanted the doctrine. For several seconds she considered writing the answer she would have preferred. Then she imagined Professor Aster marking it.

She wrote the approved one instead: Aurelian's selection placed dangerous awakened power beneath institutions capable of recording, training and regulating it; the Crown therefore held both sacred authority and a legal duty of stewardship, later constrained by charters limiting noble abuse. It was accurate to the syllabus. Professor Aster returned the paper on Thursday. Beneath the final answer he had written: Precise. The provisional standings went up after lunch.

Elizabeth reached the board after a crowd had already formed and found her name at the top. First overall. She read it twice, satisfied, then became aware of how many people were standing around her. A student from another class congratulated her. Someone behind him muttered something about House White and faculty favour. Elizabeth was deciding whether either required a response when Charlotte Vale spoke beside her.

"One mark." Charlotte was looking at Spatial Phenomena. Elizabeth checked the scores.

"Yes."

"I lost one mark."

"You didn't label the folded axis." Charlotte turned towards her, then back to the board. She traced the marking breakdown with one finger. Her expression changed from suspicion to annoyance.

"I didn't."

"No." Charlotte stared at the score another moment.

"That's worse." She walked away before Elizabeth could ask what she meant. Ruby arrived late, still wearing her workshop apron under her outer robe. She read the standings, then the subject scores.

"You came first."

"Yes." Ruby's eyes moved lower. Elizabeth knew where they stopped.

"Do not say anything about Combat Foundations." Ruby looked at her. Elizabeth waited. Ruby smiled.

"Congratulations." That afternoon the written examinations ended. Before sunrise the next morning, the first-years assembled in the western courtyard with academy packs, field uniforms and too little sleep. The cold made the flagstones damp. A boy near the gate had repacked his bag three times and still had a metal cup knocking against the outside. Someone else was eating bread with both hands while an instructor checked names. Dain stood on the low platform beside the reserve doors.

"The assessment ends at midday Sunday. Follow your route unless remaining on it becomes more dangerous than leaving it. If your team cannot manage what is in front of you, use the beacon." A student raised his hand.

"That fails us?"

"The practical, yes."

"And if we wait?"

"Then you waited too long." Dain moved on to boundary wards, observation posts and the instructors walking the first-year sectors. He did not repeat himself. The team board stood beside the gate. Team Seven: Elizabeth White. Samuel Veyne. Charlotte Vale. Daniel Reed. Samuel arrived with a round shield and academy practice sword.

His family owed military service to House White, and he had once spent most of a lesson break trying to get Elizabeth to embellish a story about Alexander fighting with a broken spear during a border skirmish. She had disappointed him. Charlotte came next with her hair braided tightly and seed pouches fixed beneath her cloak. She checked the route packet before she checked the rest of them. Daniel approached last.

"Lady White. Lady Vale. Lord Veyne." Samuel adjusted one of the straps on his shield.

"Samuel's fine." Daniel nodded, but the title came back once before they left anyway. Samuel handed him the map.

"You know the ground better than I do." Daniel looked at the map, then at Samuel.

"You want me navigating?"

"I want you telling us where we are." Charlotte had opened the task sheet.

"Samuel can make the combat calls." Daniel looked between them, still uncertain. Elizabeth said, "Use the skill you were admitted for." Daniel looked down at the map again, then took it. Their listed tasks were simple enough: recover the venom sac of a blue-striped burrow adder, collect three mana-active plant samples, and copy the inscription from a marker on the northern ridge. A sealed objective was to remain unopened until evening.

As far as Crownspire knew, Elizabeth had a research class and very little to offer in a fight. Lightning Needle remained her only active reconstruction. Structured Light was still archived. Elizabeth did not mention either. The reserve doors opened. Mist lay low between the trees. The marked path descended towards a stone bridge, white-painted rocks disappearing into the woodland beyond it. The ward post at the gate pulsed blue at a slow, even rhythm. Teams entered five minutes apart.

While they waited, Daniel crouched and pressed one palm to the ground. Brown-gold mana moved out through the soil and roots. His face lost the nervousness it had held beside the other three. He was listening now.

"Two groups ahead," he said.

"One near the bridge." He shifted his hand slightly.

"The other left the route." Samuel looked through the gate.

"Anything coming back?" Daniel did not answer. His fingers spread against the damp earth. Charlotte noticed first.

"What is it?"

"I'm not sure." Daniel closed his eyes again.

"Something crossed the path before dawn. Heavy."

"How heavy?" Elizabeth asked. He shook his head.

"The trace is wrong." The gate assistant called Team Seven. Daniel stood, but he kept looking into the trees.

"It's too deep for anything in the first-year guide." The four of them went through the gate.