Chapter 6

It sat at the bottom of the east hall, a wide circle of pale stone sunk twelve steps below the floor, with tiered galleries rising on every side like the inside of an enormous cup. The stone was scarred. Old burn marks, old frost cracks, a long groove in one wall where someone, decades ago, had tried to throw a spear of wind and had been far too successful. The air smelled faintly of rain and iron, the way a room smells when a great deal of magic has passed through it.

Class 1-S filed into the lower gallery and sat in a loose, uneasy cluster. Nobody was joking now. Two dozen of the best young cultivators of their generation, and every one of them was suddenly aware that this was the first time they would be ranked against each other with the whole class watching.