The assembly was called for the seventh bell on a Tuesday, which was itself unusual enough that the whole student body arrived at the main hall already speculating. Headmistress Wysteria waited on the platform until the noise settled entirely.
WYS: Two weeks from today, Solmere will hold the Trial of Power.
The hall's remaining murmur died completely.
WYS: For those of you in your first year who have not encountered it before, I will explain it plainly, because it deserves plain explanation rather than the considerable mythology that tends to accumulate around it.
She moved slowly along the platform's front, her attention sweeping across the assembled students with the particular unhurried thoroughness she brought to everything.
WYS: The Trial is a single elimination tournament. One competitor against one competitor, until only one remains. It is open to every student in this academy regardless of year, discipline, or specialization. A first-year may face a third-year. A weapon specialist may face an Alchemist. There is no bracketing by experience and no accommodation made for disadvantage.
A ripple moved through the hall.
WYS: Soul abilities are permitted. Alchemy is permitted. Weapons are permitted. The Trial exists specifically to answer a question the Sports Festival, with its various restricted formats, cannot: not who is fastest, or most precise, or most knowledgeable, but simply who, using everything available to them, prevails.
She paused.
WYS: I want to be clear about something before any of you sign your name to the roster. The Trial is not a festival event. It is not a celebration. Students are injured in the Trial of Power most years, sometimes seriously. Faculty supervise every match and will intervene where necessary, but intervention is not prevention, and I would be doing you all a considerable disservice if I permitted you to believe otherwise.
The hall had gone entirely silent.
WYS: Registration opens tomorrow morning and closes in three days. Participation is entirely voluntary. There is no shame whatsoever in declining, and I would encourage every one of you to consider the decision carefully rather than emotionally.
She stepped back from the platform's edge.
WYS: That is all.
The refectory that evening carried a considerably different energy than it had for the Sports Festival's announcement.
FNN: I'm not doing it.
He said it immediately, without any of his usual deliberation, and Briar looked up in genuine surprise.
BRR: You're not?
FNN: I competed in four festival events and enjoyed all of them thoroughly, and I've listened carefully to what the Headmistress said, and I've concluded that I have absolutely no interest in being seriously injured in front of the entire school by someone three years older than me who can set things on fire.
BRR: That's remarkably sensible.
FNN: I contain multitudes.
MRA: I'm not entering either.
She said it plainly, without any apparent conflict about the decision.
MRA: I won a chess tournament. That's the extent of what I'm interested in proving this year.
ELS: I'm entering.
She said it without looking up from her meal, and the table turned toward her.
BRR: Are you certain? Abilities permitted means you'd be facing-
ELS: I know what it means.
BRR: Right. Of course.
She said nothing further, and Arthur, watching her, understood immediately that whatever she had been doing across the mornings she never discussed had reached a point where she wanted to test it against something that pushed back.
YSE: I'm entering as well, obviously.
FNN: Obviously.
YSE: I've spent a year developing techniques nobody in this academy has seen before and I'd very much like to find out what they're worth against someone genuinely trying to stop me.
Corin, seated at the table's far end where he had increasingly, and without comment, begun taking his meals, spoke without looking up.
COR: I'm entering.
Nobody expressed surprise. Talon, beside him, offered a small resigned shrug.
TLN: And I suppose I'm entering, because he is, and because it would be genuinely embarrassing to be the only one at this table who didn't.
The conversation continued around the table, and Arthur, who had not yet spoken, found everyone's attention gradually turning toward him.
ELS: Arthur?
ART: I'm entering.
The response arrived so immediately and with such total absence of deliberation that the table briefly paused.
BRR: You're certain? Abilities are permitted, Arthur. Fully permitted. That's the entire format.
ART: I know.
BRR: You'd be facing people using every advantage available to them, and you'd be-
ART: Using everything available to me. Which is what the Headmistress said the Trial was for.
He said it without any particular defensiveness, simply stating the arrangement as he understood it, and Elsie, watching him, smiled slightly.
YSE: You didn't hesitate at all.
ART: No.
YSE: Not even briefly?
ART: I stopped hesitating about this sort of thing somewhere around eight years old.
He said it lightly, and the table laughed, and the conversation moved on, and only Elsie, who had actually been present for the specific afternoon he was referring to, caught the full weight of what he'd said. He signed the roster the following morning, third name on an otherwise empty sheet. The registration hall was mostly quiet at that hour, and the upperclassman managing the ledger glanced up as Arthur set the quill down.
UPP: Lyerm. First year.
ART: That's right.
UPP: You understand abilities are permitted.
ART: I do.
The upperclassman looked at him for a moment longer, and Arthur recognized the particular expression, having encountered various versions of it his whole life, the specific look of someone deciding whether to say something they suspected would not be welcome.
UPP: Right. Good luck, then.
He entered the name into the ledger without further comment, and Arthur walked back out into the spring morning with his name on a roster and two weeks ahead of him and absolutely no idea whatsoever how he intended to survive a single match. He found he did not particularly mind. He had, after all, spent most of his life with no idea how he intended to manage things, and had managed a considerable number of them regardless.