In the blink of an eye, another month passed as the year drew to a close and the cold of winter set in.
And with it came the announcement.
An announcement that all the grueling training we'd been through… would finally be tested in the real world.
Gathered once again in the same hall where the island trial had been announced, we watched as Ivar Valerion, the temple director, stepped up to the podium and revealed a new test—one rumored to be even harder than the one held on the uninhabited island.
Ivar's ornate speech could be summed up in a few words…
All he really did was remind us of the Empire's current state, how war could erupt at any moment, and emphasize the need for proper training and preparedness.
Just a preamble before he revealed the details of the test.
A test I knew nothing about—since the plot of the story I once wrote had already deviated so far off course that predicting anything had become impossible.
