Something damp was pressed against Owen’s cheek.
He opened his eyes and found himself looking at blades of grass, very close, swaying gently in a breeze. The air smelled of fresh earth. Somewhere nearby, people were talking, and he could hear the rustle of others moving around him.
For a moment, he didn’t move.
The last thing he remembered was the carriage. He had been sitting across from Gareth, and he had asked him why they were both getting so sleepy, and Gareth had slumped against his seat before he could answer.
Owen pushed himself up onto his hands, then sat back on his heels.
He wasn’t in the carriage anymore.
He was sitting in the middle of an enormous grassy field, and he wasn’t alone. There were people everywhere. Hundreds of them, young men and women, most of them around his own age. Some were already on their feet. Others were still lying in the grass or sitting up slowly, blinking at the sunlight and looking around them. Some wore expensive clothes with noble crests stitched on them. Others were dressed in plain travelling clothes.
"Where’s the carriage?" a young man a few paces away was saying, rubbing his forehead. "I was in a carriage. Where did it go?"
Nearby, a girl had turned in a full circle. "Has anyone seen my attendants? There were two of them with me. They were right there."
Two others stood close together, arguing in low voices.
"We must be at the Academy."
"Does this look like an academy to you?"
Owen brushed the grass off his clothes and got to his feet.
Once he was standing, he could see a good deal more.
The field stretched a long way in every direction. Patches of taller grass rippled in the wind, and here and there a tree stood on its own in the open. To one side, much farther off, the ground rose into rocky slopes. Along another edge, a dense forest ran as far as he could see.
There were no buildings. No towers, no barracks, nothing he recognised at all.
All of these people, and they only took up a small part of the field. There were open stretches of land running off in every direction, and Owen had no idea how far any of them went.
He turned to look for Gareth.
He searched the faces of the people behind him for his brother’s height, for the dark hair. He didn’t see him. He walked a little way through the crowd, looking at each face as he passed it.
Gareth wasn’t there.
That was strange. They had been sitting right across from each other when they fell asleep. He had expected to wake up beside him.
He looked around again. Gareth might be somewhere on the far side of the crowd. But there were so many people, and none of their faces were familiar, and he couldn’t possibly check all of them at once.
He was still trying to decide what to do when a commotion started somewhere ahead of him.
* * *
A bright light had appeared high above the middle of the field.
Owen looked up.
A huge rectangle of light was forming in the sky. Its edges shimmered for a moment, unsettled, and then it steadied into a flat, glowing screen, so large that everyone in the field must have been able to see it.
The light fell across the grass and across the faces turned up toward it. People shaded their eyes. Some conversations stopped at once. Others carried on for a moment longer as people pointed and called to their friends to look.
The young man who had been asking about his carriage went quiet. A small group near Owen drew closer together, staring upward.
Owen stood where he was and watched.
An insignia appeared in the middle of the screen. A silver sword, surrounded by a golden laurel wreath, against a dark background.
He knew it at once. It had been painted on the doors of the carriage that came to collect him and Gareth.
So this had something to do with the Academy.
The insignia faded, and a man appeared in its place.
He was dressed formally, in dark clothes cut in a style Owen hadn’t seen before, with the Academy’s insignia on his breast. He stood with his hands behind his back, perfectly at ease, as though addressing hundreds of strangers in a field were something he did every day.
Owen wondered if he was one of the instructors.
The man’s voice carried clearly across the whole field. "I am the Commandant of the Imperial Military Academy."
The last of the talking around Owen died away.
"Welcome to the entrance examination," the Commandant said. "You have come here from every part of Asteria, because each of you received an invitation. You are here as examination candidates. Not as students."
Owen understood at once.
Gareth was a third-year Officer Cadet. He had no reason to be standing in a field with people trying to get in for the first time. While they were unconscious, the Academy must have taken him somewhere else.
That answered the question, at least. He still had no idea where Gareth was now, or how they had been separated without either of them knowing, but he didn’t need to go looking for him anymore.
He turned his attention back to the screen.
"Congratulations on earning your invitations," the Commandant said. "But don’t mistake an invitation for acceptance. An invitation means the Academy has recognised you as someone worth examining. Whether you earn a place is going to depend entirely on what you do here."
Some of the candidates near Owen straightened up. Others glanced at each other.
"There are approximately two hundred and fifty of you in this field," the Commandant said. "The Academy will accept fifty."
Owen heard the reaction start immediately.
A young woman standing close to him turned to the girl beside her, her eyes wide. "Fifty? Out of all of us?"
A little farther ahead, two candidates had started looking around at the people near them, their lips moving as they counted.
"So most of us are going home," someone muttered behind Owen.
Not everyone looked worried. A tall young man a few paces away had simply folded his arms, as though this was exactly what he had expected.
Owen looked across the crowd again.
Only fifty.
All of these people had travelled here. Some of them had probably been preparing for this for months, maybe years. And four out of every five were going to leave without a place.
He found that more interesting than anything else. He had trained for years. He had fought real monsters, and he had abilities through his armament that nobody else here would have. But he had never seen any of these people fight. He had no idea how he measured up against them.
He wanted to find out.
The Commandant waited until the murmuring had died down.
"You are already standing in the examination grounds," he said. "Throughout the grassland, the forest and the rocky ground around you, there are monsters. They have been placed there for this examination."
He paused.
"Your task is simple. Hunt them, and earn points."
The image on the screen changed. A table appeared beside the Commandant, with three lines written on it in large, clear letters.
Prowler-rank monster: 1 point.
Stalker-rank monster: 5 points.
Ravager-rank monster: 20 points.
"Each monster is worth points according to its rank," the Commandant said. "The higher the rank, the more dangerous it is to kill, and the more it’s worth."
Owen knew those ranks well.
He had seen enough of them during the hunt in Mowbray territory to know what the difference between one rank and the next could mean. A Stalker was not simply a stronger Prowler. A Ravager was something else entirely.
He looked at the numbers again.
Hunting lots of weaker monsters might well be faster than spending a long time on one strong one. But then, a single Ravager was worth twenty Prowlers. Someone who could kill one quickly could jump a long way up the rankings in one go.
He couldn’t decide which was better without seeing how many of each there were, and where.
"You won’t need to carry corpses back," the Commandant went on, "or bring us their cores. Each of you was fitted with an examination bracelet while you were brought here. It identifies you, it records every confirmed kill you make, and it keeps your score. The points for a monster go to whoever lands the killing blow."
On the screen, a sample entry appeared beneath the table, a candidate’s name with a running total beside it.
"A ranking board will be available throughout the examination," the Commandant said. "You will be able to see the current standings at any time."
Owen listened closely to that.
It meant he wouldn’t have to stop in the middle of a hunt to drag a carcass anywhere. But it also meant that every candidate in this field would always know exactly where they stood. And exactly who was ahead of them.
"You have twelve hours," the Commandant said.
The screen changed again. A countdown appeared beneath the table, the numbers motionless.
"When the time runs out, the Academy will review the final rankings. The fifty candidates with the highest scores will be admitted to the Imperial Military Academy. Everyone else will not."
The whispering started again.
"Twelve hours is a long time," the young man near Owen said. "Hunting that long without stopping? We’ll be dead on our feet."
His companion didn’t look at him. "If you want to stay in the top fifty, you might not get to stop."
Owen glanced toward the distant line of the forest.
Twelve hours was long enough to wear anyone down, especially if they had to spend half of it searching for something to fight. And charging off into ground he didn’t know might waste more time than it saved. It might also put him somewhere he didn’t want to be.
"You may hunt alone," the Commandant said, "or you may work with others. The Academy will not assign teams. If you choose to cooperate, you will make your own arrangements." He paused. "But every one of you will be ranked by your own score."
That started a fresh wave of quiet talk.
Some of the candidates turned straight toward people they already seemed to know. Others looked around more warily. Owen saw a few of them glance at the people beside them and then move a step or two away.
He understood why.
Fighting alongside capable people had its advantages. He had learned that in Mowbray territory. A group could do things that one fighter alone couldn’t, and do them more safely.
But here, every person in a group would still need enough points of their own to make the top fifty. A monster killed together only counted for whoever struck the last blow.
He decided not to settle on anything yet. He wanted to see what these people were like first.
"One more thing," the Commandant said. "You may challenge one another. You may interfere with another candidate’s hunt. You may compete for the same monsters, and you may use whatever tactics you see fit to gain an advantage. The Academy will not step in simply because one candidate has lost an opportunity to another."
His voice hardened slightly.
"However, deliberately killing another candidate, or crippling them permanently, is forbidden. This examination exists to decide who earns a place at this Academy. It is not an excuse for murder."
He let that settle.
"Within those limits, you are free to do as you choose."
The meaning was impossible to miss.
Anything goes.
Owen saw the reaction ripple through the crowd. A few of the candidates looked pleased, as though they had been hoping for exactly this. Others had started glancing uneasily at the people around them.
He looked around the field again.
It felt different now. A few minutes ago, people had been asking each other where they were and what had happened to their carriages. Now they were looking at each other’s clothes, and the crests on them, and at whoever had a weapon already showing. A few people were drifting toward others they knew, talking in low voices.
The examination wasn’t only going to be about monsters. Other candidates could get in his way. They could fight him for the same kill, or try to force a fight on him when he didn’t want one.
Owen found that he was looking forward to it.
* * *
"Your invitations brought you this far," the Commandant said. "What happens next is up to you. Your family name won’t earn you a place here. Neither will your reputation, or anything you’ve done before today."
He looked out across the field.
"Good luck."
His image vanished from the screen.
For a moment, only the Academy’s insignia remained.
Then the screen changed once more, and the rankings appeared. A long list of names, every one of them with zero points beside it.
Above the list, the twelve-hour countdown waited to begin.
Owen watched the numbers settle into place.
Around him, nobody was asking where they were anymore. Candidates were straightening their clothes and getting ready to summon their armaments. Some were talking quickly with people who might fight alongside them. Others had already turned to look toward the grassland and the distant forest, and a few seemed to be working out which way would bring them to the most monsters.
Owen looked from the screen to the land stretching away around him.
He knew the ranks. He knew how the points worked. He had twelve hours to finish among the fifty highest scores in this field.
What he didn’t know was how good the other candidates were, or what was waiting for him out there beyond the open grass.
He would find out soon enough.
He steadied himself, and got ready to move.