Junius 25Year 242, A.H. “Again, Archon Eva,” the masked Archon calls out. He wants me to scale the hundred-foot ice wall that dominates the Yard. This will be my sixth attempt. “Yes—” I stop. It feels wrong and disrespectful not to address him by his Lex-given title, but I don’t know what to call him. He didn’t bother to introduce himself, and since I can’t see his face underneath his sealskin mask, I don’t know who he is. The mask is an oddity. The Aerie people are well-accustomed to the cold—we know nothing else—and generally only wear such masks in the dead of winter. In blizzards. Not on relatively warm spring days such as this. I stare up at the man-made sheet of ice, which doubles as a cliff and a crevasse for training purposes. In my preparations for the Testing, Lukas had me scale much higher walls. During the Testing itself, I descended down a slick crevasse that had no bottom I could discern. I grew comfortable in even the most dangerous climbing conditions.
