I stood in line with my ten other classmates, grass at my feet, a deep valley running below me, vast and wild. I could almost smell the salt in the air. If I turned my head, I could see the vastness of the ocean, Boston in sight, a speck of grey and smoke miles away. Nobles gathered on horses, watching eagerly. Wagons lined up nearby. Dawn was still young, the smells and senses of early morning filling the air. Nearby, cages held gnashing fiends—wolf-like creatures with stone claws and distorted bodies, the stuff of nightmares.

My anxiety rose as Mario spoke, or rather screamed, at us, his voice cutting through the morning calm. "Today will test the wideness of the mastery of your suits! To equip you, we bring the precious Mystorium from the Tower. This Mystorium is the lifeblood of our Griidlords. It heals them, grows them, but today we squander it on you worthless retches that you may be tested in the feeble hope that one among you may be worthy of the Oracle's blessing and become the Sword of Boston."

As he spoke, other priests hounded servants carrying large jet-black cylinders, struggling under the weight. Another priest scolded a team of servants bearing the Sword Suit on a stretcher. I watched, my heart aching with fear. I had mastered the Beam, but Mario spoke of wider-ranging attributes. My head raced with the pressure of not only bringing glory to my family but saving us from ruin.

Mario squawked, "Today we risk this precious Mystorium on you worthless objects, so that the Sword may grow to encompass you and allow you all to compete and at least give us the chance to send at least two of you away."

Two? I didn't understand. I thought only one classmate would be lost each day barring strange disasters.

The grass beneath my feet felt more solid than my own resolve as I tried to steady my nerves. The fiends in their cages snarled and snapped, their twisted forms a constant reminder of the danger we faced. The nobles watched us like vultures, eager to see who would fail and who might emerge as a potential Griidlord.

I looked across at the others. Faces were strained and tense. Eyes darted from the mystorium to the terrifying beasts, back again. The gravity of the day wasn’t lost on them either. Katya seemed cool, that same curious yet diseinterested expression on her face. Lauren was still, her face unreadable. Lance stood completely relaxed. He stood as though he had already won, he was barely interested and unconcerned with demons or mystorium.

Mario's voice cut through my thoughts. "The Sword Suit will grow to encompass you, to test your limits and your abilities. Only through this trial will we see who among you has the potential to wield it with honor and strength. You will fight, you will endure, and only the strongest will prevail."

I felt my skin growing cold. There was terror enough and challenge enough in this wihtout the new pressures that weighed down on. I thought of father’s words from the previous night. If I failed today, if I failed any day, it wasn’t just the Choosing that I would lose. I would doom my family.

Again I cursed me father for his madness. How had he ever expected me to compete against these nobles? They had been trained from the moment they could walk. I had been frail wreck in a bed, with no expectation that my life would ever be anything.

Mario barked at us, "There will be five teams: four of two and one of three. The larger team will face the greatest challenge. On this day, you will test the broadest array of your suits' attributes by hunting a fiend." Mario gestured to the cages, five in all. Each of the small wolf fiends gnashed and scrabbled, angry and afraid. As I looked, I could see each forehead was branded with a different numeral from one to five.

Mario continued, "The fiends will be released, and the teams will make chase. The last team to return with the head of their fiend will be dismissed."

We stared in awe, none of us able to believe the challenge. Even with Griidsuits, this seemed impossible. A fiend like these would tear nearly any man apart, could terrorize a whole village. A true Griidlord might dispatch one without even noticing, but to our clumsy novicehood, this seemed an impossible task.

Mario belched, "The valley is surrounded by proud soldiers of Boston, enough to turn the beasts back into the vast acres of the Valley of Testing, where you will make your hunt."

We watched, the tension rising, as Mario cried to the heavens, "Oh Prophet, though these worthless whelps are beyond unworthy, grant them the chance to prove their unworthiness. Bestow upon them the use of your blessings."

The cylinders began to melt, flowing like particles to the Griidsuit on the stretcher. The suit dissolved, the particles flowing like animated water to all eleven of us. The flow of blackness consumed us, forming crude Griidsuits with half-helms. Mario continued speaking.

"We will match best with worst. Lauren, the leader from yesterday's contest, you will be paired with the wailing, Tiberius."

While I didn’t appreciate the old bastard’s words, I did appreciate his choice. I felt the excitement in me at the prospect of teaming up with Lauren. The idea of being close to her, of talking to her made my chest flutter. But all the same, it brought anxiety itself. What did you say to girls? Father had used me for his ends and had never thought that my life might be better if I’d been able to mix with others my age, make friends, and make mistakes. But to my father, I was only a thing that served a purpose.

As the blackness formed around me, I glanced at Lauren. She wasn’t looking at me. She was pointedly looking away from me. If anything, she looked concerned. I thought back to the smile she had given me as she climbed into her coach. There was no smile now. Of course, she had just had her destiny tied to me, the obviously weakest contender here.

When the suit had formed around her, she detached herself from the line of contestants. She walked to me, and I tried to imagine that she wasn’t dreading trying to survive the round with me dragging her down.

Mario continued announcing the other teams: Gideon and Leona, Theo and Felix, Lance and Zara. Emilia and Arthur, and finally, Katya together, were tasked with bringing down the largest of the beasts.

The others approached each other, there were hushed conversations.

Mario kept bellowing the rules. "We have five rockets, each will burst in the air to reveal a different color. These will announce the return of each victorious team, if victory is a term that can be used to describe you miserable excuses for applicants. First team, Lauren and Tiberius, are red. Second team, Gideon and Leona, are blue. Third team, Theo and Felix, are green. Fourth team, Lance and Zara, are purple. Fifth team, Emilia, Arthur, and Katya, are pink."

A sense of horror gripped me as I watched the fiends being released. Servants, several per fiend, held them by poles attached to their collars, dragging them to different edges of the clearing. At a word from Mario, the poles were detached from the collars by some mechanism that I couldn’t see. The fiends hesitated, looking at the crowd of humans and eying the armed guards. Four streaked away immediately. But our fiend, the one branded with a 1 on its brow, lunged at one of the servants who had released it. Blood erupted from the room and the fiend reared up to strike again as the other servants scattered.

Soldiers rushed forward, bearing spears, shouting to distract the animal. The fiend clawed at the servant again. My stomach churned as I watched. Spears thrust at it, but the thing hardly seemed to care. The creature raked its claws at the struggling man. More spears jabbed at the fiend, and finally, it turned and fled.

I turned to Lauren. Her gaze was fixed on the undergrowth. It would be our task to not only track the beastly thing down, but to slay it as well.