The bell rang at first light, and Hoff stamped the flags once with the heel of his boot.
That was all the ceremony the Keep had ever given a test. The lodging yard had no wall to hide the stamp, and no clerk on a stool with a sand glass. Only the cold, the wet stones, and the class standing in a row by the trough, with the Arena roaring faintly over the roofs.
Calen stood at the edge of the flags. He did not speak until the last ring of the bell had gone out of the air. A failed run reset the count to zero, and Calen had told them so every morning that week.
“Three clean yields,” he said. “Liss shoves on a count Kade cannot see. Dorran counts for the lesson. Nothing else counts.”
“Nothing else,” said Liss, and she pushed her hands into her sleeves.
Kade stood in the middle of the flags. He had his coat off this time. His shirt was damp across the shoulders, and his left side was still tender. He had not looked at the crowd on the walls, though Calen knew the Silverspire benches were already filling beyond the gate.
