Creaaaaaaak!!!
A stone rose behind her.
It did not come from the steps, but from the yard itself, as if the ground had been holding it under the students' boots the whole time and had only now decided they were allowed to see it.
The monument was taller than three men and narrower than a door, carved from a single piece of pale bone that had no business looking that clean in a city this dark.
Crimson veins ran through it.
They pulsed once, then went still, waiting.
The yard understood before she explained.
"...Bone check."
Vael'Zira heard it and did not bother pretending she had not.
"Yes. The Bone-Checking Monument. This is the first test. It is also the test that sends most of you home before the sun moves."
She walked down one step. The Archduke's pressure eased just enough that the younger students remembered how to breathe.
