Now was the hour of truth.

The queue was long and quiet. The tension almost tangible, like a blurry shadow that wafted out of people's skin. No one dared speak, or make eye contact, or breathe too loudly.

Alleria looked at the wall on her right. She couldn't stomach looking at other people. The wallpaper had an awful pattern of mustard-yellow squiggly lines. A little way to the left there was a horrid painting of a bowl of fruit hanging under an old clock that was ticking, ticking, ticking.

The old, well-polished wooden floor creaked like a giant cricket as the queue moved up. Alleria's turn came. Two old men and a woman were sitting behind a desk. She silently handed over her papers. The woman crossed out a name on a list, gave her a card with a number and pointed her towards the left door.

She entered the ladies' changing room. She had already left her jacket and purse in the cloak room. Grasping the card with both hands, she presented it before the three elderly women in charge. They told her to remove all her clothing down to her undergarments. One woman checked every inch of her body for crib-sheets or anything written on her skin before giving her a light-blue robe and light-blue slippers. Dressed in the colour of a Scholar, she was allowed to proceed to examination hall 5.

The hall was massive, with hundreds of numbered desks in neat rows. The distance from desk to desk was exactly two meters in every direction, there was a watchful examiner at both ends of each line and row so that at any given moment each examinee was under the scrutiny of four pairs of eyes. On the front of every desk was an angled mirror that would allow the examiners to see underneath the desks.

The exams for the High Academy were renown for being exaggeratedly strict, anyone suspected of cheating would be disqualified on the spot.

Alleria, with her heart hammering in her chest realised that hers was the desk in the front corner and she would have two examiners standing directly over her and breathing down her neck the whole day. Even more nervous than she thought possible, she sat, placing her card in the card-holder at the edge of the desk. There were three pens laid out on the right side of the desk for her use next to an inkwell. She checked to see if all was in order and raised her hand to get the examiners' attention.

Both looked down at her with steely eyes, "There's no ink in the well, sir." she squeaked meekly.

The examiner in front of her nodded firmly towards one of the attendants who all but flew towards them. Moments later a page that was probably her age was pouring ink into her desk, she looked at Alleria curiously before retreating.

When all the examinees were seated, a battalion of attendants marched in and began distributing papers to each desk. Then all was in order and the gong rang. An attendant tugged on a silken rope that pulled aside the heavy red curtain at the front of the hall behind which was written today's question in large letters on a plaque in a golden frame.

Alleria moved the paper to the correct angle, lifted the pen in her right hand, dipped it into the inkwell and, armed and ready, began to tackle the question.

**

The next day and then the next followed in the same fashion. Every day a different question and a different essay to write. A bruised blister had formed on the middle joint of her middle finger in her right hand.

She fell into the rhythm of the Exam, her body fused with the right amount of stress and excitement. She couldn't tell whether her answers would grant her a spot in the High Academy — but at least they were worthy answers she could be proud of.

And she would continue, even though tomorrow, on the last day, she was going to fail.

For the first time in the history of the empire, the question that was going to be asked in the Exams for the High Academy was in Theology.

The prominent religion of the empire, the Church of the Owl, taught that the Power had created this world, but not the Otherworld — that was the domain of the Demon — and everything that touched it and came from there was demonic. There was good and evil in the world, the Church preached, and they were never combined. After giving everything form, the Power had taken the shape of Ulundine the Owl, the good and benevolent deity.

Ulundine was the one true God.

Lavasana, a wise-woman and prophet of the distant past was His medium, and she passed down His Teachings. During the time of the Aredmout dynasty, one thousand years ago, the Teachings were written for the first time in the Book of Lavasana.

Alleria's knowledge mainly focused on the historical and secular approach. She was widely read on the blood Persecutions that had brought the fall of the mighty Aredmout dynasty eight hundred years in the past. She knew of the exorcisms and witch-hunts that had occurred two hundred years later during the time of the weak Doredath dynasty, and how, when the Vanaslid line came into power fifty bloody years later, the Church was the one that became persecuted.

But then, finally, came the Thelverain dynasty, bringing with it stability and prosperity. The Church had its place, and purpose, but it was always closely watched and scrutinised.

Although historically there had always been Scholars who used the Church as a tool to advance their political agenda, the imperial bureaucracy was not religious. Theology had technically always been in the material for the Exams, but a theological question had never been asked.

Until now.

And Alleria didn't possess the kind of in-depth knowledge required to face such a question. She didn't know by heart the theological canon, she couldn't quote out of memory the most important literature on the subject, she couldn't recall the full script of the seven main interpreters of the Book of Lavasana. She was nothing but an ignorant fool, a novice, a child.

***

Again, the attendants distributed the paper among the examinees. The atmosphere of tension of the past days had reached its peak today — after this question it would all be over.

The rope was pulled, the curtain drawn. Alleria looked at the plaque, it wasn't a question, it was a verse from the Book of Lavasana:

"...Among us they walk,

Blighted children of the moonless night.

Passed back from the Otherworld

To steal thy soul for their Demon master

Beware of the Wicked, the Mystic, the Compromised

Beware of the Three-eyed, the Two-tongued, the Left-handed

In fire they shalt burn, by the sword justly slain

Thou shalt purge the Demon's mischief

Thou shalt cleanse unholy profanation

Behold the glory of the righteous

Protectors of the exalted land..."

Cold sweat trickled down the back of her neck. For several moments, she looked at the passage, but couldn't move.

Alleria drew a deep breath and forced herself to calm. She picked up the pen and dipped it in ink, angling the paper. She made to pass the pen to her left hand but stopped herself just in time. Her nerves were making her reckless. She could hear her heartbeat drumming in her ears, the empty page swam before her eyes. She bit down on her lip.

And began to write her discussion about the passage from the Book of Lavasana, how it the words of the philosopher Darmin Cove who created the long and controversial discussion about theological misconceptions and how the text of the book proved only the authority the author had over his own words. It was now widely known that there was a constant of 10% born with a dominant left hand and many people in this day and age spoke a second and third language. What the text preached, and the interpreters explained was irrelevant in this day and age.

After loading her pen with ink for the third time, she began feeling comfortable, her tongue poked out of the corner of her mouth unheeded.

She wrote.

The hours ticked by and her mind was seized in complete concentration. As she completed the second draft of her answer she froze, looking at her hand.

Her left hand.

It was the one that held the pen.

Her frenzied heart nearly burst from her chest and she had to double forward to muffle her gasp. What had she done? Did anyone notice? She had been so concentrated and sometimes writing with her right hand felt like speaking a foreign language. How long had this been going on?

She kept her head down, fighting the urge to look up and examine the people around her. If she'd be caught looking anywhere but her paper, she'd be disqualified.

But if anyone had seen her writing with her left hand, it wouldn't matter.

Maybe no one had seen. Everyone was focused on writing their exam. She drew several breaths as she began writing the third draft. It was a small mistake. She had to pretend like it never happened.

As she presented the final draft of her answer to the attendant who sprinkled powder on the ink to make it dry, her mind was reeling. She already knew that with this essay, she had failed the Exam. She had been too controversial and such arguments were never rewarded.

But she had wanted to at least she say her piece. Even if it was all a dream doomed to die, in a fleeting moment, she had expressed herself — if not as a Scholar then as a person.

She shuffled out of the hall with the other examinees, shoulders hunched, head bent down with fatigue. But then the back of her head prickled, and she looked up.

And met the gaze of another examinee, a middle-aged man with receding hair. He was looking at her as if she were a leper. He saw her. He knew.

From where she stood she could just make out the name-tag pinned to the front of his light-blue robe, Dolwick Kempett