A bronze gong chimed from the upper terrace, sending a dull shockwave through the dirt courtyard that signaled the commencement of the first trial.
The heavy palisade doors of the fourth holding pen swung outward, and armored sect sentries prodded the candidates forward with the blunt ends of their bronze-capped staves. Caleb Conway moved with the press of the crowd, his boots grinding against the loose scree as hundreds of nervous youths spilled toward the foot of the mountain. Before them rose the Gravity Staircase, an ancient flight of one hundred wide granite steps carved directly into the living rock of the cliffside, climbing steeply toward an arched gateway where the inner elders observed the proceedings.
Every stone slab of the staircase had been etched with dense formation runes
