The panel was three faculty members, which I had known in advance, but knowing something and experiencing it were different things. Farren I had been assessed by before. The second examiner was a man named Seld, [B-] grade, broad through the shoulders and somewhere in his late forties, who ran the third-year combat curriculum and watched me walk in the door with the attention of someone who had spent years learning what students looked like when they were hiding something. The third was Orvyn.
Orvyn sitting on an assessment panel for a second-year student was not standard. I had expected him to receive the results afterward. His presence meant he had decided the results were not enough.
I sat down across from the three of them. The measurement equipment along the wall looked exactly as it had during the supplementary. Two weeks of suppression work, and I still did not know if it was going to be enough.
"Cael Dawnridge," Farren said, opening her folder. "Second year. Current grade [G+], Attunement Forged as confirmed by supplementary assessment." She looked up. "We'll begin with the standard measurements."
Force output and channel efficiency, administered through the equipment along the wall. I produced what I had been producing, consistent and unremarkable, appropriate for [G+] capacity with the efficiency that Forged attunement produced.
The channel efficiency reading was higher than the supplementary. Not dramatically. Enough to suggest the body had been responding well to sustained training, which was true and accurate and entirely explicable.
Farren made notes. Seld watched me rather than the equipment.
"Practical component," Orvyn said.
The construct was roughly humanoid, about two meters tall, given solidity by compressed channeling energy in a way that made it heavy to hit and quick to move. Not dangerous. Responsive. It crossed the space between us in a straight line when the examiner activated it.
I kept my conscious attention on the Force output and let nothing else run.
The engagement was mechanical. Force output at the appropriate intervals, directed accurately, efficiency maintained throughout. The construct went down in about forty seconds. Competent. Unremarkable.
Seld had not looked at the construct once during the engagement. He had been watching my hands.
When it was over I stepped back to the designated position and waited.
Farren wrote in her folder. Orvyn had not written anything since the practical component began.
"Your channel grade has moved," Farren said. "The efficiency reading puts you at [F+]."
"The practical component showed Forged attunement holding under pressure," Seld said. He paused. "It also showed a practitioner actively managing their output throughout the engagement."
The room was quiet.
"Nerves," I said.
"I have been running practical assessments for fourteen years," Seld said. "I know what nerves look like."
I held his gaze and said nothing.
Orvyn set his pen down. "Step outside for a moment please, Cael."
****
The corridor was empty. I stood with my back against the wall and listened to the muffled conversation from inside the room.
Seld had seen suppression. He had named it correctly without knowing what he was naming. The question was what the three of them were going to do with that.
After about five minutes the door opened and Farren looked out.
"Come back in," she said.
****
Farren had closed her folder. Seld had his arms crossed. Orvyn looked at me across the table.
"Your grade moves to [F+]," Orvyn said. "Your attunement is confirmed at Forged. Those are the results that go into the record." He paused. "What I am going to say now does not go into any record."
I waited.
"Instructor Seld's observation is correct," Orvyn said. "You were managing your output throughout the practical component. The decision to do so was the right one, and I would have made the same decision in your position, and the three of us are in agreement on this point."
Seld uncrossed his arms. "There are people who will see these results. The [F+] grade and the Forged attunement. They will draw conclusions about the gap between those two numbers. Some of those conclusions will be correct and some will not be." He paused. "The ones who draw the correct conclusions are not people you want drawing them yet."
"I know," I said.
"You keep saying that," Orvyn said.
"It keeps being true."
The corner of his mouth moved. He picked up his pen.
"There is one more thing," he said. "Instructor Corvath has submitted a supplementary observation to the assessment record. It will not be visible in the standard results but it exists in the faculty file." He looked at me. "It references Edgework."
The room was very quiet.
"He told me he was going to think carefully about what to submit," I said.
"He thought carefully," Orvyn said. "What he submitted was three sentences. The first describes what he observed. The second states that in his professional opinion the development is genuine and not artifice. The third recommends that the observation be restricted to faculty level access only." He set the pen down. "I have approved that restriction."
Three sentences. Eleven years of his own experience on the other end of exactly this situation, and what he had chosen to do with it was three careful sentences.
"Thank you," I said.
"Don't thank me. Understand what it means." He gathered his notes. "Your results will be posted this afternoon. [F+] grade, Forged attunement. Unremarkable progress for a hardworking second-year student." He stood. "That is what the record shows. What you actually are is your business until you decide otherwise."
I thanked the panel and left.
****
The results went up on the faculty board at the fourth bell. I checked them on the way to lunch.
[F+]. Forged. Unremarkable.
Fenn found me at the lunch table. "Your grade moved."
"A little."
"Still the lowest in our field trial group."
"Yes."
He looked at me for a moment. "You're not bothered by that."
"No."
He picked up his food and let it go.
Mira said nothing about the results at lunch. She said nothing about them at dinner either. That evening in the common room she looked up from her book when I sat down and said, "My father arrives in two weeks."
"I know."
"He'll want to talk about your assessment results."
"I assumed."
She looked at me for a moment. "He's going to ask me things about you afterward. Things I won't be able to answer."
"I know that too."
She held my gaze for a moment and then went back to her book.
I picked up my own book and sat with her in the quiet of the common room. Two weeks. Whatever Edric Solent was, I was going to be sitting across a table from him soon enough to find out.