Hope by Sam Rook Page B

of all of the candidates. The doors of the room closed with the last of the candidates taking their seats.
    Assessor Jakara rose from his seat and the room quieted. "The first candidate for this Assessment is Lady Kathryn, originally from Earth. We’re here to witness her demonstration of the ten spells required for entry into the Knighthood. Lady Kathryn, I’m sure you know the order of the spells, so please begin when you’re ready." He took his seat. She expected him to scowl at her, but his face remained neutral.
    Standing in front of everyone, she no longer felt nervous. She looked all of the Assessors in the eye and set her jaw, preparing to actually speak the spells and not just think them when performing this demonstration. All of the Assessors sat up straight in their chairs as she completed her flawless demonstration. She stood with her arms by her sides while the Assessors conferred in quiet voices. They all nodded, including Assessor Jakara, and announced her acceptance into the Knighthood.
    She sat among the other candidates as all fifteen members of the study group along with five others who were able to learn the spells on their own entered the Knighthood. For the final day of the Assessment, the Knighthood accepted 20 out of 25 new candidates, a number she heard they hadn’t seen in a single session for decades.
    On the day of the wing ceremony, Hal and Kathryn both dressed in a tank top-like shirt with two slits in the back and short pants with no socks or shoes. Several knights led them into a large chamber that contained about fifty rectangular pools of thick, dark gray, gravy-like liquid. The pools, the size of a double bed on Earth, contained a floating log to keep their heads from submerging. A knight led her to her own pool and told her to enter using the steps on the left side.
    As Kathryn placed her foot into the organic mixture, she found it surprisingly warm. The mixture reminded her of a thick beef stew with small slivers of beef giving it an almost grainy texture. She didn’t want to know what the small pieces were in that pool and she knelt down to lie on her side with everyone else with only a small portion of her body above the liquid, her head resting on the log. Marinating before the slaughter. Too bad it smells like dirty feet.
    "Keep your heads firmly on the log." An unnamed knight bellowed to the room.
    Three knights stood around an upraised dais in the front of the chamber. She was too far away to hear the incantation and felt a buzzing in her head as the spell passed into her body from the log. The buzzing turned into a tingling that slowly spread from her head down to her back. The tingling turned to discomfort, then suddenly to a pain so intense she thought someone scraped a knife along her back, peeling the skin off one layer at a time. She wasn’t the only one who screamed for that whole hour.
    The pain subsided and turned into discomfort. She remained in the pools for two more hours as the spell gathered the organic material around her back to form her wings. It was the longest two hours of her life where she thought of nothing but each particle slowly gathering to her back. When the generation finished, she noticed the clear water for the first time. She tried to look at her wings, but agony accompanied any movement of her neck or back.
    "Come." A suit of black armor with wings offered her his hand.
    Her wrinkled fingers reached for the faceless comfort and he gripped her arm to draw her from the pool. She shivered in the cool air as a second knight toweled off her body, then gently let the damp towel absorb the liquid from her wings. Without the weight of the water, the wings felt much lighter, almost like carrying a backpack with a few books.
    The black knight escorted her back to her room and gestured to the bed.
    "You should lie on your stomach and rest your new muscles." He helped her do just that. "They’ll be sensitive for a while, but it will pass. You should feel