She stubbed her foot against a half-buried rock. The pain was minimal, but the accident still threw her off balance and forced her to scramble to remain upright. She failed and fell flat onto her face.

  Laughter erupted around her. Even as that development stunned her, she knew that she had been drawn into another memory. She rose from the dirt, dusting off herself and glared at the laughing bystanders.

  “Who tripped me?” she demanded.

  “Don’t be a sore loser, Eluvie,” a girl laughed happily. “You dropped the ball, we get a point.” She was tossing a cloth ball from one hand to another. If you couldn’t play, then you should have stayed on the sidelines.”

  The girl wore the completely black clothing that only unranked were permitted to wear, and so did the rest of the group - 16 people in all. Only Eluvie had brown stripes on her sleeves, a sign that she had reached the first rank.

  “It was a foul,” Eluvie said, but the girl was no longer listening. She had thrown the ball to one of her teammates - a short boy with dirty sleeves - and he was now throwing it to the scorer.

  Eluvie huffed. One of her teammates caught her eye and shrugged. His meaning was clear: no one was interested in playing fair. Well, she decided, if fouls were allowed, they would learn that she was just as capable of them.

  She moved to join the game but was interrupted once again. Just visible in the distance and fast approaching them was a figure: Jema. And she was running. Jema rarely ran. She was famous for being the laziest member of their birth group. So, if she was running, there was news.

  Eluvie’s distraction caught the group’s notice, and one by one, they stopped to watch the approaching figure.

  “What do you think is happening?” someone asked.

  But no one replied because no one knew.

  Finally, Jema reached the group, stumbled to a sudden halt, and stared at them in silence.

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  “Well?” someone said. “Why the drama?”

  “Riwioti…” Jema said.

  Everyone froze.

  Riwioti was the last member of their group. She had left for her first trial only days before.

  “She’s back already?” Eluvie asked. “That was quick.”

  Jema shook her head.

  Eluvie tried to read her face. She was clearly tired from the run, but beyond that, Eluvie could determine nothing of her feelings.

  “Is something wrong with the trial?” Eluvie asked. As the most advanced, she was their group’s unofficial speaker. As long as she was present, the others were happy to let her say what they were thinking.

  Jema shook her head again. “She failed.”

  The words landed like an earthquake.

  She failed.

  The thing that couldn’t happen, that no one dared imagine, that they had all silently agreed to ignore.

  She failed.

  "She just left," Eluvie said. "Don't spread rumors."

  "They're removing her name plaque," Jema said. "They already completed the reading. We weren't invited."

  Everything that happened next seemed to happen to someone else. Eluvie saw herself shoving the others out of her way and running to the Evaluation Hall. She found no one there. The hearing had been over for hours. She ran to their residence and saw the damning sight: 18 beds, well-made and surrounded by the owners' belongings, and one empty spot where the 19th bed had been. She saw herself hunt down one of their teachers, demand an explanation, and refuse to accept the offered explanation. Then, she saw herself locked in a room overnight and told that she would be freed when she calmed down; something she could not do. Because Riwioti was the best of them and Riwioti had promised to return and they had planned a four-day hike for her return and how would they ever sleep now, with one empty place in the room?

  When Eluvie came back to the present, her heart was still pounding, her mind still roiled with shock and disbelief. She sat on the ground, held captive by emotions that had not faded with the memories. It took several minutes for her to return herself to a semblance of peace. But no matter how she told herself that it was only a memory, the grief would not release her.

  When she finally rose to her feet, she had no knowledge of how long she had been sitting there. She hoped that it had been only a few minutes, but she comforted herself with the knowledge that if it had been longer, there was nothing that could be done about it.

  She walked several more steps, but walking proved too tiring and flying felt unappealing. Since those were her only means of transportation, she decided to rest for a few more minutes. After all, she had no fixed destination.

  She stumbled to a nearby tree, sat down, leaned her back against its trunk, and was immediately pulled into another memory.