Chapter 18: The Elimination of Callum's Last Ally

The Recitation Trial began, as all Grand Ascension social trials began, with a notice slipped beneath the tributes' doors at six in the morning — crisp ivory card, copper-plate script, the ascending bird device embossed at the upper right — and the particular quality of dread that Honoria had come to associate with official Court stationery arriving before breakfast.

She read it twice, which was once more than necessary.

The trial was formally designated the Cultural Recitation and Formal Presentation, which meant, as best Honoria could determine from the four-paragraph explanation that followed, that each remaining tribute would be required to stand before the assembled judges and Court gallery and speak for no fewer than three minutes and no more than five on a subject drawn the previous evening from a sealed box by Countess Thrall herself. The subjects had been assigned in advance, individually, sealed in a second envelope attached to the bottom of the notice, and were, the card assured them, selected to reflect each tribute's particular background and personal history, as assessed over the preceding weeks of the Grand Ascension.