The Iron Trial [Magisterium]

Chapter Sixteen...

The cavern was quite large, the ceiling carved to be vaulted like the ceiling of a cathedral. There were five tall archways, each flanked by marble pillars, each inlaid with a different metal: iron, copper, bronze, silver, or gold. The walls were marble, indented with thousands of human handprints, a name carved over each one. 

A bronze statue of a young girl with long, wind-whipped hair was in the center of the room. Her face was upturned. The plaque beneath her read: Verity Torres. 

"What is this place?" Aaron asked. 

"It's the Hall of Graduates," said Tamara, whirling around, her expression awed. "When apprentices become journeymen and journeywomen mages, they come here and press their handprints into the stone. Everyone who's ever graduated from the Magisterium is here." 
"My mom and dad," Call said, walking through the room, clearly looking for their names.

"Everyone who graduated..." Part of me wanted to be like Call and search eagerly for my mother's handprint yet... I couldn't bring myself to do it. To look so hard for her name to see where she decided to touch. I wasn't ready yet.

I glanced over on to a far wall where Call was crouched down, his hand inside a handprint. Sarah Novak, pressed into the base of a stalagmite, the name scrawled in a fine point, like it had been done with a weapon. Probably the same weapon that rested at his hip. At twelve, his hands were as big as hers had been at seventeen. He seemed upset as he stared at his hand well fitting in the print, but was it only for the loss of a mother he never knew, or was it something else.

"Call," Tamara said. She touched him gently on the shoulder. Call glanced back at the three of us and shot to his feet, shaking off Tamara's hand. 

"I'm fine," he said, clearing his throat.  I shook my head slightly, he really was so easily embarrassed.

"Look at this." Aaron was standing in the middle of the room, in front of a large archway made of a shimmering white stone. Carved across the front were the words Prima Materia. Aaron ducked under it, popping out the other side with a curious look. "It's an archway to nowhere." 

"Prima materia," Tamara murmured, and her eyes widened. "It's the First Gate! At the end of every year at the Magisterium, you go through a gate. It's for when you've learned to control your magic, to use your counterweights properly. After, you get your Copper Year armband." 

Aaron went pale. "You mean I just went through the gate early? Am I going to be in trouble?" 

"You think you're gunna get into trouble for crossing a gate when Master was the one who let us get lost?" I smirked as I glanced around again.

Tamara shrugged at him. "I don't think so. It doesn't seem like it's activated." We all squinted at it. It stood there, being a stone archway in a dark room. It definitely didn't seem like it was on, if it was this was truly disappointing.

"Did you see anything like that on the map?" Call asked. 

Aaron shook his head. "I don't remember." He glanced at me and I shrugged.

"Don't look at me like that buddy I have no clue. I might adventure a lot but I've never been in this area before. Not to mention there is no footprints other than ours here now."

"So even though we found a landmark, we're just as lost as before?" Tamara kicked the wall. 

Something dropped down. A large, lizardy thing with shining eyes and flames all down its back. 

"Oh, my God," said Tamara, her eyes rounding into saucers. The ball of water took a dangerous dip toward the floor as Aaron stared, forcing me to stabilize it.