Disclaimer: Everything you recognise (and possibly most of the stuff you don't) belongs to Tamora Pierce.
It was a complete disaster. I had forgotten the code of ten, and even the younger pages had been able to answer that question. I'd mixed up Scanra with Carthak, and Maren with Tusaine. My maths problems were just big messes.
The physical side of the test was even worse. I shudder when I think about the look on the judge's face after I had finished.
No one, not even me, was surprised to hear that I had failed. I avoided the sympathetic glances of my friends. I just wanted to be alone.
I skipped dinner. I wasn't hungry, and I couldn't face them all. I'm a failure. I can't face the sympathy, pity, and in some cases malice of my year mates. The disappointment of my teachers would be too much to bear.
I let my feet carry me all the way up to the top of the Needle. I know what I have to do. I can't live with myself. I'm not afraid of dying.
I walk to the edge. So high up. But I can't go down the stairs. I must go through with this. I have shamed myself, my teachers, and my family.
I jump.
The next morning
The rumour spread like wildfire. Percival of Winterspring, the boy who'd failed, was nowhere to be found.
Theories were tossed around by everyone who knew him. Conal of Mindelan was heard to say smugly that he knew Percival was a coward and had run away, back to his home.
But no one was prepared for the truth.
Percival's body had been found lying on the ground beneath the needle.
Everyone blamed the tests. If he had not failed, then he would not have jumped. Some people whispered that they were to be abolished.
But they weren't. Instead, the Training Master issued a new rule. No pages were allowed to climb Balor's Needle.
And so, Percival's name was forgotten. People only remembered that a page who had failed the tests had thrown himself off the Needle. Eventually it became a palace legend, and new pages who were told the story didn't believe it.
