The Trials

Every year on the island known as The Dominion of Lost Things trials are held by The Watch. Those who pass all three trials are immediately allowed into their ranks.

The Trials are extremely dangerous, less than one if five survive.

The Infanzones use the trials as a way to prove themselves, but use the ways out after the second trial to avoid being inducted into the watch and stripped of their titles after the third.

Making maps during the trials is forbidden.

## The Trials

Candidates are brought from Sacromonte to the Island, and dropped off at a set of storehouses called Lodoso Dock. There they are given supplies and the trials begin.

After each trial there are sanctuaries which reaching mark the end of that trial. Candidates may drop out at these sanctuaries.

### The First Trial - Trial of Lines

The first trial is called the Trial of Lines. It is called such because of the lines it forces people to cross.

The Trial is a journey from the Lodoso dock to the second trial in the mountains. It is approximately a five days journey from the dock. The road first passes through a forest, then a plain, then through the forest again and across a river. There is an aqueduct known as the high road that lies parallel to the main road.

### The Second Trial - Trial of Ruins

The second trial is called the Trial of Ruins.

### The Third Trial - Trial of Weeds

The third trial is called the Trial of Ruins.

## References

1. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 3
He chewed the inside of his cheek. The ‘prize’ to passing the trials, aside from not dying a horrible death, was to be inducted straight into the ranks of the Watch.
2. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 2
*Your name has been added to the list of candidates that are to undertake the yearly trials on the island of Vieja Perdida. It would be a perilous undertaking, I will not pretend otherwise. Fewer than one in five survive.*
3. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 3
The yearly trials on the island were a way for young aristocrats to prove themselves skillful and daring, to jostle with each other for pre-eminence. The names of those who had gone and how far they’d made it were made public, spread around by criers at the Vermilion Festival every year.
4. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 3
“They aren’t worth a worry,” Lan dismissed. “Nobles will play it safe, make it to the beginning of the third and then take the way out.”

There were two of those. The trials on the Dominion of Lost Things were meant to forge recruits for the Watch, but your average infanzon had no intention of renouncing titles and wealth to join the blackcloaks. So instead they took the paths of retreat the Watch had arranged on the island, safe places where a participant could desist from going any further.
5. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 9
Isabel had candidly admitted to her during one of their walks that most noble houses kept records of the Dominion of Lost Things for their own, though the Watch forbade the tracing of maps during the trials so any drawn must be after and from memory.
6. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 9
Though it was rough work, nothing at all like Malani sea charts, the outline of the Dominion of Lost Things was clear. They had landed at the southern end of the island, at a place named Lodoso Dock, and followed the road north.
7. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 7
“At the end of every trial, before the next, you will find sanctuaries marked by yellow lamps and entering them means you have succeeded,” the lieutenant continued, sounding almost bored. “Neither beasts nor cultists will do you harm within these sanctuaries, and there officers will offer you the opportunity to end your candidature.”
He paused.

“Should you choose this, you will enter the protection of the Watch and be escorted to our garrison, where you will await the end of the trials before sailing back to Sacromonte.”
8. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 7
Tristan swallowed his smile. Gods. She hadn’t quite got what this first trial was about, had she? It wasn’t called the Trial of the Lines because the road ahead was straight. It was about the lines you were willing to cross to survive.
9. ↑ Book 1 - Chapter 9