I chose not to record my thoughts yesterday. Had I done so, it would have been a fruitless and vain exercise in self-indulgence, unbefitting a candidate for Divitium Nava. Yet I feel I must make an attempt, as I committed to documenting my pilgrimage no matter what. Mentor Sidony asked me during the tenth hour of the morning if I was prepared to enter the trial chamber. I told him, "With certainty, I am not ready." The look on his face felt like claws digging at the edges of my essence, prying it from beneath my flesh, exposing my weakness for all to see. I know I am not alone in my trepidation. In my research, I had read of candidates taking up to eight weeks of mental and physical preparation before entering the trials. Candidate Xintri, one of the more empathetic members of our cohort, found me hiding alone among the labyrinthine rooms at the base of the temple's southern garden. She told me that her matron spent twenty-three days at the temple before attempting the trials. I know she was trying to reassure me, but her words had the opposite effect, and I fled to find solace in the jungle east of the temple, at the Dome of the Indelible Word. There, I stewed in my own loathsome thoughts until the sun set and the stars led me back to my bedroll.