《The Owl's Hierarchy》


 The Dreamwreck

    We were in different lines of prisoners, I in a line of spiny boys, her chained to a line of budding adolescent girls. Frost had long since encroached over the windows and steel walls of the seat-barren car. All of us strained against each other and the shackles to huddle. The world was white and unforgiving. The train wracked and shuddered every time a gust blew, cranking its way up¡ªI was sure I felt an incline. She was the girl who was the only one still looking around, alert.


    I caught her gaze, red-rimmed and ice blue. Her cheekbones that were just starting to lengthen out of childhood, too sharp. Her skin had gone from olive to an ashy grey. The emaciated face of another refugee-turned-scapegoat, framed by jet-black hair, matted underneath a stained, green winter hat. I thought if circumstances were different, we could have been friends. There weren¡¯t many people who were willing to meet your eyes in a place like this. When she didn¡¯t look away, I found my gaze settling into hers, like an albatross landing on the only island for hundreds of miles crossing an endless sea.


    ¡°Lydia,¡± she introduced herself, her voice no more than a whisper. But it was a name.


    It meant moving several precious inches back from the vent, but I reached out in my shackles with shaking fingers and clasped her hand.


    ¡°Do you know where they¡¯re taking us?¡±


    I shut my eyes and tried to remember the maps¡ªinstead a blur of open books, sunlight and the smell of paper flashed through. I watched his hands smoothed the map, a blood-colored stone set in a thick signet ring on his pinky finger¡ªmy mother wore that ring sometimes. I saw her pluck it from his night-table once while he was singing in the shower. My thoughts were blurry with hunger, I could see the map, but I couldn¡¯t visualize half the cities inside Xavia¡¯s jagged outline. Think, Seth. Cold. Incline. His fingers pinned down the Northeast Factories on the parchment, his other hand landed on Islingraet, on the southwest coast, and traced a trade route between them. Up, then west through the mountains in the Northern Territory at the top of the country, to the factories, then south beneath the mountains, before going east again, he sighed, through three tax checkpoints.


    ¡°Why not go back through the mountains?¡± I asked, tracing my small finger over them.


    ¡°It will be too late in the season. You can¡¯t bring a caravan through there for two thirds of the year¡ªyou¡¯ll lose the goods in the weather and your transport team with it, if not your life. The most you can manage without an engine is one trip per season.¡±


    ¡°What if you have an engine?¡±


    ¡°If you have an engine, you¡¯re imperial and you have no reason to be traveling through a mountainous, uncivilized badland where people have some semblance of freedom anyway.¡± My mother looked up from her book and shook her head at him.


    ¡°Can I come?¡±


    ¡°Not this time.¡±


    ¡°But I came last time!¡±


    ¡°You did, little mouse. But the labor policies in the Northeast Manufacturing district are getting worse all the time. Used to be a place with morals.¡± He shook his head at me, as if I would be able to share his disdain at nine years old. ¡°I could bring a caravan of slaves and indentures and they¡¯d be able to work off a contract in ten years or receive Verifications of Honor to apply for legal protections. I have contracts for wares to fulfill for this year, but this will probably be my last trip. A trader can only turn an eye away so often before going blind.¡± Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    I refocused my starving brain. So it was sometime in October and we were moving west through uneven ground in a freezing wasteland. We had to be in the Xavian Northern Territory, heading to the Northeast Manufacturing district. They wouldn¡¯t transport Kyjan deportees through the Xavi mainland where citizens could see. Someone might question. Someone might pity. ¡°There¡¯s a manufacturing district in the northeast. Factories and hard labor. They¡¯ll take us there. Lydia.¡± I said her name again, because I needed to say someone one, anyone¡¯s name. I needed someone, anyone, to look me in the eyes.


    She nodded to me and clutched my hand harder. She was a year or two older than me, and in a bad way, starting to fill out the shape of a grown woman¡ªand she was pretty. I knew what happened to pretty women no one cared about, and apparently smooth-skinned little boys, too. I was nursing a wicked scar that distorted the left side of my face.


    She said to me, ¡°Tell me your name.¡±


    ¡°Seth.¡± I said bluntly, ¡°My mother is dead.¡±


    ¡°Do you have a father?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°My family is gone too.¡±


    I shut my eyes, that affirmation of identity sinking into my flesh, into my bones. Bastard orphan. ¡°I¡¯ll protect you now,¡± I said, because I needed someone to say that to. The words were like a second set of invisible shackles coming off. I¡¯d say and do anything to not be alone. To have a sibling, to build a family in a matter of seconds, no matter how tenuous or small.


    She looked in my eyes and nodded. She wasn¡¯t stupid. We¡¯d be separated to different destinations by the Xavians the moment we left the train¡ªfactory, brothel.


    Nothing I could promise her would be true, and I knew it too, but it was critical to say it anyway. ¡°I¡¯ll come after you. We¡¯ll find a way to run together.¡±


    We just looked at each other, eye to eye. Hour after hour. The two of us, albatrosses.


    I didn¡¯t know how much time had passed, but then the train whistle was blaring so loudly there was nothing else. It was deafening the wind and the sound of the track in pure alarm.


    What¡¯s¡ª


    All the sudden I had no weight. The world threw me hard into the body of another boy. The chains on my arms tore into my wrists, the sockets of my shoulders wrenched. The roar of screeching metal wracked the car. I saw it from the outside like I¡¯d left my body. The car of the train tore off the track, slalomed and shaved against the side of the ravine, lurched, and fell over on its side. My ears were ringing.


    I blinked, dazed. Everything was¡­ crooked. The whole train car was sideways, and the wall of windows had torn open before it tipped on its side. There was freezing wet on my neck. Snow. I was laying in the snow, in the gash in the side of the car. Someone was on top of me. A boy. Unmoving. When I pushed him, he fell heavily, with his neck not quite at the right angle. Dead.


    I heard my own voice before I knew what I was saying. My first impulse was to call for my mother, my second¡ªI changed it to calling for her. ¡°Lydia?¡±


    I was looking around for Lydia. I saw a thin rod of of metal that had buckled and begun to stick up, a twisted bar of the windowpane. I looked at my hands in the roughshod irons. Dizzily, I drove the point into the lock and thrashed uselessly. The lock popped. I got the other off, then the leg shackles. I don¡¯t know how long that took, but then I was looking at my feet in the mismatched boots my mother had stolen from a boy who was asleep in a gutter three weeks ago. The cold was already seeping in, blowing in from the gashes in the train, and my whole body was shaking. I had just found someone. I didn¡¯t want to lose them.


    ¡°Lydia?¡±


    Some boys and girls were sitting and standing in their chains. Some were looking dazed. Some were crying in pain. Some were not getting up. Steered a boy with dark hair and dark eyes like mine towards the spike that had gotten my shackles off, and moved back towards looking for Lydia.


    I saw her chest moving in the thin, brown leather coat, I saw the spill of her hair under the green hat. She was all the way at the far end of the car. I stumbled towards her.


    ¡°Lydia? Lydia?¡±


    ¡°Seth.¡± She said, her lips moving, as if underwater. I hadn¡¯t been afraid. Now I was afraid.


    ¡°Lydia, you should get up.¡±


    ¡°Seth, I can¡¯t feel my legs.¡±

 A choice, a life.

    She had blood on her head. I pulled a scarf off someone who wasn¡¯t moving and pressed it on the gash in her head. ¡°Lydia, hold this here. I¡¯m going to get this person off of you.¡± I said, pushing the draping body that wasn¡¯t moving at all. I pinched her leg hard, but she didn¡¯t move at all. She didn¡¯t even cry ouch. This is not good, a cold voice in the back of my head told me. I wanted to scream at her to get up, I wanted to scream.


    She pushed the scarf to her head quietly. ¡°Seth?¡±


    ¡°I¡¯m here.¡±


    A voice came from outside, almost snatched by the wind. That was Northern dialect. I didn¡¯t know it completely, I hadn¡¯t spoken it in months. My mind turned furiously, familiar with the words but having trouble stringing meaning to them. ¡°Have we found all the supplies? What is that one?¡± my brain finally put together. I looked up.


    There were feet and hands pressed to the windows above us, blocking the light streaming in. And then pair of gloved hands was opening a window above all of us. A man with a big chest and a thick, warm, fur coat dropped into the lopsided car. He looked around and ordered several boys who were out of their shackles to come to him, pointing to a big boy and the black-haired boy I¡¯d shown the spike to. He asked them if they were injured, but they just stared¡ªthey didn¡¯t speak Northern. Another boy limped up, still in chains, but the man pushed him away.


    I was looking at Lydia. Where did we go from here if she couldn¡¯t walk?


    ¡°What about the rest of us, sir?¡± I called, holding the scarf to Lydia¡¯s head. Lydia was holding my hand and breathing even and slow. I had to get her out of here.


    ¡°We can¡¯t take you.¡± Another rough voice, speaking Northern, but his grammar was slow and his accent was clumsy, clipped and tart. An older boy dropped into the car, bundled up and covered in snow. His hair was red under his hat and his hood. A Xavian. ¡°There¡¯s a blizzard in the distance, sir. We need to go.¡±


    My heart sunk. Seth, be brave. ¡°Please, she¡¯s injured,¡± I called, ¡°She needs help!¡±


    The red-haired Xavian looked at me. ¡°All the more reason.¡± His disinterested, maroon-eyed gaze landed on the two boys in front of him. ¡°Who let everyone out of the chains?¡±


    We froze, paralyzed. I was dead already. Seth, be brave. ¡°It was me, sir. There was a spike from the window pane that fit in the lock.¡± I said, my voice thin as the threadbare patches of my coat, swallowing.


    ¡°We should take him over one of them, Master Teacher,¡± he said, pointing to me and pushing the big boy back. The big boy clasped at his hand, but the Xavian boy jerked him aside. ¡°He¡¯s smart.¡±


    I looked down at Lydia, who was clutching my hand in hers. I closed my eyes and found my tongue. ¡°Take the two of them.¡± A weight fell off me. I wasn¡¯t going to lose someone again. It¡¯s done.


    ¡°We¡¯ll take all three if you have room on your horse,¡± the big man in the fur coat said.


    ¡°As you wish, Master Byron.¡± He kneltand the man stepped on his knee to lift himself through the window, and then the two of them passed up the two chosen boys. The chorus of ¡°please don¡¯t leave us¡± began, the girls and smaller boys crying that they were healthy too. The Xavian boy cocked his head to me.


    I choked, ¡°Sir, I can¡¯t leave her.¡±


    ¡°What is he saying?¡± Lydia asked me.


    ¡°He¡¯s saying I should go with them, but I¡¯m not,¡± I whispered.


    ¡°She¡¯s going to die. You can either come or die too,¡± the red-eyed boy replied.


    Lydia squeezed my hand, her eyes shut. ¡°Seth? What was your home like?¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know, I grew up in Xavia on the coast.¡±The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    ¡°No, where¡¯s your family from?¡±


    ¡°Andhiem,¡± I replied. I looked to her, looked to him, looked frantically back to her. We weren¡¯t going to leave until we were dragged apart. I had found someone, an island for an albatross. She was asking stupid questions, why was she asking me stupid questions? Andheim was where we ran away from! The capitol of Kyja drove out waves of refugees with every new power struggle and spurt of political instability. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter, you¡¯re my family now,¡± I tried to explain, but it wasn¡¯t logical to me either, ¡°I said I would take care of you.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t even know me.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t know anyone,¡± I pleaded.


    She squeezed my hand and slowly pulled mine from hers, but she looked so afraid. I¡¯d made her a promise. All we had was each other, two people who still dared to meet eyes. We were no one. We were refugees, not kings or queens or Xavians or even servants, and no one would remember us, not even in our home country. She was going to die here, of exposure.


    I didn¡¯t know what to do. I didn¡¯t know what to do.


    A voice shouted down to the Xavian boy. ¡°Keep it moving, Zimora!¡±


    The Xavian boy¡¯s¡ªZimora¡¯s¡ªarms picked me up like I was an empty sack and lifted me into the grasp of the man with the coat. He put me aside on the top of the train roughly. The world was white, the snow coming in drifts. At the head of the train, a landslide¡ªan avalanche¡ªof snow had blocked the way. The world was white, and I wanted to get back in the train where Lydia was. Deciding to die was hard, living was harder. This wasn¡¯t right.


    Zimora seized one of my forearms and I stumbled along behind him, up the rocks making up the side of the ravine the train rain through. Horses and more men were on top. He lifted me and loaded me onto a horse, and settled on behind me. A sharp order was given but I couldn¡¯t remember what it was, and the horses and sleds, loaded with sacks and boxes of supplies, began to sprint. I didn¡¯t know why I was crying. The boy, Zimora, didn¡¯t say anything to me. Just kept kicking his heels into the animal and pushing it hard. There was no reason for his people to persecute us, they just made one up. They claimed technology was only for the genetically pure Xavian nobility, and that it corrupted the minds Kyjans and lowborns, made them amoral, less human¡ªthat was why Kyja had so much civil war, and Kyjans brought too much of it in, across the border. Fine reason to eradicate an entire population of refugees.


    She was bargaining with the Xavian deportment guards like we were all on the same side now. She¡¯d been stopped and pushed back into the group that they weren¡¯t putting on trains.


    ¡°He¡¯s a boy. He¡¯s small enough to fit in the machines. He can work a few years.¡± Her hair was long and soft and the color of ink, her eyes had been furrowed with determination. No fear, no panic, no pain. She didn¡¯t cry. She just pushed me into the hands of the men with red hair in the grey, stiff-pressed uniforms, the men that we¡¯d hidden and ran from, while they pulled the two of us away. ¡°It¡¯s okay, Seth, you go. You go with them.¡±


    She knew it was the end, because that was the only circumstance under which she¡¯d let go of me. It didn¡¯t matter that she was still alive at the moment. Gone, as sure as the gunshot that was going to tip her into a mass grave. I called for her, but she¡¯d prepared. The comb my father had given her, the only thing she¡¯d kept when we fled our burning manor in the dead of night without me knowing why¡ªshe¡¯d tucked it into the back of my shirt, where it stayed, the lines of its teeth and the smooth drops of pearl pressed into my small bare back by my spine. It was mine, even though I had no hair to comb through.


    She looked over her shoulder, nodded to me. ¡°Seth, you live. No weakness.¡± I reached for her, not wanting to believe this was happening. We were at the Kyjan border wall, almost back to the home country we¡¯d left, literally less than a mile from freedom. In the end, it was a smuggler who lied to us and called the Border Guard, in the end, they sorted us into two groups, the ones to die and the ones to work. They¡¯d carried me sobbing to the train and clapped me into the irons, she was gone in the blurring world of tears and crowd. I was in the line of spiny boys. It was taking us back into Xavia. The train rocked and began to move.


    I squeezed my eyes, but I couldn¡¯t shake the memory¡ªhow many hours ago was that? Six? Eighteen? ¡°Where are we going?¡± I finally found enough voice to say.


    He looked at me and I shuddered, he had eyes the color of the blood that was always draining between the cobblestones of the butcher shop where our cook bought her meats when we lived by the sea. A pound of pork, a side of beef. I didn¡¯t want him to look at me. ¡°A village,¡± the boy said blandly, like I was stupid.


    ¡°Why?¡± I demanded.


    He didn¡¯t answer the question.


    ¡°Who are you?¡±


    He still didn¡¯t answer the question. The miles passed as the horses sprinted to outrun the storm. There was a village. I was taken into a big cabin, where there was an old woman who was peering in my eyes and at my teeth, with a teenage girl with dark hair helping her heat something on the fire. I didn¡¯t think I could eat food. The Xavian boy was looking at me again when he said, .¡°You train hard, and maybe some day your life will be worth something.¡± I wanted to hide, but wanting to hide made me feel angry with a heat that would never die down, not the fire in the hearth, the fire that burned down the house in Islingraet. And then it all blurred¡ª

 The Village, isolated in the mist.

    Six years later.


    ¡°Seth! Get your worthless ass out of bed.¡±


    I woke, sweat pouring down my back. Yennis shook me hard, the meat of his hands digging into my shoulders¡ªthe boy with the black hair and dark eyes from the train was six years older, it was six years later. I lashed up, my aching spine peeling off the cot, digging my fingers into his wrists and twisting his grip, splaying his hands. My hot forehead was on his, my pulse beating in my skull. My chin jutted forward so we were almost kissing. ¡°Touch me and I¡¯ll kill you in your sleep, bastard.¡±


    ¡°Shut up, Seth. Unhand me.¡± He met me with apathy, like I was stupid. I wasn¡¯t stupid. I just was having a nightmare in the early hours of the morning.


    The student bunkhouse was submerged in a cold, blue darkness that lingered, every space filled with dim shadows. For a half-instant, I expected the room to lurch forward, as if a car on a track, caught between worlds. The thin hemmed-in aisle between the rows of abandoned bunks felt long and narrow. I sniffed. My lungs were still burning, cooling down like an engine that had been pushed to overheating. Too quiet. I slid my bare feet over the half-dried muck on the floorboards, and a splinter slit through the callous and into the sole of my foot.


    We¡¯re late.


    I swore viciously under my breath and tore out of the bunkhouse, tripping into the swamp. Slick, ancient stilts that raised the bunkhouse above the waterline, but there were no stairs down into the water. I was in up to my knees, the line of students was far ahead of me. The water was three times as cold once your feet sunk more than a few inches down.


    I sloshed like a shot duck and soaked myself to catch the line of barefoot boys wading through the muck with their britches rolled up around their white, muscled thighs. I elected for a filthy combination of words under my breath.


    ¡°Language!¡± Thomas shouted at me from halfway up the line, loud enough to wake the whole village, his dirty brown hair lashing with his head.


    ¡°Shut it, Thomas,¡± Yennis complained, catching up behind me. Even in soaked, mud-slick clothes, he was witheringly collected. I wasn¡¯t. Neither was Thomas, fortunately. His family had been living in this godforsaken place for seven hundred years since it was founded in the First Apocalypse, guaranteeing that 1) every male in his lineage was a warrior, and 2) he was an inbred. He¡¯d have no trouble making an apprenticeship.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    ¡°Or what? You¡¯ll start a scrap on his behalf?¡± Thomas demanded to Yennis. ¡°You want to be associated with him?¡±


    You¡¯d better hope it¡¯s him and not me, I almost replied, licking the inside of my teeth, feeling my eyes following him like a snake follows a vole. But I held my damn tongue. I had more to lose. I was an easy choice to send upstream, so I saved my sass. My chances of making an apprenticeship were already almost nonexistent.


    Yennis scoffed and moved on. Thomas splashed Yennis. Yennis sneered at him like he was a pile of droppings in the woods and he¡¯d stepped in it. But he didn¡¯t defend me. I grimaced. Every day, the feeling that I¡¯d been chosen was growing. I knew, for years, how this would end. The water requires blood, the Misfortunes require appeasing. In the wood, the stare of an owl inevitably strayed to the young, the weak, the outliers. I could fit myself under the wing of one of the warriors, or I could be sent upstream like a helpless piece of meat. And unless a miracle happened, no warrior was going to invest time in training a black sheep, especially not one that underperformed.


    Or you could run. There¡¯s nothing keeping you here, Seth of None.


    I pushed the thought away. Our feet sunk into the sucking silt of the shore of the student training ground¡ªa fallow field where the ground had been raised from the swamp by the backbreaking, sloughing work of the village ancestors. The people here were isolationists, but they believed in their military.


    The village grew wild, built on grassy, muddy flats of artificial ground in the swamp, riddled with canals cutting between the blocks of buildings. The rich lived on the precious plots of solid ground in high, multi-story homes with oil for lamps. The poor lived in huts on stilts in the water with the risk of open fires. Sheaves of wild rice that overtook and covered the water. There were some shorter trees growing in the swamp itself, but the whole village was surrounded by old forest, trees thicker than the span of my arms.


    The cultivators were just coming out into the fields to harvest the first crop. The rice matured quickly, but there was only so much time to pick and reseed when eight months of the year were frozen over. There was plenty of food in the woods, but they were afraid of the things that hid between the trees. It didn¡¯t help my reputation, but I disappeared into them anyway. I only ever felt like myself in the deep wood, where light barely reached the ground. Where it was rare to have sun dapple on the back of my neck.


    We¡¯d taken our positions in neat, regimented lines on the training field, but Master Byron did not signal for warm-ups and forms to start.


    The back of my neck prickled. I turned my head, saw them coming from the central area of the village. The Elders were being rowed to the training field in gondolas, solemn-faced attendants propelling them silently through the water with long, thin poles digging into the silt at the bottom.

 The Inevitably Straying Stare

    The mist was still covering the water, it was too early for men of import to be up and about. Their boats making soft, trickling splashes as they rocked into the shore, and their attendants pulled up their pant legs, moored the boats, and helped them step onto solid ground with deep bows.


    I ground my teeth against each other, my heart dropping into my feet. The dizzying feeling of vertigo¡ªof panic¡ªstarted flowing into me. They, the council¡ªBenjamael Wainwyre, Michaelis, Callomen, a bunch of others whose names and faces were blurring together in my sense-parched head, approached the lines of students. If I had been late today, I would have been dead, chosen for the Misfortunes for sure.


    Add it to the list of narrow escapes, the stinging sarcasm at the back of my head calmed me down, a buzz like a cut on the arm, clearing house.


    Twelve in total¡ªno, thirteen. Ru¡¯our Kholtan was also here to play with the toys in the sandbox.


    Twenty-three year old Head Elder Benjamael Wainwyre approached on foot with a puzzled frown, his heavy, woolen robes open, stroking the length of his short beard. He came to leadership three years ago at eighteen after the plague wiped half the village out and scarred the rest of us for life. Not all young men were too young for leadership, but he was. Kholtan¡¯s head was close to his, conferring¡ªthe trader with long, shining, straight auburn hair and lightweight, billowing silks and the boy pulled into his gravitational orbit, the two of them ahead of the rest of the council by the pace of Kholtan¡¯s stride.


    It was under fifty degrees out, but he showed no sign of being cold, brandishing his signet ring on his pinky¡ªdeep purple. Only Xavians used signets, and only Xavian citizens were permitted to use shades of red in rings and wax. They¡¯d cut your signet finger off for impersonating a Xavi seal. And yet, in the wrong light, Kholtan¡¯s could almost look maroon¡ªdesperation, ego, and stupidity rolled into one visible signet for everyone to see the moment they laid eyes on him.


    This village had no gods or heroes, so when one came along, I expected a spectacle. I wasn¡¯t disappointed. Kholtan had quickly had a chair added for him to become the unprecedented thirteenth member of the council¡ªand young Head Elder Benjamael Wainwyre most trusted confidante:


    ¡°It¡¯s critical that ever last detail is in order when the investors arrive,¡± to the village with seven hundred years of isolation, he was saying, ¡°so we must ensure that even the students perform well.¡±


    ¡°It will be,¡± Benjamael assured him, ¡°our village is more than ready for this.¡±


    Ru¡¯our nodded, leaned in close, as if Benjamael¡¯s words conveyed unique significance. ¡°Your confidence seals mine, Head Elder.¡± His talent laid in the fact that he really did listen¡ªand then he manipulated. With the glints of poverty and starving ambition that occasionally slit through his velvet-smooth, brilliant, effusive persona, I could pigeonhole Kholtan as a liar as instant. It took one to know one.


    The rest of the the council trailed behind them like ducklings behind a mother duck. Ru¡¯our kept them separate, moving to the side and out of the way to continue their private conversation, monopolizing the Head Elder, their robes rustling across the hard-packed ground of the training field. Mirjam, the Medicine Woman, and the village¡¯s Master of Foreign Affairs, the Weir, were conspicuously absent. But I noticed Michaelis¡¯ annoyance¡ªhe was the oldest member of the council, watching them stately and deliberately, like a hawk. Once you¡¯d been important for so long, you had an idea of how you should be constantly regarded.


    Benjamael called the Studentmaster. ¡°Aldin.¡±


    The muscle in Studentmaster Percius Aldin¡¯s chin twitched with irritation, but he immediately went. He was a tall, slim man¡ªprecisely pointed beard, waxen complexion, deep-set, beady, incisive grey eyes. His gaze cut with constant dissatisfaction. The bottom clasp on his shirt was still missing, a quasi-elaborate fastener with a leaf pattern. Elvias¡¯s mother did his laundry, and he gave Elvias a brutal licking when it was lost, even though he was easily one of the best students in the class. Mirjam took one look at the student¡¯s back and almost threw hands with him over it even though she was a head shorter. Aldin might have trained for combat, he might have been a singular duelist who moved like a snake in the water with a sword, but you didn¡¯t fuck with an ex-Kyjan Civil War medic. The clasp was still missing, he probably couldn¡¯t afford the blacksmith to replace it or was too bitter to pay in the face of such a cruel injustice against his dignity and position. The former Head Elder, Benjamael¡¯s father, had given him that shirt. Training students before their apprenticeships was unforgiving and meaningless work, but it granted him status¡ªwhich was all a power-hungry foundling in his forties could thirst for.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    God forbid he settled for a button made of anything but solid gold. If only I was more of an asshole or better in a fight, I could look forward to an illustrious future like his, alone, allergic to the exigences of happiness, starching my collar extra stiff to beat my jealousy and bitterness out on adolescent boys. But I was firmly within the sphere of his contempt, along with buttons and Head Elder Benjamael Wainwyre himself.


    Wainwyre barely spared the Studentmaster a glance. ¡°We¡¯ll take a full demonstration of the student class¡¯s capabilities right now,¡± Benjamael commanded.


    I bit my tongue. They¡¯re not looking at you. Keep it that way, Seth.


    Aldin gave the orders for the class to assume stance and begin. His eyes caught me like a knife¡ªhe expected me to fail.


    I swallowed. I knew it was irrational, to think they were all watching me, but suddenly, they were all watching me. My clarity dissipated and my tongue grew thick and fat in my mouth like a clod of moss. I tried to focus on the movements, the choreography of the punches and kicks, but there was no music. My head felt thick. I was clumsily, stiff, and sometimes a half-second behind everyone, their eyes tracing my shoulders, my chest, my waist, my legs, sizing up, sizing down. I could scrap if I had to scrap, and as dangerous as that was, I preferred it. They mean nothing, I told myself, You never belonged here anyway. I forgot a movement and scrambled to catch up. But it was the twentieth and final form. I finished the entire demonstration floundering, a beat behind.


    Master Aldin, sneering at my performance, answered my woefully misguided prayer for a fight. ¡°Ordin. Seth. Weapons down. Square up and spar.¡±


    This is a punishment. He¡¯s using me to highlight him. I was a tool. Yennis crossed his arms, his face stony like he expected a disaster. He wasn¡¯t my friend, exactly. Kyjans looked out for Kyjans. Except for Ordin, stepping forward with a leering grin. His mousey, curly brown hair was unkempt like mine, but he put on muscle without trying. At sixteen, I was stick thin and short as a twelve-year-old. I might have saved his life back when he was only the big boy on the train, but he hated me now.


    I tore from the group to face him, knowing I was about to get my ass handed to me. I tried to sneer. If I was going down like a sack of bricks, I wanted to throw an insult at least. But the elders were watching. I couldn¡¯t find my tongue. I squared up into a fighting stance, fists up and knees slightly bent, feeling like a statue in my own body, legs burning like they were full of ants¡ªhe walked right up to me and shoved me. Pain exploded in my face from his fist.


    Everything started to move slower. The chill from the water and cooling sweat working its way up through my core, the sky tilting like a thrown snowglobe slaloming from a child¡¯s clumsy hands. My ankles crossed, one tripping over the other as I fell back. Ordin¡¯s sneer burned into my mind¡¯s gaze as my head tilted skywards, my shoulders stinging where he shoved me.


    The yellow-grassed ground rose to meet my back like cement, and everything froze with the shock of air leaving my lungs.


    An owl was floating in the sky, circling beneath the canopy. A heavy, brown-feathered predator in the vague blue of dawn. Bad omen. I could feel the numbness from the impact in the back of my skull. I could feel the air rushing as Ordin¡¯s heel drove down towards my eye socket.


    C¡¯mon, bitch.


    I threw up my hands. I could feel the impact of the heels of my palms, my fingers wrenching into the joint of his ankle like nails. The student tournament was in exactly a week. If I break his ankle, he¡¯d be limping for it. I twisted him as my whole body did, wrenching my frame out of the way along with the bones in his foot.


    My feet were underneath me, flat on the ground, toes in the damp, dew-fogged grass. Gasp. Air made its entrance to my lungs like a formal introduction. Cold.


    Ordin¡¯s shriek broke the ringing in my ears, and he stumbled backwards.


    I tripped back down to my hands and knees, my nose bleeding into the dirt where the circling of students had worn away most of the grass, my lips pressing together into a grimace. It wasn¡¯t satisfaction, but it was damn close. Ordin yelled, sucking air and cradling his ankle, and my grimace morphed into a grin. Definitely broken. Good.


    I told Yinjane Wainwyre there were no Misfortunes, but the truth was more complicated. Six months on the run and a train and six years of Aldin hitting me had put darkness inside me. It had grown. And it would come to collect.


    I never used to get nervous, freezing and glitching whenever someone advanced on me, the whole world narrowing into a red tunnel that took my senses away, inevitable. But now I did. I¡¯d been falling behind the class for months. I didn¡¯t sleep any more, and when I did, I slept the way I slept last night. I could borrow a number of hours with the potions that Mirjam was giving me to poison my body, but even if I got an apprenticeship the clock was slipping through my hands.

 Someone Else

    ¡°That was an illegal move!¡± Aldin roared. Before my training had gone downhill, I¡¯d admired him. Then I¡¯d learned that he had little time for students who couldn¡¯t keep up, and a wicked wrist for the cane. I¡¯d asked for extra instruction. I¡¯d tried. And now I¡¯d made a critical error. I¡¯d made him look bad.


    Ru¡¯our was asking Master Aldin a question that made him scowl grimly, I made out something along the lines of ¡®is such a poor show of discipline and skill normal?¡¯ through the ringing in my head. A few of the elders were nodding along, their faces graven, and they were all looking at me.


    I staggered back. The adrenaline was emptying and reality was crashing into me with the violent urge to make a break for the woods. The end of Aldin¡¯s staff landed in my solar plexus so hard that my vision went black. My lungs and my lungs were still spasming with paralysis when it came back. The pain lodged itself into the entirety of my torso, a takeover.


    ¡°Hold him.¡±


    Yennis was behind me, he caught me and wrenched my arms behind my back. The staff whipped the ankles out from underneath my knees, and I went down, like the sack of bricks. Aldin closed the distance and slapped me, square across the scar on my face. My head cracked to the side. At first I didn¡¯t feel pain¡ªshock. ¡°You bring shame on every student in your class before the elders,¡± he was snarling.


    I felt my gut shrink to a hard rope, I was struggling without conscously deciding to struggle, but Yennis held me fast. He had to be able to tell I was panicking, just let me slip, I willed. He didn¡¯t let me go.


    ¡°No, I assure you, this one is exceptional,¡± Aldin fumed, the smokestack of a forging furnace, ¡°and he will be dealt with in kind.¡±


    ¡°I have to question your judgment, Master Aldin, putting him before us,¡± Wainwyre piped up, arms crossing. Wainwyre¡¯s facade of confidence developed over past few years, his obliviousness had not. Your sister has more leadership in her demure, industrious pinky toe than you have in your whole body. Yinjane Wainwyre spent her mornings baking bread for the poor and convincing the unruly village children they wanted to learn to read in a backwards hellscape¡ªBenjamael was completely unaware he¡¯d snubbed Aldin, ignored him for a seat on the council when the plague took two elders along with his father. Everyone thought Aldin would be named an Elder, and few things drove Aldin like entitlement and resentment. So fucking young, and he was also selfish, and he was also weak, and he was crossing his arms at me. You don¡¯t know what you put your sister through, you don¡¯t know what she came to me crying in the night for and told me and begged me not to tell because she had no one else to talk to. You don¡¯t know who was there in the middle of the night feeding you charcoal. I could take him down in one sentence, six words, betray his twin sister and make all of this end.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Aldin kicked me in the stomach, and I doubled, my insides spasming, heaving up the nothing that was in my stomach. Lucky it wasn¡¯t in the balls.


    ¡°You stand there while he charges you and attacks you! Your reflexes are nonexistent! If he had a weapon, your guts would be in the dirt and you¡¯d finally cease to waste our attention. And then, you execute an illegal move once you¡¯ve lost. You could have damaged a viable student. Useless, and honorless. Get off my training field.¡± Master Aldin nodded darkly to Master Byron, the assistant teacher, watching the proceeding from a few feet away. ¡°You will never repay the debt of your life. Go and receive forty strokes and meditate on blood sacrifice, perhaps this will serve you better in the tournament. My training can go no further for you, and I will not waste the class¡¯s time.¡±


    The class was silent. Not even Thomas chuckled nervously. We all knew what happened to whoever ranked worst in the tournament, to those who got sick, or foundlings who couldn¡¯t make apprenticeship. In the corner of my eye, Ordin grinned.


    ¡°Go.¡± Aldin ordered.


    There were no Misfortunes, no bird demons in the woods sliding beads on the abacus, hiding deep between the trees, counting if the requirements for suffering were satisfied, thirsty for the pain of human sacrifice in the swamps upstream¡ªthey just had to give it a name and a story, fit it in a box. Reality was a simple, universal maxim¡ªsomeone else suffers, so I do not.


    And sometimes, not even that worked.


    I was dragged away by the Assistant Studentmaster and his cane to the edge of the sparring field. Master Byron looked down at me, my shirt in his fist, his scarred hand thick around a cane.


    Byron dropped me. Crossed arms. He just shook his head. I took a breath. It had finally, actually happened. I¡¯ve been kicked out of training. I wiped my nose. I didn¡¯t think it was broken. I have until the tournament. It was the crowning event of the spring festival, throwing the students in the ring one on one, no holds barred, so the village could marvel at their military prowess, at the shedding of their own blood. Then, warriors would select their apprentices, based on what they knew of their training in this class, and their performance in front of the ooh-ing and ahh-ing crowd. It was in exactly a week.


    I felt their eyes again¡ªthe elders had moved on but their gaze had come momentarily to us, and now they were watching. It had to look good, the sacrificial lamb, the scapegoat. I heard the whistle, louder and sharper than usual, assuring me I¡¯d have welts. The worst was over, but now the panic had burned through my system. I flinched. The cane snapped into my back.

 Mirjam and the Threat

    I stopped by the medicine lodge to ask Mirjam to give me something for the pain, but she was walking out the door when I came, her step thundering across the porch and down the stairs. Her expression was severe and her jet-black hair was braided back tight, her stained skirt flapping against her shins. She had a tattoo of a rat on her left forearm, the mark of a Kyjan revolt medic. It was an inside joke, an unofficial talisman to ward off the vermin and disease. Her eyebrows were thick and wild, wisps of hair even above her nose, eyes framed with thick, dark lashes. They cut into me, flinty and sharp.


    ¡°You look like shit.¡±


    ¡°Spare some tonic for a poor, beaten wretch?¡±


    ¡°You dislocated Ordin¡¯s ankle, you¡¯re lucky he didn¡¯t break something. He¡¯ll be in a splint for six weeks and it will affect his performance in the tournament. I would have thrashed you myself,¡± she replied without sympathy.


    The medicine lodge was one of the privileged buildings in the village that was on solid ground, and had a yard and a garden surrounding it for growing food and herbs. The men stopped here to talk every once in a while when they came for tobacco, the women when they came for herbs, the rich chaperoned by serving boys in gondolas, the poor wading through the mire. Mirjam was a hardass, but she was a pillar of the community¡ªand my continued existence.


    ¡°Are you going to treat me or just lecture me?¡±


    She put a hand on my shoulder and I let her. Her fingers moved back and forth in front of my eyes, checking for a concussion. Sometimes I flattered myself we could pass for siblings. I had the same night-black hair, black irises, and olive-deep skin, but I was about ten years her junior and had my wicked scar sunk into the left side of my face.


    ¡°You¡¯re fine,¡± she decided. ¡°You seen it coming?¡±


    Even if you weren¡¯t prone to climbing trees, the nearest incursion of Ru¡¯our Kholtan¡¯s ostentatious gifts for the village was within everyone¡¯s eyesight now. Open visibility of a caravan of skiffs, gondolas, and pack animals fighting their way upstream and into the village.


    And I was most certainly not fine. But at least my facade was holding. With Mirjam, who was always tough and blunt, I could pretend.


    ¡°Hard to miss it,¡± I said flatly.


    ¡°Hm.¡± Her reply was mirthless.


    The tinny sound of a gong pierced through the village, and then the voice of a crier. ¡°The wares of Elder Ru¡¯our Kohltan! Announcing the arrival of Master Kholtan¡¯s caravan!¡±


    ¡°Do you have tonic made?¡±


    ¡°Later. C¡¯mon,¡± she commanded, pulling her gondola flush with the bank.


    ¡°Why bother?¡± I replied dryly, walking for the medicine lodge¡ªI could get the painkiller myself. I knew where she kept everything.


    ¡°Where else do you have to go?¡±


    ¡°Off.¡± Anywhere but the parade clogging the canals in procession to the meeting hall. The shores of the town square in front of would be packed with villagers jostling to see. Whenever Ru¡¯our¡¯s personal effects arrived from a trade expedition, it was an impromptu holiday. Jam, pies and picnic blankets spread on the meeting hall floor as he received his delivery. Frankly, I didn¡¯t want to deal with this. I wanted enough painkiller to make my head spin. I didn¡¯t want to remember a single event that happened today. I was going anywhere but there.Stolen story; please report.


    ¡°You should pay attention to what¡¯s going on in this town, Seth.¡±


    Mirjam¡¯s voice made my hair stand on end. It was her tone. It sounded like a threat. No one said it, but the whole village knew that all knew that at some point, she must have handled a gun. She had eye for bullshit like she was still looking through the scope.


    I shut my eyes slowly. Good god, not more. I turned back.


    Mirjam¡¯s face was fixed toward the water¡ªwhere the boats full of villagers were beginning to appear, people leaving their jobs, setting aside their housework to come and see. She usually treated Kholtan¡¯s spectacles with vague disapproval and disinterest. This was different. I knew what it meant when she got like that, like a hound following a blood scent.


    She knows something.


    I thought about Kholtan¡¯s mention of investors to Benjamael, of a demonstration¡ªand the fact that he hadn¡¯t been here yesterday. He must have arrived last night, hell knows when he found time to talk Benjamael, let alone the whole council, into ambushing Aldin the students. Whatever was going on, Kholtan was maneuvering like lightning, and Mirjam¡¯s brow had darkened the same way when the first few cases of the plague arrived. Her lips tightened to a grim line, her shoulders straightened up like she was at attention. Mirjam was a soldier. She didn¡¯t overreact.


    I cocked my head and gazed at her, grimly. She met my eyes. Definitely bad. We¡¯d go to the meeting hall, then, even though my back ached like fuck. Nevermind that I¡¯d just been expunged from the student ranks and a future in this village. I gritted my teeth, Good god. Not more. I followed her into the boat and took up the oar.


    I wasn¡¯t watching where I was rowing, paying more attention to the small whirlpools the oar made in the water and trying not to grunt with pain, head full of noise while Mirjam brooded in the back of the gondola. I glanced up in time to almost crash into a boat with a foreign woman in it.


    I blinked. She was an amber-eyed vision with pastel rouge paler than my skintone on her cheeks, swathed in pale silks and floral brocades. She couldn¡¯t have been much older than me, kneeling on a nest of silk cushions in a wide curved, oversized gondola, two girls rowing it slowly. Her cheekbones were high and fragile, her lips painted with a gloss that made them shine. Her hair hung in strawberry blonde waves, dressed in a delicate, pale blue brocade, her skin white as milk. Everyone within eyesight of her was staring. A Xavian girl.


    A girl I could have watched eagerly out the glass back door of the sunroom while they promenaded on the lush, green banks of Oranjesuul Flow in Islingraet, the south coast of Xavia, where my mother¡¯s hands would rest upon my shoulders. The city on the water with its borders full of tall houses layered high like tiers of a cake, gardens overgrown with trellises of color, where young ladies promenaded on the cobblestone in town and on the banks of the estuary sheathed in fans, umbrellas, and high-laced collars. I thought they were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Back before the propaganda began to play on the radios, and the eyes of the gentlemen escorting them turned despising and suspicious toward a black-haired child. Then the ladies politely looked aside and drew their fans to their faces, like I was unclean.


    This woman¡¯s eyes lingered on me¡ªon us, Mirjam and me. It had probably been years since she¡¯d seen Kyjans, if ever. Her head was full of idle propoganda that was of no consequence to her anyway¡ªthe politics of the purge had no reason to touch a young woman of status. Her amber gaze moved gracefully away, taking in the sights.


    She didn¡¯t belong here. Right now, neither of us did.


    So Ru¡¯our had brought back a woman. She didn¡¯t look like a servant for his wife. She had stunningly elaborate embroidered organza shawl of an even lighter blue was over her face and head. I couldn¡¯t make out the writing from my current angle, but if I wasn¡¯t mistaken, it was a wedding veil.

 The Jade Swords Price

    By unspoken agreement, we isolated ourselves from the party. The village was sitting, noshing on freshly baked pies and newly slaughtered chickens with their picnic blankets the floor of the meeting hall¡ªan enormous one-room log cabin with a high ceiling and rough, dug in log floors. We stood. Mirjam siddled herself back against the wall towards the back of the room by the shackers¡ªthe poorer families didn¡¯t have more for picnicking than rice and fish. I followed her example, scanning the crowd of families whose clothing was all patches.


    No one told them to sit towards the back of the room when they left their fields. They just did. For such a small village, we had a disproportionate resistance to seeing shackers advance. People gave Mirjam shit for letting their children take food home from the garden. Yin, who could do no wrong because she was a Wainwyre, was an angel for taking the time to teach the little ones they wouldn¡¯t let into school once or twice a week in the evenings¡ªbut I was a pariah for helping her. Ru¡¯our Kholtan would not hire them. It was rare for a shacker boy to land an apprenticeship, rarer still for a shacker woman to land a job outside the fields.


    Elvias, the student Aldin beat over his shirt clasp, was among their ranks, sitting on the patched blankets. He had dark, earth colored hair, freckles, and stood just a hair smaller than Ordin. He was part of a family of eight¡ªfour younger brothers, his little sister Yanja, his mother, Olivine, holding the baby. No father. Olivine was one of the village¡¯s laundry women, too frail to work the rice paddies. But they had another name for her when she wasn¡¯t around. Whore. If someone had paid her, I understood it. There was no salary for being a warrior student, gatekeeping training to the wealthy and the foundlings that lived on the benevolence of the council. Olivine had a family to feed. And in spite of being worn thin by poverty, she had high cheekbones, smooth skin, and wide-set eyes. So she made sacrifices.


    Elvias glared at me like I should mind my own business, but Yanja waved to me and adjusted an imaginary looking glass. I smirked. It was a running joke with the children that I had an invisible telescope. What really had was long distance vision, a penchant for high ground, and willingness to put up with the children¡¯s screaming, chaotic fits of imagination in the garden behind the Medicine Lodge on Saturdays. Yanja giggled and snuggled closer to Elvias, who put an arm around her without looking enthused about it, reluctantly brothering. Hell knows what that family went through, but a pang of envy still shot through me.


    Ru¡¯our Kholtan¡¯s shoulders were straight and his head was high, his auburn hair pulled back and shining. He swept into the hall from the back entrance, the crowd parting for him to take his place with the council of elders on the stand at the front of the room.


    I looked for Yinjane Wainwyre in the audience right in front of him. She had a shacker girl cuddled up on her lap and was already looking back towards the two of us. I caught her eyes, her gaze paralleling my confusion, asking the same question, Do you know what¡¯s going on here? Her confusion meant that she, too, knew something was wrong¡ªbut like me, she didn¡¯t know what. We both looked away. We couldn¡¯t talk now.


    Kholtan bowed deeply to the crowd, and the presentation began with thunderous applause, ¡°Kholtan! Elder Kholtan!¡± The wares flowed into the room, on the dirty, calloused, wet bare feet of serving boys as they swiftly shuffled in intricate pieces of furniture, porcelain dishes and small, expensive barrels of preserved fruits. They herded live pigs and goats from the back of the room to the front, to be presented to the council in their high chairs on the platform.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    And then the boys began to circle back and lead in horses in long lines, in the back of the building, out the front entrance behind the elders. There were at least fifty. The crowd was pointing, gasping, their hands over their mouths, their hands were clasped on the arms of their friends and their fingers were pointing at the stallions. I spotted one woman weeping, maybe for joy at the sight of so many animals together, so much prosperity.


    But I was confused. We couldn¡¯t fit them all in the stables just outside the village, there wasn¡¯t enough space. Had he brought them here to show them off, before he went to trade them at Cholvekesta, or another trading post? This village wasn¡¯t on dry ground, it wasn¡¯t as if we could use them to carry things within our streets¡ªwe had canals. Money in itself meant nothing, a wood cup worked as well as a platinum one when half the village could only afford water to fill it. What¡¯s the price of so many horses? Why?


    A serving boy, maybe half my age and dressed in a clean, pressed jacket and tunic entered at the back of the meeting hall and approached with one jade-handled sword, sheathed in pale green scabbard in his hands and balanced in his hands¡ªwell balanced, well-crafted.


    It was nothing to twist hair about, but my stomach sunk, a slow wave of intuition rolling into my system.


    Dozens of less elaborate blades came, being carried in by the line of boys. Each servant was from good family and making good money in Kholtan¡¯s employ, filing in and displaying the weapons, carefully untying them from their muslins and laying them in the carts and on the crates before the elder¡¯s chairs for all to see, sliding them out of their sheaths to reveal the bare glint of metal. Broadswords, lances, spears, knives, maces and clubs. Axes. Armor. Shields. Dozens of bows and hundreds of arrows, all steel-tipped. The crowd gasped and murmured. Now there was nervous tension. Now their was excitement. I saw Elvias¡¯s eyes go keen, following the steel.


    ¡°This is the latest technology and finest workmanship from the border towns.¡± Ru¡¯our drew the jade-handled sword from its scabbard to show a dark, matte steel with a razor-edged glint. I hadn¡¯t seen craftsmanship like that in a long time. The crowd gasped and sighed. Objectively, it was beautiful. He twirled it lightly, demonstrating the balance and ease of movement, and flashed the sword around through several sequences with Kimell, an apprentice who was just about to be inducted as a warrior. They pretended to block and defend¡ªthey were out of measure, never truly in striking range of each other. Only close enough to touch blades. Because they knew real blades were dangerous.


    The villagers sat on their picnic blankets and applauded at the show.


    ¡°Second only to a firearm, and we can¡¯t have those here, can we?¡± He jested, and his audience laughed, as if Xavian firearm regulations were something to be laughed at. They slaughtered entire towns for one of the residents having so much as a low-caliber pistol.


    ¡°Ladies and gentlemen, our military is now the most formidable in the entire northern territory. Congratulations, you are now living in the most powerful village within sixty miles.¡± The eyes of the people¡ªlittle ones through adults, grew wide and huge. The six-year-olds with their imported, factory-made sweets that he¡¯d handed out dying their mouths bright red and blue, the students and apprentices with their hands twitching with hunger.


    There was a sweeping, spiraling feeling in my body. Vertigo. The feeling you got when you were falling. I could feel Mirjam¡¯s gaze from my left, but I kept my eyes glued ahead in a straight stare.


    I have to get out of here.

 He came to us when we were weak.

    He¡¯d met our villagers in Cholvekesta after the plague, when we were desperate. He¡¯d heard of the Northern Village¡¯s heavy guard and devotion to maintaining a military in spite of their isolation. He offered them relief, and in the end, they¡¯d opened up to him visiting. That was a raging fight in the council meeting¡ªoutsiders were banned by the foundational charter. It was a shame they didn¡¯t mind who was listening outside their windows, I¡¯d overheard every word.


    He was not truly rich, he¡¯d just come to the place where he was the richest. I knew what he thought he¡¯d find here¡ªa people so far removed from the world that they were inevitably naive, a place where he would be the most impressive man in miles simply for making an ordinary living. Unfortunately for everyone, he was right. It was amazing how you could buy not only someone¡¯s affections, but their common sense.


    He¡¯d married Elder Michaelis¡¯s daughter, Kaergery, which I believe Michaelis regretted allowing even before he did it. But of course, she¡¯d fallen in love with the the handsome, charismatic, wealthy man that showered her with attention, praise, and knowing smiles. It was impossible not to love him, and I think she had high hopes of being loved. I¡¯d seen them together, we all had, spinning her in the town square in a bastardization of a Xavian ballroom dance¡ªhe could be dazzling when he wanted to.


    And of course, Ru¡¯our Kholtan brought in money. Jobs. Livestock. A fresh perspective. A new set of eyes. Hope. He was welcomed to come and go as he pleased with open, if suspicious, arms. In the past, he¡¯d allayed that suspicion with spectacles like these.


    And then it got worse.


    ¡°But don¡¯t think we¡¯ve forgotten the ladies. My dear,¡± Kholtan called towards the back doors of the meeting hall in heavily-accented Xavian. ¡°Would you come in?¡±


    I turned my head towards the back double doors of the meeting hall with the wave of rustling and turning heads that went through the crowd.


    The Xavian girl from the gondola slipped into the building and forward in her wedding veil. There were gasps of pleasure and awe as the people on their old quilts and patched woolen blankets scooted themselves and their things out the way so she could pass through unobstructed. She was blushing delicately and smiling, a dimple on one cheek, the two women who had rowed her gondola holding up the train of her pale blue gown so it wouldn¡¯t so much as gather dirt from the floor. Her feet were bare and dry, her small, bony toes picking carefully over the rough logs that had been dug into the ground to form the floor. They were made for calloused feet, like mine. I furrowed my brow, occupied with the bizarre thought that she¡¯d get a splinter. Delicate things didn¡¯t belong here¡ªthey died.


    I looked at Mirjam and I muttered in Kyjan, ¡°He can¡¯t get married twice here, it¡¯s against the village charter.¡±


    ¡°Interesting,¡± she muttered back quietly, devoid of emotion. I didn¡¯t like that tone.


    She approached Ru¡¯our with her pale, bare hand raised and he kissed it. He guided her closer and put a hand on the small of her back.


    ¡°I would like you to meet my second wife, Mrs. Aralise Kholtan of Nundal.¡± Nundal was a border town, she was a Xavian citizen.


    He¡¯d taken a second wife, a Xavian, in a town in the middle of nowhere, where the charter dictated isolation and monogamy? Incredible. Some polite applause began. I watched, confused.


    ¡°I am blessed¡­ to be with you?¡± she attempted delicately, in hesitant, heavily accented Northern, her face warm and blushed.


    The applause swelled rapturously loud, and I found myself clapping slowly, absentmindedly, thoroughly lost. This is impossible. How had this village altered so completely, right under my nose? She smiled again and I swore half the town, men and women alike, swooned. Were they bewitched by her amber gaze, or had they all lost their helldamned minds? That was the magic of silks, strawberry blonde hair, kohl on your eyelashes, and pastel blush. He¡¯d brought weapons. He¡¯d violated the charter. And they were cheering.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Elder Timothy Michaelis intervened. ¡°Forgive me, but I must interrupt this now. Master Kholtan, you may have forgotten, but men are not permitted to take second wives in this village, as explicitly dictated by this charter. It would be one thing if you were a foreigner, or your¡­ second wife was not living in our village and your first wife was not married from among our people, but you¡¯ve joined our council of elders and made oaths to my daughter, Mrs. Kaergery Kholtan before us.¡±


    ¡°I saw no such thing in the language of the charter, Master Michaelis. I assure you, you are mistaken,¡± Ru¡¯our Kholtan replied smoothly.


    He was not mistaken.


    ¡°I am not mistaken, Master Kholtan, that particular part of the charter was clear and deliberate.¡±


    Now Aralise was looking more than merely blushed, she was looking confused and embarrassed, and Ru¡¯our¡¯s face was reddening and tightening as his throat worked to keep his expression from twisting to outrage, poorly hiding the fact that he was irate. ¡°Surely there is no cause for public debate, Mrs. Kholtan is new to this village, she has traveled far and long in anticipation of meeting everyone in this room. I fear it would be an offense to her delicate sensibilities. I assure you I anticipated a warm welcome.¡±


    Some of the villagers began to clap, and more joined them. The bewildered Mrs. Aralise Kholtan looked marginally better.


    ¡°And I am deeply regretful I cannot offer it to you, but the charter is explicit. Polygamy is completely banned in our village, it is an offense to our ancestors and the women who are expected to be faithful to their husbands. A man cannot give undivided attention and provision for more than one woman. Our traditions are employed for a reason, Master Ru¡¯our, to protect women who may easily be passed over for another, and to ensure stable and peaceful homes! Your wife is deeply pregnant with your third child! This is an affront!¡±


    Master Kholtan¡¯s hand was on the hilt of the jade sword. Michaelis stood up, fingers on his own hilt.


    ¡°Master Michaelis, please!¡± Wainwyre stuttered, ¡°do not create a misunderstanding. The charter does specify that elders are to have one wife for these reasons, but the reasoning does not¡­ need to apply to Master Kholtan¡ª¡± who was glaring, hand on the sword, ¡°who is neither unable to manage his own household or provide for two wives. He¡¯s doubled the size of our economy, brought us better farming tools and weapons, provided jobs for many of our villagers who have no other place but the fields. I cannot imagine his house is a place where either his wives will be passed over.¡±


    I looked around and noticed that Ru¡¯our first wife, Kaergery, was conspicuously absent.


    Michaelis shook his head warily and pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. Slowly, he took his seat. He was elderly, his silver beard to his waist, but this was one of the few times he truly looked his age. ¡°Benjamael, your father¡ª


    ¡°Has passed in a plague we did not have the resources to fight well, and it falls to me and to ensure our better fortunes. We must make improvements if we wish for a better life. We must be open-minded to new ideas if they are good,¡± he said. It would have been more convincing if his voice hadn¡¯t shook. And if I didn¡¯t suspect he was quoting what Kholtan directly.


    ¡°When has having to complete for their husband¡¯s affection been a good idea for the women of our village?¡± Michaelis insisted, ¡°Where is Master Kholtan¡¯s first wife, Benjamael? She is not in this assembly.¡±


    ¡°My wife is ill with the complications of pregnancy, you would not dare to insult the honor of my household!¡± Ru¡¯our snapped quietly, his fingers digging into his knew wife¡¯s wrist, which happened to be the most nearby object for him to crush. Now she was looking quite afraid.


    ¡°You would not take a second wife over your Uria, would you?¡± Michaelis fixed his eyes on Wainwyre and pleaded with his junior.


    ¡°I beg you would not appeal to my personal affairs in council,¡± Benjamael shot back curtly, ¡°it is entirely¡ª


    ¡°I appeal to the Weir,¡± Master Michaelis replied exasperatedly.


    The meeting hall collectively turned to the back corner. The Weir and his apprentice had slipped in without notice in the midst of Ru¡¯our¡¯s parade of imported textiles, vases, horses, steel-tipped arrows, and wives. He was a grisled man with stubble for a beard. He looked even older than Michaelis, but no one had any doubt that he could take a younger man down. He held a steel-tipped staff. On his left was his apprentice, a lithe, hard-muscled young man with a shaved head, who knelt with his hands folded formally on his lap, watching the proceedings with a stone face and dark crimson irises¡ªnone other than Zimora.

 A New Era

    I was fairly sure the Weir¡¯s name was Zaran, but all I knew for sure was if he taught Zimora to fight, you should fear him. He whirled so quickly I couldn¡¯t quite trace what he was doing. His staff landed in Ordin¡¯s stomach and then whacked into Diamus¡¯s head, he kicked Thomas and tripped him just in time to whirl and snap the staff into Yennis. They had all rushed him at once, they weren¡¯t taking turns. Four on one and they were down in seconds. The Weir had just laughed, and then made him do the same with three of the older apprentices, ones that were supposed to become warriors at the festival come spring. No one landed a blow. Anyone who hadn¡¯t seen Zimora pitted against everyone had heard about the results.


    I tried not to stare, as I always did. He stayed on my mind, as one does when they saved your life six years ago and hadn¡¯t spoken to you since. My fixation with him couldn¡¯t yield anything, but it stayed. He lived in my brain, and I wondered what happened in his. What he thought. Why he did it, that day six years ago, when he took me from that train that stayed in my dreams. If I regretted that he did. I watched him, on the rare occasions the Weir brought him down into the village. He never even looked at me. There weren¡¯t many people I could ask questions to. I¡¯d tried asking Mirjam, and she¡¯d just shook her head. I supposed it didn¡¯t matter now.


    The Weir¡¯s job was to be a bridge, a layer of insulation between the village and the world that would allow the majority of the town to stay isolated without being unprotected in their ignorance. His business was to know the region. He was master of foreign policy, and no decisions concerning it were made without him¡ªor that was how it was supposed to be. He was also something like a sheriff, enforcing the charter and making judgments when something went amiss¡ªjudge, jury, and executioner.


    Instead of speaking reason into the situation, the Weir gestured with crass apathy. ¡°What is to me, how many women he fucks?¡±


    Michaelis was silent, his eyes like a thundercloud. Kholtan glowered. The Weir offered nothing further.


    I shut my eyes and exhaled, desiring to punch something. And then Ru¡¯our, of all things, began running his damn mouth.


    ¡°We are entering the future!¡± Elder Kholtan declared firmly, his public persona swinging into full action. ¡°We are no longer a village that dies of starvation, exposure, and plagues! We are the beginning of a new generation, one that flourishes, one that becomes powerful, one that brandishes burnished iron and towers over its neighbors as a leader! Our period of isolation, of purgatory, of waiting with nothing more to offer the world, unable to do anything in it or about it, is over! We are a village of warriors! Let us raise high Elder Callomen and Elder Peters, who slaughtered those who invaded village territory!¡± I didn¡¯t remember that particular occasion because it had happened over six years ago, but I distinctly remembered it being talked of as the destruction of some poor Kyjan migrants who didn¡¯t join the village because they didn¡¯t know the Northern language. ¡°Let us raise high Master Byron, who killed eleven men to defend our village from the southern enemies! Let us lift high our Elders Viratt and Hochwallen, who mounted the heads of encroaching slavers in our square! Let us raise a glass to Head Elder Wainwyre and his father before him, who have strengthened us and lead us to this point! We will take what we want from the world! Let our new era begin!¡±Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!


    The village roared a wild cheer.


    ¡°I bring a gift!¡± Ru¡¯our announced loudly, and the village quieted quickly to loud whispers and murmurs. Gasps filled the meeting hall again as the serving boys came forward with thirteen neatly-folded outfits, one for each member of the council including him¡ªwhich was excess, because he was already wearing a purple silk tunic and robe to stand before us. With long, gathered, billowing silk robes and serving boys to help strip away their yarn-embroidered, fur-decorated woolen-and-skin ones, he dressed them all like himself. The elder¡¯s robes were supposed to be traditional¡ªevery warrior sacrificed an animal from the woods for good fortune upon his graduation, and that skin and antlers or horns or teeth would become his ceremonial attire to ward off the Misfortunes. Wainwyre¡¯s new robes were gold and everyone else¡¯s were orange, but the ones Kholtan brought for himself were a deep, emerald green. Two serving boys helped him dress instead of one, and he wasn¡¯t attempting to help them like most of the elders were.


    The town became rather quiet, hushed with admiration, their elders looking¡­ I don¡¯t know, I supposed it looked dignified, their sun-tanned faces set above their neatly embroidered collars, like heads on pedestals. Dignified or¡­ Expensive. Indebted. Fragile. I didn¡¯t really care, but I liked my wool-felted shirt even though it wasn¡¯t the dead of winter today.


    The boys were lighting incense, the amazing, cloying smell starting to drift to the back of the room on the breeze. I didn¡¯t notice the smell of body odor until the two of them mixed. I folded my hands, they were dirty. We were all dirty, no one wore shoes while the ground wasn¡¯t frozen, no one wanted to wear them out when they¡¯d need to be as intact as possible for winter. Our clothes were full of patches, and everyone was smiling.


    Serving boys rolled in barrels of drink, sloshing as they came up the aisle Aralise Kholtan had walked through. They stood one up, opened it quickly, and dipped in a heretofore unseen crystal goblet into the barrel of drink. He handed it to Kholtan, and then drew another one and offered it to his new wife, who took it carefully. There was a red mark on her wrist.


    ¡°Let us raise a glass high!¡± Ru¡¯our pronounced.


    And then a roar started up, echoing through the meeting hall, cheering for the elders. ¡°Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!¡± Everyone was drinking and laughing, even Yanja had a little red wine poured into her wooden cup by a server, who sloshed some of it onto their family¡¯s picnic blanket. Olivine laughed in wonder, her eyes bright beneath the patched scarf on her head, and raised her glass, knocking half of it back in one shot. The server refilled it immediately, then turned to the family next to theirs.


    That much wine would last weeks if everyone wasn¡¯t getting drunk on it. The village never used to do things like this before Ru¡¯our got here. They started serving cake from somewhere. The village began their picnic, but I found myself leaving the meeting hall with my back bothering me, tired.


    Tired beyond tired. I need to leave. I¡¯m not doing this.

 To Run

    Mirjam followed me out of the meeting hall, landing a hand on my shoulder. I grimaced and said softly, ¡°Ow.¡± She sighed.


    ¡°Come on, let¡¯s have a look at it.¡±


    ¡°It¡¯s nothing.¡± I replied, but I knew better than to try to object, so got in the gondola and let her take care of rowing back. There was no one out to see it. We walked into the medicine lodge and she had me spun towards the counter on the front wall almost immediately, my hands on the hardwood next to the mortar and pestle and a bunch of half-cut herbs next to a cauldron.


    She lifted the back of my shirt critically and whistled like a belligerent blacksmith at a maid. She swore softly, under her breath, ¡°shit.¡±


    ¡°It was a dirty fight. In front of the elders,¡± I said flatly, ¡°with an illegal move after he put me on the ground.¡±


    ¡°I wish I wasn¡¯t used to seeing this on you.¡±


    ¡°You know I can¡¯t keep up with the class,¡± I replied, trying to find my way into that subject, stifling the lump in my throat.


    ¡°You could excel in that class if you wanted to, Seth. I¡¯ve seen you carry all of my baskets for hours in the woods and I¡¯ve seen you train alone when no one else is watching. And then you go with the class and you¡¯re distracted the whole time. What do you have to be you afraid of?¡± She replied flatly.


    ¡°You know what I¡¯m afraid of.¡±


    She was silent.


    And I said it like she knew, but she didn¡¯t know the half of it.


    Aldin kicked me out of training. He¡¯s done teaching me. The words stuck in my throat. I¡¯m finished. Going upstream for sure. I¡¯d climbed a tree into a place where the cover of branches was heavy, curled, and shook for forty-five minutes after leaving the training ground. Just to try to get whatever had just happened, what was always happening to me, out of my system. I couldn¡¯t cry. I tried, I physically wouldn¡¯t. I had at least a couple hours to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life, stay or go, probably not more.


    She touched my back and I jerked away. It wasn¡¯t the pain, it was that nasty, dizzying feeling. I must have tensed or even started to tremble a little, my fists balled in my shirt, because she passed me the tonic. ¡°Drink, Seth.¡± She knew better than to try to get me to lie down or take my shirt off completely, I¡¯d insist on sitting and keeping at least the front of it on. I wasn¡¯t stripping down in front of anyone, not even Mirjam. I exhaled slowly, and after I¡¯d had a deep swig of the painkiller, she started rubbing the numbing herbs into my back.


    ¡°I need an apprentice. You already know half there is to know about being a medicine man, you already forage with me in the woods and know how to cultivate herbs, and even a thing or two about brewing and treating beyond the average student.¡±


    ¡°You¡¯d do that?¡± My lungs became light for a moment, I was dizzy, the pain from the caning entirely forgotten.


    ¡°We need another medic. And you¡¯ll do no good upstream.¡±


    ¡°The town has never had a medicine man.¡± I replied, ¡°It¡¯s women¡¯s work.¡±


    ¡°And so you can¡¯t do it?¡± My back twinged as she laid the medicine on with a hard flick instead of her usual steady hand. ¡°There¡¯s nothing wrong with women, there¡¯s nothing wrong with being a woman. Warriors aren¡¯t the only people that matter, Seth¡ª


    ¡°Of course I could do it.¡± I interrupted. I didn¡¯t need a lecture on feminine virtues. ¡°But they¡¯d never let me, they already think I¡¯m useless.¡±


    ¡°I don¡¯t give a damn what they think on the matter, or what you do, in fact,¡± she replied. ¡°And you¡¯re already of use to me. You¡¯d be perfect, and I¡¯m not just saying that to soothe your ego. I need the help.¡± Her nights were long and her mornings were early, ever since the plague several years back. She was a preparer. Even during the thin months, her shelves were stocked even with mountain tobacco, and she hid preserved herbs in jars in the woods in case of a fire or an attack.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    ¡°Will the council of elders allow it?¡±


    ¡°They¡¯d better. If they have brains they will. Having one medic is dangerously too few. Having two isn¡¯t enough. With the size of this village, we should have four or five. I¡¯ll make the case in front of everyone. It will be harder for everyone to say no if it¡¯s done in public rather than private. I¡¯m the only medicine woman and I care for them all. They may resent it, but the elders will be far more reluctant to refuse and cause a scene in public. I¡¯ll claim you at the festival after the rounds are done.¡±


    ¡°You don¡¯t have to do this. I can survive on my own if I have to.¡±


    ¡°With the winters we have on the mountain? No you can¡¯t. Not even you. That¡¯s why they drive the failures out at the end of the warm season, because the chances of them making it into the hands of anyone who would help them in time is virtually none.¡± She replied chillingly. She¡¯d never spoken outright, but I knew how she felt about the village¡¯s practice of maiming and exiling useless foundlings right before winter. Leaving them to die for the Misfortunes, putting all the pain due the village on them.


    ¡°I need an apprentice that¡¯s not a half-wit, I don¡¯t care what gender they are.¡± Her gaze grew uncomfortably piercing, even more so than usual. She was looking right at me. ¡°This village needs you. The village needs another medic, and they need someone who¡¯s sharp.¡±


    The knot in my stomach eased, but not completely. I wasn¡¯t sleeping at night anymore. Hadn¡¯t in a long time. Not since I¡¯d slowly started to realize that for reasons on top of reasons, I¡¯d never be able to keep this place as my home. Not since the plague.


    Not since what I did that spring.


    From there, everything went downhill, and I that¡¯s when I¡¯d started to fall behind the class. At Mirjam¡¯s side, the things I was silent about would be safer than ever. If I ever found the tongue to tell the things I shouldn¡¯t speak, if there was anyone who was able to help me bring everything into the light without being stoned in the town square, it was Mirjam. Knowing there was another option, something else, when I¡¯d been anticipating my life to come to an end within the next few weeks was a relief.


    Or it should have been.


    I think I¡¯m leaving. I¡¯m leaving, Mirjam. And I¡¯m not coming back.


    I didn¡¯t have time to parse my unease, the place that revelation came from¡ªvoices came from the porch outside the lodge. It sounded like Master Aldin and Master Byron. ¡°He couldn¡¯t have healed from the last beating you gave him, it was only a week ago.¡± Master Byron was saying.


    ¡°He made a spectacle today. He¡¯s miles behind and dragging back everyone with him. He should be sent off.¡± Master Aldin had a smooth, sharp voice.


    ¡°It¡¯s possible that he¡¯s just younger than we thought he was.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s had enough training to show potential if he had it. The elders have higher expectations, we can¡¯t waste our time with Seth. We¡¯ll sacrifice him away after this festival.¡±


    ¡°Let¡¯s see how he performs in the tournament.¡± Master Byron replied. ¡°If you don¡¯t take the trouble to check Ordin¡¯s arrogance, he¡¯ll continue to create small spectacles like this during training. He laughed for almost a minute over Seth¡¯s discipline in front of the whole council. His smugness will become unregulated behavior and become a sore to the honor of the warriors. He enjoyed that far too much.¡±


    ¡°He¡¯s an adolescent boy, his master will beat it out of him once or twice when he is apprenticed and he¡¯ll learn to focus on more prescient things.¡±


    ¡°I¡¯ve never known you to be so patient with a troublesome foundling who¡¯s smug before the elders. It shouldn¡¯t be tolerated, Percius.¡±


    ¡°Things will unfold as they should.¡±


    I ducked under the work counter just in time of Master Aldin to push through the door of the medicine lodge, the bell above it jingling with his arrival. ¡°Some tobacco for the celebration.¡± He commanded shortly.


    ¡°To your left on the wall, sir.¡± Mirjam answered. ¡°Two coppers.¡±


    Aldin said nothing, searching in his purse. Mirjam¡¯s rule was that if you came dry-footed, you paid for what you took. You waded, you took what you need for free, no more, no less. It was a contentious rule that caused no shortage of spite with the wealthy, but Mirjam had stood her ground. She was a soldier, she wasn¡¯t afraid to have enemies.


    ¡°Anything else, Master Aldin?¡±


    ¡°That will be all.¡±


    ¡°Take care, Master Aldin.¡±


    I watched her ankles and dirty, bare feet cross as she curtsied, and Master Aldin¡¯s feet remained planted as he dipped his head. He left, and I ducked out from behind the crates under the counter.


    She looked to catch my gaze, but I had already plucked my mother¡¯s comb from the place it was nestled behind the shelves of herbs in the wall. I crossed the room and went out the back window to scale the logs to the roof and take to the trees. I slipped through the bunkhouse, took the coat and shoes but left the blanket. I didn¡¯t even want those two things. I needed supplies, but I needed to leave it all behind even more. I needed Aldin¡¯s voice to not be echoing in my head.

 Freeclimb

    I woke a hundred feet in the air, curled between three tree branches that had grown so close they¡¯d formed a hollow, a mile into the forest. I was in a cluster of pines. My hands were shaking, the nightmare still burned into my brain.


    We were running. We were in an alley just outside of Tajrann, the capitol, huddling for the night among the homeless. And a group of soldiers passed by, their lithe bodies stalking in their shimmering, black-as-ink velocity suits. They clung to their bodies like water, a second skin that covered them from chin to toe, making them amorphous, half not-real. There was a man laid out across their path, huddled in rags and sleeping. They moved so fast I didn¡¯t even realize one of them had kicked him until his body flew over the gritty cobblestone and hit the brick wall of the alley with a crunch.


    My mother pulled me close to her body, but I couldn¡¯t turn my face away.


    He choked and spasmed, but he was young¡ªand they must have seen something like defiance in his eye. They threw him around like a rag doll, like a cat throws around a mouse, the man bouncing in the triangle of their blurring bodies. It was less than two seconds, clicks and crunches, a ball bouncing between poltergeists. He didn¡¯t have time to scream. And then, when they were finished, when he was shocked and pale-faced, and missing an eye, and his arms were dangling stretched and twisted at odd angles, one of those black-covered hands drew a pistol and in a few quiet movements, shot the young man three times in the stomach. There was no bang or flash, the gun was dead silent. It made more sound when the bullet went through his body and crunched into the ground. His breathing was ragged and wheezing¡ªI don¡¯t think he even knew what had happened to him. My mother would not let me go to him. Within ten minutes, it went silent and stopped, and the man was a corpse.


    I blinked hard, shaking¡ªthe fear had ebbed into rage. The moon made a halo in the clouds blowing by above. They drifted by darkly, blotching out the stars through the clusters of needles above me.


    Meeting hall full of weapons, too many for Ru¡¯our Kholtan to keep in a collection, laid out without their sheaths, naked slices of metal for everyone to see. One medic isn¡¯t enough, neither is two. The size of the village, we should have at least four or five. I didn¡¯t think for or five would be enough for a village of that size, if they had an army, really their medical corp should be much, much larger. Silks. Wives. Purple signet rings. Investors and demonstrations. Hundreds upon hundreds of weapons.


    I climbed up out of the sheltered nook in the branches and the village came into view. The rest of the village was dark, but there was still firelight in the meeting hall¡ªthe village council was in session. This wasn¡¯t a raging party. I could see my breath in the air, freezing. It was near the middle of the night, and they were still in session. Maneuvering like lightning. I wasn¡¯t stupid. I should have seen it coming. I should have put it together the moment those weapons arrived in the meeting hall. I knew Ru¡¯our was a liar. It took one to know one.


    I dropped from the tree. My feet hit the ground.


    I cracked the vertebrae in my aching back and walked, my feet, and the throb, and my thoughts settling into one steady pattern. I stroked the scar on my left cheek with my thumb and then pressed it so hard the bruise from Aldin started a sharp, aching throb. Initially I¡¯d hated it, but over the years, the texture of the taut, ruined skin under my eye had become comforting¡ªa gruesome oath. Seth, you live.


    I should have been running. I wasn¡¯t. I was slipping over the stone wall by the bunk house, but as my hands and feet caught the familiar handholds and toeholds in the rock.


    Yin was right when she said something was off with me, like I was out-of-sync, a skipping record on the phonograph, halfway off the cliff.


    Plunge.


    I looked at the bunkhouse ahead of me, just over the wall, a dark block that I¡¯d slip into through the front door, quiet and oblivious. My eyes drew to the great hall. It was just a feeling. A gut instinct with several hundred weapons to back it up.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.


    I slipped into the shadows of the obstacle course in the training field, running alongside the repurposed trees, and then up into the draping canopies where the training field ended. I couldn¡¯t take the trees all the way to the meeting hall, but they could carry me safely to the island it was on, branch by branch. I slid down the tree and into the shadows between the narrow alleys between shops and houses in the village square and dissolved into the dark pool where the great hall blocked the moon.


    You¡¯re an idiot, Seth, a voice in the back of my head instructed. You should be running if you intend to run, before they can send a search party out after you, while they¡¯re distracted by whatever fatal bullshit they¡¯re involving themselves in.


    I socked my better judgment away.


    The windows by the eaves would be open. It was warm enough. The indents where each thick, rough log was placed on the one above it created half-decent footholds, and together, the dead trees seemed to form a sort of gracious ladder. They sung to me: freeclimb.


    This was going to be mostly grip strength¡ªrelying on my bare fingers in the plummeting night temperatures. My back was going to kill me, my shoulders were one enormous bruise after the caning. This was not the welcoming boughs of a tree, there were no branches to rest on, I would stay completely and entirely vertical.


    I took off my shoes and tied them to my belt. The freezing grass bit my feet.


    I had callouses on my hands. I ran my thumb over my own skin, the rough, wadded on my palm from gripping a poorly-balanced practice sword. They were in different places than where I had them in my childhood. I¡¯d been twisted into a shell of myself, one that was immolated on the inside and still burning like the night our villa in Islingraet on the Oranjesuul went up in a four-story blaze with the servants still in it. I¡¯d become ruthless. Once you¡¯d had your limits broken so many times, you were capable of anything. Yinjane saw part of it, and it scared her. Mirjam saw part of it, and she didn¡¯t care. But me? I could do anything, the cold settling into my bones like power.


    I stepped back, picked the section of the wall that looked like it had the most handholds in the dim light, stepped up, and propelled myself onto the wall, catching a knot in a horizontal trunk. I felt for another grip and found it in a fissure in the bark in the log above my handhold. The adrenaline and night breeze caught me. I could freeclimb with a whipped back, I could do anything. Risk my life to eavesdrop on a council meeting? What the hell. It was only twenty feet. Easy. My grip on the fissure was solid. I planted my toes between the logs and pushed up, finding the next handhold.


    Nice, Seth.


    The pain felt like high octane fuel. I bit my tongue so hard I bled, balancing which regions of my body the screaming was coming from. I inhaled, exhaled, and flexed to my tippy-toes, my fingers just barely brushing the next knot in the wood. I let my feet go flat and then propelled back up with the entire strength of my legs. Caught the knot. Got my feet into the fissure, climbed.


    I didn¡¯t dare climb into the windowsill. I would have to stay out here. But they were below, so they wouldn¡¯t notice if I used it as a hold for my fingers. I did just that, and held my position against the wall to listen, the tinny repeat track of pain and fatigue playing through my body in the background.


    Mirjam¡¯s voice: ¡°I¡¯m your medicine woman. When it comes to provision for human lives, I¡¯m the most qualified to answer. I completely and adamantly advise against everything that¡¯s just been proposed. We already barely survive every few winters. If we were to have thin one, a stormy one, or worse, a plague in tandem with a war, we wouldn¡¯t just risk eradication, we would be certain of it.¡±


    Fuck.


    ¡°That¡¯s just it! We need this!¡± Kholtan insisted, ¡°I am only one man, I cannot provide rice for a whole village, no matter how much I trade, I cannot build you schools, I cannot stop your winters! Even if I could, a man only lives so long! This is for a future! A real future, where we aren¡¯t just struggling to survive, where we aren¡¯t just waiting for the next plague! I can only open opportunities for the village, but I cannot build you a future. This council must do that! I promised you a real solution, and I have brought you one. This option¡ª¡±


    Mirjam interrupted him. ¡° This is not an option. We don¡¯t have medicine in the quality or the quantity to deal with war injuries. The conditions here for open wounds are terrible, and god forbid you have a conflict during winter. I¡¯ll be amputating limbs with hack-saws by candlelight. People will die horribly. The inevitable result will be the decimation of our warriors and destruction of our village.¡±


    ¡°The village has already been decimated!¡± Ru¡¯our shot back, ¡°You treat this as if we have alternatives! Let me tell you what our other option is, it¡¯s losing the children you work in your garden to starvation every winter! It¡¯s having half our village die of diseases you cannot treat! It¡¯s a subsistence of rice, and weeds, with no education, no culture, no higher purpose, no meaning! If we want a future, we must fight for it! It is time we were truly alive!¡± He roared, and there were cheers.