C3 Bramble's End

The guard at the gate had a face like a bulldog—sagging jowls, small suspicious eyes, a scar cutting through his left eyebrow. He looked Kael up and down, taking in the torn tunic, the dirt-caked boots, the fresh scratch across his cheek.

"Name?"

Kael's mouth opened. For half a heartbeat, nothing came out. The name on his tongue was the wrong one. The dangerous one. He swallowed it.

"Miller." The word scraped past his dry throat. "Kael Miller."

The guard didn't write it down. He was still looking at Kael's clothes. "You got coin for the entry fee? One copper."

Kael's hand went to his pocket. He'd found three coins in the tunnel—emergency money his father had stashed years ago. His fingers closed around one of them. He dropped it into the guard's palm.

The guard bit the coin, nodded, and jerked his thumb toward the gate. "Next."

Kael walked through. His legs were shaking. Not from exhaustion—from the two men in black robes standing thirty feet away, questioning a merchant. One of them held a parchment with a sketch on it. Kael didn't need to see the face to know whose it was.

He turned left, merging into the crowd. The main street was a river of bodies—kids between sixteen and twenty, some carrying packs with bedrolls, others in embroidered robes that screamed money. Merchants hawked dried meat and travel gear. A blacksmith's hammer rang out somewhere nearby. The noise was overwhelming. His enhanced hearing picked up a dozen conversations at once, fragments overlapping and colliding.

"—heard the Voss boy is Rank 4 already—"

"—registration's ten silver this year, ten!—"

"—Shadow Sect's been spotted around town, looking for some noble kid—"

Kael's heart slammed against his ribs. His palms went slick with sweat. He kept his head down, his shoulders hunched, making himself small. Boring. Forgettable.

Brown hair. Brown eyes. Average height. That was what the sketch would show. That was what the hunters would be looking for. He needed to be less than that. He needed to be invisible.

He drifted to the edge of the crowd, his hand never straying far from the knife hidden in his boot. His enhanced hearing tracked the two robed figures as they moved through the square. They were still questioning people, showing the sketch. They'd be here all day.

He needed money. Ten silver for the registration fee. He had two copper to his name.

An hour of searching turned up nothing. The taverns were fully staffed, the blacksmith had three apprentices, and the stables had more hands than horses. Kael's stomach cramped. He hadn't eaten since the rabbit yesterday.

He was about to give up when he spotted a sign hanging outside a butcher's shop near the west gate: Strong back wanted. Loading carcasses. Five copper a day, plus one meal.

The shop stank of blood and iron. Inside, a fat man with a scar across his left cheek and an apron stained brown looked Kael over once. "You look like a stiff wind would blow you over."

"I can carry two hundred pounds."

The butcher grunted. "We'll see." He jerked his chin toward a stack of pig carcasses by the back door. "Unload those into the cold cellar. Don't slack off."

Kael didn't slack. The carcasses weighed close to two hundred pounds each—dead weight, awkward to grip, cold and slick. His muscles screamed. His ribs ached where the gash had healed. But he hauled them down one by one, no complaint, no rest, until all ten were stacked neatly in the cold room.

The butcher watched him finish. He grunted again. "You're quiet. I like quiet. Come back tomorrow at dawn. Got a wagon full of deer coming in."

Kael nodded, pocketing the five copper coins and a thick slice of salted pork the butcher tossed him. He found a flophouse on the edge of town that let you sleep on the common room floor for a copper a night. It smelled of unwashed bodies and cheap tallow candles. He paid his copper, found a spot in the corner, and sat down with his back against the wall.

He couldn't sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the flames. Heard the screams. Smelled roses.

Three days passed. Kael worked dawn to dusk at the butcher shop, hauling carcasses and splitting wood and cleaning the cold cellar until his hands were raw. The butcher raised his pay to seven copper. Kael saved every coin.

On the fourth day, the butcher called him over. "Got a side job for you. Pays five silver. Group of hunters is going into the woods tomorrow to hunt moss bears. They need an extra hand to carry the carcasses back. It's dangerous. Moss bears can tear a man's arm off. But five silver's five silver."

Five silver. That would put him over the registration fee. Kael nodded. "I'll go."

That evening, he sat in the flophouse eating his salted pork, and heard two kids in blue robes at the next table talking loud enough for everyone to hear:

"—twenty gold bounty on the Ryn heir. Twenty gold! I'd kill a kid for that kind of money."

They laughed. Kael's fingers tightened around his knife under the table. His knuckles went white. The cut on his palm from the broken window glass throbbed.

Twenty gold. Enough to turn anyone into a hunter. He couldn't trust anyone—not the butcher, not the hunters he was going with tomorrow, not the other kids in the flophouse. One wrong word, and he was dead.

He slipped out after dark, through the quiet streets to the edge of town. He needed to practice. The rabbit's hearing and speed had settled into him over the past few days, no longer random but still unfamiliar. He needed to know what he could do.

In a hidden clearing behind a cluster of bushes, he tested the burst speed. Three quick steps, and he crossed ten feet before his brain caught up. He slammed into a tree trunk, bark scraping his shoulder. Pain flared. He bit down on a curse and tried again. Slower this time. Controlled. By midnight, he could use the speed without crashing.

He was walking back to the flophouse, keeping to the shadows, when he heard voices in the alley beside the tavern.

"—any sign of the Ryn kid?"

Kael froze. He pressed himself flat against the cold stone wall, his enhanced hearing sharpening on the voices.

"The hunters haven't found shit. He's probably already in town, hiding among the exam applicants. We'll check all the registrations tomorrow."

A pause. "The Sect Leader wants him alive if possible. The core's fused to his chest—we can't get it out if he's dead. But if he fights back, kill him. We can extract it from the corpse."

Kael's breath stopped. They knew about the core. They knew it was in his chest. And they were checking registrations tomorrow.

He slipped away, silent as a shadow, back to the flophouse. His hands were shaking. Not from fear—from the realization that he had less than a day to get registered before the hunters found his name on a list.

Then a hand clamped down on his shoulder.

Kael spun, knife already in his hand, the blade pressed against—

The butcher's face. Gareth. His hands went up, eyes wide. "Easy, kid. Easy."

Kael didn't lower the knife. His heart hammered against his ribs. The rabbit's speed thrummed in his legs, ready to bolt.

"Just wanted to tell you," Gareth said slowly, "the hunters meet at the west gate at dawn. Don't be late." He paused, looking at the knife, at Kael's white-knuckled grip. "You okay, kid?"

Kael lowered the blade. His hand was still shaking. "Fine. I'll be there."

Gareth nodded, backing away. He didn't turn his back until he was ten feet off. Kael didn't sheath his knife until the butcher disappeared around a corner.

He stood in the dark alley, his breath coming in short gasps, the crystal humming against his ribs. It had almost happened. He'd almost killed a man for touching his shoulder.

He was losing control.

And the hunters were still out there, still searching, still waiting for him to make a mistake.

He sheathed his knife and walked back to the flophouse. Tomorrow, he'd earn his last five silver. Tomorrow, he'd register for the exam under a false name. Tomorrow, he'd take one more step toward the academy.

But tonight, he sat with his back against the wall, his knife in his hand, and watched the door until dawn.