Page 33 of Feralheart

A man from across town. A daughter my age.

That daughter would be twenty-eight now. Maybe she still lived in Shaleside, counting coal and making watery stew and watching someone she loved fade. Maybe she’d learned to live with the thing her father had tried to fix and failed. She could be better at it than I was.

“He had a choice,” Father said. “He chose wrong. That’s not the same as giving up. It’s worse. It’s leaving the people who need you for something that was never going to save them.” His eyes met mine again. “Don’t confuse hope with a death wish, Eradin. One keeps you alive. The other gets you killed.”

There was nothing I could say to that.

He stood. “I’m going to check the water line before dark.” He stepped outside, closing the door behind him.

I hummed through my teeth until I’d finished with the shirt. Rising, I stuffed my feet into my boots by the door, leaving off my jacket. The sun had warmed our world up nicely, and I planned to enjoy it. I might even roll up my sleeves and let it touch me. “I’m going to the market. We need meat.”

“We always need meat,” Tolross said.

“Then it’s a good thing I’m going.”

He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

The market sat in a crook between the western edge of Shaleside proper and the merchants’ quarter, a stretch of stalls and carts that sold what people could almost afford.

Grease smoke hung thick in the air, mixing with the scent of pickle brine and the dye vats’ sting that lived in the back of your nose for an hour after you smelled it. Iron ore grit crunched under my boots. I passed the vegetable stalls, the tinker’s cart, and a woman selling candles.

The butcher’s stall sat near the back, presided over by a woman with muscular forearms and a voice rubbed raw by smoke and years.

“Eradin,” she said when I approached. “Your usual?”

“Please.”

She wrapped a small portion of scraps in paper, then paused. Her hand hovered over a second piece, slightly larger.

“I’m clumsy today,” she muttered, adding it to the package. “It slipped right in.” She didn’t look at me as she bound the package with string and handed it over.

I took it without argument and thanked her. I’d choke on my pride later.

The fountain sat in the market’s center, a crumbling stone basin that ran water two days a week. People crowded around the notice board beside it, studying the work calls, missing livestock notices, and a reward for information about a stolen cart. I’d read them all myself last week.

I stopped, my boots grinding into the iron grit, and craned to see what had them pointing now.

A gilded proclamation announced the Scorching in formal script. The parchment gleamed, and tiny painted dragons danced along the sides, animated by magic.

Below it, tacked with a nail, a stack of pinned papers listed the Commons Trial Requirements. A man beside me ripped one off and turned away, hurrying through the crowd.

The entry was open to all subjects of the realm. Applicants not of elite bloodline could petition via preliminary trial. The entry fee might as well be my right arm, because it was nothing we could afford. One silver mark.

My eyes caught on the final line, in smaller print, almost hidden at the bottom.

Elite riders pre-qualified. No petition required.

Of course. They wouldn’t need to prove themselves. They were born proven.

I read the waiver requirements again, my finger tracing the words.

I’d started to turn away when my eyes caught the “OR” and I spun back, squinting to read the next line.

OR a service waiver.

The letters swam in front of me.

A service waiver. Not a silver mark I didn’t have. A signature from someone who’d vouch that my death wouldn’t matter enough to complain about.