A week passed. Not the slow, grinding kind of week I'd known in Riverside, where each day was a copy of the one before. This one moved. Each morning brought a new bruise, a new word, a new piece of the world that hadn't existed to me before. Let me catch you up. * * * Training became daily. Dawn, training yard, Renn with a practice sword and an inexhaustible supply of commentary. My body kept doing its thing — flashes of old skill surfacing like fish in muddy water, then vanishing before I could grab them. But the gaps between flashes shortened. By the fourth day, I could hold a proper guard for twenty seconds before my muscle memory glitched. By the sixth, I landed two clean hits on Renn in a single bout. After that he started fighting harder. Terro joined for the ranged sessions. He taught me how to throw weighted stones, hand-axes, anything heavy enough to hurt at distance. I was terrible at it. But Terro didn't seem to mind. He simply adjusted my grip, stance and said "again" until it was time for noon meal. Pol watched sometimes. Never spoke. Just leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, watching me make mistakes, and occasionally giving one single nod when I didn't. Greyve stopped by twice during the week. Both times, he watched from a distance, arms crossed, that polished smile in place. The second time, he had a quill and a small notebook. I pretended not to notice. Renn didn't. "He's documenting you," Renn said after Greyve left. "Building a case. Proper channels, written reports, testimony references. Classic Greyve." "Should I be worried?" "Not yet. But when he files, it'll be clean. You can try to stop him." I ignored him. Kael found me in the mess hall on the third day. She dropped onto the bench across from me, slammed a tankard down, and said: "Seventh Company. Official offer. Better food, better contracts, better people." "I'm with the Fourth." "The Fourth is a retirement home with a flag." She grinned. "Think about it." Idris appeared behind her, holding a plate. He sat, arranged his utensils parallel, and said without looking up: "Your air compression technique — is it a single-syllable cast or compound? The dispersal pattern suggests a focused anterior channel, but the velocity indicates—" "Idris," Kael said. "He's eating." "I have questions." "You always have questions. Let the man chew." Idris closed his mouth, but I could see him mentally composing a list. He'd be back. I had a conversation with him two days later. Sat in the mess hall corner for an hour. He talked about elemental resonance theory, cast hierarchies, and something called "mana thread density" that I didn't understand but my hands seemed to. When he described the gesture for a basic wind funnel, my fingers completed the motion before he finished the sentence. He stared at my hand for a very long time, then wrote something in his notebook and left without saying goodbye. * * * Veyra sent me to the Mages' Guild on the fourth day. "I need to know who you are," she said, her boots on the desk, a ledger open on her lap. "And more importantly, I need it documented before Greyve's complaint arrives. There's a man at the Guild named Aldric. Old friend. Owes me a favor, which in his case means I once didn't report him for selling expired warding potions. Go talk to him. Get an assessment. Bring me something on paper." The Mages' Guild of Ashford sat at the eastern end of High Street — a three-story stone building that had once been impressive and was now making a dignified attempt at relevance. The façade was carved with arcane symbols, most of which had been partially covered by practical additions: a rain gutter bolted through a glyph of fire, a laundry line strung between two decorative griffins. Inside, it smelled of something faintly sweet — residual enchantment oils, I'd learn later. The entry hall was wide, vaulted, and mostly empty. A few robed figures moved between shelves. A bored attendant at the front desk didn't look up when I entered. Aldric was on the second floor. I could hear him before I reached the landing. "—no, no, NO! You can't just SHOVE a ward into a threshold without matching!" A crash. Something glass breaking. "Oh, wonderful. Outstanding. Third one this week." I pushed the door open. The room looked like a library had been hit by a small tornado and then set on fire. Scrolls everywhere — on shelves, on the floor, stuffed into boots, draped over a mounted stag's head that had no business being in a mage's office. Artifacts cluttered every surface. At least six cups of cold tea sat in various locations, one of them balanced on a crystal ball. Aldric stood in the center, arms spread wide, holding a cracked warding stone in one hand and a quill in the other. He was old — seventy, maybe more — thin, wiry, with the wild energy of a man whose body had aged but whose brain was still running at full speed. White hair shot out in every direction. His spectacles were thick, smudged, and sat crooked on a long nose. His robes had scorch marks. "Veyra's stray!" he screamed the moment he saw me, pointing the quill like a weapon. "You! Yes! She told me! Come in, don't touch anything, don't stand near the window — SIT!" He swept a pile of scrolls off a chair with one dramatic arm motion. Half of them landed on the floor. The other half landed on a sleeping cat I hadn't noticed, who yowled and bolted. "Sorry, Phineas! He's fine." Aldric was already moving, grabbing a thin crystal rod from a drawer, knocking over a cup of cold tea in the process. "Let's see what you are. Hold still." He pointed the rod at my chest. The tip glowed faintly blue. "—because I talk even more when I'm annoyed." The glow held for three seconds. Faded. Aldric's eyebrows shot up. Then he leaned in close enough that I could smell chamomile and burnt copper. "Active channels," he whispered. Then louder: "ACTIVE CHANNELS!" He spun away, grabbing a notebook, scribbling furiously, his free hand gesturing in wide circles as if conducting an invisible orchestra. "Multiple. Layered. Partially collapsed but — oh, this is interesting — the substrate is intact. The substrate is intact!" He whirled back to face me, pointing the quill at my nose. "Cast something. Anything. Right now. Go." I raised my hand. Ignis. A small flame appeared on my palm. Aldric's eyes went wide behind his smudged spectacles. He grabbed my wrist — not gently — and pulled my hand closer, staring at the flame. "No staff. No focus crystal. No incantation beyond a single syllable." He released my wrist and took three rapid steps backward, nearly tripping over Phineas, who had returned. "Where did you study? Who taught you? What academy? What circle? Was it the Verathi school? The Northern Conclave? The—" "I don't remember." He stopped mid-gesture — both arms extended, fingers spread. Froze. Slowly lowered his arms. "You don't... remember." His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. He looked left. Looked right. Leaned forward. "Are they listening?" "Who?" "Exactly! WHO? That's the question!" He was pacing now, fast, the robe swishing behind him. "No memories. Trained pathways. Fragmented architecture. This isn't some farmboy who found a spellbook in a barn. Someone —" he thrust a finger at the ceiling, "— someone INVESTED in you. Years of training. Professional training. The kind that costs more gold than this building is worth. And then — what? It was all just... erased?" He spun. "That doesn't HAPPEN, boy! Memories don't just leave! They're TAKEN. Or LOCKED. Or BURNED OUT." He made an explosion gesture with both hands. "And the question is: by whom, and WHY?" He stared at me with an intensity that made the flame on my palm flicker. Then he snapped back to business, pulling a pricing ledger from a teetering pile with one sharp tug — the rest of the pile swayed but held. "Right! Practical matters. You want to learn properly, fill in the gaps? The Guild has a curriculum." He slapped the ledger open. "Basic cantrips — sparks, small gusts, illumination — fifteen silver per lesson cycle!" He swept his arm across the page. "Practical enchantments — cleaning charms, fire-starting, water purification — thirty to fifty silver! Restorative magic — healing, bone-setting —" He whistled and gestured upward. "Three to five GOLD, and you'll need a patron just to get through the door." "And combat magic?" Aldric's entire body language changed. He stopped moving. Went still. When he spoke, his voice was low and flat — the first time since I'd entered that he wasn't performing. "Combat magic is sealed. Completely. You want offensive casting, you enter the Academy — formal enrollment, multi-year contract, supervised curriculum. But before any of that —" He held up a finger. "You sit before a Tribunal. Three senior mages. They perform a truth-reading — empathic resonance scan, not perfect, but it catches the dangerous ones. They look into your intent, your stability, your temperament. If you pass, you sign a binding contract — Guild-sealed, magically enforced — that holds you accountable for every combat spell you cast for the rest of your life." "And if I don't pass?" "You walk out the front door and never cast a fire bolt again. Legally." He jabbed the quill at me. "Which brings me to the VERY INTERESTING fact that you have ALREADY used combat-level magic! Barrier spells! Directed air compression! In the field! Without certification!" He was gesturing wildly again, both arms windmilling. "By Guild law, that's a fine at minimum! Imprisonment at worst! You're lucky Veyra has friends, and you're lucky one of those friends is a paranoid old man who owes her a favor!" "Can you help?" "I'm ALREADY helping!" He grabbed a sheet of parchment, dipped the quill, and began writing at furious speed, his free hand punctuating every sentence with a stab in the air. "Formal assessment... residual trained capacity... indeterminate origin... consistent with former Academy-level instruction..." He stamped it, sealed it, and thrust it at me. "There. That says you're not a fraud. It doesn't say you're legal. It says you're a mystery, and mysteries require INVESTIGATION, not IMPRISONMENT. Give it to Veyra. She'll know what to do." Before I left, I pulled the wooden token from my pocket and set it on his desk. "Have you seen this before?" Aldric snatched it up, held it to the light, flipped it over, licked it — actually licked it — then passed the crystal rod over it. The rod stayed dark. "Wood," he said, turning it in his fingers. "Ash. Precise carving, but no enchantment. No sigils, no residual charge. It's just —" He tossed it back to me. "— a piece of wood. Could be a temple marker, a guild token, a child's toy. Without context?" He shrugged — a massive, theatrical shrug that involved his entire upper body. "Means nothing." I caught it. It was heavier in my hand than it should have been. But that was my problem, not his. On the way out, I passed through the Guild's ground-floor shop — a modest room displaying artifacts and potions behind glass. Warding stones. Glow-crystals. Small bottles of pale liquid labeled in careful script: Restorative Draught — minor wounds. Night-Sight Tincture — duration: 4 hours. Essence of Renewal — replenishes arcane reserves. The prices were written in neat columns. Fifty silver minimum. Most were closer to a gold piece. I had fourteen coppers to my name. I walked back to the compound and gave Veyra the letter. She read it, folded it into a drawer, and said: "Good. Now I have paper and he has reports. We'll see whose stack is taller." * * * And somewhere in that week I stopped trying. I'd spent days forcing myself to smile, to greet, to participate, and it had all felt like pushing a boulder uphill. The opposite of what I was chasing. But then I started noticing that I liked the weight of the practice sword in my hand. Not useful-liked. Enjoyed. The way the oak grain felt against my palm. The satisfaction of a clean block. I noticed that Renn's jokes were occasionally funny. Not because the content was clever — it usually wasn't — but because of the timing, the delivery, the way he waited for exactly the wrong moment to say exactly the wrong thing. I noticed that the porridge tasted slightly less terrible on cold mornings. Or maybe I just didn't mind it anymore. I stopped trying to be alive and started just... being. Not happy. Not sad. Not performing. Just present. And there was something in that — a quiet absence of resistance — that felt, if not like joy, then at least like its distant, awkward cousin. Maybe that was enough. I didn't know. But I also didn't care that I didn't know, and that felt like progress. * * * Day eight. The notice board. The Fourth Company's board hung on the wall outside Veyra's office — a wide slab of cork covered in pinned parchment notes, each one a contract. Missing cargo. Escort requests. Walker sightings. Creature clearances. Each note had a difficulty marker, a payout, and a signature requirement. I'd been looking at it every day, as part of my contractor access. Looking, not touching. Today, I touched. The parchment read: DUNNFIELD FARM — South Road, 3 miles. Livestock disappearances — 4 sheep in 4 days. Suspected predator. Investigation and resolution required. Payout: 40 copper. Difficulty: Low. Signature: minimum 2 personnel, 1 must hold rank. I pulled it off the board. Renn walked by, mid-bite of an apple, glanced at the note in my hand, and raised his eyebrows. "Farm job? That's barely above rat patrol." "It's my first. I want to come back from it." "Fair point." He took another bite. "I'll sign as ranked. Let's go lose some sheep." * * * Dunnfield Farm was three miles south of the city walls, set in a shallow valley between two stands of birch. A modest operation — stone farmhouse, wooden barn, fenced pastures, a small apple orchard gone slightly wild. The kind of place that existed on the edge between comfortable and struggling. The farmer — a thick, sun-darkened man named Harsk — met us at the gate. He had the look of someone who'd been losing sleep and was angry about it. "Fourth night in a row," he said, leading us to the sheep enclosure. "Something gets in, takes one, drags it off. No blood in the pen. No broken fence. No tracks I can make sense of. But every morning, one less." The pen was a solid wooden enclosure, waist-high. Inside, a dozen remaining sheep huddled at the far end, nervous. I crouched and examined the fence. No damage. No claw marks. But at the base of one post — barely visible in the packed earth — I found a groove. Thin, straight, deliberate. Something had lifted the bottom rail, slid through, and replaced it. "That's not an animal," Renn said, crouching beside me. "No," I agreed. "Animals break things. This was careful." Harsk watched us with folded arms. "I told the Guild — it's not wolves. Wolves leave blood. This is something else." We followed the trail south. It wasn't easy — whoever or whatever had taken the sheep was careful. But careful isn't invisible. Renn found wool caught on a bramble forty paces from the pen. I found another scrap near a drainage ditch. Terro had taught me enough about tracking to read the bent grass — something heavy had been dragged here, recently. The trail led into the birch wood, then south along a dry streambed, then up a shallow ridge. A mile from the farm, the streambed curved around a limestone outcrop. And there, hidden behind a collapse of moss-covered stones, was the entrance. A cave. But not a natural one. The opening was narrow — just wide enough for a person — and the edges had been smoothed. Apparently with magic. I could see the compression marks in the stone, the way the surface had been pushed inward like clay pressed by invisible fingers. "Someone built this," I said. Renn drew his swords. "After you." "Why me?" "You're the one with the magic shield. I'm the one with the sharp things. Shield goes first." Hard to argue with that. We entered. The passage was short — ten paces — and opened into a chamber roughly the size of Veyra's office. The ceiling was low, barely head height. And the room was furnished. A bedroll. A small wooden crate serving as a table. A tin cup. A pile of folded cloth — blankets, a cloak. A stack of kindling beside a blackened fire ring. Everything arranged. Someone had been living here. "What the hell," Renn whispered. I scanned the room. The bedroll was cold — no one had slept here today. The fire ring had ash, but it was days old. On the crate-table, a half-eaten piece of dried meat. Beside it, a leather pouch, open. Inside — I didn't need to touch it. I could see from where I stood. Small black stones, the size of acorns, perfectly smooth, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. I'd never seen them before. But something in my gut recoiled. "Renn. Those stones—" I didn't finish the sentence. The sound came from deeper in the cave — a narrow passage I hadn't noticed, half-hidden behind the bedroll. A low, wet growl. Renn pivoted. Both swords up. It came out of the dark passage fast — a wolf, or what had been a wolf once. It was the size of a grown man on all fours, its fur matted and falling out in patches. Its eyes were not yellow or green or any color eyes should be. They were milky white. Blind. Dead. But it tracked us perfectly. Its jaws opened, and the smell hit — rot, old blood, something chemical and sharp underneath. A walker. But not human. The wolf-thing lunged at Renn. He sidestepped — fast, clean — and both swords came down on its flank. The blades cut, but the thing didn't bleed. The wound gaped open, showing grey, dry muscle beneath. No blood. The wolf didn't even flinch. It whipped around, jaws snapping. Ken. The blue disc flared between the wolf's teeth and Renn's throat. The impact snapped the creature's head sideways. Renn drove a sword through its skull from the side. In, twist, out. The wolf collapsed. Its legs twitched twice, then stopped. Renn stood breathing hard, looking at the dead thing on the cave floor. "Thanks." "You would have dodged." "Stop saying that. I really wouldn't have." He wiped his blades and looked at the narrow passage the wolf had come from. "You want to see what's back there?" I didn't want to. But we did. The passage was short and opened into a smaller chamber, lower, darker. The smell was terrible — thick, sweet, gagging. I pulled my shirt over my nose and it barely helped. The floor was covered in remains. Sheep carcasses — not whole. Butchered. Deliberately. The cuts weren't animal bites. They were made with a blade — clean, methodical, specific. Certain organs had been removed. Others were arranged on flat stones in patterns I didn't recognize but my stomach recognized instantly as wrong. Around the edges of the chamber, more of the black stones. Dozens of them, arranged in a loose circle. In the center of the circle — a carved symbol on the floor, scratched into the stone with something sharp. Lines radiating outward. I didn't know what it meant, but my skin crawled looking at it. "Necromancer," Renn said quietly. His voice had lost its usual edge. "The sheep. The wolf. The stones. This isn't a predator's den. It's a workshop." I looked at the carved symbol. At the black stones. At the butchered remains. Someone had been living here, a mile from a farm, stealing livestock, and using them for... what? Reanimation? Ritual? The dead wolf was proof that something in this room could raise dead things. And the precision of the arrangement was proof that whoever did it probably knew what they were doing. Renn sheathed his swords. "We need to report this. This is above our pay grade." I agreed. But as we turned to leave, I looked back at the carved symbol one more time. The circle with the radiating lines. Something about it nagged at me. The way a word sits on the tip of your tongue, refusing to form. I followed Renn out into the daylight. The birch trees swayed in the wind. The farm was visible below, peaceful, quiet.

Chapter 12: Knowledge