"I still can't believe you're stuck like this. All that power just... locked away."
Cal's lips twitched. "The image you're going for is a faulty rune light that will explode if I use it."
"That's not as fun." She bumped her shoulder against his. "And I wanted to see [Dash] in action again. The real version, not your careful little hops."
"My 'careful little hops' are still faster than you," he said lightly. "Your footwork's improving though. I noticed it when you sparred with Leo this week."
Corinne's face perked up. "Leo's actually good at this, you know. When he's not terrified of getting hit, he's got excellent timing. And he's way less clumsy than he looks."
"He's been doing well at the inn I noticed too. I think Gareth actually smiled at him last night. I didn't think that was physically possible during a dinner rush."
"Dad threatened to fire anyone who gave Leo a hard time. First day, one of the prep cooks made a joke about his father being a Sergeant, and Dad just... stopped chopping. Stared at the guy until he apologized and left the kitchen entirely." She laughed. "I think Leo cried a little. Happy tears."
Cal nodded. Leo had found a refuge in the Hearthsong's kitchen. A place where his gentleness wasn't a weakness. Where Gareth's glowering protection replaced Sergeant Tanner's harsh expectations.
One friend safe. One less thing to worry about.
Corinne's next words ruined that brief peace.
"I'm registering at the Guild this week."
Cal stopped walking. She took two more steps before realizing he'd halted, then turned back. Her chin lifted slightly, shoulders squaring.
"You're what?"
"I'm ready, Cal. I've been training for months."
"Corinne—"
"I'm not asking for permission." The words came firm, but her eyes held a touch of uncertainty. "I'm telling you because you're my friend, and I wanted you to know."
Every fiber of his being wanted to argue, to list every reason this was a terrible idea. She was too young, too na?ve. Her talent wouldn't save her from inexperience in the Virethane. The forest didn't care about determination or bravery.
But the look on her face stopped him. It was the same expression she'd worn in the arena when she faced Mala—the larger, stronger girl who should have crushed her. Despite her terror, Corinne had fought, adapted, and ultimately won.
Besides, this wasn't Earth. Who was he to try and deny her something her parents wouldn't? Things were different on Veraxus, and he needed to remember that.
He exhaled slowly, forcing his protective instincts to yield to logic.
"Fine. But I'm coming with you."
"Cal, you don't have to—"
"Not just for the registration, but the field test too. Whatever contract you take to prove yourself, I'm going with you."
Corinne blinked. "The Guild usually requires solo completion for initiate contracts."
"Only for the kill that counts towards your initiation, but I can stay back and observe or protect you as needed. I won't interfere in your single combat unless you're about to die." His tone left no room for negotiation. "You want to be an adventurer? Great. I respect that. But I'm not letting you walk into the Virethane alone for your first real hunt."
She studied his face, then a slow smile spread across her features. "You know I'm going to say yes, right? Because arguing with you when you use that voice is pointless."
"Exactly."
"And you're going to be insufferable the entire time, hovering like a worried parent."
"Probably."
She laughed, shaking her head. "Alright, bodyguard. Deal."
They resumed walking, turning down a familiar side street—a narrow passage between two warehouses that served as a shortcut to the garrison. The cobblestones here were older and uneven. The buildings on either side pressed close, their upper stories seeming to lean inward.
Corinne's hand darted to the small pack slung over her shoulder. "Oh! I almost forgot. Leo made something for the inn last night, and I snagged one for us."
She pulled out a wrapped bundle, carefully unrolling the preservation cloth to reveal a honey-glazed sweet roll. The pastry was still fresh and warm, the sugar glistening in the weak light filtering down from above. The scent hit Cal soon after—yeast and cinnamon, the rich sweetness of the glaze.
"Holy mackerel, that smells incredible."
"Right?" Corinne grinned. "He's been trying to perfect the recipe all week. Said he wanted to prove he could make something 'worthy of the Hearthsong's reputation.'" She began to tear the roll in half. "I figured we could—"
Two figures stepped out from the shadows ahead.
Finn and Morian Greenshade blocked the street's exit, their casual stances masking a deliberate placement. Nervous energy glinted in Finn's yellow eyes, while Morian wet his lips.
Corinne's smile vanished. "What do you want, Finn?"
Finn didn't answer as he glanced past them, looking toward the street's entrance behind Cal and Corinne.
Instinct shouted a warning. Cal started to turn, his muscles tensing—
Agony exploded in his lower back.
White-hot and searing, a blade punched through leather and skin, burying itself in his kidney. Cal's breath locked in his chest, his body seizing as shock flooded his nervous system. The blade twisted, and a second wave of fire ripped through him.
Someone kicked his legs out from under him.
Gravity pulled. The cobblestones rushed up to meet him. Cal's mind, even through the haze of pain, sent a desperate warning: the vial! The pack!
His torso twisted mid-fall, his shoulder taking the brunt of the impact instead of his back. The unforgiving ground slammed into him, driving the air from his lungs, but he didn't hear anything shatter in his bag. A small victory. A pathetic, meaningless victory as warmth spread across his side—his own blood, pooling beneath him.
Boots appeared in his vision, one suddenly connecting with his face. A second kick caught him in the ribs. He heard the fracture before he felt it—a brittle snap that sent fresh torment lancing through his torso.
"Guards!" Corinne's scream tore through the alley. "Help! Somebody—"
The meaty sound of a fist hitting flesh cut her off. A choked gasp.
Cal forced his head up, vision swimming, to see Corinne doubled over and gulping for air. Durk stood in front of her radiating menace as Fendrel Greenshade seized her right arm, wrenching her upright.
The honey-glazed sweet roll lay on the cobbles at big lout's feet, crushed and forgotten.
"Hands off her!" Cal wheezed. He tried to push himself up, but his body refused to obey. Ribs grated against each other. His lower back felt like it had a hot poker lodged inside.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
A boot stomped down on the fingers of his right hand, clearly breaking his ring and pinky, pinning his hand to the stone. Cal bit back a cry as he looked up at his tormentor.
Narbok crouched down beside him, clenching the bone-handled dagger still wet with Cal's blood; a cruel smile spread across his face.
"Morning, Cal. Beautiful day for a walk, isn't it?"
Behind him, Griven Greenshade stood with Cal's spear, a weapon he must have taken during the initial chaos. The eldest Greenshade triplet watched on impassively, his expression unreadable.
Scrambling, Cal quickly cataloged the situation. Six opponents. Narbok, Finn, Durk, and the three Greenshade brothers, all mid-to-high F-tier. All armed. His assessment of the situation was bleak: he was alone and wounded, his spear was gone, and the vital potion in his pack remained inaccessible. His only assets were his armor and harvesting knife.
Corinne whimpered as Fendrel twisted her arm harder.
Cal's rage ignited.
Instinct howled for violence. To flood his arms and fingers with enough Stamina to tear Narbok's throat out with his bare hands. He could do it. These juveniles were nothing.
But his channel erosion was a persistent shroud he couldn't ignore.
Cal ground his teeth as his Stamina hovered at the edge of his will. Using it now meant risking self-destruction; the erosion would spread, and he could become a cripple in a world that devoured the weak.
Not yet. Let's see how this plays out.
He forced his muscles to relax. The tension in his body drained away, replaced by stillness.
Narbok chuckled. "Smart boy. I was hoping you'd try something. It looks like you've learned your place."
Cal didn't respond. He kept his face blankly locked on Narbok's own.
The elf stepped off Cal's hand and circled him slowly. "You know, I've been thinking about you a lot this past week. About what Loric told me."
Cal pulled his hand back in, cradling it against his torso. Loric? Of course.
"He said you were potentially useful. That Zarven wanted you... what was the word? As an asset. Something about leverage against the Veil twins." His voice dripped with contempt. "Can you imagine? You, a filthy half-blood, being valuable to someone like Zarven Mault?"
Cal tracked Narbok's movements, noting the subtle tension in the Mycari's shoulders, the way his fingers flexed around the dagger's hilt. Narbok stopped and turned to face Cal directly.
"My father wouldn't look at me for a week because of you," he hissed. "The Elders laughed at me because of a mongrel like you. Do you have any idea what that feels like? To be shamed by your own blood because a dull-ear got lucky?"
Cal let the words wash over him. All that mattered was survival and Corinne's safety.
"And then you registered as 'Valorn.'"
The name hung in the air.
"Do you even know what that means?" Narbok shot his hand out, grabbing Cal's collar and hauling him upright to stagger. Fresh torment flared in Cal's ribs, but he bit down on the agony. "Valorn was a hero. A Mycari hero. He stood against the wild before our people were united, strong and proud. Pure."
Narbok shook him, his eyes blazing.
"And you—you steal his name? You defile his legacy by wearing it like a costume!?"
He shoved Cal, the impact disturbing broken ribs, and this time he couldn't stop the sharp hiss of pain that escaped his lips.
Hard breaths tore from Narbok as his control slipped. The cracking veneer of intimidation revealed the seething hatred beneath.
"Cal—" Corinne's voice broke.
Cal called Stamina at the pain in her voice, readying it in his body without conscious thought. [Crimson Overdrive] hovered at the edge of activation, the energy gathering, ready to set off—
Her desperate stare locked onto his.
Through the swelling in his left eye, Cal saw her fear. Her trust. And beneath it all, saw the question she wasn't asking aloud: what do I do?
Cal forced himself to go still. To let the Stamina recede, untriggered.
He gave the smallest shake of his head.
Don't fight. Don't resist.
Her struggles ceased and she went limp in their grip, eyes never leaving Cal's face.
Narbok had been watching Corinne, but he turned back to Cal, his face scrunched with frustration.
"You think you're so smart, but I know what you are. You're a coward who hides behind pretty words and stolen names."
He lifted his boot and brought it down on the sweet roll, grinding it into the filth of the alley.
"You don't deserve respect. You don't deserve a name. You're just a mongrel pretending to be something you're not."
Shooting forward, he kicked Cal in the ribs again. Another crack.
Cal dropped back to a knee, vision blurring and breath wheezing, but he endured.
Narbok crouched again, his face inches from Cal's.
"Loric said I couldn't kill you. Said Zarven wants you intact."
His hand tightened around the bone-hilt.
"But accidents happen."
He stabbed forward, firing a quick strike at Cal's heart.
[Combat Analysis] had already picked up the intent and trajectory, and Cal's left hand shot up reflexively, palm open and fingers splayed. The dagger punched through the center of his palm, the tip erupting from the back and stopping a finger's width from his chest.
Agony lanced up his defending arm, but he leaned on [Ignore Pain], turning the tortured nerves into distant white noise.
Through the haze of pain, his [Spiritual Perception] caught a familiar shift in Narbok's aura. He was initiating the shift to mist to bypass the block and finish the kill.
Cal didn't give him the time he needed.
His right hand flashed upward, the harvesting knife a blur of steel as its blade sliced across the bottom of Narbok’s wrist, severing tendons and forcing the Mycari's grip to spasm open.
Shrieking and clutching his ruined wrist, Narbok scrambled backward until he lost his footing on the slick cobblestones and fell hard onto his rear.
Cal followed him, gripping the handle of the dagger sticking out of his palm with his right hand around his own knife and ripping the blade free.
Before Narbok could scramble away or refocus on activating his bloodline, Cal drove the stolen dagger down. It sank deep into the meat of Narbok’s thigh, just above the knee, the blade lodging into the femur. He did his best to grab it with his impaled hand and drove the Mycari’s leg to the ground, holding him in place.
Narbok finally collected himself enough to mount a defense, but Cal brought the tip of his harvesting knife to rest press against the inside of the elf's upper thigh.
"Don't," Cal whispered.
Narbok froze, his wide eyes fixed on the harvesting knife hovering over his femoral artery.
"Let her go."
Cal pressed the harvesting knife harder, through the pant leg and the skin beneath. A thin line of blood welled up, trickling over the steel.
"Tell them to release her," Cal hissed. "Or I open your leg."
The elf looked at the certain calm in Cal’s eyes—the resigned stare of a man who had calculated the cost and found it acceptable.
"Let her go!" Narbok shrieked, his voice cracking. "Fendrel, let her go!"
Fendrel shoved Corinne away as if she were red-hot iron. She scrambled toward Cal clutching her arm, her eyes wide and fixed on the knife at Narbok's leg.
"Back off," Cal commanded. The adrenaline clarified his mind, sharpening the world into vectors of threat and opportunity. "All of you. Move to the end of the street."
The gang hesitated, glancing between their leader and the exit.
Cal dug the knife tip deeper. Narbok hissed.
"Move!" Narbok yelled. "Go! Now!"
Finn, Durk, and the Greenshade brothers retreated down the alleyway until they were nothing but silhouettes against the morning gray at the street's mouth. They stood there, watching, waiting.
Cal and Narbok remained locked in their bloody embrace.
"They're gone," Narbok choked, his eyes darting to the knife. "Let me go, Thal. You made your point."
"It's Cal." He leaned closer. "And no… Zarven made his point."
He shifted his three-fingered grip on the harvesting knife, angling the edge for maximum lethality. Narbok's eyes widened.
"Message received. You can tell him he succeeded."
Cal dropped his voice further, losing all inflection.
"But here is my message for you, Narbok. If you ever touch her again—if you try to hurt my friends or step in my path one more time—I won't stop. I will hunt you down, and I will kill you."
It was a fact as immutable as the coming dawn.
"Do you understand?"
Narbok swallowed hard and nodded.
"Good."
Cal uncurled his left hand.
Narbok recoiled and stumbled to his feet, clutching his own dagger sticking from his leg, staring at Cal with a mixture of hatred and newfound terror.
"Let's go," Narbok choked out, waving his arm at his distant crew. He turned and limped toward the street, desperation and pain erasing his earlier swagger. He didn't look back as the group vanished around the corner.
A soft chime in Cal's mind broke the silence that followed.
[Your proficiency with Intimidation (F) has increased to Practiced]
He blinked the notification away. It was a grim reward for a grim morning.
Corinne rushed to Cal's side. "Cal—oh spirits, Cal—"
"Potion," he rasped. "Pack."
Her fingers fumbled with the leather straps, pulling the bag open. She retrieved the vial of glowing red liquid and uncorked it with trembling hands. "Here, drink. Please."
She tilted his head up, pressing the vial to his lips. Cal swallowed.
The liquid was thick, washing over his tongue with the distinctive taste of iron and overripe berries. Then the alchemy took hold.
Surging through his system with blazing aggression, the magic sought out the trauma. A maddening itch accompanied the knitting of the wound in his kidney as muscle fibers snapped into alignment, sealing vessel walls and halting the internal bleeding quickly.
The energy sputtered out before it completed his ribs. His fingers remained broken, but his impaled hand was healed over.
He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to breathe through the agony. At least it triaged the worst of it.
"Cal, we need to get you to the inn. Mom can—"
"No." The word came out harsher than he intended.
"What?"
Cal forced himself to stand up. The alley spun gray edges encroached on his sight, but he locked his jaw and refused to fall.
"Sorry Corinne. Not the inn. Garrison."
"You can barely stand—"
Corinne stared at him, her eyes wide with disbelief and fear.
He met her gaze, his own expression hard.
"We're going to the garrison. Let's see if being a Sovereign Aspirant actually comes with any perks."
He collected his pack and spear, then extended his unbroken hand. After a moment, Corinne took it, and together they headed down the street.
Cal limped forward with Corinne supporting his weight, each step a deliberate act of will. The garrison waited ahead, its stone walls rising against the lightening sky, and he moved toward it with an unyielding purpose.
The ambush had been a lesson… just not the one Narbok intended. Cal was confident his plan to fulfill foraging contracts through the Guild for Zarven would appease the man for the time being. He had no immediate concerns there.
The true lesson learned was that Cal had run out of Earth-born moral excuses to spare the Mycari. His hesitation at ending the elf's life outside of a sanctioned fight had fled his conscience with Durk's fist. Sparing Narbok only happened because he was more confident in convincing the elf to flee in fear than he was of taking on the entire group injured.
He had reached the end of his rope. The next time they met in combat would be the last.
Goten23 for the review! I'm so glad you've enjoyed the story and did a big ol' binge.
szbred for the review. It's very encouraging to hear how highly the story is rating in your eyes, and I'm glad you're liking it.
REVISIONS
Chapters 68 & 69: reader Wood from RR mentioned that using a flint and steel to light a candle is incorrect--which made sense--so I made Selara do it. Small thing for realism.
Chapter 66: I updated the prose to try to further clarify that Cal didn't have an option but to fight the bear where he found it.
Crumb. He was too close. A passage from one of Selara's bestiaries surfaced in his mind, the text explicitly warning that a mosshide's senses could detect a man breathing at fifty yards. At this range, the bear absolutely knew he was here. The book also stated that retreating from an alerted mosshide was pointless, especially if you were encroaching on territory it claimed.
Chapter 67: I toned down and slightly condensed Selara's reaction to Cal not having the Primer. This should make Cal confronting Aurelian in Chapter 69 feel like less of an echo, while also giving it more impact. Cal shall have the thunder!
Pangolin's Primer."
Chapter One: The Seven Attributes and Their Role in the Mystic Arts.