Declan rose and slung his mana bearing in its sack, carrying it over his shoulder as he followed them inside. “Mrs. Cook gave me a chicken for dinner.”

  “She’s sweet like that. Jen asked for you at the celebration, but it was best you’re not there,” His mom said hesitantly. She sat at the table and passed him the stone. It wasn’t polished, it was marred, damn near broken, cracked deeply on one side. “You know your blood-father was an arcanist. I practically see his face when I look at you. But that is proof you are his. Next week, in Teralona, there’s a test. A chance to test yourself and be tested and at least know if you can be an arcanist or not. We want you to go.”

  “But Pop needs help here,” Declan said, even as his heart raced, his stomach sank.

  “Eight years ago I swore you’d quit with that bearing after a day. I was wrong. What did I teach you about work?” Pop asked gently, leaning over his mom.

  “There’s a time to work harder, a time to work smarter, and a time to work different, but there’s always work to do,” Declan answered.

  “It’s time to see if you work different than I do. You’ve got a good head and a better heart, but Foundrytown’s not where you’ll get that answer. There’s a shipment of refined arcite going for Teralona tomorrow, and you’ll be going with them,” Pop said. “You’ll have to work to pass but they’ll keep you safe. They’ll return a week later when the oreships come in. I’m hoping for you, but you’ll always have a home here.”

  Wind buffeted the house, with the first clatter of hail as Mom handed him the stone, wrapping his fingers over it. “Go to the Arcanist’s Hall and show this. Your father told me it was every child’s right. All you have to do is be able to orbit a rune.”

  “I don’t have one rune, let alone a set,” Declan said. “I have a mana bearing I can’t even force my will on.”

  “They’ll use standard ones to test, better ones.” she answered. “And arcsouls. He said they open them, at Ariloch. That’s the academy where Raleigh studied. Runes are for sale there. Given there. But don’t worry about what you don’t have. First problems first.”

  Another of Pop’s sayings. The mana arrestor crackled as thunder rolled. Arclights blinked into darkness, then returned. Declan took the stone, which felt cold and heavy. “Foreman Scythe said I should look for work in Teralona. This is free passage. A chance to look.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Pop said. “Now, I heard about Timeaus’s burner. I’ll take care of it. And the arcsocket in the Spencer’s apartment. Truth is, without you, I might have enough to keep me busy. You need to pack!”

  Declan doubted one man could get it done. And it wasn’t as though they were destitute. House Sullivan’s wages for foundry workers were fair, though not generous, their oath-stones binding but not death oaths. There were worse things than working at the foundry and living in Foundrytown.

  But there were better things. Just remembering the runes made Declan excited. “Today Foreman Scythe let me watch them lift a cauldron. The runes. I can still see them.” More than that, he still felt how they’d pressed on the mana, changing its flow. The word, Force. He hadn’t imagined it.

  “See them while you pack,” his mom answered. “Wagons leave early.”

  Workmen got up early, too. Declan hurried upstairs to a room so short he had to stoop, and carefully folded everything to the tapdance of hail. His Great Arcanist Battles book. All three sets of clothing that hadn’t been burned. While he did, the smell of bitter coffee drifted upward with the sound of his parents hushed conversation. But his mind fell to the blood-stone, as cold as the mana bearing was warm, clear on the intact side and clouded where it was cracked on the other. He’d heard the story before.

  How his father was killed in a sanctioned attack, one house retaliating against another in a battle that ended before it began, one arcanist and a few dozen soldiers killed in minutes. His father had been carrying the blood-stone at the time. It called to him, and when he pushed mana into it, something changed.

  !$%___ through Raleigh Thorn.

  No matter how he pushed mana on the stone, nothing else happened, but there was no question of what he’d seen. Declan had witnessed men die at the foundry, crushed or burned. What kind of attack would shatter an enchanted stone? The stone didn’t answer. Dawn was only a few hours off when the mana storm passed over and Declan finally slept.

  His dreams were of the foundry, but more of the arcanist’s work. When he woke, the bearing felt hot in his hands as always. The slow shuffle and quiet clink of movement beneath him said Mom and Pop were up. Declan joined them quickly, gathering his winter cloak as well. “Did you two sleep?”

  “Sleep is for those who don’t have work,” Pop answered. “I’ve got the day off, though the storm blew out lights at the foundry. I’ll need to get some work done before next shift.”

  His mom offered him a bowl of the hearty porridge the common foundry room served. She hadn’t slept, her eyes sunken, and locked on the blood-stone Declan held. “I bought a post-set, I expect letters.” She pushed the sheaf of paper across. “Any Sanswa built post will transmit it near instantaneously. I expect you to use them.”

  Delcan’s writing was functional, not elegant, his control lacking more from practice than ability. They had more blood than rin and if Mom had spent it, she meant it. “I’ll write.”

  Pop studied the bottom of his coffee mug for answers before pushing a small bag across the table. “You don’t have a sword and I won’t be giving you one. A man with no skill is in more danger with a sword than without.”

  The bag clinked as Declan took it. Rin, the thick coins stacked inside. “I won’t spend it all.”

  “You will spend it well. Wagons were ready a few hours ago, but the guards won’t go until dawn. Too much risk of blazed beasts being drawn to the arcite,” Pop said. “No matter what, stay with the wagons. They’ll protect the arcite better than they do their own nutsacks.”

  Declan finished his breakfast, nerves rising with every moment. A knock at the door said it was time, and he shouldered his pack, adding the mana bearing in its pocket, and rose. “Mom. Pop.”

  She shook her head. “No goodbyes, Declan. We say ‘until later.’ But as he passed, she pulled him down to look her in the eye. “Arcanists take the name of their blood-father. Raleigh Thorn was your father’s name. If anyone asks, tell them you’re Declan Thorn. And if there’s ever trouble, no one will be looking for Delcan Yacca in Foundrytown.”

  Thorne. Declan Thorn. He thought it over in his mind. It would take time. He kissed her, and accepted Pop’s rough hug, then headed out of the foundry housing and toward the receiving yard, where a long line of wagons waited.

  And a ring of men—men from the housing, men who should have been on shift. All the ones from the closest houses. Mr. Pierce was a furnace operator, a heavy, short man with a singed beard from the heat, but he stepped forward as representative. “Going off without saying goodbye? That’s Jan’s boy for you. We brought you something. A good workman needs good tools.”

  Another man handed Declan a rusted metal toolbox. “You’ll find work in Teralona, and if you don’t, when Jan retires—yes, you old goat, you will one day—maybe think of coming back?”

  Declan accepted it with thanks.

  Then his heart sank, because standing among the common workers was Jen Scythe. He’d known her since forever. She wasn’t the bratty stick of a girl he remembered, and he knew she’d wanted more than friendship. “Happy birthday, Jen. Sorry I missed it.”

  She shook her head. “Mama told me. Teralona is pretty this time of year. I’d go with you but there’s work at the foundry offices. I had something made for you.” She struggled to lift a leather bag, more a pack designed to be worn across the body. Punched from the same heavy leather that was meant to shield from cauldron heat, it was put together with brass rivets, obviously the work of the foundry’s stitching crew.

  Declan took it in one hand—then shifted to lift it with two. Three pockets lay on the side, deep pockets. Two of them held corroded mana bearings. He slipped his from the sack and into the leather pack, where it nestled. “I can’t take these.”

  “Father says every arcanist works with three. He says he was told that yesterday, personally, by an arcanist.” She patted the pack, then gave him an awkward hug. Her smile turned bitter. “Come see me when you get back?”

  “I won’t forget.” The whistle of the wagon head saved Declan from having to explain—again—why kissing her felt like kissing a sister. He began the long walk alongside an arcite wagon, waving to his parents and friends as they headed east, following the packed stone roads that led to the regional capital.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  ###

  Declan clutched his winter cloak tightly against the driving rain. His pack hung like a sixty pound weight across his back and he pushed against the wagon in time with the wagonmaster’s call. The packed stone roads grew rough in places, the potholes large enough to drink a wagon wheel.

  “Almost!” The wagon-master called.

  With every ounce of his muscle Declan pushed. The wagon groaned and lifted upward, then rattled as it settled back onto the road. The ones behind it steered around, and Declan kept up his pace. The guards had little to do. Blazed beasts, afflicted with rune-power, were uncommon this far west, but so much refined arcite could attract them.

  A sharp whistle brought his attention, and Declan trotted to the front of the caravan, where the wagon-master nodded for him to take a seat. “Look. We’re beginning the descent to the regional capital. Never been there?”

  Teralona was a distant haze in the forestlands, buildings lost in the rain. “How far?”

  “Not how far, how long,” the wagon master answered. “We have to take so many cutbacks to descend safely. We’ll be there in four days.”

  That was a problem. “I need to be there on the fourth day.” Mom hadn’t said when, just that he had to be.

  “We’ll go as fast as it’s safe,” was the answer. “Stick with the wagons, if there’s blazed beasts anywhere, it’s the forests around Teralona.”

  Declan did, riding now that the draft horses were heading downhill. His job was now the opposite—to lean on a brake and slow the wagon as the wagon-master called. The forests were tall, the trees blocking sunlight except at the cutbacks, and Declan slept fitfully when he slept at all, but long after dawn of the fourth day, the caravan passed the city guards at Teralona, all the way through the cargo paths to where it would turn south and head toward the crown’s artificer shops in the far south.

  The wagon-master called a halt and pointed Declan to a circle of governemnt buildings made of white stone. “That’s the arcanists’s hall. We’ll be back in six days. Jan said you’re testing at the hall. If you need a safe bed that won’t bleed your purse, Harper’s Inn. Not fancy but safe.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Declan lifted the pack and his toolbox and prepared to move. The driving rain was now a miserable wet, but there was work to be done. The blood-stone nestled inside his pack, and on his mind, it weighed as much as any bearing. It remained silent. Not that stones should speak or words should appear in one’s mind.

  The arcanist’s hall was easy to identify, not by a sign, or by the rune engravings, or the sculpture out front that showed a woman with nine stones in orbit around her, but by the line. Fifty young people stood, most of them dressed in what Declan would call battle armor, many with runes in orbit. Never more than two, but these weren’t just candidates. From what Declan saw, they were already arcanists.

  He became the end of the line, watching the others practice. The ease with which they orbited the stones, amazed him. One or two practiced with polished spheres no larger than a quarter-rin coin but so shiny they shone as they zipped. And a few were actually etherial. Their wielders had arcsouls opened. Declan passed the time examing his presents. The new bearings confirmed it wasn’t his imagination. They were spongy to his mental touch, drinking mana like it was water as he pushed it in. They also hurt slightly, something he didn’t recall. Instead, he placed his hands on the original and focused. Extending one’s will over a stone was the first step, a step he hadn’t accomplished.

  “Line’s moving,” said a man behind him.

  While Declan had been focusing, the line had moderately advanced, a few steps at most. But he was no longer last. Behind him stood a man Declan’s age in slick silver armor with a spun thread cloak wrapped for the rain. Four runes orbited him, their color a rich orange, showing a square, a triangle, and a line.

  Protec@!#%$%_

  Behind him stood a woman whose dress reminded Declan of the House Sullivan arcanist, no armor, just loose-fit leather, though it was heavy as the slabs that made up his pack. Her hair hung to her shoulders, brown, and a band kept it from her eyes, which weren’t focused on Declan. They were on the single rune manifesting before her. The blizzard of lines made Declan think of a hand getting caught in foundry gears and ripped apart. The mana about her felt cracked and broken, and the rune itself was black tinged with green at the edges.

  As he stared at the rune, a splitting headache came, but no words.

  The final man also wore armor, though it was scarred and damaged, ring-mail armor that had done its duty a dozen times. His red hair had curls on its curls, and angry blue eyes glared at the world as he stood, arms crossed, radiating hate for the rain, the line, probably Declan as well but only because he was generally part of the world.

  “Can I ask a question?” Declan asked the blonde man. “Isn’t this for testing? There are actual arcanists here.”

  The blonde man gave an actual laugh and a smile. “None of us are actual arcanists. Not until we’ve been sealed into academy records. But most of us have been there for near a decade. This is more a formality.”

  “I had no idea Teralone had that many arcanists.” Declan had always heard the thing Teralone had to offer was distance from the World Wound, the source of most blazed beasts, and the source of rune power. It was safe to refine arcite in Foundrytown because so few blazed would—or could—feel the draw.

  The red-haired man scoffed. “None of us are from Teralone. That’s why we’re here. The west offers one thing—plenty of open slots. Better than waiting in line at Rictor or Mazal. And most of these won’t even make it to testing, minor house hopefuls.”

  “But it’s their right,” Declan protested. His right.

  “Alister.” The blonde man spoke the name like a command. “Everyone gets tested. Some get tested less, some get more, and a few are weighed against each other but everyone’s tested. Friend, I don’t think we’ve met.”

  “Declan. Thorn,” he added. The name felt wrong. But if he were among arcanists and he was to be one, it was Declan Thorn speaking. “I’m from the arcite foundry west of Teralone, Foundrytown.”

  “I’ll give you fifty rin to trade places in line,” Alister said. “It’s more than you’ll make here and your chances of admission can’t go lower by waiting.”

  “Done.” Declan swapped places, which had the blonde facing him and speaking around the woman. “Good to meet you all.”

  “Rohan Taylor. Sixth son of House Taylor. Our keep is in Mazal, but the sheer number of applicants makes a glint trip here worth it. Ignore Alister. He’s got strange ideas about everything, but especially what makes a good arcanist.” Rohan shook Declan’s hand. “This is Tegan Domine. She’s friendly, just focused.”

  “I. Can. Hear.” Tegan said, her voice strained. Without warning, her rune collapsed, fading away. “Almost had it.” Now her gaze turned on Declan, looking him up and down. She gave a calm nod and went back to projecting.

  Rohan walked around Declan. “I’ll go last. I received my ArCore designation a month ago. Tegan?”

  “Yes, though I have a test at Medical first” The answer told Declan volumes. She’d expected whatever the ArCore designation was and hoped the test at ‘medical’ went well.

  “I already have mine,” Alister added despite not being asked. “Declan, how many years of schooling did they force you through before the test?”

  “Ten,” Declan said. “It wasn’t forced. Learning to read and write is expected at the Foundry.”

  “No. Mana training. Spell theory. Rune history,” Rohan said, each word spat like a dribble of molten arcite. “I was learning it before bed. Even the poor houses like the Sullivans start at fourteen. Hell, Tegan’s only here because the Domine family wants her gone and she was given five years. Weapons training?”

  Declan shook his head.

  “Runes?” Alister asked, offering Declan the promised fifty-rin coin, which was actually gold, and actually ten times what Pop had sent him with. “I can’t sense an arcsoul, so no blood-rune. Go home. Tell a story about how you nearly passed. It’s a better use of everyone’s time.”

  “Shut your shit-hole,” Tegan said. “Just because there’s not a House War between us doesn’t mean I won’t spill some blood. Shut it.”

  “Make me, you foul-mouthed quim,” Allister answered. A single ice-blue rune blazed into existence, orbiting. Outer lines surrounded a square and as it orbited, they twisted inward.

  “What rune is that?” Declan asked. The feel of it was intense. Instead of words, instinct sprang to life. “Bury? Sink? Crush?”

  For the slightest moment, cofusion blanketed Alister’s face. “Asking about a house’s blood-rune is either asking to swear loyalty or telling them you’ll steal secrets. Who have you—”

  Rohan held up a hand. “House Rush is famous. Feared. You think the bards don’t tell of your grandfather’s battles? The chorus practically is the name. ‘Crush, Crush, Crush!’”

  “House Rush!” Declan spoke it with reverence. “Alister Rush. I had no idea.” He still had no idea but workmen often found themselves in arguments that weren’t theirs. A husband and wife, a father and son, removing himself was a skill like any other.

  Alister seemed somewhat molified. He crossed his arms again and looked away. “We should be known. We should be worshiped for all we’ve done.”

  For the second time, Tegan glanced his way, but when she spoke, it was loudly. “Fuck him. Not literally, he deserves to die childless so hopefully ‘House Rush’ ends. You want to be an arcanist, you have the will to do it? Do it.”

  “If only will were worth a rin,” Allister said. “And I get plenty of attention from ladies, you wouldn’t know of it because you’re not one.”

  “You only get attention if mommy arranges table-whores. I bet she pays them a bonus for your painfully large, difficult to handle ego.” Tegan’s grin grew wider as she sensed blood. “Wait…you didn’t with your sister again, did you?”

  “Again?” Alister shouted. He drew a silver dagger and this was no longer a game. “I’ve tolerated your tongue long enough. You want to heal so badly, let’s see you heal this.”

  Before Declan could move, Rohan acted, knocking the blade away and driving his elbow into Alister’s stomach. “That’s enough from both of you. Tegan. Apologize.”

  “I asked if he did it again. All he had to do was say ‘I didn’t fuck my sister again,’” Tegan answered, arms crossed. “You know what? I’ll test last. I’m sorry I insinuated your sister was the only person who would fuck you twice. Wait, are we counting willing or unwilling women?”

  “Tegan!” Rohan shouted, drawing attention from the rest of the line. “We’re good here. We’re good. Declan, if you don’t mind, I have things to discuss with Alister.”

  “Be my guest.” Declan welcomed a meat shield.

  The line crawled.

  The closer Declan got the more he noticed that no one came out the front of the hall, but morose, teary people stumbled from the side streets, glancing with sorrow or anger at the hall. As the line moved, Tegan struck up a conversation, drilling him on foundry life, on education, on it all.

  At last, they were inside the hall, and his moment drew near. “Any advice?” he asked Tegan.

  She shook her head. “You’re behind ten years, a hundred thousand rin and a shit mound of actual experience. But I’ve seen blazed beasts kill themselves in a charge. Luck happens. Lean on luck, cause willpower ain’t going to do it.”

  Alister was greeted and led straight back. Rohan, too. Then it was Declan’s time. “Declan Thorn,” he said, his voice quiet. He produced the blood-stone. “I’m here to test.”

  The administrator at the counter was a woman, older, with gray hair and wrinkled eyes, eyes that widened as she looked the stones. “No arcsoul. Runes?”

  He shook his head.

  “No history of classes at Ariloch. No house sponsorship.” She glanced again at the blood-stone, pushing mana into it so it glowed. “It’s broken, but Raleigh Thorn, he’s in our records. Insight was his blood-rune. According to this, a support arcanist who could reveal weaknesses of blazed beasts. Lucinda! Candidate!” She handed him the blood-stone back.

  From the back of the arcanist’s hall came a woman who could match Declan’s build for thinness, but her nose was sharper, her eyes wider, her hair barely longer than bald. “What do we have here? Declan Thorn? Come with me.”