I crouched before the slag heap, clutching half a piece of rock-hard black bread in my left hand. My right shoulder still burned like fire — the third bloody welt left by Klaus's whip.
"Holt family trash!" Klaus's iron-nailed boots ground over the slag at my feet, sparks flaring where his soles struck stone. "Three cartloads of slag in half an hour? What are you waiting for, boy — the ore to grow wings and fly into the furnace on its own?"
I kept my head down, the back of my neck blistering under the pitiless sun. My Adam's apple bobbed as I swallowed back the words on the tip of my tongue — I've only had half a jug of water since dawn.
This was the mine, not the Holt family's parlor. No one here gave a damn if an exiled, magicless disgrace starved or not.
When the whistle of the whip cut through the air again, my shoulder blades instinctively tensed.
But this time, it didn't land square on my back like the first two.
I'd noticed something — each time Klaus swung his whip, he unconsciously shifted his left hip a fraction. He probably didn't even realize it himself.
So when he raised his arm again, I took half a step to the right under cover of bending to pick up more slag. The whip cracked past my left collarbone and lashed into the ground instead, throwing up a puff of gray dust.
"Trying to dodge, are you?" Klaus's sour breath, thick with cheap ale, washed over the back of my neck. "Guess you still don't know what you are yet—"
"Foreman!"
The old miner Harold called out from the direction of the carts. His hunched figure held a chipped pocket watch in one calloused hand. "Inspector says they're sealing the mine early today — you'd better go sign the log..."
Klaus ground his heel into my knuckles as he turned, but I gritted my teeth and didn't make a sound. He cursed under his breath and kicked the side of a cart, its iron wheels screeching in protest.
When his reeking presence finally moved on, Harold crouched beside me. His gnarled hand slipped something warm into my lap — a roasted potato, still steaming, with a faint charred smell.
"Eat it slow," he muttered, his eyes crinkled with dust and wrinkles. "Word is the Vant family's coming to inspect tomorrow. Bad winds blowing."
I gripped the potato tight, my fingertips sinking into the hot skin.
When the Vants had framed my family for treason, I'd still been standing in the Holt trial yard, staring blankly at the crystal orb — watching it remain dark and lifeless for the third time.
They said magic ran in noble blood, and a Holt who couldn't summon even the faintest blue light wasn't fit to be even a servant.
By dusk, the mine was swallowed by shadows. I slipped away into the abandoned shaft behind the mountain.
The rats here were smarter than most men.
I crouched by a crack in the rocks for half an hour, waiting. Finally, a gray one poked its whiskered nose out, the tips twitching three times. I counted the rhythm and caught its tail just as its front paw touched the ground.
"Well, well — the Holt family's rat catching rats, eh?"
Torchlight flared suddenly, stabbing into my eyes.
I squinted up and saw five thugs blocking the mouth of the cave. At the front was Tom — the big oaf who'd stolen my last piece of bread two nights ago.
He was chewing some greasy strip of jerky, his lips glistening. "Hand it over. Call it your tribute to your big brothers."
I took half a step back until my shoulders hit the damp rock wall.
The rat squirmed in my grasp, its body heat seeping through my palm.
When Tom's fist swung at me, I stared at the way his deltoid bunched — the way his muscle arced was exactly like the old mule in the yard when it braced to haul a load.
I slipped aside, scooped up a chunk of loose stone, and slammed it square into his knee.
Tom let out a grunt and dropped to the ground, the torch clattering from his hand and scattering sparks across his trousers.
"Shit!" His buddies snickered but none of them stepped forward.
I bolted for the cave mouth, clutching the rat. Wind rushed up my torn sleeve, bringing with it the tang of rust and blood — my right shoulder had split open again, and blood dripped down my arm, staining the stone like a misshapen flower.
"Stop."
The voice came from the shadows.
I skidded to a halt and turned, only to slam into the rock wall.
Moonlight poured through a crack in the cave ceiling, falling on a figure wrapped in a tattered cloak.
At his hip hung a rusted iron sword, its scabbard bound with a faded strip of red cloth that swayed in the wind.
"You dodged Tom's punch back there," he said, lowering his hood to reveal a face lined with scars. A three-inch gash ran across his left eyelid. "That wasn't luck."
My throat tightened, and sweat slicked my palm around the rat.
In a flash of black, he drew his sword.
I ducked on instinct, and the blade scraped past the rock just above my head, showering me with grit.
"Not bad." He sheathed his sword, the scars on his face twisting as he smirked. "You can predict a blade's path, even if it's just instinct."
I stared at the sword on his hip, my throat dry. "You're… a swordsman?"
"A wanderer. Nothing more." He kicked aside a loose stone, moonlight catching on the frayed red cloth. *"I've been watching three days now. Watching all the trash here get trampled into the mud.
But you… when you dodged me just now, your eyes were counting my rhythm."*
He turned and walked toward the cave mouth, his cloak flaring like a tattered flag in the wind.
At the threshold he stopped, his voice carried back to me on the mountain breeze:
*"Tomorrow at sunrise. The northern cliffs.
If you're content being a rat on a slag heap, then don't bother coming."*
I watched his silhouette vanish into the darkness. The rat in my hands had already gone still.
Blood still trickled down my arm, but suddenly it didn't hurt anymore.
The wind whistled through the crack above, bringing the scent of something beyond the slag and ash — something sweet, like grass and pine resin.
I looked down at the dead rat in my palm and, for some reason, smiled.
Holt family trash?
Maybe.
But at least… I could count the rhythm of a whip, predict the arc of a punch, and make a wandering swordsman take a second look.
Moonlight spread across the rubble at the cave mouth as I tucked the rat into my coat.
Tomorrow at sunrise. The northern cliffs.
The wind curled through the mountains like a distant summons.
I touched my wounded shoulder. The blood had already crusted over.