Rumors and speculation spread like wildfire, the likes of which hadn't graced the region in many long years. The unearthly creature, soon known simply as the Beast, occupied the lips of every sort of folk--farmers, townsmen, merchants, seers, wisemen, nobility. Some swore that the Beast was an omen of Eris' growing fury. Others claimed that it was a dark herald of the next Awakening. The enticing mystery of it provided an inexhaustibly fertile gossiping ground.

Adrian was rapidly tiring of the endless speculations, each more ludicrous than the last. What purpose did any of it serve? If there was a story behind the Beast's appearance, none of their kind would ever know it.

And Adrian was, indeed, one of the common folk. A tragedy that he cursed with every passing day.

Dulse, one of the Silken Hog's many regulars, was making an even louder scene than usual this evening. "I swear on my life, it's the Heir of Darkness come to finish what he started! The Blight and the poor harvests are his doing, and this cursed Beast proves it!" He gulped down the rest of his drink and snapped his fingers at Adrian for another. The color of his bulbous nose was a fairly reliable measure of his inebriation, and it currently flared a respectable tomato red.

Adrian was quick with the refill, as he'd diligently learned to be over the years. Drunken, dissatisfied customers were unpleasant to contend with, especially when accompanied by an aggravated Bigby on top of it all.

Dulse's longtime mate Byrne, a more measured man than the former, scoffed. "You can't claim anything for certain, especially with a handful of accounts passed through hundreds of ears. For all we know, it was a large bird."

"It wasn't a bird, you two-bit dunderhead! You think every man, woman, and child from Geyire to Braeden would go mad over a bird?"

"There's no shortage of fools."

Dulse glared at him, then turned to Adrian. "Boy, what say you? Do I strike you as some blithering fool as this one here suggests?" He smacked Byrne's back, making him sputter into his drink.

Adrian would have given anything to respond in the affirmative, but he simply forced a smile and shrugged before continuing his familiar winding route between tables.

He wanted nothing more than to collapse into his rickety cot upstairs and be left alone, with no one to answer to and no one to demand his attention. He'd yearned for this simple luxury for about as long as he could remember.

From the moment that Adrian could understand and follow orders, he'd been put to work. Simple fetching tasks had gradually grown in complexity and expectation over the years, and a stinging backhand served as his teacher. It'd been sixteen years in the same town of Laetera, each day as predictable as the last: dawn till dusk, then a few precious hours of rest before the cycle began anew.

Can one die of boredom? Adrian had often wondered. And then bitterness would always darken his mood as he recalled the rightful station so unjustly denied to him. He'd been born to serve a higher purpose; had his noble lineage not stemmed from that of the Dark Apostles, he would have been personally serving the Divine Heirs in the gleaming capital of Crystallinus instead of doling out endless tankards of watery ale to the same raucous louts day after day. He'd been stranded here, stunted and unfulfilled, his noble blood squandered on the common rabble.

Bigby's hard palm against his head jolted him harshly back into reality. "Oy, pay attention! Trent needs refilling. Goddess knows why I put up with you, boy."

Adrian did as he was told. As far as masters went, he supposed he could have done worse. Bigby's temper struck easily, as did his hands, but he also paid three shards a week and let Adrian pick at the daily leftovers. Indentures weren't strictly entitled to wages at all.

Conversation in the tavern these days mostly centered around the coming quarterly tributes and the lack of leniency in offsetting the thin harvests. Patrons incessantly lamented their diminished savings, dwindling food stores, the few trinkets they'd been forced to part with to make ends meet. Some complained of family and friends who'd been afflicted by the mysterious white-blindness. It all made for a rather grim atmosphere at the Silken Hog.

Adrian inevitably caught snatches of conversation here and there, but cared little for the townsfolk's troubles. He'd long learned that no matter how dire the state of things, they would always spare coin for ale, and he would therefore always have food and lodging. Anything else was irrelevant babble.

Just as he was starting on a pile of filthy tankards behind the bar, Gilbert burst in through the front door. The lanky boy dutifully manned the corral behind the tavern, but his reason for deserting must have been a good one, for he was panting heavily from exertion.

"Announcement in the square!" he gasped into the crowded room, hand on his heaving chest. "Three thousand shiners bounty! A Blade is here!"

After a second of stunned silence, the establishment exploded.

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"Impossible!"

"There's never been a bounty that high! Never!"

"Three thousand--that's a lifetime's worth!"

"An Apostle's sum!"

The customers--save Shane, who was fast asleep in his tankard--rushed out of the Silken Hog in a clumsy, disorganized mass. Before Bigby could do more than snarl "Don't you dare--", Adrian had hurried out to join them, grinning from a rare jolt of glee.

*

Dusk had begun to settle. The square was busier than Adrian had ever seen it before, even overflowing onto the outer streets. Townsfolk crowded and shoved, all eager to hear news of this impossible bounty for themselves. The twilight air hung thick with overlapping chatter and gossip, along with the cloying stench of unwashed bodies. Adrian shoved through the pungent crowd for a better view, ignoring the protests and curses in his wake.

Theodore Caelum, Laetera's wizened Enforcer, stood in the center of the town square, flanked by the attendants of his household. Adrian had heard stories of how some other Enforcers treated their lieges in nearby towns, and he'd learned to be grateful for the one they had. Even if the bony old coot's spindly fingers itched to record and penalize every supposed offense.

Standing beside him was a tall, stoic Aborasian woman clad in elegant leather armor dyed a striking dark red. Her black hair fell just above her shoulders, and she surveyed the audience with cool composure. Her right hand rested on the pommel of a sword at her hip. Glittering, razor-sharp obsidian talons adorned each of her fingertips.

"Wouldn't mind a taste of that toffee," someone snickered nearby.

"She'd eat you alive," another scoffed.

"Oh, even better!"

Lord Caelum shook a battered brass bell, and its piercing peals commanded silence within seconds.

"Come to grace our humble town is Siress Kaia the Bloodclaw, an esteemed knight of the Crimson Blade," he declared in his reedy rasp. "She will illuminate to us a matter of utmost importance to our masters the Divine Heirs, and as such, to all of Iridesca."

Kaia stepped forward. "People of Laetera," she said in a clear, brassy voice. "I am one of innumerable Blades sent by the Divine Heirs to all corners of their dominion. And I relay to you this vital message: a terrible enemy of the kingdom has emerged. The time has come to request the eyes of every subject of Iridesca. Any suspected encounters with this profane individual must be reported to your Lord Enforcer at once. We do not possess a likeness of him, but we know that he is a boy, sixteen years of age, with unusually dark eyes."

They waited for further descriptions, but none were forthcoming. Dulse barked out a harsh laugh, right by Adrian's left ear.

"Is that all, darling? A sixteen-year-old boy with dark eyes?"

Kaia raised an eyebrow. "Individuals of that particular age are rather scarce, are they not?"

The townsfolk murmured in discomfiture, and several of them briefly pressed their forefingers to their mouth and chest.

"Is he a Nightchild?" an elderly lady on the other side of the square asked.

More murmurs, and more gestures.

Nightchildren, the infants born of their mothers' still-warm corpses in the immediate aftermath of the Madness, were said to be cursed with an incurable strain of evil rooted deep in their souls. Most of Iridesca had either heard or shared tales of their deeds--violence, cannibalism, heretical rituals, and worse. Adrian didn't buy into these superstitions, mostly because he could very well be a Nightchild himself. No one here, including him, knew the exact time and circumstance of his birth; the only one who could have known had departed Laetera long ago.

"Aye, hence the Divine Heirs' urgency in this matter," Kaia said. "I'll establish a team of willing townsfolk to review any and all strangers of age who come to Laetera. My fellow Blades are doing the same throughout the kingdom's many settlements."

"And what about the reward for his capture, eh?" demanded Crasser, the town's blacksmith. He'd never been one to mince words.

Kaia inclined her head. "The commoner who turns him in to their Lord Enforcer will be graced with three thousand nobilis."

An eruption of excited chatter rose up among the townsfolk.

Dulse did not participate. "You speak prettily, sweetheart, but forgive some of us for not lapping up your every word."

The crowd's enthusiasm was immediately smothered. Adrian saw Byrne fiercely attempting to elbow his friend into submission.

Lord Caelum's ashy complexion reddened into a sickly pink. "H--how dare you--"

Kaia shot the old Enforcer a look that shut him up at once, then turned back to Dulse. "From where does such hostility stem, my friend?"

He shoved Byrne away and stepped forward, swaying slightly from the numerous pints he'd previously imbibed. The crowd swiftly parted for him, eager to rid themselves of any possible association with the mouthy provocateur. "Your pampered little masters think that a few shiny coins are enough to keep us all docile, eh? We're just common cattle to you lot, right?"

"Friend, if you could--"

"I'm not your bloody friend!" he spat, voice rising. "You think we'll forget you bleeding us dry with your tribute demands? Where's your beloved masters' divine grace as our crops fail, as this incurable Blight spreads without recourse, as that terrible Beast prowls the night? What's your lot got to say about all that, eh?"

Lord Caelum whipped the bell furiously, his bony fingers white around the handle. "Enough, Dulse! If you dare speak another word against the Divine Heirs--"

"The Heirs can kiss my speckled arse!" his drunken roar echoed out into the stony silence of the town square like a thunderclap.

Lord Caelum sputtered in wordless fury, but Kaia composure did not waver. "That will be all," she said with deathly calm. "Return to your homes."

The crowd eagerly dispersed as the last light of the sun sank below the horizon.

Three thousand shiners, Adrian thought as he returned to the Silken Hog alongside its regulars. Three thousand times the amount that Bigby had wrestled from him a few days ago. With that kind of money, he could pay off his indenture and live the rest of his life in peace and luxury. No one to order him about, no one to answer to but himself. He'd be free.

"Good Goddess, what was Dulse thinking?" Trent muttered.

"Bloody idiot, running his mouth to a Blade," Byrne sighed. "Of course, he was also soused to his ears."

Bigby's backhand was more robust than usual, and Adrian's cheek stung fiercely as he scrubbed away at the perpetually grimy floors. Dreams and fantasies were all well and good, but to overindulge would surely spell death upon the soul. Better to accept things as they were rather than torture oneself with flights of fancy.

Dulse did not return to the Silken Hog that night.