Come and compete in the Senaire Battlemage Tournament! All entrants of ages fourteen and older are welcome. Both one-on-one battles and team battles of up to four people per team will be held. Prove you’re the strongest and win the grand prize…
The clocktower sounded ten times.
10 o’clock… should be any minute now.
Crouching down behind a garbage barrel in an alley, Syn eyed the doors of the bakery across the street hungrily. Snow was lightly falling, coating the ground white and causing it to faintly glow in the moonlight. Even though it was very nearly the end of spring, it was seemingly always snowing in Saeone any time of the year besides the summer. With any luck, this would be the final snow for quite some time.
A dingy gray cat nearby howled at him, upset that he was encroaching in its territory. He’d tried shooing it away multiple times, but it was a stubborn pest. Syn figured it should be fine, though. Anyone who heard the racket would just assume it was an alley cat doing its usual alley cat activities, whatever those were. Being a nuisance?
Even if someone were to look this way, the moonlight hopefully wouldn’t illuminate him well enough between the two structures on either side of him.
He stole a glance towards the alley on the left side of the bakery. Lynne wasn’t visible. Good—she remained in her hiding place. That girl sometimes let her frenetic impulses get the better of her, causing her to not be where he needed her to be for his plans. Thankfully, as much as he hated the circumstance of being hungry, her hunger likely helped her stay disciplined on this night. And he did need her to stay disciplined. They’d put this off for too long.
The door to the bakery finally opened, pushing the snow along in a half-moon path as it opened outward into the elements. A tall, bald man in a white shirt and gray trousers stood there for a moment, pausing to seemingly admire the moon before putting a brown fur coat on. Syn could tell it was Gralbear fur due to the flat bases of keratin that remained from when the beast’s fur bore spikes while living, something that gave it a natural decorativeness now that it was fashioned into a coat… blasted people with excess money and their fancy clothing.
As the man turned and began to close the door, a crashing sound came from nearby in the alley to his right. Forgetting to shut the door completely, he looked around speculatively as though to make sure nobody else was around. Brandishing what looked like a hunting knife from his belt, he crept along the edge of the building. He turned suddenly around the corner, raising the knife over his head.
“Who’s there?!” Syn heard him ask in a panic.
Nobody was there of course. Lynne had tied a long, thin string to a stack of glass bottles in the opposite alley, running the line along through the edge of the snow where it would be hidden. Her job was to yank the string before the baker locked the door, then slip in while he was investigating the source of the sound. First part down, at least. Now she just needed to get inside.
A small shadow came into motion on the opposite side of the building from where the man now was. Lynne, moving swiftly towards the still-open door.
Dhagan’s claws, she’s moving *too* fast! The sound of the snow crunching will—
The cat started howling again—louder now. Seemed the longer Syn ignored its requests to kindly get. out, the louder it would wail. But…
That was fine, actually. The bald man wasn’t reacting to Lynne’s footsteps. Was this stupid feline’s caterwauling actually helping to mask the sound?
Lynne slipped in through the open door. Success. There were no footprints for the path she’d taken—not obvious ones, at least. She did as instructed and dropped handfuls of snow behind her as she’d moved, covering the footprints just well enough to not be plainly seen.
Syn side-eyed the cat and gave it a half-hearted grin. “Well, you little rascal… maybe you’re not so bad.” He muttered softly.
He turned his attention again to the scene across the street. The baker was walking back towards the door, scratching his head with one hand and returning the knife to his belt with the other.
“Damned strays…” the man grumbled loudly.
He shut the door and pulled the key out of his pocket, putting it in the lock and turning it. Shaking his head, he began to walk away in the opposite direction from where Lynne had come. Good—no chance of him noticing the path she’d taken by walking over it in that case.
A couple of minutes passed with nothing else happening. Even the cat had stopped its howling, deciding instead to start licking itself. Weird creature.
Syn smiled mischievously as he watched the cat and focused. The darkness cast on the ground beneath it from the flanking buildings on either side of the alley began to shift. The cat didn’t seem to notice as it simply continued its tongue bath. A section of the darkness rose from the ground slightly, taking on the form of a hand. As the hand shifted shape again, it opened its shadowy fingers into an open palm and loomed over the feline.
Quickly, the hand descended on the bathing beast and the fingers grasped around its midsection. The cat hissed in surprise, spinning around with its fur raised high. There was no sign of the shadowy hand any longer. It had dissolved back into the darkness along the ground.
Syn shrugged as the cat looked towards him, as though it were asking him if he saw who it was that interrupted its important business. It lowered its tail and relaxed its fur after a moment, then resumed the bath.
The door to the bakery finally cracked open again a short bit later. Syn had instructed Lynne to wait two minutes before opening the door for him so that the baker would be well away by then. She was off by a bit, but no big deal. At least she hadn’t gotten distracted and forgotten about him.
“Time for me to go. You can have your alley back now.” Syn said to the cat. For some reason.
It paused its licking and darted its eyes toward him without moving its head. After a couple of seconds, it turned its attention back to its front-right paw and resumed the activity. Syn shrugged to himself, then trotted across the street.
Entering the building and shutting the door behind him, he shook the snow from his mess of midnight black hair that came down to his shoulders. He hated how the stuff was so starkly visible on him because of his hair color.
Lynne sat nearby, giving him a big grin as she waved a half-eaten bread roll in greeting. Her hair was the same color as his, but she actually attempted to style it some by tying it into two tails.
“Didn’t waste any time, huh?” Syn remarked with a smirk as he sidled over to the table and took a seat himself. It was dark in the bakery, but with a full moon out, there was enough moonlight coming through the windows by the door to see reasonably well.
“Nuh-uh. Hafta eat!” She muffledly proclaimed through bites of bread.
He gave a small laugh at the display and grabbed a roll for himself. Taking a bite, he savored it with each individual chewing motion. The first bite of food each day was always the most satisfying.
Syn hated himself for making his little sister live like this. He was seventeen years old—he should have been able to find honest work and provide for them. A place to live, good food to eat, a purpose in life… it wasn’t fair that she had to grow up like this just because he was a failure.
Stop it. Don’t blame yourself… it’s *his* fault.
The lie made him feel better. Momentarily, at least. Saeone, though it was the capital city of Daeinado, was not a place of ample opportunity despite its size. All the respectable trades throughout the city had plenty of trained men and women who occupied the workforce, and none of them wanted to take in a street rat for an apprentice.
The only option he had for honest work was as a soldier, and that was absolutely not something he would consider. They’d take him away from Lynne if he enlisted, sending him on either one of those suicide missions into the Outlands or away to one of the forts elsewhere in the country to train as a recruit and then send him on a suicide mission. She’d be forced to live in one of the orphanages that were even worse than living on the street.
At least on the street, you could break the rules and steal what you needed, defend yourself, and do your best to survive. The local guards didn’t care. Usually. The orphanages though… they treated the children like slaves. He wouldn’t make her go back. Or even worse. At fourteen years old, she was old enough to sell—
“Syyyyyyyyn?”
He snapped back to reality, realizing he had been lost in thought as he finished off his second bread roll.
“Oh. Sorry. Were you saying something?”
She gave him a pout he couldn’t help but smile at. “Something? No, only lots of things! Where was your brain at anyway?”
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He sighed. “Just… thinking.”
“And what were you thinking about that’s more important than me talking about how delicious this food is?” she chided in a quick, frantic tone of voice.
Syn scoffed at the question, but smiled at the sheer indignation in his sister's voice. The food wasn’t delicious by any means. It was yesterday’s bakes that had gone unsold for two days. They never stole the fresh stuff. Better safe than sorry to not draw more attention than necessary to their thievery.
“I’m sorry we have to live like this. You deserve better.” He looked down at the table.
Lynne paused, reaching for another roll—how many had she had while he was zoned out?—and frowned. “Sorry? If it weren’t for you, I’d be even worse off, you know.”
“I mean… sure. Maybe. But if I was better, then you’d be better off. I should have found a way to get you out of this lifestyle by now. That’s on me.”
“Nuh-uh. It’s. On. Zayne. He’s the one who left us behind.”
Syn cringed at hearing his older brother’s name. He hated him. Hated him with every bone in his body. He could have stepped up and done something to save them from their fate after their parents died, but he failed in the same way Syn did. Worse, even, considering he’d left.
Their parents had died in a collapse at the nearby crystal mine three years ago. They’d been miners, and all the miners drew lots each day on who would be the unlucky bastards to go into the deepest parts of the mine. They’d happened to draw the bad lot on the worst possible day. It was dangerous work since all the mining was done by hand with tools—magic couldn’t be used, lest the crystals’ attunement possibly be interfered with. All of the harvested crystals were to be turned into echo crystals, after all. As a result, accidents did sometimes happen.
The trio of siblings had been able to survive well enough in the aftermath, emotional toll of losing both parents notwithstanding. Zayne was taken in as a carpenter’s apprentice by one of their father’s drinking friends and was able to provide for all three of them, though just barely, with his wages. Something changed though, and Syn had never been able to figure out precisely what it was.
Just a little over a year after their parents died, Zayne quit his apprenticeship. He said he had stolen enough money from his mentor to pay for about two weeks’ worth of supplies for the three of them, and planned on them all leaving for Palcheaux, the capital city of Garreghais to the south. At one of the local taverns, he’d apparently met someone that was part of some mysterious group who wanted to “change the continent for the better” and offered for him to join them if he was willing to travel. Syn didn’t like it. He’d stayed behind, Lynne staying with him, when Zayne departed. His brother did say he would come back for them someday…
Someday. As if that made it better.
“Yeah… Architects curse him.” Syn grunted and met Lynne’s eyes again. “But. You decided to stay with me instead of going with him. And I’ve repaid your decision with a life of living on the streets and stealing for food…”
She shrugged, but her tone softened despite the look on her face still glaring daggers at him. She didn’t like when he blamed himself. “Sure, but I’d be dead most likely if I’d gone with him. Is that what you prefer?”
They didn’t know for certain Zayne was dead, but given it had been almost two years since his departure, it was a safe bet.
“You’re right. Sorry. I—”
“Stop ittttt.” She cut him off, stretching out the last sound of the word for several seconds like the annoying buzz of a bug and not giving him a chance to continue speaking. “You’ve apologized three times now in—what—a minute or two? Give it a break. We’re supposed to be happily enjoying our meal, and you’re souring the mood.”
He stared at her, dumbfounded for a moment. She always had a way of bullying him in a nice manner, if it were possible to bully someone nicely, into getting out of any funk he’d found himself in. It was some type of magic only known to little sisters, he wagered.
“Alright, alright.” He relented, giving in to her sisterly abilities and continuing to eat.
“So, as I was saying earlier before you so rudely ignored me because you were busy blaming yourself for everything…” She prattled on for several minutes on a variety of random topics from the latest fashion on display in the windows of clothing stores to retelling a long-winded story she’d heard a man at the park tell someone the day before. Syn played along, giving laughs and small comments here and there. He knew she just loved to hear herself talk as long as someone was listening, so he just had to pay the appropriate level of attention to satisfy her.
A scratching sound at the door several minutes later made them both freeze. They looked nervously in that direction, ready to cut and run if the door were to open in the event the baker had come back for some reason.
The door didn’t open. Instead, the scratching sound got louder. Then the caterwauling started.
Syn bursted out laughing without meaning to, catching Lynne visibly off guard.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me!” he finally mustered to say, getting up and walking to the door.
He opened the door to find the same cat that had been howling at him earlier sitting there, all four feet tucked together with its tail wrapped around itself.
“You want some too, huh?” He asked, again wondering why he was talking to it, but doing so anyway. “Come on in then, there’s plenty to go around.”
They lost track of time as they continued to eat, talk, and play with the cat. For a couple of hours, Syn forgot about his worries from before. He was actually allowing himself to enjoy the moment… a rarity these days.
Noticing the clock on the wall showing the time was now a quarter past midnight, Syn decided it was time for them to leave. They said their goodbyes to the cat, opening the door for it to head back to its home across the street. Before Syn departed himself, something caught his eye that he hadn’t noticed earlier. A flier on the inside of the door.
He grabbed it and brought it with him so he could read it more plainly—thank the Architects their parents had taught them to read before dying—in the open moonlight, locking and shutting the door as he and Lynne exited.
Gasping audibly, the sudden sound startled Lynne and made her turn to him with a look of quick panic.
“What?!” She asked, looking around nervously.
He looked up at her from the flier, then laughed. “Sorry about that, didn’t mean to freak you out. Just… look at this.”
As he turned the paper towards her, she began to read out loud.
“Come and compete in the Senaire Battlemage Tournament! All entrants of ages fourteen and older are welcome. Both one-on-one battles and team battles of up to four people per team will be held. Prove you’re the strongest and win the grand prize…” she trailed off.
She looked up at Syn, her mouth agape. “A-a-a… A hundred High coins to first place?!”
Syn nodded. “Yeah… that’s… wow.”
It was so far beyond any amount of money they’d ever seen that it was hard to comprehend. A High coin was worth ten Council coins, or a hundred coins. Their parents had made five coins a day each when mining, with nearly half going towards feeding the five of them and the other half going towards rent. Zayne had only made three a day when holding the apprenticeship.
“And that’s just to the winner. Everyone that makes it to the top eight gets a hefty payout, it seems. Especially if you’re competing in the individual competition… you don’t have to split with anybody.” He turned the paper back around and continued to re-read, as if to assure himself he’d done so correctly.
Lynne’s look of bewilderment slowly transformed into a frown. “But… Brother. You couldn’t win this. Why are you so excited?”
Syn looked up from the paper. “Because,” He spoke with hopeful confidence. “it’s a chance, Lynne. That’s more than we’ve been given here in Saeone these last couple of years, at least. Besides, I can fight.”
He could. He was good with a bow. Archery was a hobby he had thankfully picked up at a young age, courtesy of a friend of his father’s dying in the military and having no son. His widow had gifted Syn’s father the bow to give to Zayne, but Zayne declined the gift, claiming bows were cowardly tools and that he wanted to learn the sword instead. So, it went to Syn. He also knew how to fight with knives, a talent he'd regrettably learned through necessity the past couple of years.
There was also the strange ability he was still learning how to use. Looking at the shadow cast on the snow behind him in the full moonlight, he focused. The shadow shifted, changing shape so that it looked like a cat’s shadow instead of his own. Then a rabbit, and finally a perfect circle, before it returned back to normal. Focusing more, he lifted the shadow off of the ground and reached out for it, grasping it like it was a solid object. The shadow in his hand continued to change shape, finally settling into that of a dagger made from pitch-black darkness.
If I would just let myself use this power to take the things Lynne and I need by force…
Syn shook the thoughts from his head. That wouldn’t be right. He hadn’t yet used the abilities to harm, scare, or trick others besides a couple of emergency circumstances he needed to get out of in a pinch.
He looked back to Lynne. “I can fight. I just need to learn how to use this ability better, and practice more with close quarters—daggers and the like. I can’t really practice with a bow at the moment… but maybe we could steal one and some arrows. The muscle memory hasn’t left me, I just need something to actually shoot.”
Lynne sighed and put her hands on her hips. “Okay… but it’s also all the way in southern Senaire. Hello? Literally the opposite side of the continent!”
The way she spoke faster and raised her voice to a higher pitch the further she got into the sentence got him chuckling, as it had earlier. She had such a way of letting loose her emotions in short bursts like that. Syn found it fun and charming, and it almost made him want to tease her sometimes just to hear her get stressed.
She was right, though. Saeone was deep in north-eastern Daeinado. The two cities were quite literally the furthest apart they could be.
“We’ll figure that out. I… realize it sounds ridiculous seeing as we didn’t want to follow Zayne to Palcheaux, but that was different. Joining a shady group of strangers is definitely different than entering a legitimate, crown-sponsored tournament to try and win prize money. Right?”
She looked up at the sky contemplatively, hands still on hips. “When you put it like that… yeah, I guess so.”
Snapping her head back down to meet his gaze, she got her confident and almost bossy tone back. “Okay, you’d better win! I’ll be real mad if we waste all that time traveling for no reason!”
Syn laughed as his sister turned and started to walk away, back to the abandoned building they’d been squatting in for the past several weeks that was a couple streets away. He looked back down at the flier, then started walking after her.
Last week of summer, huh… Fourteen weeks, then.