The skin on the back of Birch’s hand started to tingle and then burn as if stinging nettle leaves were slowly being drawn across it. He gritted his teeth and concentrated on keeping his arm still. The pain began to intensify.

Surely this wasn’t what the others had experienced. None of them had tried to pull their hands away before they were instructed to or had even cried out.

He drew in a breath and placed his left hand on his right arm. The pain was excruciating. It was as if his whole hand was on fire and he half-expected to see flames flickering out of the hollow in the Sacred Oak’s trunk.

“Remove it,” the Green Man said.

Birch took a breath and withdrew his hand. It looked even worse than he’d been anticipating. Instead of a neat circular-shaped symbol clearly depicting whatever fate the Sacred Oak had selected for him, he had been marked with a random pattern of burns, charred skin, and livid sores extending from his knuckles down to his wrist.

He prodded the wound and winced. The tree certainly hadn’t held back. But what did it mean?

The Green Man was on his feet. He gestured for Birch to rest his hand on the table. Birch did as he was told, and the Green Man peered at the mark. He pulled his book closer and turned to a page toward the back. It was covered in pictures of different symbols. Some were of objects like birds and flowers and fish and loaves of bread, and others Birch couldn’t identify. But even these were made of lines that looked to have been much more carefully positioned than the agonizing mess he’d received.

After one final inspection of Birch’s hand, the Green Man indicated that he should lift his arm from the table.

“I have come to my decision,” he said. “The Sacred Oak has not marked you with an identifiable symbol. Therefore, I have no option but to declare you one of the Markless.”

Birch swallowed against a lump forming in the back of his throat. For a moment, he’d allowed himself to believe that the Sacred Oak was singling him out. His mark was so different from the ones the others had received, he’d dared to think that he might’ve been destined for something special. He’d been a fool. And now he was paying the price.

He looked down at his feet and focused on blocking out the crowd. His hand still burned as if someone was holding it under a stream of scalding water. He concentrated on the pain, allowing it to fill his mind, pushing out his disappointment and the awareness of his surroundings.

He needed to be away from this place. He started to run between the rows of benches, ignoring the reactions of those in the crowd who’d managed to catch a glimpse of his hand as he raced past. Vetch no doubt had a broad smile plastered across his face. He was probably reveling in Birch’s misfortune as much as Holly was lamenting it, but he didn’t care about either of them right at this moment. He just had to get to somewhere quiet, where he could be alone.

When he was nearing the edge of the clearing, a small, robed man stepped in front of him. Birch stumbled to a stop, barely managing to avoid making contact with whoever it was that had been stupid enough to stand in his way.

Birch studied the man’s face. He was old. His skin was wrinkled and his bushy eyebrows and the thinning hair on his head were almost entirely gray. Only his long beard, dark brown with just a few lighter flecks, seemed to be stubbornly resisting the passage of time.

Birch was about to curse at him, but something about the man made him catch the words on his tongue. His robes were exactly the same shade as the ones the Green Man was wearing, and despite his slight frame, something about the way the old man was standing gave Birch the impression that he was used to giving orders, and used to having them obeyed.

Without a word, the man reached for Birch’s hand and pulled it toward him. He quickly examined the angry-looking marks. The lines on his brow deepened. He tilted Birch’s hand as if trying to get the light to settle on it in a certain way.

“Very strange.” The man’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “Very strange indeed.”

“Let go of me.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Birch yanked his hand out of the old man’s grasp, pushed past him, and dashed out of the clearing.

He ran into the marketplace and immediately regretted it. The village was even busier than it had been this time last year. Stalls selling pastries, candied fruit, meat pies, and ale had been set up alongside the main path leading through the village. A troupe of traveling actors was hastily constructing a wooden stage alongside their gaudily painted caravan, and jugglers, storytellers, and minstrels were entertaining those who were gathered around them. Once the crowds from the clearing made their way here, there would hardly be space to move.

Birch headed up the hill, weaving his way between groups of laughing and smiling villagers. Last year, he would have been just as excited as they seemed. The Marking Ceremony was the only time that people from all of the villages of Verdant gathered together, and usually, he would’ve relished the chance to spend the few coins he’d managed to save on treats and games of chance.

But right now his mind craved silence.

He pushed on toward the pig field he’d been working in earlier.

Old Rush was probably mending tack in the stables, but there was a chance he’d be in the field checking that Birch had completed his tasks before he’d left.

Birch ducked as he walked up the path next to the fence. He couldn’t face having to explain to Old Rush what had happened. Not right now.

Leaving the pig field behind him, Birch continued to follow the path to the edge of the village. He passed the last cluster of houses. Here the trail narrowed and its surface turned from packed earth to an uneven patchwork of mud, twigs, and rotting leaves. On either side of him, trees lined the path’s edges.

Birch paused and took a deep breath. Steeling himself, he inspected his wound. It still looked horrific. It was as if he’d jammed the top of his hand against the outside of a boiling cooking pot, waited for his skin to melt and adhere to the metal, and then yanked it free. Some of the burns were beginning to dry and scab over, but in other places, pockets of weeping blisters had formed alongside the blackened flesh. He flexed his fingers. Daggers of pain scythed through his hand.

He bit his lip to stop himself from crying out. Perhaps he’d have one of the healers take a look at it, but not now. He couldn’t face it.

Birch took the left-hand fork when the path split in two. This trail led to a large forest clearing. It was bigger than the field in front of the Sacred Oak, and it had been allowed to grow fallow for a couple of seasons, forming a meadow of tall grass and wildflowers. In the middle, there was a rock formation made up of several large boulders.

A gust of wind blew across the clearing, rippling the grass like the surface of a lake. Birch plunged in, wading through the head-height grassy waters until he reached the island of rocks.

Favoring his uninjured hand, Birch clambered onto the boulders and climbed up to the highest point. He sat down and allowed the sounds of the forest to wash over him. He might have to spend the rest of his life cleaning up after Elderglade’s animals, but for just a few hours, he could pretend that he was free.

He laid down with his back against the sun-warmed rocks. His eyelids started to feel heavy, and his breathing began to slow.

A sharp jolt of pain ripped across the skin of his injured hand. He jerked himself up into a sitting position and moved his hand closer to his eyes. There was no visible difference, but it had felt as if somehow his wound was getting deeper. As if new damage was somehow being done to his flesh right now.

It was as if fate was punishing him for daring to dream of being anything other than one of the Markless. Not only had he been given a mark that couldn’t be interpreted, but unlike the other Markless, his symbol wasn’t just a blotch of color. No. Instead, he’d received a painful festering wound. And to top it off, it felt like it was getting worse with every passing moment.

He stood up and scuffed at a patch of loose rock with a booted foot. A chunk came away. He bent down and picked it up. Without thinking, he launched it at the blackened remains of a lightning-struck tree in the corner of the meadow. His eyes traced the path of the piece of rock as it sailed through the air. For a moment, he thought it was going to strike the target, but it veered off midway and ended up falling short and missing a few paces to the left.

He kicked at the boulder again, freeing another rock fragment. This piece was a more regular shape. He weighed it in his palm, getting a feel for it. This time, he made an effort to line things up. He tried to remember exactly how the previous throw had gone and made corrections in his mind. He imagined the stone cracking against the charred wood with a sound that echoed around the clearing.

Birch hefted the stone up to his shoulder, took aim, and let it fly. He knew it was on line from the moment it left his hand. It arced across the meadow and smashed into the tree with a satisfying clack.

A pheasant squawked and clapped its wings, launching itself from the undergrowth. But Birch hardly noticed. His attention was focused on something that had materialized directly in front of his face. Some sort of wooden panel. He narrowed his eyes. A wooden panel with writing carved into it.

Throwing Small Projectiles +0.01

Birch reached out with his good hand. His fingers touched nothing but air, yet the panel remained.

Was he still asleep and this was all a dream?

No. This felt real. He closed his eyes and opened them again. Still the panel remained in place, hovering in front of him.

He read the words again. Was he being rewarded for successfully throwing the stone at the tree? And if so, what did the +0.01 actually mean?

The panel started to fade, and then it disappeared.