Nathan sat at the top of the sixth Archspire, one of the four that the nobles didn’t monopolize for their meditation, glazed eyes gazing into the distance. Nathan brushed his wavy brown hair, one of the things that, along with his muted teal eyes, marked him a lowborn, out of his face.
If he squinted hard enough he could have sworn he could see Ragnarok just under the horizon. The endless fields of bloodshed that the lowborn were sent to as fodder for the highborn and nobles to hide behind.
The highborn and nobles barely even tried to fight, according to some of the rumors Nathan had heard. The real war was being fought between the heroic and wise Master Sprenbearers and the Grand Cryptalborn. A few hundred people with the survival of tens of millions, an entire species, on their shoulders.
///
“-Breath in.” Nathan snapped his eyes shut and pretended to be meditating as the Teacher circled around the mass of other children in Nathan's direction. Nathan never bothered remembering the name of whichever low ranked highborn with a trash tier Ability they had managed to rope into teaching this time.
If they cared at all about us lowborn children actually awakening an Ability and bonding to a spren they would’ve somebody who actually knows how to teach. A sneer crossed his face. Why do they think we even want a spren? Nathan clenched his small, eleven year old fists on his lap and squeezed his closed eyes tighter.
Those cryptal-loving bastards send us to Ragnarok the moment we don't meet our yearly quota in the fields. Even if the ones sent don't have spren. Even if they have children. Even Mom and Dad. An expression of emotionless calm crossed Nathan's face as he forced back the memories. He might have started sobbing if it had been three years ago, when the memories of his parents were still fresh in his mind.
Now he just breathed out and went back to staring towards Ragnarok.
////
“- And why do we meditate?” Nathan’s eyes snapped open as the Teacher finished her question. He let out a long, suffering, sigh as he began to answer.
“It’s so that-”
“So we can make a place for a spren to settle in our soul!” Someone interjected from behind him.
“Very good.” The Teacher patted the blond haired highborn girl who interrupted Nathan on the shoulder, completely ignoring him. “We manipulate our soul and shape an area for a spren to settle in. We then find a spren to house and are granted magic by the spren.”
“What your old teachers didn't tell you is that spren are shaped like rough spheres.” Nathan leaned forward, intrigued.
This one might actually know some things. That's surprising.
“The closer to the shape of the spren that you chose is to the shape of your spren area, the greater your power is. That is why it is crucial to make your spren area as close to a sphere as you can before you turn twelve.”
Whelp, there's no chance of that happening. I can only barely sense my soul. My attempts to shape it are like attempting to break a brick with a twig
“Very good! You are all dismissed.”
The ‘lesson’ is finally over. Nathan thought, stretching his stiff arms. Just seven more months left until they send me to work in the fields instead. Oh joy!
////
Nathan trudged through the slums of the Eternal City.
“Eternal my ass.” He muttered. In a few decades it's gonna be gone along with the rest of the world. Taken and destroyed by the Cryptalborn.
Nathan stepped through the doorway of his shack. The one room building was about fifteen by fifteen feet, made of mud and wood with a worn thatched roof.
The sparse inside consisted of a straw bed bound into the shape of a rectangle with twine on the right wall. In the center of the hut there was a fire pit with a single pot for cooking rice and occasionally potatoes that hung above it. The woven basket that Nathan used to carry threshed rice from the fields rested in the right corner of the Shack.
Nathan lifted up the bed and retrieved fifteen of the bronze coins he had stuffed into the underside of the hay in lieu of anywhere else to store the money. There were only three silver and 84 bronze coins remaining of the money his parents had left him when they had died in Ragnarok. One hundred and seventy one days left of food. Two hundred and six days until I’m twelve and can work in the field’s.
He turned around and left the hovel, coins slipped into his shoe that was little more than a piece of wood with wool straps. He couldn't risk getting robbed. Not again.
////
Ten minutes later he arrived at a building with an actual hinged door.
“Hello, Nathan!” the man behind the counter, a distributor of excess food, exclaimed. He looked to be about thirty.
“Hello, Uncle Heth.” Nathan's perpetually disappointed and sullen gaze met Heth's apologetic smile, the reason of which was explained immediately.
“The shipment was sparse this week, A cup of rice is twenty bronze.”
Nathan felt like he had been punched in the gut. There's no way I can afford that! ”Surely you can lower it? If not for me than for my father’s memory?”
Heth grimaced. He and Nathan's father, Arden, had been so close that they were practically brothers. “I can sell you half a cup of rice for ten instead of twelve, kid, but that's it. Sorry.”
Nathan handed over the coins, put the rice in his drawstring pouch and walked home.
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////
That night he stayed awake for hours, his sleep delayed by hunger pains. But when he did drift unconscious he dreamt a very strange dream.
Before him he saw a statue of himself, formed of a shimmering material, suspended in a colorless void. There was a small crack in its chest. As he watched, an inexplicable sense of horror came over him, as a tiny piece, no larger than an uncooked grain of rice, chipped off of the statue chest.
The next day he awoke with the worst pain he had ever experienced. It felt like there was a hot iron in the middle of his chest, but his skin didn't look any different in that area, and the pain didn’t flare when he prodded it.
It took weeks to fade. Each night when he slept he saw the statue floating in front of him, the chipped off piece floating just out of its resting place. Each night it drifted away just a little bit more.
One day, three months later, another piece chipped off.
////
Nathan knelt in a field of rice, staring down at his hands. They were shaking and unusually calloused for a fifteen year old. Pain pulsed from his chest as he struggled to remain conscious.
“Dammit.” Nathan only barely managed to spit out a curse that got blown away in the cold, early winter wind. “Damn sharding.” Sharding was what Nathan had decided to call the process of splinters that periodically broke off of the statue.
Even though another shard had split off from the statue last night, he had thought that he could fight through it and go to the fields. I can't afford to miss another day! He grit his teeth through the mind numbing pain. I can't miss my quota. “Not Ragnarok.” He muttered. “Not like- Arg!” He interrupted himself with a scream of pain.
“THUD!” He fell face first into the rice that he had been threshing. Not like Mom. Not like Dad. I’ll make it. I’ll make it. I’ll make it. I’ll make-
Nathan blacked out.
////
Some amount of time later he opened his eyes, vision swimming, all noises muffled..
“Nathan, hold on!” Someone was shouting in the background. “We’ll get you to the healer!”
Is that uncle Heth? Why is he here? “Be at your shop, uncle?” Was all that he managed muttered before he blacked out again.
////
When Nathan next opened his eyes he was staring at the roof of a building lot nicer than his thatched roof cottage. Nathan attempted to sit up, but was too weak to move his head more than a few inches off the pillow-less cot.
“Ah, you’re awake.” A nurse of about twenty dressed in white clothes walked into his field of vision.
A sneer that was practically reflexive by now crossed his face. Damn highborn. Never had to do a day of real work in her life.
“If you are wondering how you got here, you were brought after someone found you, passed out in the fields.” The nurse said, seemingly mistaking his disdainful sneer for confusion. “ You have been here for two days.”
“Fuuuuck!” That meant that he only had four weeks left to reach his yearly quota.
“Don’t worry, you should be fine to leave in about a day.” She paused, a frown crossing her face. “My diagnostic Ability,” A self impressed smile replaced her frown while she was saying this. Diagnostic abilities were rare and quite valued, and she probably got praised for it a lot. The Ability that a spren gave a person was, after all, a reflection of their values and needs with a very large amount of randomness. No two Abilities were alike. This meant that although diagnostic Abilities were very useful, they were also very rare.
A frown crossed her face again seemingly remembering what she was saying. “My diagnostic Ability said that you were suffering from soul cracking. That can happen if you go through many traumatic experiences. It would take a lot for that to happen more than once.”
The Nurse continued to talk but Nathan was not listening. Can it be? A shocked expression crossed his face. Could the statue be my soul? No that couldn't be. Everyone knows that souls can only be stretched and cracked, not broken. And the statue has a hole the size of a fist in its chest. That would explain the pain, though. “How?” He whispered aloud.
“I know that sixty two silver seems like a lot of money,” The Nurse said, seemingly responding to his surprised expression. “But you can take out a loan from the hospital. We charge a lot less than many other people who you can find that will give a loan to you. Just four percent interest a month.”
“What are you talking about?” Nathan questioned. He had about twenty silver in savings, he was quite proud of the fact, so the nurse couldn't possibly be talking about that. Plus, how would she know how much money I have? The only person that might know is uncle Heth.
“You are going to have to pay the hospital for your treatment, you know. We aren't a charity.” The Nurse responded, annoyed.
“SIXTY TWO SILVER?” Nathan shouted, realizing that that was what he was being charged. They had to be making that up. “That's ridiculous! Show me the itemized list!”
“Here.” The nurse handed him a list and Nathan felt like he wanted to curl up in a deep, dark hole.
Emergency response team: 18 silver. Room and board: 3 silver a night + 1 per meal, total 12 silver. Ability aided diagnosis: 12 silver. There were a host of other costs but Nathan didn't stop to read them. He just stared at the total.
Sixty two silver! How, in the name of the Sprenfather am I gonna pay that off? On a good month he made two and a half silver in excess rice. I can barely even cover the interest with that!
Nathan lay in the hospital bed for the rest of the day, attempting to find a way out. He didn’t find one.
////
What's the point? He thought, some time near midnight. If I sell more of my rice, then I won’t reach the quota. Then I'll be sent to Ragnarok. If I can't pay back my debt I’ll become a debt slave. Then I'll be sent to Ragnarok.
Ragnarok. Nathan massaged his temples drowsily. Anything short of being tortured to death is better than dying in the fields of Ragnarok. Better than marching to your death in terror. Nothing but wallpaper and flavoring to the real battle.
A crazed laugh escaped his throat. Then again, maybe I am getting tortured to death. The pieces cracking off of my soul are getting bigger and bigger. How long will it be until my soul shatters entirely?
“Wish I could get away from here. Anywhere that won’t make me end up in Ragnarok. Maybe I should just jump off an archspire.” What was the point if he would live in constant pain and die in terror?
Do you wish this, Mortal? A voice, laced with power, like a thousand people of all ages and genders boomed.
Is that the Sprenfarther? Nathan thought in awe.
No. There was no way the Sprenfather was speaking to him personally. No, I must just be dreaming. Aloud he answered. “Can you think of any reason to live in constant pain, knowing that when you die it will be in terror, Voice?”
You are certain of this? The Voice asked in an expectant tone.
“Yes…” Nathan said, slightly less sure of his answer. Maybe this is my subconscious telling me to keep living? Maybe I shouldn't-
Thrice heard and witnessed. The Voice boomed in a somewhat chastising tone. Your soul is forfeit.
“Wait wha-” Nathan's voice was crushed before it could exit his throat. It felt like there was immense pressure, crushing him from all directions. An arm reached towards him from a direction that twisted his mind. The arm was forged so densely of pure energy that Nathan, even with his horrible magic sense, was blinded by it. Nathan blacked out.
When he came to, a few seconds later, the arm reached in a direction that was not forward, to the side, or up, and pulled a fist full of something out. Nathan vaguely recognized through the immense pain that they were the pieces that broke off of his soul.
The arm clenched its fist, crushing the shards, and sprinkled the pieces, now the same size as the first shard that had broken off, where the hole in the statue would have been. They had lost about half of their mass, but Nathan blacked out with pain before he could notice.
When he came to, a few seconds later, the arm grabbed something from that strange direction. It shoved a fist sized ball of energy into Nathan's chest–a spren–right where the hole in his soul should have been. The shards were shoved around the spren and tore at the edges of his soul wound.
Nathan Blacked again.