An hour later, a man in plain clothes shouldered the door open slowly, holding a stack of papers in his hands. He wore thick glasses and used far too much gel in his hair, giving it a sheen like oiled leather and a pungent smell that wafted across the room. Grant was, more than anything, just surprised he hadn’t been forgotten. His pants were stained with dried blood and the splinters were still in his thighs.

  “Private Leeman,” the man said with all too much cheer, jogging the papers on his knee. “I’m going to need you to sign these forms. Do you know your letters?”

  Grant nodded.

  “That makes things easier. So, here’s the story. You were overcome with grief after your historically low Point total. You used a knife you had taken from the mess hall to try and cut your wrists. Captain Nickel stepped in at the last moment and pulled it from your hands. This is not a negotiation, so I suggest you sign now before they change their minds.”

  He shrugged and accepted the papers, then sloppily signed them, using his palm as a table. He didn’t care in the slightest what the damn story was. The man took them back and confirmed that Grant had written something close enough to his name. “Accordingly, we are going to hold you overnight for observation. You must understand that this is mercy of the highest order.”

  Grant frowned. “Why don’t you just make me disappear?”

  “That… was considered, admittedly,” he said after a moment of hesitation. “However, we need you to be seen by the other recruits. Gossipers have a way, you see, of embellishing the stories they tell, and rumors grow like weeds in an untended garden. With an appropriate explanation,” he said, gesturing toward the papers again, “we can quell any well before they start. But one about you being whisked away and disappearing after receiving the lowest Point count in Campaign history? That could grow out of control quickly.”

  Seconds passed as Grant stared at the man incredulously.

  Then he burst into laughter.

  “Are you saying that you’re afraid of rumors? The Crown and nobility, with all the power in the Empire, with tens of thousands of Store-enhanced former Campaigners, are threatened by whispers about an 18-year-old inn worker with 487 points?”

  The man opened his mouth to answer, but Grant only laughed harder, slapping his knee and wincing as he re-opened his cuts.

  “Sorry, sorry. Please, tell me about these horrifying rumors.”

  The man adjusted his glasses. “For all the wrong reasons, you are currently the talk of Athemore. You don’t seem to understand the mess you’ve caused, but receiving 487 thousand starting Points was, according to our calculations, statistically more likely than receiving 487. We have never even seen someone with under 5,000.”

  “Lucky me,” Grant muttered.

  The man paid the interruption no mind. “Many of the recruits believe that we’re covering something up, which we admittedly are, although it isn’t what they think. If your little Identify trick got out, it could disrupt the balance of power in the Empire.”

  “And what’s to stop me from spilling my little secret to everyone?” Grant asked, leaning forward and resting his chin on his fists, producing the most wicked grin he could. “You’re going to have to let me go eventually, right?”

  The man looked at Grant like he would a child who spilled a full glass of milk on a rug. “Go right ahead. Just keep in mind that Dan Nerelot, Edem Nerelot, Lira Bradford, Roland Kokote, and Ferdinand Ayers may value their lives more than you currently value your own.”

  Grant was gripping his dagger before the man had finished his sentence. He wrapped it in his palm for a few seconds, glaring and grinding his teeth, then Dismissed it. Not yet, he thought.

  “A wise decision,” the man said, nodding at Grant’s hand. “Now, I’m going to leave this room. A Healer will be in shortly. Then you will be brought food and drink.” He moved toward the side wall, sliding back a white panel to reveal a floor-to-ceiling window. “There will be fireworks tonight. I’d tell you to enjoy them, but unfortunately they’ll be on the opposite side of the building.” He stopped, glancing back to give him one more smirk. “I don’t take it you’re in a festive mood anyway.”

  Grant kept his eyes on the shattered remains of the table.

  “We won’t be seeing each other again,” the man said, ending the conversation.

  You had better hope not. He examined the man’s features one more time, taking in every detail. He would have cast Identify, but Abigail had scared him off using that Skill on people.

  The man left, and the next hours went by in a blur. A Healer came in and dispassionately Healed his wounds, the splinters tickling as they were pushed out by his closing skin. A servant brought a new table and a plate of food which Grant didn’t touch. Another servant provided him with a change of clothes, and he used them as a pillow to rest his head on.

  In the night, he was awoken by fireworks and cheering. The Campaign Festival had begun. How were his friends spending it? Were they watching the fireworks? Did they even remember Grant now?

  It would be better if they forgot.

  He stood up and gazed out the window, seeing only colorful walls and flashes of light reflected against them, and sighed. At least the voice was there to keep him company.

  Grant stretched out on the floor. Within minutes, he was snoring softly.

  ***

  At 5:30am, music blared, but as usual, Grant was already awake. He sat cross-legged on the floor, practicing breathing exercises with his eyes closed. It didn’t seem much use now, but the routine felt right.

  The door creaked open. Grant cracked an eye open to find a new face. It belonged to a plain-looking younger soldier of about 25 years, if he had to guess. The man must have drawn the short straw.

  “Yes?” Grant asked.

  “I’m here to escort you to the mess hall.”

  “At your leisure, then.” Grant took one last glance around the room as he stood. His torn and bloodied clothes were in a messy heap in the corner, bloody splinters still on the floor. Someone else could pick them up and dispose of them. It was the least they could do.

  They left the room behind and strode down a white hall. The man escorting him kept pulling ahead, stopping, and looking back impatiently as Grant fell behind, but Grant found that he didn’t much care. The last month—no, the last twelve years of his life—had been spent rushing from place to place. He lived his life on other people’s time, catering to other people’s convenience. The time alone in the room had provided him little in terms of hope, but much clarity.

  Whatever he did now, it no longer mattered. In two days, he would depart from Lyria, and his fate after that was in the Goddess’s hands.

  The Goddess, whom the Priestess said may have damned Grant. It was almost a freeing sensation. He wondered if condemned men thought the same when they heard the click of the hangman’s switch.

  He arrived at the mess hall to find it full. His escort scurried away the moment he walked through the doors. Everyone quieted, staring at him as he drifted between the tables. Amused by the attention, he briefly imagined a picture of himself the history books, displaying the man who got 487 Points. Between the selected and the volunteers, there had been nearly 150,000 recruits from Evenon alone since the First Campaign, and his name stood at the very bottom of the list.

  That had to count for something.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Grant found his usual table. After he sat, conversation at the other tables gradually picked up again. Maybe the Evenonian military was exaggerating the impact of the rumors. Nobody seemed concerned about the future first casualty of the Sixth Campaign.

  His friends stared at him silently, expecting a story. Instead, Grant wrapped bacon and eggs in a piece of toast, folded it, and took a bite.

  His eyes rolled back. “I’m going to miss that,” he moaned.

  Roland, Ayers, and Lira looked at each other. It was Roland who spoke first.

  “You better now? We heard you…” he made a cutting motion on his wrist.

  “Me? Never better. Oh, do you mean how I got by far the lowest Points ever and was then abducted by that shit eater? Yes. Still, never better.”

  Ayers recoiled at Grant’s casual perversity, and Lira scrunched her face.

  “No, you guys aren’t seeing my grand plan. With only 487 Points, who’s going to bother coming after—”

  The words had left his mouth before he bothered to think about anyone but himself, and he wanted to slap himself for his carelessness. Lira’s facial expression had not changed, but Roland and Ayers winced.

  “I’m sorry,” Grant said, head down and shoulders slumped.

  Lira’s gaze bounced between the men. “What? Me?”

  The table was as silent as a funeral. Grant spent the time sorting through his emotions. His friends had been threatened by officers, and Lira was in the most imminent danger. Nearly 25,000 Points was a tempting bounty for such an easy target.

  Ayers was the one who broke it to her. “Lira, you were paying attention during the Reading Ceremony, right? Even the Emperor’s children took notice of you.”

  “Oh, that?” She laughed, covering her mouth with a hand. “I’ve been avoiding nobles, merchants, lowly guardsmen, and everything in between since I was seven. They couldn’t even catch me in a small town. They’ll have no chance on an entire continent.”

  Grant leaned forward. “This time they’ll have Classes. Skills. Spells. Items,” he whispered.

  “I will too,” she said, settling the matter. “Oh, and that story they gave us about the knife from the mess hall? They could have at least tried to make it believable. You have that Bound dagger, don’t you?” She picked up a butter knife and waved it around. “Why would you carry one of these dull things?”

  Grant kept his mouth shut. There was no way of telling who was listening, and he wasn’t sure how much he could say. Lira was clearly trying to push the conversation away from her own Points, but he was tired of being the center of attention. He deflected the conversation back toward her.

  “What did you mean when you said you’ve been avoiding them?”

  Lira sat on the question. She leaned back and stared at the ceiling as she mulled over it. “I was born poor. Let’s just say I refused to stay poor.”

  Grant and Ayers frowned.

  “She’s talking about thievery,” said Roland through a mouth full of food, loudly enough to draw attention from other tables. Grant looked around nervously, awkwardly smiling back at them.

  Lira just shrugged. “They took it from someone else in one way or another.”

  Grant had never stolen anything. The orphanage fed him poorly, but they fed him. Mr. Fletcher, for all his faults, also gave Grant two meals a day. He’d always considered the risk to be too great for the reward, especially when the risk was a beating at best.

  “There’s honor in thievery,” announced Roland, earning a sideways look from Ayers. He scratched his beard. “People who don’t protect their belongings don’t appreciate them, and people who don’t appreciate them don’t deserve them. As long as you never steal from a friend or ally, it’s a legitimate trade.”

  Lira pointed at the large man with the crust of a piece of bread. “What he said.”

  Grant stroked his chin. Stealing was a crime, but there was room for discretion in its enforcement. A nobleman could snatch a sausage roll from a beggar’s hand and feed it to his hound in front of the captain of the guard, but an orphan would lose a finger over a loaf of bread.

  That is, if he got caught, and Lira appeared to be missing no body parts. Grant’s eyes had settled on her face. Her natural dexterity and grace made much more sense suddenly. Could this be the solution to his problem? Just because he couldn’t buy a powerful Artifact with Points didn’t mean he couldn’t get one through other means.

  “What?” asked Lira.

  He set his jaw. “Can you teach me?”

  ***

  The morning sun had begun to poke its head over the low walls of the courtyard when they arrived. The grass gave off the smell of being freshly cut, although Grant had never seen any workers maintaining it. Most of the city was still sleeping off the drink from the previous night, but Grant, Roland, and Ayers sat on a stone bench, their undivided attention on Lira.

  “For the record, I do not approve of this, and I am only here to learn how to protect myself from thieves,” Ayers mumbled.

  “Yes, you’ve already made that clear,” said Lira with her hands on her hips. “Now, my uncle always said that there were two types of thieves: skilled and dead. For example, if I, a fair lady, were to be caught taking something from a big strong man like Ayers…” She pulled a locket from her pocket and dangled it by its chain.

  The spearman spun about in alarm, patting his uniform. “Hey!”

  She tossed it back to him. “He could skewer me in a heartbeat.”

  Ayers caught it and grumbled to himself as he tied the chain around his belt buckle, carefully making multiple loops.

  Roland casually stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  “I don’t steal pocket lint,” Lira said haughtily, earning a bark of laughter from the large man.

  Grant rubbed his eyes. He could be given ten tries to guess when she had taken it and still fail to find the answer.

  “Now, the first rule of thievery is ‘don’t get caught.’ The remaining rules are mostly just more specific principles of the same idea. For example, Ayers, how did I take your locket?”

  The man put his hand on the chain, still clearly unnerved by how easily she got her hands on it. “Pickpocketing?”

  “Yes, that’s correct. To be more precise, when you stood up at the table, I swiped it from your side pocket. Now, how was I able to avoid notice?”

  Roland’s hand shot up. “This isn’t a classroom,” Lira said. “Goddess knows we’ve had enough of those these past weeks. Speak.”

  He pointed at her fingers. “Your hands are small.” He lifted a hand the size of a bear paw. White scars covered every inch, standing out on his dark skin. “Wouldn’t work for me.”

  Lira nodded with a smile. “Yes, I played to one of my strengths.” She held her hands up at the men and spread her fingers in multiple patterns in rapid succession—her pinky finger out first, then her fingers split two and two, and then her index finger out with her other three fingers together. She repeated the rotation three times in under a second.

  Grant whistled. And I thought my Dexterity was high.

  Roland frowned at his fingers, slowly replicating her movements.

  “The first rule of thievery is to do what you’re made to do.”

  Grant raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t the first rule of thievery ‘don’t get caught’?”

  Lira ignored his question. “An old man with a cane, for example, makes an excellent thief. Why? He can’t scale a building to sneak into a second-story window, and his hands are too shaky to pick a lock, but he’s nigh invisible. Naturally, the tactics he used wouldn’t be useful to a man like Roland, who stands out in any crowd.

  “Now, I would have never taken the locket if all I had to rely on was my nimble fingers. Too high a risk, too low a reward. Why did I choose that exact time?”

  The three men sat stumped until Grant decided to take a wild guess.

  “Was it because he was moving?”

  Lira cocked her head and squinted, her pale pink lips forming a straight line as she weighed his answer. “Close, but you can do better. Ayers?”

  “No idea.”

  She smiled mischievously. “Why do you two think Ayers has spent so much time with us lately?” Grant and Roland looked at each other and shrugged. Her smile grew more wicked, and she pointed at Ayers. “Every time the woman sitting behind Grant in the mess hall stands up, she sticks her bottom out, and Ayers, without fail, always takes that opportunity to admire it. I could have stolen the shirt off his back with how distracted he was.”

  The man flushed a bright shade of red as Roland and Grant folded over laughing.

  “Now, you don’t have to worry, as I won’t be telling her,” she said, pointing at his locket.

  “She’s my sister!” protested Ayers.

  Roland and Grant howled harder.

  “And you two are no better!” The men’s laughter softened to quiet chuckles, and she rolled her eyes. “Do I even have to say it? Roland, are you telling me that your interest in Geography and Scouting was purely academic? That it had nothing to do with your instructor’s—”

  “I got it!” he said, hands up in a gesture of surrender. He pointed. “Do Grant next!”

  Lira smiled with a playful sparkle in her eye. “For Grant, let’s just say I’m a much lighter sleeper than he thinks.”

  Grant went into a coughing fit as her comment knocked most of the wind out of him, and Roland’s massive hand slapping his back pushed out the rest.

  He never leered. He just looked a few times.

  Well, maybe more than a few times.

  “Anyway! This brings me to the first rule of thievery: distraction is everything. Ayers has been alert since I snagged the locket with his girlfriend—”

  “Sister.”

  “—and he would be a terrible target now. In the perfect heist, your benefactor shouldn’t even know they’ve been had until you’re long gone.”

  Roland chose that time to speak up. “Feels wrong to me.” He folded his arms across his massive chest. “Had a job a few years back. Castle siege, standard business. Ended up sacking the place. I was the first one over the wall, so I got first choice. Snatched a hunk of silver the size of my fist.”

  Grant’s eyebrows rose. That much silver must have been worth a king’s ransom.

  “Took it right in front of the Lord and Lady too. Felt honest. They raised taxes without the Crown’s go-ahead, skimming off the top. Deserved it.”

  There was a pause. Grant had to admit that for better or worse, the man had a strict code of honor.

  Lira nodded. “And that brings me back to the second first rule of thievery. You played to your strengths. You couldn’t sneak into a house through a second-story window, and those sausage fingers couldn’t unknot a rope, let alone reach into a pocket unsuspected. But grabbing a priceless trinket in front of someone’s face and making them thank you for carrying it? That’s perfect for you.” She looked Grant up and down like she was Captain Alaric judging a spear thrust. “You would have to rely on cunning and skill more than anything, and those skills can only be honed with time.”

  He almost regretted not working harder to raise his Dexterity. He had earned every gain in Wisdom that he had made, but it would only be useful for Resistances until he got his hands on a Spell.

  “Luckily, we have a golden opportunity for Grant to practice,” continued Lira.

  Grant scratched his chin. “And what would that be?”

  “What else? Tonight’s the second night of the Campaign Festival.”