I followed my father from the creche. It wasn’t the first time I had left the creche—I had sneaked out to look at the unusual surroundings of my new world multiple times—but I had never gone very far.

  This time, I was being led away from the tent I grew up in, away from the tribe as a whole, further inland. And I wasn’t the only one.

  Since Uli were monestrous, all the boys of my cohort across the other creches had come of age today, and their fathers were leading them away from the sea as well. I glanced around at the other males of the tribe, both coming of age and grown.

  My father was already intimidating, but with more of a basis of comparison: Uli were downright frightening.

  As it turned out, my father wasn’t even a particularly big specimen when it came to Uli, or at least the other Uli of our tribe. He was actually on the smaller end, with the largest of them re-contextualizing my understanding of our species physiology. Some of the bigger ones I saw were over a head taller than my father and bulging with even more muscle, and they were absolutely covered in those tribal tattoos.

  The children being led by these men ran the gamut of expressions: fear, excitement, confusion, anticipation. My own face probably reflected my curiosity, as my father decided to answer an unspoken question.

  “Today is the ritual of First Blood,” Daru said. “You boys of age will be tested, and those that succeed will begin to unlock their power.”

  Testing and success implied that there would be the potential for associated failure. Given the fact that it seemed like male and female Uli were born in a fairly even ratio, but adult males each had multiple female mates, I suspected there wasn’t room for failures within the tribe.

  As the ocean and our tribe receded from view, we came upon an area cleared of scrub and large stone. The makeshift arena was surrounded by adolescent male Uli. These were, presumably, the boys who had passed their First Blood rituals, but weren’t of an age to claim a mate and have progeny of their own, yet. They were in various stages of teenage growth, and I noticed they all had at least the beginnings of the tribal tattoo, with the older boys having an increasing spread of the characters carved into them.

  It wasn’t the first time I had seen teenage male Uli, as they sometimes were present around the creche. They were often tasked with jobs like delivering the meat from the hunt to the creches, or on guard watch, or just doing physical labor for the tribe. These were the boys my mothers worried about when I sneaked out—the fully grown men were rarely seen around the creches—but I had never seen all the young males of the tribe together before.

  I quickly scanned the teenagers, but didn’t see Bar-al Uqami present. For that matter, I didn’t particularly recognize any of the boys. All my past brothers, who had graduated from our creche over the years, were missing. I looked up at Daru-an Bauq, who was watching me study the crowd.

  “I have high hopes for you,” he said simply.

  When all of us were gathered, the fathers stood in a circle as an inner ring to the larger circle of teenagers, with their selected sons before them. Then, the largest Uli, who was absolutely covered in the tattoos, stepped forward and raised his four arms.

  “My tribe,” the Uli—clearly the chief or something like it—began. “We once again gather to bear witness to those that will join our tribe as Bloodied.”

  As the chief spoke, I split my focus, noticing some looks passing between the boys coming of age and the teens. Some of them clearly knew each other, and more than just in passing or from time as children together in the creche.

  The teenagers I had seen growing up hadn’t paid me or my siblings any mind, and in fact had been quite dismissive. I realized, now, that most creches probably received deliveries and got labor aid from the teenagers who graduated from those creches, allowing the young children to stay somewhat in touch with them as they grew up—and probably gain insight into events like this First Blood ritual. If Daru’s children rarely passed the ritual, to the point where I didn’t recognize any of the teenagers, our deliveries and labor had likely been done by the sons of other males, as part of the tribe, but not those who felt any need to help beyond their duty.

  So some of these boys would be more prepared for this ritual, in terms of planning and practice. Failure led to a failure feedback loop, and success begot additional success. Still, I had gained [Grappling] on my own, and no amount of childhood preparation could match an entire lifetime of stat points.

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  Given what I saw and the conclusions I could draw, the purely physical component of this ritual was not likely to be the difficult part for me.

  “Who would like to go first?” the chief asked, at the end of his speech.

  Might as well get it over with, I thought with a frown, and stepped forward. “I will.”

  A slight murmur ran through some of the crowd, and there was even a subdued chuckle. Okay, rude. Some of the fathers whispered something to their sons, but I ignored that, and glanced back at Daru to catch the look of surprise that had passed over his face. He shook it off quickly, and gave me a firm nod.

  “And the challenger—”

  Several boys were already stepping forward, but one had the gall to interrupt the chief verbally as well. “I will challenge!”

  I glanced over at the challenger. His father was a bigger Uli, and the boy had inherited some of that. Apparently an “easy” win was more important in this ritual than the honor of a fair fight, and a fight was clearly what this was shaping up to be.

  In retrospect, it was no wonder why my mothers had allowed so much play wrestling and competition among the boys. It wasn’t explicitly stated as such—and perhaps it should have been, to better prepare us—but it was all practice for this day.

  We stepped up to each other in the center of the ring of spectators. The boy stood a bit taller than me, but not significantly so, and I was arguably more muscled; my Brawn had helped me grow extremely well given the limits of my genetics.

  I had no idea what the customs were, but introducing myself seemed like the right thing to do.

  “Mali-iq Rumi,” I said.

  The boy looked surprised for a moment, then confused, then finally shrugged. “Uqar-il Roru.”

  When the chief called the start of the fight, he came at me in full-force.

  Unlike the play wrestling or even the time I had incited Bar to come at me seriously, Uqar held absolutely nothing back. Tusks bared and eyes focused, he grabbed at me with the full intent to hurt me. Unfortunately for Uqar, as he attempted to get control of my arms, he hit the brick wall that was my 53 Brawn.

  There was a flash of panic in his eyes when his initial assault failed entirely, and for a moment, I allowed myself to pity the boy. This wasn’t his fault. He, like I, had been born into these circumstances, and there was little either of us could do about it. Allowing him to win wasn’t an option—I had decided to move forward intentionally in my lives, living them fully come what may, rather than throw them away—so I decided to keep it short.

  I pivoted, broke his hold, then grabbed him in response, hurling him to the ground with enough force to wind him and coming down on him to pin him in place. He bucked under me, trying to dislodge me, so I made a fist and jabbed him in the pebbly leather of his ursine nose, causing his head to snap back into the ground. His eyes were dazed as a bit of blood began to trickle from his nostrils.

  Uqar was fully beaten, but as the rushing blood in my ears faded, I tuned back in to the words of the men circled around us.

  “First blood!” the chanted in unison. “First blood! First blood!”

  I looked around, and saw even the boy’s father was shouting it alongside the others.

  When I turned to look at the chief, he tossed something towards me, which landed in the dirt by my side. I reached down and picked it up, then took in the intricately carved item.

  The ritualistic dagger was ivory, presumably carved from the tusk of some large beast. Its edges weren’t particularly sharp—no good as a tool for carving up meat—but it was honed to a vicious point. It was enough to trigger my [Swordsmanship]’s minor carryover effect.

  I closed my eyes for a moment. I had expected this, as everything leading up to it had suggested as much, but I still hoped it wouldn’t be the case. Expulsion from the tribe might not actually be any better for the loser, since how would a boy barely out of childhood survive on his own, but pedicide by fellow child was about the most vicious and horrible possible way this could play out.

  This would not be the first time I had needed to kill, in my lives. As lord of Nialdan, I had executed some criminals, but at least those people were guilty of something. Even then, I wasn’t a complete stranger to it; I could vaguely recall needing to kill in the latter half of my life on Earth, first due to war, and later, for the diminishing resources and ongoing survival.

  Still, I was sure this moment would be the worst thing I had ever done. Even telling myself it was normal in the context of this world and society, and the fact that clearly each and every boy present was about to be killed or become a killer, did little to alleviate that weight in my chest. If I said no, I would surely be killed myself, and I had vowed off self-sacrifice in order to gain as much as I could from my lives.

  “Sorry, Uqar,” I said softly to the dazed boy beneath me. “I hope your next life is a peaceful one in a kinder world.”

  I plunged the ivory dagger into the boy’s upper chest, into his heart, to the raucous cheers of the grown men around me. As I looked away from the dying child, I saw the open pride on my father’s face.

  Figuring that would be the end of it, I tried to release the dagger so I could stand up and walk away, but I found I couldn’t quite let go. Something in my own chest was reacting to the killing blow. I felt something start to shift inside of me, responding to the act of violence, and felt something similarly shift within Uqar as he died beneath me.

  Glowing red energy began to seep from Uqar, through the dagger connecting us, and into me, as my Blood began to thunder in my ears. It swelled, responding to the killing, stealing the strength from my victim. Heat blossomed in me, a bit like the first time I concentrated mana in myself as Tovar but significantly more violent, and I screamed out in pain as my skin began to flush red.

  I stayed conscious just long enough to see the black letters begin to appear on my chest to mark me with the source of this stolen power: the name Uqar-il Roru carved into the skin above my heart, his Blood’s final reminder of who I had taken it from.