Trace limped out through the palace gates bloody, bruised, and half-bent. His nose still throbbed from the Level Five's last swing, his lip was bleeding, and blood had dried stiff across his collar. Every step rattled pain through his shin where the bone had broken and healed that morning. His ribs ached like splintered boards. He wasn't sure which hurt worse: the bruises or the pride.

  The guards at the gate smirked as he passed but said nothing. Their silence stung sharper than jeers would have. He’d been nothing but spectacle in the yard, and now he was free to limp off like discarded trash.

  He rubbed his dog tags, cool against his throat, then swore under his breath when he noticed his fingers shaking. It wasn’t just the beatdown. There was a thin buzz under his skin like bad wiring behind a wall.

  That’s the joke, isn’t it? Drag me here, beat me bloody, send me limping into the street like a carnival act. Some champion.

  He forced himself down the steps.

  Vaeltharion spread out beneath the palace like two worlds stitched uneasily together.

  The upper city was all stone and silence. Carriages rolled smoothly along clean roads. Shops gleamed with polished glass and silver filigree. Nobles in embroidered cloaks strolled past without so much as a glance, as if the dirt of the lower classes might leap onto their boots if they looked too long.

  Trace walked among them, his scuffed Salomons and travel-worn leather drawing stares, blood drying in black streaks down one sleeve. The palace loomed behind him, its walls shining like a crown on the hill, but here in the upper streets, everything felt lifeless.

  “Rich neighborhood where nobody waves,” he whispered to himself.

  A pair of children spotted him and whispered to their nursemaid. She dragged them along faster, eyes fixed on the ground as though even eye contact with him might invite scandal. Trace’s jaw tightened. Back home, people used to at least nod at a stranger. Here, I’m a disease.

  His heart climbed a notch for no good reason. He took a breath and tasted copper. Easy. You’ve had worse days and worse nights. His hands wouldn’t take the hint. The tremor hung on, small but insistent, and the sweat starting along his hairline didn’t match the cool shade of these clean streets.

  The road sloped down, and the world shifted. Stone gave way to cobble, cobble to packed dirt. The air thickened with spice and smoke, sweat and iron. Voices collided. Hawkers shouted over the children’s laughter while merchants haggled with steady determination. Shops leaned against one another like drunkards. Inns spilled music into the street.

  Trace slowed and let the noise wash over him. He let it be louder than the place in his head replaying the yard, Bran’s sharp corrections, the Level Five’s knuckles drumming bone, the nobles’ quiet delight. The city split matched the split in him: tidy on the surface somewhere up there, raw and real down here where people bled in the open and didn’t pretend not to.

  “Now this feels like life.”

  His stomach pulled him to a food cart where a man grilled skewers of meat over a smoky brazier. The smell was glorious: fat sizzling, smoke curling. Trace’s mouth watered despite the ache in his jaw. His hands steadied for the space of one breath and then jittered again, eager and angry both.

  “Two coppers,” the vendor said.

  Trace reached into his bracelet, pulled out the first coin that shimmered to hand: gold.

  The man’s eyes bulged. “By the gods, I can’t break that!”

  Trace frowned at the coin. “What? It’s real.”

  “Course it’s real!” the man sputtered. “That’s a month’s wages, and you want a stick of pork belly. Use your bracelet to break it down!”

  Trace squinted. “Break it down?”

  “Drag it, boy! Think silver, then copper!”

  He tried. Nothing. Tried again—this time the System blinked across his vision:

  [Currency Conversion Unlocked]

  The gold shimmered, splitting into five silver coins and a neat stack of coppers. Trace grinned and flicked two coppers onto the counter.

  “Better?”

  The man sagged in relief. “Much. Don’t flash gold down here unless you’re begging to be robbed.” He squinted at Trace’s boots and bracelet. “Upper city doesn’t like you, does it? Too stiff, too clean. Down here you’ll find the actual city. Taverns, smithies, brothels, every trade you can name. Upper city has the coin, but lower city has the life.”

  He handed Trace the skewer.

  Trace bit the skewer. Grease ran hot down his chin, salt and smoke cutting through the blood in his mouth. The first chew was heaven. The second hit wrong. His gut knotted, and a wave of nausea climbed like a bad elevator. He breathed through it and took another bite just to prove a point.

  “Best food’s always on a stick.”

  The vendor smirked. “So long as you don’t mind wondering which beast it used to be.”

  Trace huffed a laugh. “I’m a snake eater. I’ve eaten worse.”

  The man blinked. “Snakes, eh? Careful with that. Most are poisonous if you don’t gut ’em right. Kill more fools than they feed.”

  Trace waved it off with a weary shake. “…Never mind.”

  He lingered at the cart longer than he meant to, watching the churn of the lower streets. It wasn’t order, but it was honest. He’d take that over palace courtiers and their poisoned goblets any day.

  “Bran’s school?” he asked at last.

  The man pointed down a narrow lane. “Bran’s School of Champions. He named it himself. Trained king’s guard and pit fighters in his day. Hard bastard. Breaks more bones than he fixes, but the ones that crawl out stronger? Worth their weight in silver. Follow the shouting. If he’s not screaming at someone, he’s probably asleep.”

  Trace paid for a second skewer and chewed as he walked. The meat sat better once his legs were moving. The tremor eased, then came back in a new place: his forearms, his tongue. He swallowed, and his mouth felt like cotton. Haven’t gone this long dry in years—a thought he tried to outrun and couldn’t.

  The alleys narrowed as he followed the sound. Buildings sagged against each other like tired drunks. Smoke leaked from chimneys. He spotted a brothel tucked under a hanging lantern, curtains so filthy they looked like mildew, a woman with half-rouged lips waving from the doorway with the dead-eyed stare of someone who’d rather be anywhere else. Trace’s gaze skittered off quickly, his stomach souring.

  An argument cracked somewhere behind a shutter. Farther on, a street preacher raved at the crowd, voice raw. He shouted of fields turned to ash where Dominion boots had walked, of black-armored men who harvest lives in silence. He called names into the street: Nolan Vey, ranger of the Marsh Guard, struck down when the Dominion pushed north, and families still waiting at kitchen tables for sons who never returned. Most hurried past, but his words clung like smoke.

  At last, he found it: a warped sign dangling from one chain, paint faded to a ghost of letters. What should have read “Bran’s School of Champions” now sagged in ruin:

  “B an’s Scho l f Champi ns.”

  Trace let out a rough chuckle. “Yeah, that tracks.”

  The door exploded outward.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  A young man flew through it, hit the dirt, and rolled in a heap. His nose was bleeding. His tunic was half ripped from his shoulder.

  From inside, a voice like grinding stone bellowed, “If you can’t block with your arms, block with your damn face! Lesson over!”

  The boy groaned, staggered up, and stumbled away.

  Trace stood a long breath longer than a man needed to. Sweat ticked down his spine. It wasn't hot out here, not really. He could almost feel Bran's shadow spilling through the doorway, a shape made of corrections and bruises. He listened to the rhythm of fists on pads inside and remembered Ranger mornings that started before dawn, the taste of metal at the back of his throat, the way hands stopped shaking after the first beer.

  He eyed the broken sign and rubbed his sore ribs. “Yeah… maybe I’ll wait for my beating tomorrow.”

  Then he turned his back on Bran’s academy and kept walking.

  The lower city stayed alive past dark. Smithies worked late, their sparks spilling into narrow alleys while street preachers warned of Dominion advances. Nearby, two kids practiced sword work with wooden sticks. Trace kept moving, head down, letting the chaos breathe around him.

  His pulse refused to settle. A thin tremor rode his fingers. He tucked his hands into his armpits to quiet it and looked like he was hugging himself. Get a drink, steady up. The thought came like muscle memory. Just one to take the edge off. He swallowed. The dry ache in the back of his mouth replied yes, and his brain said, you already tried that and the System laughed.

  That’s when he found it: a squat timber building wedged between two crooked shops. Its sign swung lazily, creaking on rusted chains. The Hollow Log.

  Trace chuckled. “Back home, every bar off a dirt road had a name like this. Usually ended in a fight or a shotgun wedding.”

  Inside, the air was thick with stew and smoke, heavy with the press of bodies and iron. Adventurers crowded tables, dice clattered across wood, and someone butchered a tune on a lute. Rough, alive, and absolutely not the palace. Trace liked it instantly. The noise flattened the nervous shake in him by half. The other half clung on out of spite.

  Behind the bar stood a broad man with half an ear missing, polishing a mug that hadn’t been clean in years. He glanced up once, then said flatly, “How long you staying?”

  Trace thought of the castle guards, Bran’s door, and his busted ribs. “Let’s start with a week. If I live that long.”

  “Three silvers,” the man said. “Eat, drink, pass out upstairs. Don’t bleed on my tables.”

  Trace slid the coins across. “Friendly service. Feels like home already.”

  The man scooped them up, unimpressed. “Room’s yours for the week. Name’s Ephram Dunn. Most folks call me One-Ear. Don’t try to be clever about it.”

  Trace’s smirk widened. “Wouldn’t dream of it. You’d only hear half the joke.”

  For the first time, One-Ear snorted, then went back to polishing.

  The room tilted a degree and then righted. Trace put a palm flat on the bar until the floor remembered to be a floor. He licked dry lips. “Ale.”

  One-Ear filled a mug with something brown that smelled like bread and apology. Trace carried it to a corner table and wrapped both hands around it partly for warmth, partly so nobody could see the small shake.

  He waited for the ale to do its job. It never came.

  Instead, the System whispered coldly:

  [Alcohol Detected: Neutralized. Mild Stimulant Applied.]

  Trace scowled. The buzz he’d built his evenings around sprouted and then got yanked up by the roots. The tremor in his hands smoothed for a heartbeat, then came back worse, a fretful, hungry twitch. His heart jumped two steps ahead of his breathing.

  “This isn’t drinking,” he murmured. “This is like pounding energy drinks until your teeth hum.”

  He gripped the mug tighter, anger blooming in his chest. The one habit he had left, the one ritual that still felt like home, and the System had stolen it from him. For a second he thought he might hurl the mug across the room just to hear it shatter. Instead, he set it down hard enough that the table rattled.

  A man at the next table laughed and jerked his thumb toward the stairwell in the corner. A crooked sign hung above it, painted in flaking green: “Shady Pine.”

  Trace raised a brow. “Figures.”

  He followed the man down the narrow steps into the basement. The air grew thicker, smoky, heavy with spilled ale and pipeweed. A circle of rough tables waited in the gloom, dice already clattering, coins piling high. The close heat lit sweat along his ribs. His mouth was too dry again. He rolled his shoulders until the itch under his skin shifted spots.

  The rules were simple: two dice, tavern-style. Sevens and elevens paid even. Snake eyes lost you everything. Boxcars—double sixes—hit like a thunderclap, biggest win on the board. Anything else set a “point”: roll it again before a seven and you took the pot.

  Trace’s lips twitched. “Seven or eleven. Different world, same odds.”

  He bought in. The cubes felt heavier than they ought to. His fingers wanted to tremble in front of strangers. He locked his wrists to keep it small. First throw: seven. Cheers, easy win. Second throw: eleven. More coins clattered his way. The third, a nine—a point set.

  When he reached for the dice again, a narrow-eyed man across the circle watched his hands instead of his face. Trace rolled, hit the nine, stacked the winnings. By the fifth round he’d doubled his purse. By the seventh, he had the entire basement leaning in, half drunk and cursing as Trace raked their coins without breaking a sweat.

  “Lucky hands,” the narrow-eyed man grumbled. Not friendly.

  Trace kept his voice steady. “Unlucky mouth.” He smirked like his pulse wasn’t tripping.

  His pulse hammered hard enough to feel in his temples.

  Trace leaned back, calm as his opponents slurred into their mugs. “Back home we called it betting the field—sixteen ways to win, twenty to lose. I’d take those odds all day. But this? This is better.”

  Nobody understood the words, but they understood the smirk as he scooped up the pot.

  “Let me see those dice,” Narrow-Eyes growled, reaching.

  Trace tilted them into his palm, then opened his hand. “Be my guest.”

  The man turned them over, found nothing, and frowned deeper. The tremor in Trace’s fingers had settled to a hum. He could feel the want, the old slide from buzz to soft, like a shadow on the wall. Nothing met it. The System’s neat little stimulant kept him right on the wrong side of calm.

  “Play nice,” a voice rumbled from the stairs. One-Ear filled the doorway without hurrying. “Or take it to the alley.”

  Narrow-Eyes made a show of good humor and shoved the dice back. The table breathed again. The game moved on, new players shouldering in where old ones sulked out. Trace kept winning with cold hands that belonged to a man who used to drink to keep those same hands from shaking.

  By the third pot, a headache had started, a thin line from the back of his skull to the bridge of his nose. He rolled his neck. The bones cracked, but the headache didn’t. He took a deep breath and tasted cellar and damp and a sweetness that lived in spilled ale and never dried. He wanted that sweetness with a want that belonged in another life.

  Trace shoved the winnings into his bracelet and pushed back from the table.

  He climbed out of the smoke-thick basement into the tavern above. Laughter, music, and the stench of spilled ale washed over him again. He took one last mug, scowled at its useless bite, and made for the stairs to his room.

  The barmaid intercepted him on the steps. Freckles, bright eyes, and a voice that never seemed to pause for breath.

  "Your room's the third door on the left," she chirped. "I'm Bree. Don’t lick the walls—they’re still volatile. And if your pillow smells like brimstone, that's just from my boyfriend’s experiments."

  Trace raised a brow. “…Your boyfriend?”

  She smiled proudly. “Percival Bartholomew Ignatius Haselhoffenucker von Cindergraft the Third, Junior.” She sighed it in one breath like it was the finest jewel in her mouth.

  Trace stared. “That’s a name.”

  “Isn’t it? He says we’re destined. Or cursed. Same thing, really. He’s an alchemist, you know—brilliant. Dangerous, but brilliant.”

  She gave a cheerful wave and skipped off down the hall, leaving Trace standing dumbfounded in the shadow of his own headache.

  “What the hell kind of place is this?” he growled.

  The room was small but serviceable: straw mattress, warped dresser, a single shuttered window. He dropped his bracelet and boots by the bed and let himself collapse for an hour’s nap. His limbs felt like wire pulled too tight. Sleep slid away every time it got near, like a fish refusing the hook. He dozed, started awake, dozed again—each waking already sweaty.

  When he gave up on the bed, he sat on the floor with his back to the frame and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until he saw stars. The pressure helped. So did the breath he forced in and out until it obeyed a count.

  Later, he tried the common room again. He lasted three swallows into another useless mug before the System’s message crawled across his vision a second time, smug as a clerk.

  [Alcohol Detected: Neutralized. Mild Stimulant Applied.]

  “Yeah,” he said flatly. “I got it the first time.”

  The jitter in him rose to a fizz, then to a buzz, then to an itch he couldn’t scratch. He set the mug down and stood fast enough to make the table legs squeal. A couple at the next table glanced over. He gave them nothing to look at and headed for the stairs.

  By the time he climbed back up, he wasn't drunk. He was restless. Muscles twitching like he'd swallowed a hive of bees. His hands shook, and a pulse hammered in his ears, and together they made a harmony you couldn't sleep to. He shut the door and stared at the lock, thin and pitiful.

  Training kicked in. He shoved the little dresser in front of the door. Jammed a chair under the handle. Checked the shutters twice, then wedged a splinter of wood through the latch. He walked the perimeter as if the room had corners he hadn’t noticed yet. He cracked the window for air, closed it when the night smells came in too loud, opened it again because the air inside tasted like he’d already breathed it.

  Only then did he sit on the edge of the straw mattress, bottle resting at his side. His hands found the cap and twisted it off out of habit. He held the bottle under his nose and inhaled, eyes closed. Nothing. Just the flat taste of grain alcohol that promised nothing.

  “Trust no one,” he whispered—not sure if he meant the city, the king, or the System.

  He lay back and stared at the beams overhead. The wood had patterns like maps of rivers in a country he'd never see. He tried to follow one with his eyes until sleep snuck up. The pattern blurred and his lids drooped. Then his calf muscle jumped hard enough to yank him awake again. He swore softly and rolled to his side.

  His hands ached with the wanting—the need for silence where the noise lived. There was nothing left in the world that would do it for him.

  So do it yourself.

  He let the breath count climb and fall, laid one palm on his chest to measure the beat, and waited for the worst of it to pass.

  “Tomorrow,” he said to the ceiling. “Bran’s school.”

  He swallowed, tasted sawdust. “Can’t be worse than today… right?”

  Sleep came slowly, left early, and didn’t apologize. But it came. And when it did, it wasn’t the bottle that helped him get there. It was the counting.