The soldiers’ camp was just a few miles outside of Crossroads, but I learned that things would be packed up and we would soon be moving North again. When we did move, it was always North and slightly East. The one who had bought both myself and Igvild was a man on a singular mission, it seemed. I hoped to learn what my part in it was to be soon.

  A few weeks passed and on one gray clouded day I sat next to Igvild near one of the dozens of orderly campfires diving into a bowl of stew. I ladled out bits of meat with some of the best rye bread I had ever tasted and ruminated on what I had learned so far about Graf Leos von Kohlblud, the one who had spent 10 gold crowns on a newly Awakened Pyromancer.

  “Aye, now there’s a human with a molten piece of iron up his arse, eh lad?” Igvild somehow managed to simultaneously talk and stuff his mouth with food, which made me consider if Dwarven cheeks had perhaps been designed as special food holding pockets for these specific situations.

  “He doesn’t seem so bad,” I responded after setting down my bowl and swallowing first. My own cheeks were sallow and my disfigurement would have had me dribbling food all over myself had I tried to talk with my mouth full. Being around so many new people made me extremely self conscious of my face. “Captain Yentz says that as soon as the Graf retakes his title from his half-brother then all the Senior Officers will be made into nobles of Czakovey.” I had no idea where Czakovey was, but based upon what I had heard from the soldiers it was the country they were fighting for and what our ultimate destination was.

  Igvild chuckled and swallowed then reached over to grab a tall canteen of a liquid called Vodka, which he took a healthy swig of. I had tried some, but it had burned more than my Flame Breath. It wasn’t for me and I had given my ration of it to Igvild, which seemed to have endeared the dwarf to me further.

  “Aye, we’ll ‘ave ta see ‘bout that, eh?”

  Igvild and I had each been issued with a tent and a backpack filled with supplies consisting of a blanket, a fire starting kit (which I wouldn’t have needed had I not had the Manastop bracelet), a mess kit, a first aid kit, 4 days of trail rations and a canteen of Vodka.

  I looked over at Igvild and saw the dwarf looking towards the campfire where Captain Yentz was talking with some of the other senior officers. I was quickly learning that there was a hierarchy in the camp just as there had been at the Orphanage. At the top was the Graf von Kohlblud and General Torlack. The General being that enormous Brute who followed the Graf everywhere. Next were senior officers like Captain Yentz and the Lieutenants Valka, Smeeve and Anya.

  Lieutenant Anya was another half-blood, but a half-elf of all things. I had seen girls before, of course, but she was the most beautiful one I had ever seen. She had a long scar bisecting her face horizontally from left eye to right bottom cheek. I suppose with my own disfigurement, it endured me to her a little despite the fact she had winced when she first saw me.

  Next on the hierarchy list were sub-Captains and Sergeants and then the common soldier of which there were close to a thousand of those spread throughout the camp. At the bottom? Igvild and I, it seemed.

  “Do you think that the Graf will reward us as well?” Igvild shrugged in response to my question and chewed thoughtfully on a hunk of bread.

  “Nar, I don’t. A Nob like ‘im? Pfah! Once he gets what he wants out of us he’ll probably just send us away. Or at least me, anyway. Easterners don’t like my kind. Suits me fine. I like to keep movin’.” Igvild belched and gave a satisfied sigh as he leaned back against his pack and moved his feet closer to the fire. I shrugged and stared into the flames.

  I wasn’t really thinking too much about the future. The whole concept of a “future” was new to me. Every day at the Orphanage had been the same. Even life around the camp for the past few weeks followed a sort of routine as well. Wake up. Eat. Walk. Dig a latrine. Wash. Eat again. Then there was a ten minute period of heavily supervised time under the watchful eye of Captain Yentz so I could practice throwing Fire Bolts at a stationary target dummy. That part I looked forward to. My skill with the spell had quickly grown.

  “Say, Igvild. If you don’t mind me asking, what sort of training do they have you doing? I just blow up the same targets every day away outside the camp.” Igvild laughed.

  “Don’t really need any trainin’, lad. I’m already Level 7 and my Lockpicking Skill has been stalled at Rank 25 for a while now.” I cocked an eyebrow.

  “What does that mean? Stalled?” Igvild sighed and stretched.

  “It means I can’t seem to break past the threshold for the skill. See, skills get harder to level up when you reach certain thresholds. In the case of Lockpicking, that’s at Level 25. Takes more time and effort after that. Gotta challenge yourself more and more, so the Eye wills, ye ken?”

  “No.”

  “Well, let’s just say I’m good enough for now for this lot,” Igvild answered with a snort.

  Igvild wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and shivered. I heard a cawing sound and I looked up. There was a large Crow perched on a tent pole a short distance from mine. I could swear it was looking right at me. I shivered and not from the cold.

  Maybe that’s the mate of the one I killed? Sorry Crow, I didn’t want to do it. Well, maybe I did a little bit…

  “You want to borrow my blanket?” I asked the shivering dwarf. Igvild smiled and nodded. I grinned back and tossed him my holey, dull gray blanket. It was clearly used, but was still the nicest blanket I had ever owned.

  “Say, how come yer never cold? Your race is soft and always complainin’ it’s too hot or too cold, but you seem alright? That scrawny body o’ yers seems like it could blow away in a strong breeze!”

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

  “I have a trait called Born of Fire. It keeps me warm all the time.” Igvild sat up like he’s been stabbed in the back and he stared at me in disbelief.

  “You got a Trait already? Didn’t ye just Awaken? Wait a tic..ye got yer Bracelet on, don’t ye?” I held up my wrist to show him I still did and the look of confusion on his face both made me smile and scratch my head.

  “Is that not normal? The Manastop bracelet just takes away my ability to access Mana, right? The Trait doesn’t use Mana. I think?” Igvild shook his head and leaned forward so he could whisper.

  “Lad, if you have one o’ these annoyances on ye then ye shouldn’t have access to anything.”

  “So that means my bracelet is defective? Or maybe my Trait is special?” I leaned forward to whisper as well. I figured if Igvild was being quiet about this revelation then I should too.

  “Hmm, don’t know lad. Very interestin’.” The Dwarf rubbed his bare chin and stared at me a moment. “What other Spells and abilities do ye have? Now, understand I’m asking somethin’ personal-like, but my gut tells me ye might have some advantages ye’ll want to keep to yourself for your own sake.”

  We both looked around. It was just us at our own campfire as usual and nobody else was paying us any attention, as was also usual. We had learned we weren’t the only Class holders in the camp. General Torlack and the three Lieutenants held Classes as well, but neither I nor Igvild knew what they were. I leaned a little closer to Igvild and whispered.

  “I have a Special Ability called Imbolc’s Breath.” Igvild’s eyes couldn’t have gone any wider.

  “A Special Ability too, ‘e says,” the dwarf guffawed.

  “I threw up some liquid fire once. It’s how I killed someone at the Orphanage, but I didn’t actually mean to do it,” I quickly added, seeing Igvild blanch.

  “I wager it doesn’t cost any mana to use this ability either, aye?” I nodded in confirmation. “Very interestin’. Listen lad, keep that to yerself, aye? Only tell the Nobs what they need to know, ye ken? If they knew ye could hurt ‘em even with the bracelet on…” I took his meaning and nodded. It was an old Orphanage rule too. Know when to keep your mouth shut.

  “I don’t actually know how to use it,” I added. “I just remember Corlo kept hitting me and my stomach started hurting.”

  “Limit Break.” Igvild threw my blanket over his bald head and using his own blanket wrapped himself in his own cocoon of warmth. I blinked.

  “A what?”

  “Seen ‘em before. Mostly from the frontline Awakened fighters. Take too much damage, too many hits and blam! Ye take all you can take and trigger an ability called a Limit Break that can turn the fight around in yer favor.” All I could see of Igvild now was his overly large nose peeking out from under the blanket and I turned my gaze back to the fire to think on this new information. What further secrets did the flames hold for me? A Limit Break? Abilities that the Manastop bracelet didn’t block? It doesn’t take a genius, of which I most certainly am not, to realize being an Awakened was more than I could ever have realized.

  I wiped a bit of spittle from the left side of my bottom lip, a long developed habit after finishing a meal, my mouth being shaped how it was. I decided I would take Igvild’s advice and keep all this to myself, for now. I tossed a few sticks onto our campfire and I swear I felt a sense of gratitude emanate from the flames. My imagination, of course.

  I smiled when I heard snores coming from underneath the blankets next to me. It hadn’t escaped my notice how easily it was for Igvild to nap anytime or anyplace. My new friend. I looked at my Manastop bracelet with distaste. I had told Captain Yentz I wouldn’t cast any spells without permission, but the man had only shrugged and said I would be given the opportunity to prove myself eventually.

  “The Graf rewards those who show him loyalty. We fight to retake the throne that is rightfully his.”

  I’d nodded my head and told the Captain I would do what the Graf told me and he had seemed satisfied with my response. Regardless, he had kept the Manastop bracelet securely fastened to my wrist. Igvild had laughed when I told him about the encounter, but the dwarf hadn’t offered any personal input. Igvild didn’t seem to care about his bracelet much.

  Still, Igvild’s words about abilities that didn’t have a Mana cost stuck with me. I hadn’t spent too much time looking over my Status. It was all a bunch of numbers and I wasn’t terribly good with those.

  Madame Fevre had only ever taught the most basic of reading and writing, just enough so that we knew how to read the daily task list she had kept tacked up on a board near her office. Numbers were additional tasks like how many buckets of water we needed to fetch from the well to fill the big cauldron in the kitchen or how many sacks of beans were stocked in the larder at any given time. Despite not being versed in number values, I had still taught myself to memorize the numbers themselves. It was either that or face Madame Fevre’s wrath.

  It was this minor skill that allowed me to recall the numbers I had seen listed on my Status.

  Status

  Will-5

  Focus-*1

  Speed-2

  Force-2

  Presence-1

  Fortune-11

  I had already read the description of each word, but Igvild had been vague when I asked him about what the numbers next to each word signified. They vexed me. I needed to know more about what I was and what I could do.

  “Is having a Focus of 1 bad?” I asked aloud, startling Igvild awake.

  “Bigger is better in most cases. Strange yer Focus is so low.” Igvild’s voice was muffled beneath the blanket.

  “What do you mean?” I was answered with more snoring.

  I was quickly learning that despite our burgeoning friendship, the Dwarf still liked to keep conversations short and humans at a distance. It was another thing we both had in common. I removed one of the sticks of dried jerky from my rations and tossed it onto Igvild’s lap. Food was definitely Igvild’s second interest after Vodka. I was rewarded with a chuckle and a brief, Dwarven explanation of each part of an Awakened’s Status.

  Will: Purity and density of the Mana Core.

  Focus: Interpretation, memory and growth.

  Speed: Physical quickness and agility.

  Force: Physical strength and endurance.

  Presence: Charisma, Charm and Intimidation.

  Fortune: Cosmos, Luck and Fate.

  “Thank you,” I told him when he had finished. He grumbled something and pulled the blankets closer after making the jerky disappear.

  Admittedly, I spent very little time wondering about any of it, save what Igvild had mentioned about my Focus being low and the fact that the attribute was currently debuffed for some unknown reason. Being an Awakened made the crack in my skull throb.

  It made no sense to me that I shouldn’t be able to see my notifications despite the bracelet. I had always been able to do so even before I had Awakened? I scratched at the skin beneath the bracelet. These bracelets must block something else besides Mana, I reasoned.

  The last time I had been allowed to practice Fire Bolt, I had read the spell’s description thoroughly.

  Fire Bolt: Weave a lesser amount of Mana into a bullet of Fire. Has a 25% chance of inflicting BURNING upon the target.

  The description for Fire Bolt was straight forward. Its purpose was obvious and I wasn’t squeamish over one day using it upon something larger than a crow. The world outside the Orphanage was loud, scary and full of rough looking individuals. It was like an entire world full of potential lackeys waiting for you to let your guard down.

  Still, I wondered what else my flames could do besides blowing up birds? Until my mana was returned to me however, I was forced to wait and wonder.

  Captain Yentz chose that moment to walk into the light of our campfire. I looked up at him and shrank back from his glare. Igvild continued to snore.

  “Wake him up and the both of you report to General Torlack at the command tent.” Without another word the Captain turned on his heel and walked away, fully expecting us to obey forthwith and I did. I don’t think Captain Yentz liked me very much, but I think he liked Igvild even less. He was always gruff with me, but barely acknowledged the dwarf’s presence.

  Igvild leapt to his feet before I could reach out to him. He flung off the blankets as he grinned at me.

  “Welly, shall we go see how the Nobs plan on tryin’ to get us killed?”

  “Um, sure.”