Bran Tanner hit Raymun in the ribs with a stick.
Hard.
Raymun folded over.
“Seven hells!”
Bran immediately lowered his wooden sword.
“You said harder.”
“Not that hard.”
“How hard?”
Raymun straightened slowly.
“Hard enough to practice.
Not hard enough to murder me.”
Bran considered this distinction.
“You’re not dead.”
“Excellent observation.”
At seven, Bran was slightly taller than Raymun, noticeably broader, and possessed the dangerous confidence of a boy who had recently discovered he was good at hitting things.
They stood behind the Briar Hearth, beyond the kitchen garden where Garran had given them permission to practice.
Permission had included three rules.
No real blades.
No fighting near the animals.
No crying to him afterward.
Bran raised his stick again.
“Ready?”
“No.”
Bran attacked.
Raymun barely blocked.
Wood cracked against wood.
Another strike came.
Then another.
Raymun retreated.
Bran grinned.
“You’re bad at this.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Raymun had known Bran for years.
The Tanner family lived closer to Briar Glen, and Bran’s father occasionally supplied repaired harness straps and other leather goods to the inn.
As smaller children, Raymun and Bran had mostly run around the yard together.
Now their differences were becoming obvious.
Raymun liked questions.
Bran liked answers.
Especially answers involving hitting something.
When Raymun first used Appraisal on him, the System had confirmed what anyone with eyes could see.
Bran possessed strong physical instincts.
His potential for martial training was considerably better than Raymun’s.
Raymun’s first reaction had been jealousy.
A small, embarrassing amount.
He remembered another world where games assigned numbers to people.
Strength.
Agility.
Potential.
You found the highest numbers and built around them.
Real people were inconveniently different.
Bran had no interest in becoming one of Raymun’s pieces.
He mostly wanted to become a knight.
Or a famous warrior.
Or possibly a bandit.
His preferred future changed weekly.
Bran swung.
Raymun stepped aside.
For once, correctly.
Bran stumbled past him.
Raymun tapped the stick against his back.
“Dead.”
Bran spun around.
“That doesn’t count.”
“You’d be extremely dead.”
“I slipped.”
“Battlefield won’t care.”
Bran frowned.
Raymun smiled.
Then Bran tackled him.
They hit the grass.
“That is not sword fighting!”
“You’re dead!”
“You dropped your sword!”
“I killed you first!”
“How?”
“Like this.”
Bran sat on him.
Raymun struggled.
Bran was heavier.
“This proves nothing.”
“It proves I won.”
“You’re crushing my lungs.”
“Say I won.”
“No.”
Bran leaned harder.
“You won.”
Bran immediately climbed off.
Raymun lay in the grass, staring at the sky.
“I hate you.”
Bran dropped beside him.
“No, you don’t.”
Unfortunately, that was true.
They returned to the inn filthy.
Mara looked at them.
“No.”
Raymun stopped.
“We haven’t asked anything.”
“No food until you wash.”
Bran looked horrified.
“But Mistress Mara—” This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“No.”
“We’re starving.”
“You ate an hour ago.”
“That was before fighting.”
Mara pointed toward the well.
Bran whispered, “Your mother is frightening.”
“I know.”
“I heard that,” Mara called.
Both boys ran.
The afternoon grew quiet.
Only a few travelers occupied the common room, so Raymun and Bran sat near the stable with bread and cheese.
Ellyn joined them without invitation.
She was four now and had developed the conviction that anything Raymun possessed automatically belonged partly to her.
She took some of his cheese.
Raymun stared at her.
Ellyn stared back while chewing.
He decided the battle wasn’t worth fighting.
Bran pointed at her.
“Want to see my sword?”
“No.”
Bran looked offended.
“It’s good.”
“It’s a stick.”
“It’s a sword.”
Ellyn picked up another stick.
“This is a dragon.”
Raymun nodded.
“Clearly.”
She made the stick fly through the air.
Bran frowned.
“Dragons are dead.”
Raymun became very still.
Ellyn continued flying her stick.
“Mine isn’t.”
Bran looked at Raymun.
“Dragons really were real, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“My father says they’re stories.”
“They were real.”
“How do you know?”
Raymun almost answered too quickly.
Because he’d read about them.
Because he’d watched imaginary versions of them fly across a screen.
Because he knew that somewhere across the Narrow Sea—
He stopped himself.
“Everyone knows the Targaryens had dragons.”
“Hundreds of years ago.”
Raymun shrugged.
Bran seemed disappointed by the ordinary answer.
Ellyn’s dragon attacked his wooden sword.
Bran defended himself.
Soon the two were arguing over whether dragons could eat knights.
Raymun remained silent.
The knowledge in his head suddenly felt heavier.
Daenerys.
Three eggs.
Fire.
Dragons returning to the world.
If his memory was right.
If the books he’d read corresponded closely enough to this reality.
If events unfolded the same way.
Too many ifs.
The System could preserve his memories.
It could not tell him which ones would come true.
Raymun opened his Journal.
Under a section he rarely touched, he wrote:
FUTURE KNOWLEDGE
Dragons eventually return.
Then he changed it.
I remember dragons eventually returning.
Better.
He added:
Confidence in memory: High.
Confidence that events will occur identically: Unknown.
That distinction mattered.
“Raymun!”
Bran’s voice pulled him back.
“What?”
“You were doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“The weird staring thing.”
Ellyn nodded.
“He thinks too much.”
“Everyone says that.”
Bran tossed him the wooden sword.
“Fight me.”
Raymun caught it.
“I’ve already established that you’re better.”
“So?”
“So why would I keep losing?”
Bran stared at him as if the answer were obvious.
“So you stop being bad.”
Raymun opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
That was annoyingly reasonable.
He stood.
“All right.”
Bran grinned. Find the original chapter at g.com.
They moved back toward the grass.
This time Raymun paid more attention to Bran’s feet.
The boy always planted his left foot before a strong swing.
Raymun waited.
Left foot.
Swing.
Raymun moved.
The stick missed his shoulder.
He countered.
Bran blocked.
Again.
Left foot.
Raymun moved earlier.
“Stop doing that!”
“Doing what?”
“You know what!”
Raymun smiled.
Bran attacked faster.
Raymun’s smile disappeared.
Several painful seconds later, he was on the ground again.
Bran stood over him triumphantly.
“Dead.”
Raymun groaned.
“Again.”
Bran blinked.
“What?”
Raymun climbed to his feet.
“Again.”
Garran watched them from the stable doorway.
Later, when Bran had gone home and Ellyn had finally stopped pretending to breathe fire, Garran handed Raymun a bucket.
“Water the horse.”
Raymun took it.
His arms ached.
His ribs hurt.
“Bran’s stronger than me.”
“I noticed.”
“He’s better at fighting.”
“Also noticed.”
Raymun frowned at his father.
“You could pretend to consider it.”
“Why?”
Raymun carried the bucket toward the trough.
Garran followed.
“I don’t like being bad at things.”
“Nobody does.”
“I want to improve.”
“Then practice.”
“What if I’m never as good as Bran?”
Garran shrugged.
“Then Bran will be better.”
Raymun stopped.
That answer was unacceptable to the part of him that still thought like a player looking at statistics.
Garran noticed.
“There’s always someone better at something.”
“But—”
“Your mother cooks better than me.”
“Obviously.”
Garran gave him a look.
Raymun wisely continued walking.
“Harbert works wood better than me.
Old Fenner knows horses better.
You remember numbers better.”
They reached the trough.
Garran nodded toward the bucket.
Raymun poured.
“Doesn’t make me useless.”
Raymun thought about the System.
Potential.
Skills.
Stars.
Ranks.
Numbers.
Useful measurements.
Dangerous conclusions.
“No,” he said.
Garran slapped his shoulder.
“Good.”
Then he walked away.
Raymun remained beside the horse.
The animal drank noisily.
He opened the Journal and found the sentence he’d written months ago.
ABILITY DOES NOT DETERMINE HUMAN WORTH.
He added another beneath it.
I DO NOT NEED TO BE THE BEST AT EVERYTHING.
Raymun stared at that sentence.
He disliked it immediately.
Which probably meant he needed it.
He closed the Journal.
From somewhere beyond the yard came Bran’s distant voice.
“RAYMUN!”
Raymun turned.
Bran stood along the road holding his stick above his head.
“Tomorrow!”
Raymun laughed.
“Tomorrow!”
For once, the word carried no dread at all.