Brina touched Sung-Il’s arm before he could find another reason to remain beneath Seraphine’s portrait.
"Lyra asked whether we have time to talk. You can return to the wall afterward."
"I’m learning about the royal government."
"Then read the writing."
Lyra led them to a table beside the Guild’s front windows. Brina sat next to Sung-Il, and Six-Ears settled beneath his chair. Across the hall, Nessa was still working on their report about the transport company and Brina’s broken fence.
Lyra opened Pell’s examination report. "He asked me to follow up on your test. Has anything changed since then?"
"I’ve learned a small part of Iron Gut. With Brina’s help."
Lyra looked up. "You can use part of her ability?"
"A lesser version. It helps me keep going when I’m tired. I’m stronger too."
"He still gets hurt," Brina added, glancing at his dressings.
"I was presenting the benefits first."
Lyra asked how he had acquired it. Sung-Il lowered his voice. "That explanation needs a private room. It involves Brina, and neither of us wants the hall listening."
Brina nodded. Lyra closed the report instead of pressing them. "I’ll arrange a private appointment. For now, I won’t ask you to lift anything or demonstrate while you’re injured."
"An excellent start to our professional relationship."
Nessa called Brina back to the reception counter. When Brina returned, she had a receipt for the claim and a tournament application.
"The Guild has recorded what happened," she told Sung-Il. "Now the municipal repair office needs to arrange an inspection of the farm. It’s across the square. I’ll collect the appointment before we leave."
"And the application?"
"You can enter as an Apron resident because you’re staying at my farm. Use my address. You also have to declare your injuries before they’ll approve you for an event."
He borrowed Lyra’s pen. Brina dictated the address, then watched him list the cuts on his palms and the bruising around his ribs. Beside GIFT/ABILITY, he wrote RECTUM ANALYSIS.
He studied the result. "Could Nessa make those two words smaller?"
"The judges will still read them," Lyra said.
"But they’ll have to lean closer. I want some effort before the laughter."
Lyra put the completed form inside her notebook. "We can submit it after the information session. I’m helping at that today. The Guild has arranged three demonstrations to show applicants what the first trials will test."
"What sort of demonstrations?"
"One person uses a gift to repair a cracked pot. Another tests stored food for spoilage. Then two workers show how they move a heavy load together. The judges explain what counts as control, useful work, and cooperation."
"So no one hits me?"
"Not during the explanation."
"You were doing well until that qualification."
The demonstrations were in an enclosed practice yard behind the western freight court. Lyra explained the route before they stood: leave the Guild, cross the square, take a short flight of steps down into the freight court, and walk through its rear arch into the yard. All of it was on the middle tier. The steps led between two streets on the same floating platform, not down to the Apron. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
Outside the Guild, a woman in a brown coat was gathering five children beside the steps. A boy wore a cardboard wall around his waist. The other children carried a wooden hammer, a toy sword, a painted water jug, and a cloth sack marked BEANS.
Lyra recognized the woman and stopped to speak to her. "Mara, are you using the practice yard this morning?"
"Only the marked corner beside the benches," the woman replied. "We’re rehearsing the procession before your demonstrations begin."
Lyra introduced Mara as a schoolteacher from the Apron. The children were practicing for a parade held during the tournament celebrations. They would walk through the market streets in costume while Mara told the spectators which early settlers they represented.
"Early settlers?" Sung-Il asked. "The founders?"
"The people who established Asterra," Mara said. "There were a thousand gift bearers who signed an agreement to settle here and share the work. Their families came too. Those signers are the First Thousand. The city celebrates them because their different gifts helped the settlement survive."
She touched the cardboard wall. "Owen is Tovan Marr. His gift joined stone blocks together. He helped build the first defensive wall."
Owen straightened proudly. Mara pointed to the child carrying a wooden hammer. "That’s Hadrik Fen, a carpenter who could cut timber to the exact length he needed." She indicated the sword, then the jug. "Ilyan Rook guarded the caravans that brought supplies. Sela Orin made dirty well water safe to drink."
The smallest girl held up her sack with considerably less enthusiasm.
"And Lani is Mera Dain," Mara continued. "Her gift kept harvested grain and beans from spoiling in storage."
"Important," Sung-Il said. "Particularly before lunch."
"My brother got lightning," Lani complained. "He gets to march in front."
"Your brother is in the older children’s group," Mara answered. "He has a stick with yellow paper on it. Yesterday he hit his own teacher. Keep hold of your beans."
While Mara checked the rehearsal time with Lyra, Owen moved closer to Sung-Il. He had been looking at the bandages since they arrived.
"Were you fighting?" Owen asked.
"Unfortunately."
"Are you a knight?"
"Not officially."
The boy studied his loose shirt and muddy boots. "A garbage man?"
"That was a downgrade."
Owen searched his waist for a weapon. "Where’s your sword?"
"In a shop. It’s called Currently Unaffordable."
Mara called Owen back and counted the group. Lani stood apart, picking at a loose thread on her sack. Two of the other children were comparing their wooden tools. Nobody asked to see hers.
Sung-Il remembered a school play when he was nine. He had wanted to carry a sword. Instead, a teacher had put him in a painted cardboard tree and told him to stand at the back. Other children had laughed when he asked for a speaking part. He had laughed with them, then refused to go onstage.
He remembered waiting behind the curtain with his costume on his knees. He had hated that tree long after everyone else forgot the play.
"Does your brother’s lightning keep dinner from rotting?" he asked her.
She looked up. "No."
"Then if he annoys you, tell him to eat lightning this winter."
Lani giggled. Mara gave Sung-Il a look that suggested she would hear that sentence again at an inconvenient moment.
Brina had watched him speak to the girl. He looked away before she could comment. "I support food preservation. Deeply held belief."
Mara gathered the children in pairs. She told them they were going down the steps, across the freight court, and through the arch into the practice yard. They were to stay beside her and keep out of the carts’ path.
Brina stopped outside the municipal repair office across the square. "I’ll collect the inspection appointment here. You two go ahead. I’ll meet you at the court."
She straightened Sung-Il’s borrowed collar before leaving. Her fingers brushed the back of his neck, and he forgot to complain about being sent off under supervision.
Lyra waited until Brina entered the office. "That worked quickly."
"She has persuasive hands."
They followed the children down the stone steps. Below them lay a broad paved loading square: the western freight court. Shops occupied the left side. To the right was a landing where a wooden transport platform had brought sacks up from the Apron. Straight ahead stood the arch leading into the practice yard.
A yellow lane crossed from the landing to the arch for carts carrying deliveries. A blue walking path followed the shop fronts around the edge of the square. Low posts separated most of it from the cart lane.
Lyra guided Sung-Il onto the blue path. "We’ll go around with Mara. It’s longer, but you won’t have to dodge the deliveries."
He looked back toward the landing. Beyond its rail, roofs lay far below. A strip of middle-tier buildings stood near that outer edge, their rear windows overlooking the Apron.
"If someone drops something from those windows, where does it land?"
"In the service lane below this edge," Lyra said. "The city keeps gardens and houses away from that strip. There are sloping catch roofs over the work entrances, but you still don’t stand underneath while someone is moving furniture above."
"Do they throw their rubbish down?"
"They’re fined if they’re caught. Rubbish is collected and carried down on freight platforms. The falling things are usually accidents. Or people who think the fine won’t reach them."
Sung-Il pictured a chair falling all that way. He moved farther from the rail. "I prefer my furniture delivered horizontally."
They passed a candle seller demonstrating a flame that burned underwater in a jar. Beside the arch, a woman sold meat-and-potato pies from a covered stall. Lyra bought two and handed him one. Six-Ears stopped beneath the stall to investigate crumbs.
"I should accompany researchers more often."
"You can buy next time," Lyra said.
"Then I’ll remember this particular outing fondly."
Mara’s group waited at the arch. An iron gate blocked the entrance to the practice yard. Through its bars, Sung-Il could see benches, three demonstration tables, and a chalked rectangle where the children would practice walking in order.
Two porters were preparing to lift the gate. One stood at the winding crank. The other, a stocky man in a brown coat, stood beside the gate’s brake handle. Mara told the children to wait until both men said the passage was clear.
Lani looked back at Sung-Il and raised her sack a little. He lifted his pie in reply.
"For winter," he told her.
She smiled. The porter began raising the gate.