Total pages in book: 179
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169943 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 850(@200wpm)___ 680(@250wpm)___ 566(@300wpm)
He’s quiet for a long moment, thinking over my question. Then, when he speaks, his voice is soft. “I owe her my life.”
“Go on.” Hawk’s so private that I wonder if he’ll actually tell me.
To my surprise, he doesn’t hesitate. “I grew up in a very poor family. Many Taurians who live outside of the city are impoverished. They farm and grow crops, and that doesn’t exactly bring the wealth the holders have.”
I say nothing. I know all too well that holders have a great deal of coin. Well, usually. The venom in Hawk’s voice makes me pause, though. Such vitriol has a history behind it, and I’m afraid to ask.
“It’s not uncommon for a young Taurian man to leave home the moment he’s old enough to earn coin on his own. I was twelve when I left home.”
“Twelve!” I’m shocked. It’s so very young.
“Aye. I had three brothers and four sisters and there was never enough food to go around. So when I hit the ripe old age of twelve, I set out for Vastwarren to make my fortune. I was young and arrogant and full of myself. It went about as well as you’d expect.”
There’s a hint of amusement in his voice but I can’t even laugh. I just ache, thinking of a twelve-year-old forced to leave his family behind because he wanted to have a full belly. Then there was me, still living at home at thirty and fretting because I didn’t have enough coins for finery. For parties. Meanwhile Hawk was just trying to survive to the next week. I’m a little ashamed of how disparate the fortunes of holders are in comparison to the poor. I know all too well that holders have a ridiculous amount of wealth, and tax their landowners heavily so they can continue to acquire more artifacts to protect what they already have. It’s a vicious cycle, and the moment you fall behind, everything collapses.
Just as my father has had everything collapse around our family.
A knot rises in my throat as Hawk continues. “I showed up at the guild hall and declared myself to be as capable as any students they had here already, and that even though it wasn’t Swansday, I should be allowed to apprentice. They laughed in my face, and when I didn’t give up, they told me if I could beat Osprey at the obstacle course, I would be allowed to join. He beat me handily and all I got for my pride was a public shaming and the realization that I didn’t know what I was going to do for a living. I slept two nights in the gutters before Magpie offered to buy me a drink. Said she felt sorry for me. I followed her home and showed up on her doorstep the next day, asking for work. Any work, no matter how difficult. At first she declined, but I kept showing up, and she started to give me errands. Running things to the guild hall. Grabbing supplies from merchants. Making sure the practice swords stayed sharp. I made a nuisance of myself but I also made sure she saw that I could do the tasks she set for me. She gave me a place to stay, but I wasn’t considered part of the guild. When I was eighteen, I was allowed to join as a fledgling. Her fledgling. I passed my very first testing. Excavated for two years, and then I lost my hand.”
“Lost your hand?” I squint into the darkness, not sure I’ve heard him correctly.
“Yes. I was in the tunnels with my Five. They were idiots, looking back, but I was just happy to have work. Our navigator took us down a wrong turn and a tunnel collapsed over us. My arm was pinned and our healer buried under the rock. The others left us for dead.”
I gasp. “They left you?”
“It was self-preservation,” he says, voice bland. “If they’d have stayed, they’d likely have run out of air or encountered ratlings. They swarm after a tunnel collapse, looking for carrion. But aye, they left us behind. I was there when the healer died, crying out for help until the end. I thought I was a goner, too, that it was just a matter of time. Don’t know how long I was down there, pinned. Two days? Maybe? But then Magpie showed up. She’d heard they’d left me and brought her students down to come and save my arse. Rescued me and carried me out of the tunnels. My hand was crushed, so there was no choice but to amputate it. And just when I thought I couldn’t owe her more, Magpie used her connections to acquire me a hand.” He lifts an arm and flexes it. “A magical limb from Old Prell, grafted to my stump with words of magic.”