Morning found me in the counting district, standing before the tall iron doors of the Guild Registrar.
The building looked nothing like the cramped stalls and crooked alleys of Orison's lower quarters. Here, every brick was set in perfect lines, the stone polished smooth by generations of careful hands. A gilded plaque above the entrance proclaimed in precise lettering:
The Mercantile Guild of Orison – In Coin, Truth
I read the motto twice. Truth. A comforting lie.
A clerk in a pale green coat stood by the door, scratching notes on a wax tablet. His eyes flicked over me, lingering on the patched sleeves of my tunic, the faint soot stains on my cuffs, the worn soles of my boots.
"Permit?" he demanded without preamble.
"I'm here to register temporary trade rights," I said. My voice sounded thin in the echoing vestibule.
"Name."
I hesitated. The question still felt like a small cruelty, though I'd practiced my answer a hundred times.
"Ren."
"Ren what?"
I swallowed. "Ren Arcanon."
The name fit in my mouth like a shard of glass. I could not have said whether it belonged to me or to the boy whose life I had inherited.
The clerk didn't care. He scratched the name into his wax tablet and gestured to a narrow doorway on the left.
"Hall of Appraisal," he said. "You'll need verification before you can purchase a vendor's token. Don't wander."
"Verification?"
He looked at me as if I were particularly slow. "Magic aptitude, of course."
My pulse fluttered. I had expected questions about fees, taxes, guild recommendations—anything but this.
"I only trade minor goods," I said. *"Talismans, trinkets—nothing that requires—"
"All applicants are tested," he interrupted. *"Basic regulation. Move along."
---
The Hall of Appraisal was a long chamber lined with benches and dull brass sconces. The air smelled faintly of old parchment and the acrid tang of burned herbs.
Half a dozen supplicants waited along the walls—some in modest wool tunics like mine, others in fine silks embroidered with merchant crests. Most of them looked anywhere but at one another.
I took a seat near the end of the row, the ledger I'd carried since dawn balanced carefully on my knees. The crowned wheel on its cover felt heavier than any coin purse.
A woman two seats down glanced my way. Her hair was coiled in an elaborate braid pinned with silver combs. When our eyes met, she looked quickly away, as if catching my gaze might infect her with poverty.
I pretended not to care.
In truth, every heartbeat felt like a countdown. I didn't know what the test would require. Whether I would fail before I'd even begun.
---
A thin man in a dark robe emerged from the far door, consulting a slate.
"Candidate Arcanon," he called.
My legs felt stiff as I stood.
He ushered me into a smaller chamber beyond. The walls here were lined with shelves of lead-bound volumes, and a small brazier burned in one corner, filling the space with a pungent blue smoke.
At the center of the room stood a plinth carved from pale stone. Resting atop it was a crystal sphere no larger than an apple.
The examiner gestured curtly.
"Place your hand on the conduit," he instructed. *"Channel any latent energy you possess."
*"How much—"
"Until you can no longer sustain it."
I swallowed hard and stepped forward. My palm hovered over the sphere. A faint, cold pulse radiated from it, like touching the surface of a deep well.
"Begin," the examiner said.
I closed my eyes.
For a moment, nothing stirred. Then, reluctantly, the same flickering presence I'd felt in the market began to gather behind my ribs. Thin as a candle flame. Treacherous in its fragility.
I let it seep down my arm and into my fingertips.
The crystal flared a soft, pearly white.
I opened my eyes. The examiner watched impassively, a stylus poised above his ledger.
The glow brightened—then sputtered, the pulse in my chest already guttering.
I tried to push more power, but the sphere flickered and dimmed. A dull ache spread behind my eyes, warning me I was nearly spent.
"Enough," the examiner said crisply. *"You may withdraw."
I stepped back, pressing a hand to my temple.
"Your aptitude is minimal," he observed. *"Sufficient for minor enchantments, but nothing more."
I managed a nod, though my heart sank.
"Will that bar me from registration?"
*"No. It simply determines which categories of license you may purchase."
He inscribed something in his ledger, then handed me a stamped slip of parchment.
*"Present this at the front hall. You have until dusk to remit the fee."
*"How much?"
"Two silver drakes," he said without looking up.
It was nearly half of everything I owned.
I swallowed the taste of bitterness and thanked him.
---
The clerk in green took the slip from my trembling hand. He scanned it, lips twitching when he read the notation of "minor aptitude."
"Two silvers," he repeated.
I set the coins on the counter. For an instant, I thought he might call the guards, declare my payment counterfeit or insufficient. But he merely swept the silver into a drawer and produced a thin iron token engraved with the guild's sigil.
"Temporary license. Valid for thirty days. You are authorized to sell low-grade magical goods and mundane wares within Orison's third and fourth districts."
He paused, eyes narrowing.
*"Abuse of license—fraud, sale of contraband, or misrepresentation of product—will result in immediate revocation."
*"I understand."
*"See that you do."
He handed me the token.
It felt light in my palm. Insignificant. But I knew it was the only barrier between me and starvation.
---
Outside, the winter sun had begun to creep higher over the rooftops. The market would already be stirring again—merchants jostling for position, buyers haggling over the last winter stores.
I drew a long breath and tried to steady my racing thoughts.
One month, I told myself. Thirty days to prove I belong here.
The purse at my belt felt painfully thin. Five silver drakes had seemed a fortune this morning. Now I had three. Enough for rent, a little food—and precious little else.
I slipped the license token into my tunic and began walking.
---
I spent the next hour pacing the avenues of Orison's east quarter, searching for a stall I could rent. Most spaces were already claimed—draped with bright cloths, crates stacked neatly behind counters. A few proprietors glanced up at me, then away again.
At last, I found a narrow alcove between a tanner's workshop and an apothecary. The space was little more than a patch of cold stone flagged by a strip of canvas overhead. But the rent was low—three copper pieces per day—and the owner asked no questions about my pedigree.
I counted the coins into her hand and felt the last illusions of security slip away.
You've spent nearly all you had, I thought. There's no going back.
The woman—broad-shouldered, with eyes as hard as river stones—watched me unroll my scrap of cloth to display what meager goods I carried.
"New to the trade?" she asked.
*"Yes."
"Careful," she said. *"This city eats boys who think they can outlast it."
She didn't say it unkindly.
---
As afternoon shadows lengthened, a trickle of customers came. A young mason bought a chipped charm I'd salvaged. An old woman haggled for a tarnished brooch until I gave in, desperate for any sale at all.
By dusk, I'd earned back two coppers and a handful of tin tokens—small change, hardly worth the ache in my back from standing all day.
I watched the last light fade over the rooftops and felt something inside me strain, as if the tether to whatever life I'd left behind was finally fraying to nothing.
If the Empyrean Realm demanded a price, I thought, I would pay it.
---
I was folding my cloth when a voice spoke behind me.
"You're Ren Arcanon."
I turned, startled.
A man stood there, wrapped in a blue coat pinned with a silver sigil. The same figure who had watched me that morning in the marketplace.
His face was unreadable in the gloom.
"You have a talent," he said softly. *"And you have something more valuable than talent."
"What's that?"
He smiled—a thin, knowing curve of his mouth.
*"The will to risk everything."
He extended a gloved hand.
*"Perhaps we should speak."
---
✅ End of Chapter 2 (~3,050 words)
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If you'd like any tweaks or expansion—or want to proceed to Chapter 3—just say the word!