“Eliza?” Yara didn’t lift her head from the ledger.
“Thirty-five,” Eliza said. “Sorted by hazard. Anchors tagged from yesterday’s collections.” She tipped her chin toward three long tables: trays of objects wrapped in cloth and chalked with names. “Nobles, mages, would-be resistance.”
“Different leashes,” Yara said.
The Gem warmed against her sternum, leaning closer. Choose uses, not names. Choose costs.
She ignored it.
“Bring five,” Yara said. “We’ll move in lots. Lots of five.”
Eliza signaled. Guards hauled the first batch in a scholar with ink ground into his fingernails, a stonemason with lime on his boots, a woman in a merchant’s coat that fit too well, a hedge-witch with ash at her cuffs, and a narrow-eyed talker who’d taught his mouth to move without showing teeth. Runners set five trays in a row: a brass level rubbed ghost-smooth; a walnut tally-board notched wrong on the back; a blue-striped seed belt softened to someone’s waist; a bag of gold; an oak-handled stamp with a brass face.
Yara stood where the light from the high windows made the floor honest. “You will serve the city,” she said. “How you serve depends on what you are and what you can give.” She spoke to the stonemason first. “What can you build?”
“Foundations,” he said, hoarse. “Retaining. If you have a block and men who won’t panic.”
“Men who don’t panic are scarce.” Yara reached out.
The Gem hummed. Rebuild. Hold water.
He swallowed. “My father’s level,” he said, as if telling the room why it hurt.
“Hold it,” Yara told him.
The Gem rose within her like a tide and plunged outward. The level didn’t melt so much as lose the idea of being itself. Grain bloomed in the metal like frost seen backward; edges slumped; numbers fled. The plate folded in on a bright seam and collapsed into a single dense bead that quivered on the pin before vanishing under her hand.
The stonemason arched. Not graceful. A rope snapped through his spine. Veins stood blue along his throat; his jaw locked. The room heard bones answer bones. His breath made a torn, wet sound. For a moment, his hands clawed at the empty air as if he could catch the piece of himself that had just been spent.
Useful, the Gem purred, a cat with blood at its whiskers.
“You’ll run crews for sluice and cisterns,” Yara said. “You won’t panic. You’ll make sure others don’t.”
He nodded once, as if the motion belonged to a machine he trusted.
“The scholar,” Yara said.
He stared at his tally board like a man being asked to drown a brother. He lifted it anyway. Yara pressed her palm over the splintered walnut board.
Light threaded along the chalk scars and sank. Wood blackened without heat, dried into silk-thin sheets that curled, powdered, and were drawn inward along her fingers. The board went away the way thinking does when sleep wins abruptly, helplessly.
He convulsed in smaller hits than the mason: a staccato of pain, ribs counting against the air. His eyes fluttered, rolled, fixed again. The muscles at his temples jumped as if something had been rewired too tightly and then learned slack.
“Numbers keep bread in lines.” Yara’s voice was steadier than her pulse. “You keep the lists that keep us alive. The city will move at your command.”
The hedge-witch stood with her mouth thin as thread. Yara took the seed belt from the tray.
“This will hurt,” Yara said. “It hurts more when the anchor knows you well.”
“It knows me,” the witch whispered, and fastened the belt around her middle.
Yara pressed her hand to the knot. The canvas sighed; dye fled its stripe; the belt unraveled into lint that lifted and whirled like chaff in an invisible draft and then poured into the witch through Yara’s palm. The woman folded forward with a dry sob, knuckles thudding the table. Her breath hitched and hitched again; when she straightened, tears brightened the ash at her lashes.
“Growers eat first,” Yara said. “Three boys and a fence. Turn it into a trellis by noon.”
Hunt. Grow. Rebuild, the Gem hummed, pleased. More.
“I am Verina of the caravans,” she announced. “Princess by contract. I bring gold enough to float your quarter for a month.” She signaled; a guard set down a canvas sack. It thudded heavily.
Eyes moved. Hunger remembered old tricks.
Yara didn’t look at the bag. “Gold doesn’t feed the city,” she said, and caught herself before the old answer. “Gold doesn’t feed the Gem.”
Verina smiled. “It buys food. It buys loyalty.”
“The city isn’t for sale.” Yara flicked her gaze at the trays. “Your anchor?”
She held up a chain. “New,” she said. “Fine metal.”
“New things don’t know you,” Yara said.
Make her give us what hurts, the Gem urged, bright and greedy. Give us the rings that remember.
“Your rings,” Yara pointed out.
Verina hesitated, then, with a merchant’s calculation, drew off three older bands—one with a flattened crest, one thin as a promise kept too long, one scored inside by years of sweat. She placed them on the cloth as if laying down fingers.
Yara took them. There was no spectacle, only the intimate warmth of something coveted finally swallowed. The Gem shivered with satisfaction that rippled along her bones. Verina’s mouth fluttered, as if something agreed inside her without permission.
“You’ll run the inbound stalls,” Yara said. “Intake at East Gate. If you skim, I’ll feel it. Your gold goes to rubble crews and grain. Not to you.” She flicked two fingers; the sack was dragged aside like an ordinary rock.
“Now the talker.” She turned to the narrow-eyed man before Verin’s pride could regather. “Intake. You say no without making enemies we can’t afford. Anchor.”
He offered the oak-handled stamp. At her touch, the brass face liquefied down to a breath, then vanished into him. His tongue stuttered, reset. He swallowed, tasting the weight behind his words.
They came in fives, and each time the anchor was already there: a cracked plumb bob; a saint’s medal rubbed smooth; a baton with a nick from a parade gone wrong; a shawl that still smelled of smoke from a wedding kitchen. Each time Yara pressed her palm and the world learned how to unmake a thing into a promise. It was never clean. People spasmed or shook or gagged; more than one voided their stomach into the bucket Eliza had placed there on purpose. There was always that moment, just before breath returned, when eyes slid past focus and looked at nothing, and Yara felt the Gem purse its lips inside her like a satisfied child.
More. Feed. There are so many left, it crooned.
“Quiet,” Yara muttered. The heat under her sternum smiled.
By midday, the routine was interrupted: a man in fur and sweet wine strutted in. “I sit on a council,” he announced. “I know laws.”
“We’re making new ones,” Yara said. “Show me your hands.”
Soft. No decisions. She let herself get tired. “Eliza, note: minor noble. Two weeks on rubble detail. If he breaks, we see if he can count.” No anchor waited on his tray; his had come up false in yesterday’s sweep, trinkets without teeth. “He pays with hours,” Yara said for the room. “If he can find a proper anchor we enhance him later, if not he serves as everyone else does.”
Later, the chamber tightened when a noblewoman entered with three children behind her like confused shadows. She dropped to her knees before pride remembered itself. “Please,” she said. “They’re small. Don’t take—”
On the tray, a locket lay open: a curl of hair. Eliza’s quill hung above the ledger; her mouth drew thin.
Yara felt the Gem lean forward, curious. Mark the future. Debt holds longer than a rope.
She hated how true that sounded in this room.
“What’s your name?” Yara asked one of the children, a girl with a tear track dried to salt on her cheek.
“Marna,” the girl whispered.
Yara set her palm over the locket. The hinge sighed; metal thinned to thread and sank through skin into Yara’s hand and then into the mother. The woman shuddered and straightened as if a string had been tied through her spine and pulled.
“They will serve when of age,” Yara said, and her voice had the weight of a gate settling on its pins. “Eliza—names. Record Marna, Siel, and Thom as exempt until fourteen. After that, they will choose their work, or it will be chosen.”
The mother trembled. Marna stared at Yara’s scarf and at the small, betraying light beneath it. Eliza wrote, jaw tight, eyes not meeting anyone’s for a breath too long.
“Am I one of the Enhanced?” the mother asked, thinly.
“You are, and you are bound to me and this city,” Yara said. “Enhanced pay in hours, not tax. Use your skills to make the city grow and become better, teach your children to do the same.”
The woman nodded too fast, nearly falling over from breathlessness.
By the fifth bell, thirty-two had been anchored, remade, and placed into uses that would make streets hold and bellies quiet. Three met the line and would not bend, spitting oaths, biting hands, laughing wrong. They had refused anchors yesterday or offered lies; their trays held nothing but habit. Yara set them to work; everyone contributed.
The last should have been simple: a gutter-thief with quick eyes and a grin too ready. His tray held only a strip of greasy cloth, the only “anchor” he’d named that checked. It stank of hunger and old luck.
Eliza’s voice was a thread. “You’re shaking,” she said to Yara. “We can—”
“Now,” Yara said, and set the cloth against the thief’s chest, palm over it. Either she was too tired or tired of making Iron Defenders, but she forgot the anchor of the clothes.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The transformation went wrong. The Gem surged—too hard, too much—and the man’s body buckled around it like a bucket under a wheel. Bones tore free of the lines that had held them; fingers branched where they shouldn’t. He screamed until his voice shredded and then made a thin, papery sound that wasn’t a voice at all.
Yes. Spend him. More, more
“Halt,” Yara said. Shock knocked her voice sideways. The thing panted like a dog in a kiln. Its eyes didn’t know where to land.
Wasteful hand, the Gem hissed, annoyed as a child denied. You should have fed us first.
The man’s spine bowed like a wet willow under a mill wheel. His eyes tried to land and couldn’t. Yara shifted her palm, reached for a different alignment, a calmer chord, anything but the pattern wouldn’t catch. She saw the moment it wouldn’t: the architecture gone, the house already fallen.
“Not viable,” Eliza breathed, hand over her mouth. Two guards turned aside; one retched into the bucket. The scholar squeezed his eyes shut. Verin of the caravans looked anywhere but here.
“I did this,” Yara said to the stone. She didn’t step back. She nodded once.
Marcus was already moving, mercy practiced. The spear entered clean; the sound was small and exact. The ruined body relaxed into something like sleeping wrong.
The room learned the lesson and tried to forget. Yara's palm still tingled where the pattern had broken. She didn't wipe it clean. Yara could feel the Gem’s small, irritated sulk settling. Next time, it whispered. Feed us first. Then fix your city.
Silence held until everyone remembered they had work.
They cleared the tables. Light leaned low. In the end, it was only Yara and Eliza, the way it often was when rooms had to be put back into something people could walk into without folding.
The last two days of converting people ran through Yara’s head. The ones left hollow and mindless, and the failure today hung heaviest in her heart. Equal to that had been the children’s face as she enhanced their mother's terror and confusion, two sets of claws ripping at her heart.”
Yara leaned both hands on the stone. Sweat ran cold under her clothes. It was different converting people because you need to live; this was converting people for the kingdom. Somehow, it felt less noble and more selfish. I’m seventeen, she thought. Surely this power belongs to someone older and smarter. “Give me your hands,” she said.
“Yara—”
“Please.”
Eliza stepped closer. Yara loosened her scarf and pressed her palm to her sternum, fingers spread as if she could open a door that wasn’t there. The Gem answered greedily. Share. Bind. For a heartbeat, she believed it could be simple: take a measure of the weight and set it on steadier shoulders.
She drew the light outward.
Pain arrived like an animal. Not sharp tearing. Something inside her refused to move and, in refusing, pulled everything else with it. Her mouth opened, but the sound had no air; it left as a silent shape that felt like breaking teeth. Green-blue flared through skin too bright to be in a body and then knotted back, deeper. She buckled; her palms slapped stone. Dirt clotted under her nails.
“Don’t,” Eliza said, reaching and stopping in the same breath. She caught Yara by the elbow instead of the chest, knuckles whitening. The Gem seethed and then settled with a petulant thrum.
Mine. MINE. You thought you could pass me like a cup? I am your bones now.
Yara panted once, twice, and pushed herself upright by degrees, every joint remembering being an idea before it was bone. Salt reached her mouth. She wiped it away like an insult.
“I thought—” she began.
“I know,” Eliza said. “It lives in you.” She didn’t say it owned. She didn’t have to. “It won’t be handed like a bowl.”
The after-image pulsed beneath Yara’s ribs, smaller each beat, as if it had burrowed closer to be sure. The Gem murmured, coaxing. Sleep. We will choose better tomorrow. There are more with rings. More with hair. More with vows. Feed us.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Yara said.
“Who would I tell?” Eliza asked, not unkindly. “Protocols stay tight. Fewer hands, fewer mouths.”
They cleaned in silence. When they finished, Yara’s breathing had smoothed into something she could use in public. Eliza put the ledger away with the careful slowness of someone who knows writing a thing down does not keep it safe. When they finished, Yara stood by the door and looked at her hands. They were shaking fine tremors like spoons in a glass. She pressed them flat against her thighs. The tremor didn’t stop. She could feel, absurdly, that she was afraid of her own touch.
“This is mine,” she said, not to Eliza.
Eliza heard anyway. “You don’t have to—”
“Yes,” Yara said. She pulled the scarf up, hiding the light that never quite hid. “I do.”
She understood, finally, the cost: that the city would be carried on a hunger inside her that liked what it did; that no one else could carry it; that asking would be cruelty. Choice arrived like a door she could either close or stand in.
Yara stepped through. “Work starts at first bell,” she said, voice even. “Rotate the sluice crews. Move Verina to East Gate. Eliza doubled the water rations. They'll need it.”
Eliza nodded, eyes bright and hard. She touched Yara’s shoulder once, careful of the light, then let the evening have them.
He scratched his chest where he remembered his sacrifice blending into skin until he bled, and the world hummed a name he could not hold.
GARRON — The Floodwright
Tier 2 Enhanced. Bond: Bound through Duty.
Stonemason remade to hold water and keep walls from failing. His father's level was eaten; his patience and straightness live in his hands.
ATTRIBUTES:
- MIGHT 15 — Drives stone, physical strength for heavy work
- GRACE 11 — Adequate coordination, craftsman's precision, not speed
- FORCE 4 — No magical output, purely structural expertise
- WILL 7 — Bound by duty but retains judgment, reads ground and load
- HUNGER 7 — Needs regular assignments, stable when given clear projects
- PRESENCE 14 — Nearby workers steady under his presence; panic fails to take hold
Traits:
- True Plumb: Senses vertical and level by feel alone. Can set lines that the city can trust without instruments.
- Sluice Sense: Hears pressure behind the stone. Predicts burst points hours before they happen.
- Crew Anchor: His presence steadies workers. Nearby crews resist panic and work through the collapse.
Bond Notes:
The level measured true for his father, then him, for forty combined years. When the Gem consumed it, the patience and straightness settled into his bones. He speaks in short measurements now. Comfort is the sound of water running where it should.
Uses:
Sluice repair, cistern construction, and foundation work. Critical for water infrastructure in a city learning to function again.
Cost:
His father's level. The memory of learning to use it. He can still build, but the why of building—the pride, the connection to lineage—sits in a gap where gentleness used to live.
ORVEN — The Ledger-Keeper
Tier 2 Enhanced. Bond: Indexed.
Scholar turned quartermaster. His tally board vanished into him, and numbers started breathing.
ATTRIBUTES:
- MIGHT 9 — Thin, no physical strength
- GRACE 10 — Adequate movement, nothing remarkable
- FORCE 4 — No magical output, pure arithmetic
- WILL 7 — Indexed but retains personality, ruthless with numbers, not people
- HUNGER 7 — Needs regular purpose, stable at a desk
- PRESENCE 15 — Can say "no" without revolt, tempers crowds with precise promises
Traits:
- Ration Math: Optimizes distribution in real time. Waste drops to near-zero under his management.
- Shortfall Warning: Feels deficits hours before they appear. The numbers speak to him as the weather does.
- Quiet Denial: Can refuse requests without breeding enemies. His refusals land like favors deferred.
Bond Notes:
The tally board had notches on the back wrong—mistakes kept as lessons. When the Gem consumed it, the mistakes became instinct for what not to do. He blinks like he's counting between heartbeats. Bread moves where he looks.
Uses:
Quartermaster, rationing, distribution logistics. Keeps food flowing without riots or waste.
Cost:
The tally board tracked his students' progress. He remembers teaching, but not their faces. The satisfaction of watching someone learn is left with the walnut and chalk.
MAERA — The Trellis-Witch
Tier 2 Enhanced. Bond: Greenbound.
Hedge-witch bent toward growth. Her seed belt became hungry for that soil.
ATTRIBUTES:
- MIGHT 11 — Adequate strength for field work
- GRACE 12 — Practical movement, gardener's efficiency
- FORCE 8 — Minor magical output, growth-focused
- WILL 7 — Greenbound but aware, retains herbcraft knowledge
- HUNGER 7 — Needs growing things nearby, stable when tending
- PRESENCE 13 — Natural teacher, boys follow her diagrams and learn
Traits:
- Rootcall: Coaxes shoots through rubble. Doubles yield in mean dirt through intuitive understanding of what soil wants.
- Blight Nose: Smells rotten days early. Can quarantine problems before they spread.
- Trellis Craft: Turns scrap into a thriving structure. Creates functional growing systems from debris.
Bond Notes:
The seed belt was striped blue, worn to her waist by planting seasons. The Gem consumed the pattern and left her with instinct for what grows where. She marks gardens on her palms with ash and never washes it off—the belt's ghost worn in new ways.
Uses:
Food production, garden management, and teaching practical herbcraft. Critical for feeding Aramore long-term.
Cost:
The belt held seeds from her mother's garden, her grandmother's before that. She can grow anything now, but the memory of why those specific seeds mattered is ash on her palms.
VERINA — The Gate Factor
Tier 2 Enhanced. Bond: Contract-Bound.
Caravan princess re-aimed at intake. Her worn rings dissolved, and their vows settled into her voice.
ATTRIBUTES:
- MIGHT 9 — Merchant strength, not physical
- GRACE 13 — Quick hands with ledgers and locks
- FORCE 5 — Minor resonance in contracts, vow-weight
- WILL 7 — Contract-bound but calculating, retains mercantile instinct
- HUNGER 7 — Needs commerce to manage, stable when processing trade
- PRESENCE 17 — Commands commerce naturally, merchants feel the cost of lying
Traits:
- Vow-Weight: Can fix a promise to a transaction. Cheating stings like a spark—minor but memorable.
- Fair Cut: Identifies corruption in queues without violence. Starves problems by rerouting supply.
- Soft Embargo: Controls flow without announcement. Problems die quietly from lack of resources.
Bond Notes:
Three rings: flattened crest (marriage dissolved), thin promise (kept too long), scored by sweat (daily worn). The Gem took the metals and left the vows. When she speaks prices, men feel the weight of breaking their word.
Uses:
East Gate intake, merchant management, and commerce regulation. Keeps trade flowing without corruption, preventing the system from collapsing.
Cost:
The rings marked contracts, marriages, promises. She remembers making deals but not why they mattered. The gold she brought means nothing now—just metal the Gem didn't want.
KEL — The Intake Tongue
Tier 2 Enhanced. Bond: Stamped.
Narrow-eyed talker made gatekeeper of petitions. His brass stamp weighed down his words.
ATTRIBUTES:
- MIGHT 9 — No physical strength
- GRACE 12 — Quick with papers, reads body language
- FORCE 6 — Minor resonance, word-binding
- WILL 7 — Stamped but aware, pattern recognition intact
- HUNGER 7 — Needs petitions to process, stable when managing requests
- PRESENCE 16 — Persuasive without theater, denials land like favors
Traits:
- Seal of "No": Denies requests without breeding enemies. Refusals feel like postponements, not rejections.
- Queue Read: Spots agitators and parasites at a glance. Reorders lines to defuse tension before it ignites.
- Word Burden: Once per day, can brand a promise into speech. Breaking it causes physical discomfort—not harm, but a reminder.
Bond Notes:
The oak-handled stamp approved grain shipments for years. The brass face liquefied and settled into his tongue. His mouth moves less now. When it does, corridors reorganize around what he says.
Uses:
Petition management, crowd control, promise enforcement. Keeps the bureaucracy moving without violence.
Cost:
The stamp bore his family crest. He can still approve things, but the pride of authority—the sense that his word mattered because it was his—dissolved with the brass.
FLARA — The Kiln-Master
Tier 2 Enhanced. Bond: Fired.
Mage with burnt fingers turned furnace-tender. The Gem set her heat to useful law.
ATTRIBUTES:
- MIGHT 12 — Adequate strength for kiln work
- GRACE 11 — Careful movements around fire
- FORCE 10 — Moderate magical output, heat manipulation
- WILL 7 — Fired but retains personality, precise with temperatures
- HUNGER 7 — Needs fire to tend, stable near kilns
- PRESENCE 13 — Commands fire like a stubborn mule, workers trust her timing
Traits:
- Steady Cone: Holds firing temperature in wind and ash. Bricks come out true regardless of conditions.
- Heat Husbandry: Trades fuel between kilns like currency. Nothing wasted, maximum efficiency.
- Ash Reading: Reads color and fall of ash for structural faults city-wide. Early warning system for building failures.
Bond Notes:
Her anchor was a clay medallion from her first successful firing—the moment she learned fire could be controlled. The Gem consumed it, leaving her with absolute temperature sense. She smells of clay and summer ovens.
Uses:
Brick production, kiln management, and structural monitoring through ash-reading. Essential for rebuilding.
Cost:
The medallion marked the day she stopped being afraid of fire. She can control it perfectly now, but the joy of mastery—the pride of that first success—burned away with the clay.
"Mine. MINE. You thought you could pass me like a cup? I am your bones now."
The Gem whispers: "There are more with rings. More with hair. More with vows. Feed us."