The tarmac was warm beneath his back, his sword lying at his side, slick with blood, and a faint numb vibration still buzzed in his shoulder.

  A kind, soft voice startled him where he lay.

  “You okay, do you need hel—”

  The stranger’s voice changed. “Jumper. Can I get you anything.”

  His necklace had slipped out over his shirt. Ashe quickly tucked it back in, pushed his hand against the ground, and stood with a soft groan. He brushed dust from his clothes.

  “No thanks, I’m good.”

  Ashe walked back toward the guildhall, his new prison. In his hand he clutched his weapon, now disguised as an ordinary walking stick. Street noise blurred into the background under the weight of his growing guilt. He knew he had killed something. Someone. He’d killed before, but the creatures in earlier portals had barely earned an afterthought. They had been animals unaware of complex thought.

  This time it was different. It was their voices, their distinct personalities. Maybe it was simply that he could understand them now. Either way, the memory of their words sent a shiver down his spine.

  Their voices and the smell of that other air looped in his head like a scratched CD, replaying the same moments over and over. He walked on instinct, and before he really registered it, he was “home.”

  Sirens screamed past on the street. Chaos hammered outside in erratic waves. The sound of stampeding feet flooded the entrance, people rushing both in and out. Ashe stood there, lost in everyone else’s confusion.

  “MORE INJURED! WE NEED MORE AMBULANCES!” a man shouted, his voice ragged with panic.

  A woman answered over the noise, breathless and tired. “There are no more available. Find the most critical and get them outside. We’ll have to patch up whoever we can.”

  Ashe slipped inside. Out there he would only have been a burden; the noise was too much for him to handle. No one grabbed him, everyone was too busy triaging the ones who’d come out screaming.

  Inside was no better. People crashed into him, panic thick in the air. He kept moving until a faint, dull pain flared from his shoulder. For a second he thought he’d imagined it. Then someone slammed into him as they rushed past. Pain shot outward as their body clipped his shoulder. Ashe flinched but didn’t say a word.

  He tightened his grip on his walking stick and headed farther in, down the stairs. The chaos above slowly faded until it was only a distant roar. He turned into the corridor and bumped into something solid. He reached out and his hands met skin. He froze. Someone. And someone huge.

  A low, slow, concerned voice spoke. “Hello, kid. I heard what happened. But I was told you were supposed to be locked in your room, safely.”

  Ashe’s body loosened a little as he realised who it was. Joey.

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Joey’s hand settled on his shoulder. “I can tell you’re not ready to talk yet. But when you are, let me know. I just wanted to check up on you.”

  It was a double-edged comfort. It meant someone was there for him, but it also meant he would have to relive it one day. And he had no idea if he would ever be ready for that.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Joey patted his shoulder before he left. “Be careful. The guards stationed at your door have been going crazy.”

  “Shit.”

  He’d known that was a possibility, but in a perfect world they would have been too busy with everything going on for it to matter, and he could have slipped back in as easily as he’d slipped out.

  Ashe stood there, listening to Joey’s heavy footsteps fade down the corridor. Normally he might have waited until he heard more movement, tried to dodge the confrontation. Right now, that thought barely made it into his mind before he pushed it away.

  He stepped forward, walking stick in hand, keeping his shoulders rounded and his steps small, trying to look smaller, less important. His cell was coming up. He’d only taken a few more steps when a voice cut through the quiet.

  “Hey. Freeze!”

  Ashe flinched and let his walking cane drop to his side.

  “Who are you?”

  He wasn’t actually scared, but he knew pity was the only leverage he had. “Ash… Ashe. Sir.”

  The man’s footsteps halted. Silence stretched for a moment, then Ashe heard a long sigh.

  “How the hell did you get out of your cell?”

  Ashe shrugged. “I needed the toilet and got lost.”

  Even to his own ears, the excuse sounded thin. He hated himself for using it; guilt gnawed at him like a parasite. But it was all he’d been able to come up with on the spot.

  “Then why the hell do you have blood on your clothes and a giant hole in your shoulder?”

  Dammit. Ashe let his head hang. “I… tried helping upstairs.” He pointed upward with a trembling hand. “So much blood.”

  He hadn’t expected it to work, but after a moment the guard grunted. “Fine, we don’t have time for this. We need to get you locked down. Just go back inside. Amalia and the Mistress have requested to see you.”

  “The Mistress?”

  “The guild leader. Older woman, bright green eyes, grey hair.”

  Ashe pointed to his own eyes. “Old lady. Got it.”

  His voice bounced back too quickly, and for a second he felt the tension rise again, but the guard let it go.

  Ashe turned away, felt for the door, and pushed. The steel swung open and the cold, damp air of the room hit him in the face. He stepped inside. Everything felt washed-out and heavy, a little bluer, a little colder, as he stood there alone.

  He took a few steps into the room and reached out to the side until his fingers brushed the bed. He let himself fall onto it. His mind still raced, so he just waited. The moments dragged, and he was almost ready to stand up and leave when the door swung open and low muttering drifted in.

  He sat up quickly and turned toward the sound. “Hello.”

  The word came out small, nowhere near enough. He braced for the coming awkwardness.

  He waited. Someone slid into the desk chair; the mattress dipped as another person sat at the far end of the bed.

  Finally, a cough broke the silence—a deep, smoker’s cough that went on long enough he wasn’t sure it would stop. When she finally spoke, he winced at each word.

  “Well. Do you have anything to say for yourself? We put you in here for your own protection, and five minutes after you’re told not to leave, you’re out trying to get yourself killed.”

  Heat rushed to his face. His fingers went clammy, and the nervous energy spilled into his legs, which started bouncing up and down.

  Then Amalia’s voice came, softer, steadier. “Your necklace transmits information on jumps, heart rate, and a short recording for each cleared portal.”

  He’d known about the heart rate, but the rest hit him as a surprise.

  In that moment he saw two options. Come clean about everything, or lie. He didn’t have the energy to lie. Once he made the choice, some of the nervousness eased, and he drew a slow breath.

  He explained as much as he could. He moved his hands in the air, trying to show them how the dull warning pain worked. “When my body senses incoming danger, I feel a flicker, a fraction of that pain beforehand. Like an echo.”

  Then his mind slid back to that night: the darkness of death, the slimy creature, their struggle on the stairs. That part took the longest to tell. Minutes, maybe hours, broken up by tears and gut-deep silence, but eventually he managed to get it all out. He shivered involuntarily as the wet gurgle of his mother’s last breaths filled his mind.

  With a slight tremor still on his lips he spoke. “That’s all I know.”

  When he finished, he braced for a barrage of questions, accusations, anything.

  Nothing came.

  Instead, Amalia spoke, not to him but to the Mistress of the guild. “See? I told you. That’s why we need to protect him.”

  The words hit him like a brick. He’d really thought he’d been sneakier than that. Apparently not.