“Are you sure we’ll be safe here?”

  “I guess so,” Kurt didn’t seem convinced by his own words. “Better than staying out in the snow.” He rapped politely at the door before rubbing his hands together to keep them warm. “Once I know for sure my bio dad won’t turn you in, I’ll invite you into the estate.”

  “Who’s making that racket?” A voice shouted before the door swung open revealing a sweaty man, who smelled strongly of alcohol. Behind him, the additional smell of heat and metal was familiar to Max. “You.”

  “Me.” Kurt appeared surprised by the animosity directed to him.

  “What’re you doing here? Wasting my time again-”

  Kurt stuck his foot by the door frame before the man could close it. “I brought you two workers! They’ll work for cheap.” The offer didn’t stop him from trying to crush Kurt’s foot.

  “For free!” Max offered.

  “Who’s working for free?” Cy snipped back before pushing Max behind him. “Move your foot, Kurt.”

  The man opened the door more to get a better look at Cy. Kurt didn’t comply until the man began to speak. “Well, well, I never thought I would see little Cyrus so far away from the community.”

  “Open the door, Nik.” Cy ordered.

  “No.” Nik began to reach for the door again before it suddenly slammed shut making Max and Kurt jump.

  “Did-did the door just close on its own?” Kurt pondered aloud.

  Max looked around him. Cy was suddenly gone. Did he teleport into Nik’s workshop? There was an eerie silence coming from the building. “Should we try opening the door? I think Cy got inside.”

  “How in God’s name did he do that?” The butcher’s boy rolled up his sleeves showing the muscles he gained from hurling carcasses around the shop and new training as a lord. “Should we try breaking down the door? Or would the window be quicker?”

  “The window will be faster,” Max turned to the nearest window to see a stack of metal blocking his view.

  “Move aside then.” What? Max had to duck before the chest plate of Kurt’s armour was thrown through the window and knocked down the stack. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Max used his cape to cover some of the broken glass before leaping in to see… a calm Cy and Nik staring wide-eyed at him.

  “What did you do to my window!?”

  Cy paused for a moment. “Okay, he’ll work for less until the damages have been repaid.” Max was about to join in the argument when Cy held up his hand, causing him to hesitate. “And he’s good, very good, at metal work. A prodigy, wouldn’t you say, Max?” Max nodded along. “Not to mention, he’s willing to teach innovative-”

  Max suddenly felt something hard hit his back, causing him to stumble to the ground. It turned out Kurt decided to go through the window too.

  “Right, what’s going on?” The butcher’s boy was surprisingly springy, as he bounced back on his feet. “Why’d you close the door, Nik?”

  Nik ignored him. Instead, he pointed a fat finger at Cy. “80 gaeles a month.” What!? That was less than the minimal wage at Tsujuma… but more than double what Bessie offered. Maybe it wasn’t a bad deal after all. “He gets 20 until the window is paid off.”

  “Deal.” Cy hadn’t hesitated. Max held his tongue but tried to express his displeasure on his face. Too bad it was all for naught. Cy wasn’t paying him any mind. “And double his once the window is paid off.”

  “Deal.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Great, back to working for 40 gaeles a month once the stupid window is repaired. Then again, he didn’t know if they were going to be there long enough for Nik to buy a new window.

  “How could Kurt eat so much meat and still stay skinny? Do you think he uses that innate magic of his to eat all that?” Cy was clearly disappointed by either the lack of magic from Kurt or his lack of interest in harnessing it. After sighing, he began setting up their space while Max hauled the scraps of metal into neat piles around the edges of the supply room. “So, you already knew?” Max shrugged before stacking plates of metal. “We can’t count on him using it. It’s too… unstable.”

  “And it’s pretty time-consuming training a complete novice,” Max said in agreement.

  “You know, at first, I thought he bought all that meat for us… then he just devoured it all… like a snake. Did he even chew?”

  “He’s always had a big appetite,” Max downplayed Cy’s observation. “Who would’ve thought Kurt was the inn’s benefactor?” When he told them about his suggestions with meat and innovations around service to the popular inn where the estate’s guests sometimes resided, Max was a bit surprised. His modern approach wasn’t what he expected from the humble butcher’s boy.

  Before Max could continue the conversation. The floor beneath them began to shake slightly causing his metal pile to scatter. There was also an ominous but familiar hum polluting the air. The pair of them glanced towards the door where the sound of clashing metal fought for dominance. Then it was gone. “What was that?”

  Cy cocked his head to the side before shrugging. “Whatever it is, it’s irrelevant to your fate right now.”

  “Maybe another sucker woke up in this village. and the system is trying to get them to commit to something,” Max guessed before changing the subject. “Getting Kurt to change might be easier than we thought. What’s the colour of his fate?”

  “Orange.”

  “Like Adelaide’s?” Wasn’t she part of a horror story?

  “No, much paler. Kind of like the colour of a squash.”

  “The moment the colour changes, we should start organising his ascension,” Max declared. He tried to readjust the door to their room for a more secure seal. On the other side, there was a clear sound of metalwork occurring. Cy negotiated a simple deal for them. During the morning and early afternoon, Max would be keeping up production while Cy monitored the front of the shop. During the night, they were to stay out of Nik’s way. Out of sight and out of mind.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick about it. His fate changes easily.”

  Interrupted silence returned to their room, as they tried to ignore Nik working away. Finally, alone again, there were a few things bubbling up in Max’s mind about where to take the conversation. Should he ask Cy to tell him Kurt’s name like he did with BB? It wasn’t worth the time since he couldn’t write anymore. Perhaps he could ask more about what Cy could see in fates? He had been defensive last time he asked on the way here. Probably not the best time if there was something else going on. What about resuming the conversation from the inn? Max didn’t feel ready to reveal his choices in his past life. How about bringing up Bessie’s berry girls-

  “Can I ask you something?”

  Thank goodness, Cy was willing to end the building silence between them. “Yes, of course.”

  “The prompt which asked you to kill me,” Max’s mood instantly soured, “how exactly was it written by the system?”

  “Give me a second,” Max opened up the HUD. “Cy is still alive when the sun rises.”

  He paused for a moment. “The system called me ‘Cy’?”

  “It’s not the first time it’s referred to you as ‘Cy.’ That’s why I called you that to begin with.”

  “There was a prompt when we first met?”

  “There’s been prompts for as long as we’ve known each other.” Max scrolled back through the long list. “How to start: Ignore Cy… Cy dies… Cy dies… Cy dies… There’s a few about you dying… The prompts where I had to let you die to start often had small variations in the description. Ah ha, here’s the change, Cy learns about the system from you… Cy is cured from his illness…”

  “The system didn’t seem to keen on me living.” Cy gave a little smirk, but Max couldn’t understand why. “Then it suddenly flipped the script. The system is a bit indecisive with what to do with me.”

  “I guess,” Max looked back through the description for more clues. “A lot of your sections had been redacted from the start. Probably because there were clues about you already having a penalty from the system. How’s that going by the way?”

  “No problems after you tattooed me.”

  “Good… Looking back, the only time when prompts related to you were complete was when I… got a report from Edric about you.” Close one, he almost admitted to reading a physical document. Would it have counted even though the action was in the past? It must do. Once you become literate, you can’t go back. “Damn, the system really had it out for Darius.” Looking comparatively of the prompts mentioning Darius and the others, it was a night and day difference in severity.

  “I bet it does,” Cy muttered, causing Max to close the HUD and refocus his attention on him. “What did Edric say about me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Huh?”

  “’You bet it does.’”

  Cy didn’t say anything, as he began sorting through their stuff dividing it into two piles. “I don’t know all the details,” he mumbled. It was hard to hear it over the clanging of metal.

  “But you know something,” Max wasn’t going to let the slipup go. “Why would the system have a problem with Darius?”

  “Probably because Dad knew what the system was.”