The Registration Fee

Elias Varren had been awake for nearly an hour when he heard his mother come downstairs.

He knew it was her from the way she moved through the house. His sister had developed the habit of holding the banister whenever she used the stairs, which made the third step creak beneath her weight, while his father walked heavily enough that there was rarely any question when he was awake. His mother’s footsteps were lighter and somewhat hurried, as though she had remembered something halfway down the stairs and was trying to reach it before she forgot again.

Elias continued running the whetstone along the edge of his sword.

The kitchen wasn’t the best place to sharpen a weapon, but it was warmer than the workshop and there was enough gray morning light coming through the window for him to see the edge properly. The sword itself was plain, with scratches along the blade and a dark leather grip Elias had replaced two nights ago. He had found it beneath a pile of unfinished work in his father’s workshop after realizing that buying even the cheapest Guild-approved sword would leave him without enough money to register.

It was old, but the steel was good.

At least, Elias thought it was.

His mother appeared in the doorway and stopped.

“Did you sleep?”

“Good morning.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“It should have been.”

Mara Varren narrowed her eyes and crossed the kitchen. Her dark hair had been tied behind her head with a strip of cloth, though several strands had already escaped, and she’d somehow managed to put her apron on crooked.

“How long?”

“Four hours.”

“Elias.”

“Four hours and twenty minutes.”

“That is still four hours.”

“It’s twenty minutes more than four hours.”

His mother took the whetstone from his hand.

Elias watched her carry it to the counter.

“I was using that.”

“You can use it after breakfast.”

“I was going to make breakfast.”

“You were sharpening a sword.”

“I can do two things in the same morning.”

“Not anymore.”

She placed the whetstone beside a jar of flour, apparently believing this put it beyond his reach, then began opening cupboards.

Elias examined the sword instead.

The weapon had originally belonged to his father, although Garrick Varren had never been much of a swordsman. He had been something considerably more useful once.

Before Elias was old enough to understand money, important-looking men occasionally came to their house carrying broken mechanisms, damaged weapons, unusual pieces of armor, or drawings of things that hadn’t been built yet. Garrick could glance at a warped piece of steel and tell where it had been heated incorrectly. He could dismantle an unfamiliar mechanism, study its pieces, and put it back together better than he’d found it.

People had paid extremely well for that ability.

Unfortunately, Garrick had possessed considerably more intelligence than sense.

Money disappeared into unnecessary materials, unfinished experiments, bad agreements and bottles. Missed commissions became debts. Debts became arguments. Eventually the customers stopped coming.

These days the workshop was usually silent.

“What do you want?” Mara asked.

“Whatever we have.”

“That isn’t helpful.”

“Then why did you ask?”

His mother looked over her shoulder.

Elias smiled slightly.

She tried not to smile back and failed.

“We have eggs.”

“How many?”

“Enough.”

“That means three.”

“It means enough.”

“There are four people.”

“Your father won’t be awake.”

“He’ll eat eventually.”

Mara busied herself with the stove. “Then I’ll make him something later.”

Elias leaned back in his chair. There was little point arguing. If there were three eggs, his mother would give one to him, one to his sister, leave one for Garrick, and claim she’d already eaten something.

“I’m not hungry,” Elias said.

“You’re always hungry.”

“I ate earlier.”

“What?”

“Bread.”

“When?”

“Before you came down.”

There had been bread. Elias had seen it so he considered that close enough to the truth. His mother turned and stared at him.

“You lie badly.”

“I don’t.”

“You do to me.”

A quiet laugh came from the hallway. Elias looked toward the stairs.

His sister was sitting on the bottom step with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

Lysa Varren was sixteen, only a year younger than him, though strangers had recently begun assuming the difference was greater. Illness had taken weight from her face and arms over the last year, and her dark hair had grown almost to her shoulders because she no longer cared enough to cut it regularly.

There had been a time when Lysa woke before Elias did. She would run the eastern road beyond the city walls while morning mist still covered the fields, then return complaining that the route wasn’t long enough. For a while she’d wanted an athletics scholarship. Later she’d decided she would rather study natural history. Then architecture. Then medicine.

Lysa had always wanted too many things.

Now there were days when getting downstairs exhausted her.

“You’re terrible at lying,” she said.

“You shouldn’t be downstairs.”

“And you’re terrible at changing subjects.”

“How long have you been sitting there?”

“Long enough to hear about your imaginary bread.”

Mara immediately abandoned the stove. “Lysa, you had a fever yesterday.”

“I don’t have one now.”

“You should be resting.”

“I’ve been resting for ten months. I think I’m getting quite good at it.”

Elias crossed the room. Before he could touch her forehead, Lysa leaned away.

“No.”

“I wasn’t doing anything.”

“You were checking my temperature.”

“I was moving my hand.”

“Toward my forehead.”

“Coincidence.”

She gave him a tired look.

Mara brought her a chair, and after a brief argument about whether she needed one, Lysa allowed Elias to move it closer to the table.

Her attention immediately settled on his sword.

“So that’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“It looks old.”

“It is.”

“Is that good?”

“No.”

“Then why did you say it like it was?”

Elias paused.

Lysa smiled faintly...He was glad to see it.

She reached toward the scabbard.

“Can I?”

“No.”

“I wasn’t going to touch the blade.”

“You were absolutely going to touch the blade.”

“I wanted to see if it was sharp.”

“That involves touching the blade.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Explain another method.”

She thought for a moment. “I could ask you.”

“It’s sharp.”

“There. Problem solved.”

Mara placed a bowl on the table. “Nobody is testing how sharp anything is before breakfast.”

For several minutes, the kitchen became pleasantly ordinary. Oil hissed in the pan, rainwater dripped from the roof outside, and somewhere farther down the street a cart rolled over uneven stones. Lysa complained when their mother opened the window because she was cold, then complained when Mara closed it because the kitchen was smoky.

Elias found himself looking at the clock.

Six twenty-seven.

Registration began at seven.

The Guildhall was twelve minutes away at an ordinary pace, ten if the streets were empty, and eight if he cut behind the cooper’s yard.

He had checked.

Twice.

There was only one variable in the plan. Three knocks struck the front door. Then the door opened immediately.

Elias closed his eyes.

“Morning!”

Mara looked toward the hallway. “Tavian?”

“Yes, Mrs. Varren.”

“You’re supposed to wait after knocking.”

“I did.”

“You knocked and opened the door at the same time.”

There was a pause.

“...I waited in my heart.”

Lysa covered her mouth.

Tavian Rook appeared in the kitchen doorway carrying a spear wrapped in cloth over one shoulder. He was taller than Elias by nearly half a head and had been insufferably pleased about it ever since the difference appeared the previous summer.

He noticed Lysa immediately.

“You’re downstairs.”

“So everyone keeps telling me.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Everyone keeps asking me that too.”

Tavian considered this. “Have you died?”

Lysa stared at him.

“Not yet.”

“Excellent.”

Mara sighed. “You’re terrible at checking on sick people.”

“I got an answer.”

Elias stood. “You’re late.”

Tavian looked at the clock.

“I’m early.”

“You said you’d be here at six twenty.”

“I said around six twenty.”

“You arrived at six twenty-nine.”

“That’s around six twenty.”

“Not mathematically.”

“Fortunately, we’re becoming adventurers, not accountants.”

“The Guild requires accounting.”

Tavian’s expression changed.

“You’ll handle that.”

“I was already going to.”

“See? We’re prepared.”

Lysa looked between them. “I give you four days.”

“Before what?”

“One of you kills the other.”

Tavian considered Elias.

“Five.”

Breakfast was divided exactly as Elias had expected. When Mara turned toward the stove, he cut his egg in half and moved part of it onto her plate. She noticed immediately, protested, and eventually ate it after Elias insisted he’d already had bread.

Lysa betrayed him by laughing throughout the exchange.

At six forty-one, Elias fastened his sword belt and lifted his pack from beside the door.

He had spent five months preparing for today. Inside were bandages, cord, flint, a spare shirt, waterskin, notebook, chalk, a small utility knife and three days of dried food despite Tavian repeatedly pointing out that they weren’t going anywhere today.

His coin pouch contained the Guild registration fee and eleven coppers.

Lysa’s medicine cost thirty-six.

That arithmetic had been sitting in the back of his mind all morning.

He was tightening the final strap when a voice came from behind him.

“Take that off.”

The room went quiet.

Garrick Varren stood at the end of the hallway.

His hair was uncombed, his shirt wrinkled, and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes. Elias couldn’t tell whether he’d just woken or hadn’t slept at all. The smell that usually accompanied his worst mornings was absent, at least.

Elias followed his father’s gaze to the sword.

“What?”

“The belt. Take it off.”

“I adjusted it yesterday.”

“I can see that.”

Elias felt his jaw tighten. Garrick walked closer and pointed toward the rear strap.

“You’ll tear that.”

“No, I won’t.”

“You fall sideways, the sword catches, the buckle twists and those stitches come apart.”

Elias looked down.

He had reinforced the stitching himself.

“It’ll hold.”

Garrick stared at him for a moment, then held out his hand.

“Give it.”

Elias almost refused.

There had been years when anything his father said sounded like the beginning of an argument. Some of those arguments had ended with broken dishes. Others had ended worse.

But Elias knew that look. It was one of the few expressions Garrick still wore that belonged to the man he’d been years ago.

Elias unfastened the belt.

His father took it without another word and disappeared into the workshop.

Tavian glanced at Elias.

“We have nineteen minutes.”

“I know.”

“You’re making the face.”

“What face?”

“The one where you’re calculating exactly how angry nineteen minutes should make you.”

Elias went after his father.

The workshop smelled of old oil, leather and cold iron. Tools covered the walls, some rusting from neglect while others remained meticulously maintained despite everything else in the room.

Garrick had already taken the harness apart.

Elias stopped.

“I spent two hours on that.”

“Should’ve spent three.”

His father’s hands moved quickly. He shifted the buckle, shortened one strap, replaced another with a thicker piece of leather and cut two new holes without measuring.

Elias watched despite himself.

“Why move the buckle?”

“Because you put it where it looked right.”

“I put it where the weight balanced.”

“While standing.”

Garrick handed the belt back.

“People don’t usually try to kill you while you’re standing comfortably.”

Elias fastened it.

The difference was immediate.

The scabbard sat slightly farther back. When he stepped, it moved with his hip instead of against it.

Garrick picked up the sword next.

He drew perhaps a hand’s width of steel from the scabbard, looked at the edge, and frowned.

“You sharpened this?”

“Yes.”

“Too much.”

“It wasn’t sharp enough.”

“It was fine.”

“It can be sharper.”

“So can a kitchen knife. Doesn’t mean you shave with it.”

Garrick pushed the blade back into its scabbard.

“You keep taking steel off every time you’re nervous, you’ll have a needle by winter.”

Elias said nothing.

His father looked at him then, properly, and for an uncomfortable moment, neither spoke.

Garrick’s eyes moved toward the pack, the boots, the sword, and finally back to his son’s face.

“You’re really doing this.”

“Yes.”

Another silence followed.

Elias wasn’t sure what he expected. A warning, perhaps. An insult. On bad mornings his father could find fault in the weather.

Instead Garrick tugged once on the sword belt.

“Better.”

Elias looked down at it.

“Yeah.”

He hesitated.

“Thanks.”

Garrick had already turned toward his workbench.

“Don’t lose the sword.”

That was apparently the end of the conversation.

Elias left the workshop.

Tavian was waiting by the door. Lysa had returned to the stairs, one hand wrapped around the banister, while Mara stood beside her.

Elias looked at his sister.

“I’ll get the medicine.”

Her expression changed slightly.

“You don’t have to do it today.”

“Yes, I do.”

“The physician said tomorrow is fine.”

“The physician also said not to skip it.”

Lysa looked as though she wanted to argue, then stopped.

“Just don’t get stabbed for thirty-six coppers.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“That isn’t reassuring.”

Tavian lifted his spear. “I’ll stop him.”

“You?”

“I’m extremely responsible.”

Everyone looked at him.

Tavian frowned. “That was unnecessary.”

Mara hugged Elias before he could object. She held him tightly enough that the sword between them became inconvenient, then stepped back and straightened the collar of his coat.

“You don’t have to take the first job they give you.”

“I know.”

“And you can come home if it feels wrong.”

“I know.”

“And eat.”

“Yes.”

“And sleep.”

Elias hesitated.

His mother noticed.

“Elias.”

“I’ll sleep.”

“More than four hours.”

“We’re going to be late.”

“Elias.”

He kissed her forehead before she could continue.

“Bye, Mother.”

He escaped through the door.

Tavian followed, laughing.

The rain had stopped, leaving Bellhaven washed gray beneath the early morning sky. Shopkeepers were raising shutters along the street, carts rolled toward the market, and the smell of wet stone mixed with bread from the bakery two houses down.

For a while, the two of them walked without speaking.

Then Tavian glanced over.

“What are you becoming an adventurer for?”

Elias looked at him.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A normal one.”

“You know why.”

“I know why you’re registering. That’s different.”

Elias considered it.

Adventurers passed them going the opposite direction, three men and a woman wearing mud-stained traveling gear. One carried a bow. Another had an enormous pack covered in cooking pots. They were laughing about something that had apparently happened on the northern road.

Elias watched them disappear around the corner.

He had never been farther than two days from Bellhaven.

There were roads north of the city that crossed mountains he’d only seen from a distance. Beyond them were places he’d read about in books, coastlines he’d never seen, forests large enough to swallow Bellhaven a hundred times over, and old roads whose builders had been dead for centuries.

For now, none of that mattered.

“Whatever pays,” Elias said.

Tavian smiled.

“Thought so.”

They turned the final corner.

The Adventurers’ Guild occupied an old stone building overlooking the river, large enough that Elias had always thought it looked more like a courthouse than somewhere people went to hunt monsters. Its doors had already opened.

A line stretched down the front steps.

Then across the courtyard.

Then halfway along the street.

Elias stopped walking.

Tavian stopped beside him.

For several seconds, neither spoke.

Elias looked at the clock mounted above the Guild entrance.

Seven minutes before opening.

He looked at the line again.

Tavian slowly turned toward him.

“You’re doing the face.”

Elias tightened his grip on the strap of his pack.

“We should’ve left nineteen minutes ago.”

Tavian began laughing.

Elias walked toward the end of the line.

His first day as an adventurer had not yet begun, and he was already behind schedule.