Partial lockdown continued for nearly a week, where every movement had to be done in groups of five. Declan spent that time studying the storm walker’s rune and finally called a house Ariloch meeting in the evening before class was to resume. The rune had physically hurt to look at when he started but over time, the pain had dulled, the blurry lines become sharper, and with some digging and five trips to read from the rune archives, he’d come to a certain conclusion. The moment he connected the dots, the world agreed, rewarding him with words.

  Thundering Charge: Summon the storm to wrap around you and use its po3$_A@ to launch %^!2—.

  “It’s a Thundering Charge. I’m pretty sure it propels you forward, wrapped in lightning and gets stronger the further you go. I think it shields you while hurting what you hit, but it might just hurt what you hit. The archive says to counter with wind runes but that’s a great recipe for getting crushed. Just pop off small protects before they can build up momentum. It’s a sledgehammer killing flies.”

  The change in how his gut reacted to runes was measurable, and worth losing the last of the surge mana for a bearing that was still squishy to the mental touch. Rohan hadn’t returned to continue his mana channel exercises. In fact, the ArCore were largely missing, the World Wound empty of their morning exercises. Snow had fallen, thick and wet, and turned the campus into one part wonderland and ninety-nine parts misery. The only benefit was how snow made it near impossible for the blazed beasts to use stealth-type runes.

  “I’ve taken a roll of everyone who was involved in the operation,” Declan said. Partial lockdown had resulted in four new arrivals. The stress of swarms broke relationships, bonds, and bones. The two men from House Sunswa had promise, or at least had manners. The woman from Sunsaw was on a one week ban and made it clear she had no intention of staying or paying. “Because this involves so much rin, I want to tell you something and ask permission. I’m friends with Eden Proctor and Roland Farwen. One of them has so many connections it hurts, the other has more business sense than I ever will. I want to meet them and see what they’d advise for getting the most.”

  “Black market sales are tricky,” Haydn said. “I know, I get the best meat from those. But I vote we at least ask. It’s not like I killed anything.”

  The vote was quick and clean, and Declan couldn’t wait for lunch. A veritable army escorted Lake to her class before dispersing, he added ten runes to his knowledge list with close to eighty percent confidence and ticked the hours away in the library reading about arcsoul theory and how to fix defective ones. The books didn’t make a ton of sense, but over time he picked up on common terms and concepts. The treatments were largely bullshit, the success rate astoundingly small.

  He was waiting at lunch when Harris came sprinting up, nearly spilling his tray of something smothered in gravy. Probably a rat. “I did it! I did it! I inscribed a Protect perfectly!”

  The house arcanist danced in a circle. “No one except my instructor gives a shit because I ruined one tier zero rune to make another, identical tier zero rune. But I did it.”

  “What?” Eden came up the stairs, carrying Roland’s plate as well. “What’s this? You managed to inscribe something without blowing it up?”

  “I blew up one,” Harris said, his grin so wide it hurt. “Three years. Three years of ruining fragments and burning rin and I did it. Instructor Lock says if you succeed once, it gets easier. I can feel what I was doing wrong now.”

  That made perfect sense. Declan had learned the feel of ‘full’ from Harris’s defective Strike and it had made the difference.

  “I got a contract to supply arc-light controls,” Roland said. “Know any good artificers? Cause I don’t yet.”

  Declan looked to Eden, whose smug smile told him exactly how it had played out. “I need business advice. It affects all of House Ariloch, so I’m trusting you three. We killed something during the swarm, something big. Tier three. Natural tier three, and harvested a Thundering Charge rune from it. That’s a storm shield that inflicts lightning damage during the attack. Also, it turns out I have a bad version of Insight. It takes a lot of work to make it activate and half the time the information is garbage.”

  All three house arcanists sat forward, but it was Roland who spoke. “You know the difference between turning in an unknown rune—”

  “A fuck-ton of rin,” Declan said.

  “I need to send a message,” Eden said. “Give me a minute.”

  “Me too!” Harris said, running after her. “Shut up, Roland. I’ll tell your assholes.”

  Roland sat back. “Now that they’re gone, House Taylor. All sixteen heirs—yeah, sixeeen—use storm runes. Pretty damned sure their lord uses something that sounds a lot like thundering charge, and you know about tiering up runes, right? Of course you don’t. This one’s free. You need the same tier rune, exact same to up one. Except the cost. It takes the same number as the tier.”

  “Three storm charge to raise a tier three to four? Four to go to five?”

  Roland nodded. “So, if you’re specialized? That natural three is worth so much more. Natural—you spit it out but you don’t get it. Harris will be able to mash runes together. What he gets out the other side may be a mixed bag of cow shit but it’ll be higher tier. A natural is pure. You could afford to dillute it to go to tier four and there might be good reasons to.”

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  “But advancing once it’s mixed, that’s damn near impossible, right?”

  Roland tipped his imaginary hat. “Now let’s talk payment. I don’t want your rin, but I do want your services. What I want is to be the person who found Lord Taylor a storm charge. The person they think of every time for odd needs instead of the last three.”

  “Connections, like Eden?”

  “She wants money, but that’s because it buys connections,” Roland said. “And now you should understand why shards and runes are worth more than rin. You can’t spend coins to upgrade your runes.”

  “You can’t eat rocks, either.” Declan looked back as Eden rushed to the table. “I’m not interested in working on shit runes, but the shit ones are easy, too. So what are you three going to offer?”

  “We’ve been storing them for trade at the yearly house gathering and I’ve got four guards just on the store. I’ll pay and I’ll pay well to be able to empty that before we have a thief. One rune,” Eden answered. “Fuck. Harris, he’s still—tell him how the rules really work.”

  Harris nodded grimly. “You lost Strike to the Rush archole. Ariloch’s not the only arcanist academy but it is the best because we have the world wound. We have better mana, we have predictable swarms, but there are twenty other places where some train. Our rules are hardcore. You have to kill for your first rune.”

  “But say you’re some Sullivan heir,” Eden said. “You’re what, ten years old and you’re writhing in medical because they blasted your arcsoul open. You think they’ll kill anything? No. They’ll be brought to a facility. Someone will have caged a tier one blazed beast and they’ll stab it, or hit it, or whatever and repeat until they either have enough shards or a whole rune.”

  “The rules don’t apply to the rich.” Declan shrugged.

  “There are places you could go that are less stringent,” Roland added. “But you’d have to leave Ariloch and they wouldn’t admit you back. So, Eden. How long have you been sitting on that—”

  “My pitch!” She said, slamming the table. “You don’t get to ruin it, you spying bastard. One complete rune. Tier two. I’ll show you when you come to classify. But I think we’re skipping the something critical. Can we go to the Armory?”

  “Already got someone there,” Roland said.

  Harris took everyone’s tray. “Of course you do. My pitch isn’t as good. Harding will pay some rin, but you want an Inscriber. You’ll need one, if not for you, for your house. I’ll be combining tier ones soon and there’s a ton of arcanists who would kill to go to tier two, even with shitty runes.”

  Connections. “Eden, I’ll do all of yours. Everyone else gets one day. It has to happen between classes, I can’t skip out on my duties. Prioritize the ones you care about. We’ll need access to the Rune Atlas at Dueling Theory. Roland, get us that.”

  “You think I can?” he asked.

  Declan raised an eyebrow. “You probably already did.”

  “I didn’t but I love the vote of confidence,” he answered. “How do we keep this from becoming a war zone, assuming our good friend Declan delivers on the proof?”

  “I’ve got that.” Eden turned and led the way. “Anyone who threatens is cut off from evaluation. It’s just that simple. Declan, I assume you’re going private market with the rune? Get an instructor to make the exchange. Even a house lord will think before screwing with them. I’ve got three runes at the armory. They’re all low level so if you can’t pull it off, no huge loss. Except pride. And money. And runes. And connections.”

  Declan was ready.

  ###

  The armory had a line that stretched for an hour, and Declan had fifteen very nervous arcanists gathered. Everyone in this line had a rune or shard and all of them wanted credit from the armory, the ability to trade a shard for something useful, a rune for a match, at a shard disadvantage. The price, of course, went to the researchers who determiend what a rune did.

  “You do not just activate an unknown,” Eden emphasized. “If it’s corrupted, it will kill you or worse, rupture your arcsoul. If it isn’t, you might not even know it did anything. Sure, it’ll activate but what if it’s Whisper Step and you don’t have an observer? Let the researchers do the work. They’re all mana sensitive.”

  Declan wouldn’t be doing any of that. When they reached the front, he started with the easy ones. Insight hadn’t even fought him.

  Storm Shriek: Unleash a sonic attack that deafens the enemy and causes panic. Mana Cost: Minimal, Fixed. Tier One Rune.

  Mist Breath: When you exhale, emit a shrouding mist that obscures your movements and sounds. Mana Cost: High, Continual

  “Two Storm Shriek, a lightning affected Storm Shriek and one Mist Breath.” The last was a guess but it was a good guess that matched what he saw and more importantly, what he felt.

  The armory clerk accepted the runes. “These aren’t identified yet. Standard one shard penalty on full runes.”

  “I just told you what they are. Test them.” Declan waited while the armory clerk fetched his manager, who fetched her manager, who fetched a pair of Researchers.

  “The proper term is Storm’s Cry,” one of them said. “A shard off for that. The other two are right. Good guesses.”

  Declan reached for the next. He was also certain about it. “This is a Storm’s Gentle Embrace. Minor healing and an even more minor shield that absorbs exactly the same amount of damage as it heals. It’s a tier three rune.”

  The researchers gathered and ran tests after tests, culminating with one gripping the rune until it activated. “It is.” He glanced to his fellow researcher then whispered to the manager. “Are you claiming to have mana sensitivity? Who was your trainer? You went to Taylor Keep, didn’t you?”

  “Look up Raleigh Thorn in the arcanist’s registry.” Declan held out his hand. “I haven’t seen this one. Haven’t studied it, but I’ll try.”

  He couldn’t activate it, but pushing mana into the rune caused the lines to glow First, it shared the jagged lines that marked it as a storm rune. The root rune was a circle, gather, sometimes interpreted as life, but the outer lines were a broken circle, four layers that shrank it. “I need to consult the rune archive. It’s drawing in storm energy. I think it’s amplifying it. Maybe gathering storm, though I could be certain with a little time.”

  The manager moved quickly, separating their group. “Come, follow me before you start a riot.”

  The crowd was soon packed into a meeting room with a group of five researchers. “Raleigh Thorn, tier three arcanist, insight,” one said as Declan took a seat. “You’ve got no soul-rune but half of us can’t manifest anything either. How about we do some quick tests? You do it, we’ll refund the shard you lost with the bad guess.”

  “Fuck no,” Eden interjected. “He’ll get them right and you’ll still charge the shard to whever turned in what you’re using. Do better.”

  “Certification,” The manager countered. “You won’t have to do the same test. And of course, it would make alternate market transactions more valuable. In return, you’d work a shift each week at the Armory.”

  Declan looked to Eden, who nodded quickly. Paperwork, the only evil greater than blazed beasts. “Bring me something interesting.”

  The researchers began to cackle.