My story is one that has been requested by many, heard by some and shared by fewer. It is my understanding that the period of my life that I intend to share with you now is considered a historic milestone by those who decide that sort of thing. For myself, however, those years of my life are a series of particularly raw memories, laden with emotions that have not been dampened over time. I lost many a dear friend when I needed them most, and they are loses that pain me just as intensely now as they did all those years ago.

It is in the interest of preserving their memory and telling their stories that I have decided to write my account of the events leading up to the drafting of the Treaty. I make no claims to academic merit - this book is not intended as a historic document. It is merely my own personal account of events.

Although my journey wasn't to start for another seven years, I suppose the root of everything I experienced can be related back to one brief event that I witnessed as child.

I was born into a family of servants, well known for the high quality work they did for the City's nobility. My parents were young and cursed with a combination of high feritility and what I can only imagine was a terribly passionate relationship. They soon found themselves surrounded by more squalling mouths than they could afford to feed, in an apartment that could not house us all.

Luckily for them, our family was well known among the upper classes and so, in order to lessen the load they found themselves struggling with, they found jobs for their eldest children at the various noble estates around the City. Child labour laws did not prohibit such young children for working at that time, and so I was sent away at the tender age of seven to work for a man I only ever knew as Meister Hadlein.

Despite my young age and the hard work I was made to do, I found that I rather enjoyed life at the Meister's home. He was a minor nobleman with no family of his own, and so although he lived in a narrow townhouse rather than one of the sprawling estates my siblings had been sent to, it was luxury beyond compare next to the place I had come from.

There were several other servants living in the townhouse with me and over the years I came to view them as a surrogate family. Ahgni, the Meister's cook, was a motherly woman who had more time for me than my actual mother ever did, and some of the other servants were almost as young as I was, and so I was never without playmates.

For the first three years that I worked there, I'm sure I was quite convinced that the townhouse was my own little domain. It was my home, my castle and I was a little lordling of my own imagining. The Meister and I crossed paths very rarely and so it was very easy to imagine that these fantasies of mine were real. However, it was not to last.

Shortly after my tenth birthday, she arrived.

I never did learn her name. She was the Meister's first source following his induction into the 'Nobles' and the day that she arrived, I vividly remember being struck by how alien she looked.

She couldn't have been much older than I was. Twelve or thirteen at most. She was slender to the point of frailty and, like all sources, was totally bald. I'd seen others before, travelling through the city streets with their mages, but they had all been hooded and cloaked to hide what they were. This girl wore little more than a ratty summer dress, and the extent of her baldness was clear for anyone to see. I remember that I was unnerved by her lack of eyebrows and how difficult it was to read her expression. She looked at me, but I just looked away.

The Meister took her straight to the attic - he'd had it converted into a second study specifically for his magical studies, and up there she remained for the next few weeks. The house was frequently pervaded with a low, throbbing hum that none of us could really hear so much as we could feel. It was the kind of sensation that sets your teeth on edge and shivers up your spine.

That sound was the only sign of her presence in the house, but it was all the other servants needed to start resenting her. Since her arrival, our peaceful, luxurious home had turned into a place of near constant discomfort. It didn't matter to them  - or indeed, if I'm to be honest, me - that the Meister was the one performing the magic. As far as we cared, her arrival and the change were simultaneous, and so she became synonymous with our unhappiness.

It was a little less than a month after she came to the house that I saw her again. The meister had called for someone to bring his supper to his study and I was the unfortunate soul who was given the task of delivering it. The townhouse was already three stories tall before the attic extension, and I was only ten years old. By the time I reached the top I was exhausted and nervous beyond belief about what I would find up there.

The Meister's study was decorated quite differently to the rest of the house. Where the hallways and lounges below had walls adorned with elaborate paintings and velvet curtains, the study instead had the stuffed heads of creatures I had never seen before in my young life. As I stepped inside, the glassy eyes of what I can only describe as decapitated monsters stared down at me.

I was so enthralled by their terrifying visages that I very nearly tripped and spilled everything across the meister's desk. Thankfully, three years of practice saved me and I placed the tray down on the desk. I believe the cutlery rattled with my own shaking, though the meister and I both politely ignored it.

He dismissed me, barely offering me the most cursory of glances, and I turned to leave but stopped when I noticed the girl. There was a room, built into the corner of the study. It was small, large enough only for a bed, a chamber pot and a small table. The door was wide open and the girl was sitting in there on the edge of her bed, her hands clasped in her lap and her gaze fixed on me. An array of locks were installed all along the edge of the door and I remember wondering why the Meister would be so concerned about keeping her locked inside.

I met her eyes and found myself quite unable to look away. They were big and blue and rimmed with a raw pinkness that suggested tears. Despite my own misguided dislike of her, I felt a pang of concern - why had she been crying? Was she lonely, locked up in that room all the time? The meister was the only company she got and he was no company at all, with his cold, unfriendly manner. I wanted to ask her if she was alright. I wanted to make her smile, if for no other reason than because I didn't like looking at sad faces-

"Boy," the meister said to me. "Leave."

And, like the obedient serving boy that I was, I left. I returned to the kitchens to help Ahgni making the guards' evening meal, but even as I busied myself rolling pastry, the girl's forlorn little face continued to plague me.

Maybe it wouldn't hurt to sneak up there later and talk to her. The meister would never know.

And so, later that evening after the servants had all settled down to sleep, I snuck out of my bed and crept up from the basement serving quarters and headed for the attic. It was dark and very late, so I was certain the Meister would be in bed too by then. My plan was to sneak into the attic, say hello to the girl, ask if she was alright, and then leave again. Ahgni had always taught me that showing an interest went a long way to making others feel welcome. I was certain that cheering the girl up wouldn't take very much doing at all.

The study was empty, as I had thought it would be, and the girl's door was shut and locked up tightly. I made my way over, stepping lightly in fear of creaky floorboards, and slid open the hatch in the doorway. She was awake and she jumped at the sound of metal sliding against metal almost as much as I did.

"Hello," I said.

"Hello?" she replied, hugging her knees to her chest and blinking at me like an owl. She had a nice voice - soft and lyrical. She sounded like a country girl, not that I'd had much opportunity to mix with the country folk at that point in my life.

I realised then that there were a lot of things I wanted to ask her. How had she become a source? Why was she here with the Meister, rather than with her family? Why was she locked up? Why was she crying?

What was her name?

But I didn't get a chance to ask any of that. I heard the creak of the staircase behind me just in time to scrambling for a nearby table. I shot underneath it and hid in the shadows, watching as candlelight illuminated the stairwell, getting brighter and brighter until the Meister came into view.

I held my breath, too terrified of what would happen if he found me to risk making a single noise. With a jolt, I remembered the door hatch, but it was too late to do anything about it now but wait and hope that the Meister would not think to look for an intruder.

He paused at the sight of the open hatch, touched it, and then peered inside at the girl. "Who opened this?"

"...You did," she said, and I suspect I had never been more grateful toward someone in my young life than I was right then.

The Meister seemed to accept this. He unlocked the door and pushed it open, beckoning for the girl to come out before walking off to fetch something from a trunk by his desk. The girl crept out, wacthing the Meister for a moment before looking around, probably in search of me. She didn't see me.

I turned my gaze back to the Meister, hoping that whatever he was doing would not take long. I wanted to escape back down to the servants' quarters were I was safe. Being found would put my job at risk, and my job was synonymous with the comfortable lifestyle I had become accustomed to. It was selfish, and while I would like to blame it on my youth, it was not a trait I grew out of naturally.

The Meister lifted a bundle out of the trunk. It was long and wrapped in a heavy fabric. A sword, probably a rapier that the noblemen were so fond of. Guns had only resently been invented at that point, and while they were becoming more fashionable, they were exceedingly exprensive. Most, even the City's elite, could not afford a firearm, and so they instead opted for the next best thing - enchanted swords.

The enchantments were rarely anything practical. Most went for something flashy and visually telling - enchanted weaponry was terribly fashionable too,  moreso even than firearms, and the more obvious the enchantment, the easier it would be for the noble to let everyone know he had it.

As it so happened, I was hiding beneath the Meister's workbench. He brought the bundle to the table and placed it down on the surface with a thud that sent my little heart into palpatations. I stared at his boots, less than a foot away from me, but didn't dare to move away lest the sound of my shuffling alerted him to my presence.

"Come here, girl," he said, and the girl crossed the room to his side obediently. "Lord Isaer needs this sword by tomorrow. We need it done now."

"But... but I don't have any energy," she said.

There was a heavy sigh. The Meister was frustrated or impatient or both. Lord Isaer was his benefactor, the nobleman who paid for all of his research, had probably acquired the girl for him, and likely even put him in contact with the Nobles in the first place. To fail Lord Isaer would be to put his entire livelihood on the line. It concerns me how easily I can understand his motivations now. I think I prefered it when, as a child, I had imagined him as nothing more than a monster.

❂

My story begins in earnest seven years after that. Few people realise just how quickly the change comes upon a person. I went to sleep one night, a perfectly normal boy, and awoke the next morning with no hair and a magical hangover the likes of which no alcohol can reproduce. Being that I was a servant with no familiarity with magic, the headache alone didn't tip me off. No, it was when I went to the nearest mirror and saw the nameless girl staring back at me that I realised what was happening.

It was still my face, of course, but when I looked at myself in the mirror that morning, her's was all I could see. Her face had been seared into my memory ever since the night I witnessed her death and to see her looking back at me, heralding a change in my life that would bring more pain and suffering than anything else, was nothing short of terrifying.

The servants shared a single room, sectioned off with partitions around the beds to give us all our privacy. A few folding screens would never be enough to hide what had happened to me, of course. Even if I had managed to hide behind them until the others had left the room, I'd have had to surface eventually.

I was panicking too severely for hiding to be effective though. I hurried back to my bed, crawled under the blankets, swept away my shedded hair like it was poisonous, and then cowered under the sheets, sobbing and frightened and confused. Part of me hoped it was a dream. Part of me was convinced that it had to be. No matter how much I pinched myself though, I did not wake up and my arm just got redder and more sore until I was forced to stop.

To become a source was bad enough anyway, but I was convinced the Meister was going to kill me the way he had killed the girl all those years ago. Understand too that, in the seven years that had passed between that night and my change, sources had become rare... commodity. The reckless dehumanisation of sources by mages was not a trait unique to the Meister. Others held that attitude too, and in the early years they had been killing sources for their vital energy faster than new sources had been emerging.  I suppose to some extent, I knew the Meister wouldn't kill me, but that didn't lessen the fear of him locking me up in that room in the attic.

Engrid was the first to hear my snivelling and come to investigate. She hadn't been working there long, a couple of years at the most, I believe, but she and I had very quickly gotten off on the wrong foot. She was about the same age as me, maybe she was a few years older, and I suppose rather attractive if you like that sort of thing. Within a week of her arrival, she had made advances towards me, and though I had tried to make my rejection as tactful as possible, Engrid was not a forgiving sort of person. Our working relationship had been coll at the best of times and openly hostile at the worst.

She was the last person I wanted to see me in that state.

With all the good grace and tact I had come to expect from her, she tore back my blankets without a word of warning, took one long look at me, and then started hollering for the others to wake up. I scrabbled for my blankets, pulled them back over me, and held them over my head like I could hide from the world that way.
"Hjerim's a source! He's a source!" I heard her yelling at the others. "Wake up, we have to tell the Meister!"

I couldn't let that happen. It was perhaps the only threat that could have lured me out from my sanctuary. I threw back my blankets and sat up with a desperate cry that might have been a, 'no', though I don't remember now.

The others were waking up.

❂

The Meister locked the doors of his study to prevent my escape. They were made of glass panels, but after an incident with a previous source who was particularly desperate to escape, the Meister had enchanted the door to strengthen the glass and the wooden frames. A thrown chair couldn't have broken through that door. I know because I tried it.

By that point I had given up on continuing my old comfortable life as the Meister's servant. There was no going back and I knew it. Why would he let a valuable source go to waste washing his dishes and scrubbing his floors when he could be harvesting me of every drop of energy I had to make hiimself rich and renowned across the island?

One of the door guards had been brought in to restrain me. Like Ahgni, I could tell he was afraid of me, and he hesitated when the Meister ordered him to hold me still, as though afraid my 'condition' might be contagious. The Meister intimidated him more than a skinny. bald serving boy did though, and he cuffed my hands behind my back and forced me to sit in a chair by the Meister's desk. Inwardly I was cursing them both into the ground, but I know I was silent. I don't remember it for certain, but I know I was still too much a coward at that time to speak out against the Meister, even in a situation such as that.

The examination began.

As hostile and terrified as I was, I froze up completely when the Meister put his hands on me. He grabbed my jaw, turned my head this way and that, staring into my eyes like he was searching for my soul (years of misinformation and fear-mongering had left me wondering if I still had one). I suspect now that he was looking for signs of the mental disorientation that comes part and parcel of any sleep a source takes, though the change had obviously occured early enough in the morning that I hadn't generated much. My head ached, my vision was blurred and everything seemed to be going by too fast, but I was coherent enough to comprehend my surroundings. The Meister was obviously disappointed by this.

"Drink this," he said, popping the cork on a glass bottle containing a liquid of dubious origins. He pressed the mouth of the bottle to my lips, but I made no effort to drink. The Meister narrowed his eyes at me, placed his hand on my forehead, and shoved my head back. My mouth fell open reflexively and he poured the substance down my throat. I choked and spluttered and tried to close my mouth, but he pinched my nose. I gasped for breath through my mouth, but he poured the rest of the bitter tasting drink in, forcing me to swallow before I could take a breath.

I coughed and gasped and cried, struggling against the handcuffs and rubbing my wrists raw. Whatever was in the solution he had given me took effect straight away - my body temperature rose, like I was flushing from head to toe, and the typical morning hunger pangs that I'd been unaware of until that point, faded away to nothing. 
"I'm not a source," I protested. I don't know who I was trying to fool.

The Meister wasn't interested in listening to me anyway. He took out a stopwatch and perched on the edge of his desk, watching the hands tick by. I don't know what he was waiting for or how long he stood there, staring at that watch. As the seconds ticked by, piling up into minutes, an ill feeling of being bloated came over me. I felt sick, my stomach ached and the smell of the Meister's coffee made my stomach turn.

"Right then," the Meister said after a time, placing the pocketwatch back on his belt and standing upright again. He extended a hand, tried to place it on my forehead, but I twisted away from him, trying desperately to duck out of his reach. The Meister sighed, there was a pause, and then the guard who was standing over me grabbed me under the chin from behind, holding my head still. I whimpered, cringed, but couldn't really do anything else as the Meister pressed his clammy palm against my forehead.

What followed was a strange sensation, one that I've never gotten used to in all the years since that moment. At his touch, a humming sound radiated through me, like my mind was vibrating. I squirmed, trying to break the contact, but he held his hand there a few moments longer before finally pulling away. 

There was no time to be relieved though. Next, the Meister lifted my shirt and pressed his hand against my stomach. Again, there was a vibrating sensation radiating out from his hand, though this time it was far more intense and much more unpleasant. I jolted upright in the chair so suddenly that I almost toppled right out of it - probably would have if the guard hadn't grabbed my shoulders to hold me still.

"Stop!" I cried, thrashing and struggling and kicking at the Meister, desperate to put and end to the humiliating, frigthening examinations. I didn't know what he was doing to me and I didn't understand anything that was happening to my body. I've experienced many dangerous and unsettling situations since then, but never have I been so afraid as I was that morning.

The Meister removed his hand from my stomach and stepped back, flexing his fingers and looking at me thoughtfully. I couldn't meet his eyes. Instead I just stared at the floor by his feet, tears streaming down my face and blurring my vision. I elt vulnerable, exposed and threatened but he seemed either unaware or uncaring.
Finally, he turned to the guard. "Put him in the room," he said. "Make sure the door is locked."

My bleary gaze snapped to the room - the glorified cage that the Meister housed his sources in. I shook my head, making weak little noises that might have been 'no's, but the guard just grabbed me under the arms and hauled me to my feet. I tried to sit back down, but the guard dragged me away from the chair. So I sat on the floor instead. It didn't help. Somehow, despite my lack of cooperation, the guard wrangled me into the room, unshackled my writs, and slammed the door in my face. I tried to get out, but the deadbolts slid into place before I could.

"I'm sorry," the guard whispered, before the hatch slid shut and I was left alone in the darkness.

❂

For the ten years I worked at the Meister's home, I never once had the faintest inkling of what he did for a living. I guessed it must have been something academic - he had a study, and to my mind that meant books and writing and all things terribly clever. After the incident with the girl, I thought that perhaps he was an enchanter, but during his long stints without sources, the money never stopped coming in, so that couldn't have been true either.

❂

It is mportant to understand that at that point in my life, I was the very definition of a coward. I was not the kind of person who would willingly stick my neck out for others, and I would not risk my life for my morals. I felt for others deeply, but I was fearful, weak and unwilling to take a stand.

❂

The City is a labyrinth of towering, narrow building, cramped streets, overheard walkways and underground ratways. Despite its prosperity and lively cultural heart, there was always something menacing about the hulking mess of buildings that had bothered me as a child. I wouldn't say I was claustrophibic, but the City was not a place I was ever able to feel comfortable.

❂

The Wall. The City's greatest defense against the monsters, both human and otherwise, that roamed the countryside beyond. It towered as high as any of the buildings and was pockmarked by doorways through which guardsmen came and went on their patrols. No one came or went without a permit and a source like myself was not getting out of the city without a mage's escort.

The pen was cramped, dark and much too warm. It reminded me, in a way, of my childhood before the Meister's estate. At night I had shared a small room with all of my siblings. It had been a tight squeeze, with each of us only having enough room to curling up around the others, like some kind of human jigsaw puzzle. It was no different in the brigand's cage.

I tried talking to some of the other sources, those who were nearest to me, but none of them responded - either because they were too mentally drained from the work the brigands made them do, or because they were too fearful of drawing attention to themselves.

As sad a truth as that is, I suppose it was an essential inciting factor in my relationship with Sabjorn.

Every night, once all the sources had been packed away into the cage, a single brigand would be put on guard duty. It was a different man every night, though it seemed to cycle through a single small group of men. Sabjorn was one of those men and on my second night in that cage, he was the one guarding us.

By that point I was desperate for some kind of human connection. I was confused, lost and in a situation that I did not know how to handle. All I wanted was someone I could talk to, to question, if for no other reason than to get my thoughts into order in my own head.

Sabjorn had shown me kindness after they had captured me. He was the lay option I saw.

Darkness fell, the sources were shepherded into the cage and the night guards took up their positions around the camp, guarding the perimetre, watching over the Leader's tent, or in Sabjorn's case, settling down on a tree stump just outside of the cage.

I sat for a long time, watching him and weighing up the pros and cons of trying to talk to someone like him. He was a thief, a thug and as far as I knew, a murderer. Worst of all, he was a mage. But after a day of not speaking to anyone, I needed to reach out, to anyone, and that overpowered any common sense I might have had.

Making my way across the cage was not easy. The other sources weren't terribly willing to move for me and so I was forced to push my way through a lot more forcefully than my nature would usually allow. I think I whispered apologies all the way there, though none of them gave any sign that they were terribly displeased by my rudeness.

Sabjorn was totally unaware of my approach and for someone as alert as I know he is, that was unusual. Perhaps he had just never expected a source to come near him willingly and so had discounted any warnings his instincts had given him. He was young then, and arrogant, so it is not unlikely.

"Excuse me," I whispered at him, kneeling by the cage bars and peering at him intently. "Excuse me?"

He lifted his head and looked around, frowning. He did not look in my direction though, so I reached out and nervously touched his shoulder. Sabjorn's reflexes have always been good and he grabbed my wrist like a viper. I yelped and some of the sources near me shuffled away.

"What?" Sabjorn asked, staring at me with suspicious, narrowed eyes.

I squirmed, trying to pull my hand free from his grip. He didn't let go. "I- I just- I wanted to-" I pulled again and this time he released me. I toppled backwards into the cage, falling against another source who grunted and pushed me back. "You- do you know what's going to happen to me?"

Sabjorn frowned, like he didn't understand the question. "You're a source," he said. "You'll do what sources do."

Not the answer I wanted. "Don't I get a say in this?"

"No."

To be fair, it was a stupid question given who I was talking to and the situation I was in. Frustration had reverted me to a state of childish, 'it's not fair' and foot stomping. I gripped the cage bars tightly enough that my knuckles turned white. "But I'm a person. You can't just keep me prisoner here."

Sabjorn glanced passed me at the other sources in the cage. I saw his point and hung my head with a heavy, heartbroken sigh.

"Look kid," he said, "I'm sorry, alright? This is just the way things have gotta be."

I looked up at him, really looked at him, and was surprised at what I saw. He seemed genuine. Like he was doing what had to be done and truly didn't believe there was any other way to live.  Sources had their place. Mages had theirs too. That was all Sabjorn had ever been taught and he saw no reason to question that conventional wisdom.

"Why?"

He opened his mouth to reply, then stopped when he realised he didn't know. "Because you're a source," he said, not sounding especially confident.

"So?"

"Sources are supposed to serve mages," he said. He sounded a little stronger now, but there was a hint of defensiveness in his tone. He knew what I was doing and he didn't appreciate it.

I shook my head. "The only thing we're supposed to do is fuel magic."

Sabjorn stared at me. He was no convert at that point, but I had made him think and apparently, unlike his fellows, that wasn't something he considered a heinous crime. "Who are you, kid?" he finally asked, turning on the tree stump to face me properly.

"My name's Hjerim," I said, averting my gaze, suddenly shy now that the conversation had taken a turn for the personal.

"Where are you from?"

I let go of the bars and sat back on my heels, ringing my hands anxiously. "I'm from the city," I said. "I was a servant at a mage's house, until I turned."

"Why didn't you stay?" Sabjorn asked.

"Because he was a murderer and I thought he would kill me." I glanced up, peered around the camp. "I guess he might have been the better option though."
Sabjorn leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and stared tame intently. "No one's gonna kill you here, kid."

I looked at him. My gaze danced away from his eyes again and again before I finally managed to look directly at him. "How can you promise a thing like that?"

He hesitated, looking me up and down. I was a mess, covered in mud, completely hairless and dressed in tatters, but his gaze lingered on me all the same in a way that even my young, naive self saw as less than innocent. I suppose for someone like him, living out in the middle of the woods, standards weren't particularly high. "I'll look out for you," he said, turning away from me again, focusing on the camp once more. "Now go to sleep. They're gonna take you out tomorrow."

He did not elaborate on what he meant by that, no matter how many times I asked him to. Eventually, I settled down to try and sleep, and although I was unable to with the looming prospect of some unknown trip the following morning, Sabjorn's presence comforted me somewhat.

❂

Jovim and Vorn were an unsightly pair of rogues and most certainly lacked in Sabjorn's common decency. I was understandably distressed when I woke up the next morning and discovered that they were the ones who were taking me out for the day. Sabjorn was there too, but he seemed only to be present to warn them not to mistreat me. I was surprised to see that he seemed to be taking his promise the previous evening seriously, though I was disappointed he wasn't coming with us. Jovim and Vorn did not seem like the kinds of men who would behave kindly just because they were asked to.

I was tethered to Vorn at the wrist and another source, an older woman who seemed to have more confidence than most of the other sources, was tethered to Jovim. We were told only that we would be fueling their magic while they patrolled, though given how little I had eaten and slept while I had been there, my energy levels were very low. I was suspicious of their actual intentions, but too afraid to say anything.

The woman and I walked along a step behind Jovim and Vorn at all times. Occasionally she would glance at me, like she was trying to communicate with me through expression alone. I couldn't figure out what she was trying to say though. I was too afraid to look at her too long in case the mages figured out what she was up to.

Neither of them were paying us any attention though. They were deep in conversation, a conversation I was paying no mind to until I heard Sabjorn's name. "He's a fucking bastard," Jovim said bitterly. He was a scrawny rat of a man, shorter than I but wiry enough that I suspected he was stronger. "The Leader fucking loves him, but he does nothing. Doesn't do any of the fucking dirty work, that's for sure."

 "Maybe it's 'cause Sab was a kid when he came here?" Vorn said. He was less offensive to me than Jovim. There was something about him that suggested he wasn't the brightest brigand in the bunch and I half-suspected he didn't fully grasp the seriousness of what he was doing most of the time. He was a big man though, bigger than Sabjorn, and brutal. I couldn't afford to have much sympathy with him. He was too dangerous.

❂

I was sore, hurting from head to foot, and yet somehow all I could think about was Sabjorn and what they had planned for him. He was the closest I had to a friend in this place (though I use that term as loosely as possible) and the idea of standing back while he was killed was too much, even for someone as weak-willed as I was. Perhaps the beating had done something to loosen my inhibitions. I'd already been hurt, rather horribly too, so there was nothing to lose by trying to help Sabjorn. Well. Perhaps my life, but I was rather convinced that was going to happen anyway. At least with Sabjorn on side, I thought I might stand a chance. I needed him.

Locked up in the cage though, there was very little I could do but sit and hope and pray that he would come back for guard duty that night. It seemed unlikely though, given the rota they followed. I paced the length of the cage, restless and anxious and unable to settle, before finally sitting down by the bars nearest to the tree stump when my aching injured body couldn't take it any longer.

As luck would have it, Sabjorn came in search of me. I was sitting on the floor, leaning against the bars with my head hidden against the palm of my hand when I felt something touch my back. I jumped and flinched away, but stopped when he said my name.

"Are you alright?" he asked, staring at me intently. "Jovim told me what they did- I warned them not to-"

"They're going to kill you."

That stopped him in his tracks and he stared at me long and hard, like he was trying to gauge whether I was telling him the truth or not. I suppose he knew that in a group like his, loyalty was a flimsy, fleeting thing, but that didn't mean he would trust a stranger - and a source - like me over the people who had been his brothers in arms for years,

"I don't believe you," he said after a long silence. He drew his hand back.

"I heard them," I said, pleaded. "Yesterday, they were talking about it, they said-"

"Stop." Sabjorn's tone was sharp and unquestionable. I shut my mouth immediately and was ashamed at myself for being so easily commanded. "I don't believe you."
I felt shamed and chastised, but I couldn't let it go that easily. As much as I wanted to just keep my mouth shut, I had to keep trying. "They said they're going to do it tomorrow, on your patrol-“

"Stop!" Several other sources lifted their heads when he yelled, but I dropped mine in fear and shame. I don't know why I felt so ashamed - I was telling the truth and doing the right thing for once, but the burning in my cheeks was not lessened by this knowledge at all. "They wouldn't do that to me," Sabjorn went on, quieter now. "Stop lying."
I lifted my gaze to meet his. "I'm not lying..."

Sabjorn scowled and dropped to a crouch in front of me again. "I tried to help you," he said. "Stop throwing it back in my face."

"I'm not-“

He shook his head, rose to his feet and walked away. I watched him go, my heart sinking. I'd tried to do the right thing, but it didn't feel like enough.

❂

I was not present for the next part of the story, but Sabjorn graced me with the story on enough occasions that I know it as clearly as if I'd been there myself.

❂

That day was awful, sitting in that cage without nothing to take my mind off of what may or may not have been happening to Sabjorn. I won't pretend that my concernwas truly for him as a person - not at that point anyway. However, Sabjorn was the only one who seemed willing to look at me as another person, and that was important to me. Without that, my life was as valuable to these people as a piece of parchment was to a librarian. Useful for a time, but easily discarded.

The sun had sank in the sky and the forest was dark before Sabjorn finally came to the cage. By that point I had largely given up on him ever returning. Part of me was convinced he must be dead. But still, I waited, and my patience was rewarded when he emerged from the darkness beyond the reach of the campfire's light. He stopped, scoured the mass of sources in the cage, and then made a beeline for me when he saw me. It didn't occur to me at the time that I must have made an impression for him to recognise me in the gloom amongst so many people who looked just like me.

"You were right," he said quietly the moment he lowered himself onto the treestump. "They'd laid a trap on my patrol route. I nearly lost my fuckin' head. Those chickenshit motherfuckin' bastards."

I gripped the bars and leaned closer to him as far as I could. "What are you going to do?" I whispered, glancing around in an attempt to be covert but probably drawing more attention than I would have had I spoken normally. "Where are they?"

Sabjorn half turned his head, looking back at the trees behind him. "Turned their own trap around on them," he said, though his thoughts seemed to be on something else. "Listen kid, they're gonna know it was you who tipped me off. They've seen us talkin' and you were there when they laid that trap- fuck, you were the one who fuckin'-" He stopped and propped his elbow on his knee, pressing his fist against his mouth. "They might not be able to get away with what they did to me, but no one will care if they kill you."

My heart dropped.

"I'll get you out of here though," he said, reaching through the bars suddenly and clasping my shoulder. "I'll get you to a road and you can try and find you way out of here. Look for a dock or somethin', see if you can get passage to another part of the world. I don't fuckin' know the politics, but not everywhere treats sources like this. You'll find somewhere you'll be safe."

A lump formed in my throat and I shook my head. "I don't now if I can do that."

"Better than staying here to die, I ain't it?" Sabjorn asked. He stared at me hard and I looked away, unable to hold his gaze. "Hjerim, those two won't just kill you. They'll do worse before they let you die. If you won't go willingly I'll fuckin' drag you. You saved my life - d'you really think I'm gonna let them take yours?"

There was more sentiment in what he said than I would have expected from someone like him. I looked down, twisted and pulled at my own fingers, and cast anxious glances at the other sources around me. Some of them were listening, and doing a poor job of hiding it. I like to hope that the conversation they witnessed that night inspired some of them to make their own allies amongst the mages - but I doubt it.

"How will you get me out?" I asked softly, leaning forward so that he could hear over the crackling of the fire nearby and the sound of brigands hollering and gambling elsewhere in the camp.

His eyes flickered about as he thought about it. "I'll come for you in about an hour," he said. "The others will be eatin', so they won't notice us slippin' away."He squeezed my shoulder hard enough that I gave an odd, spasmy little wince. "You gotta prepared to run. We ain't to be seen together untethered. If they do, you gotta pretend you escaped and I've caught you. Make a run for it when I turn my back." He loosened his grip, glanced around again, and then slapped my shoulder hard enough to hurt, though given his usual company I suspected he might have intended to be gentle. "I'll come back soon."

'Soon' turned out to be several hours later than anticipated, or at least that's how it felt to me. I don't know if the brigands ate late that night or if my own nerves simply made every minute feel like an hour, but when I finally saw Sabjorn's newly familiar silhouette approaching, I almost rose to me feet to greet him excitedly. I realised quickly enough that that would draw undue attention and remained seated, but I fdgeted with nervous energy as I watched him.

"We've gotta be quick," he hissed as he crouched by the cage and unlocked the door. "Come on, get out."

I scrambled out of the door on my hands and knees, keeping low and behind him so that I was hidden from the view of those in the camp proper. Sabjorn closed the gate behind me and locked it again and I shot the other sources a regretful look. Although they were broken and I had not developed a rapor with any of them, I still felt guilty about leaving them behind like this. In the short time I had been a source, it had already begun to become my identity, and leaving the other sources like this felt like a betrayal.

But I was one unarmed serving boy against a few dozen brigand mages. What could I have done, realistically? I wanted to live and heroics would not ensure that, so when Sabjorn took my wrist and pulled me towards the forest, I went with him without a backward glance.

There's really no overstating the darkness of the forest at night. Only the very faintest of moonbeams filtered through the threetop canopy, and the most they allowed with a taste of sight. Sabjorn, who clearly had better eyes for this sort of thing than I, kept a tight grip on my wrist as we navigated our way between the trees. He whispered commands to me as we walked - 'look out for that tree root' or 'duck, there's a low hangin' branch' - and despite my near-blindness, we made our way to the road relatively unscathed.

I knew when we reached our destination first from the flatter ground surface beneath my bare feet, and second from the extra light that reached us through the narrow gap in the canopy above. My eyes adjusted and I turned to Sabjorn just in tme to catch the backpack he shoved into my arms. "You'll need this" he said. "There's some supplies and that in there. Should get you through a few days."

The bag was heavy, but not so heavy that I wouldn't be able to carry it. I hugged it against my chest and rested my chin on top of it. "Thank you," I murmured, not really sure what else to say. I had saved his life, and now he was returning the favour. It seemed like something that should have been intense and intimate, and yet instead it felt... business-like. A debt had been repaid and that was that. End of. I supposed he expected me to start walking away now, and so I took a tentative step passed him.

He reached out and caught my jaw in one of his big, paw-like hands. I stopped abruptly, my heart jumping like I was afraid this had all been a ruse and he was going to snap my neck - but then I felt the familiar feeling of lightness pervading my body and I realised he was draining my energy.

"You'll have to try not to sleep much," he said as I turned to face him. "Without a mage around, that energy'll build up right fast and then you'll be a sittin' duck for anythin' that fancies a go." He took hold of the bag, stepped closer and swung it around behind me, helping me get it onto my shoulders. The straps were too long and my shoulders protested against the weight. 

I nodded and fixed my gaze on where I suspected his chin probably was. "Right," I said. My throat felt dry.

"Go southwest. There's an old ruined fishin' town out there. I know some pirates use it as a base." His hand settled on my shoulder, against the curve where it met my neck, and he made no effort to move it. His skin felt rough against mine. "You'll have a better chance of getting off the island there. Pirate ships have their own mages, and they'll hire you in exchange for passage."

I nodded again and swallowed.

"Good luck, kid."

The tension between us was palpable and despite the cold night air I felt like there was fire beneath my skin. I knew why I felt the way I did, but I didn't dare presume Sabjorn's feelings until he leaned forward and kissed me.

I'll admit that my perceptions of that kiss were wildly skewed by the fact it was my first, by the fact Sabjorn was a dangerous rogue right out of an adventure novel, and by the very nature of the situation we found ourselves in. He tasted like some kind of rancid moonshine liquor, his beard scratched at my too-cold skin, and he smlled of stale sweat and earth - and yet my heart raced and I tentatively placed my hand over his by way of encouragement. As imperfect a moment as it was, I didn't want it to end. Not when I knew what kind of trials were awaiting me on the other side of it. I closed my eyes -

- and opened them again when a light flared in the dark.

Sabjorn jerked away from me, but it was too late to pretend I was a runaway now. As the Leader sauntered out onto the road, flanked by a leering Jovim and Vorn, I felt the cold more intensely than ever before.

"How sweet," the Leader purred, smiling like a black dog.

❂

It was the worst way for us to be found together. Sabjorn's failsafe might have worked but this? Here I stood, carrying a backpack full of supplies Sabjorn had probably stolen from the brigands, and they'd just caught us kissing. The story practically wrote itself, regardless of the fact it wasn't true.

"Sabjorn, you surprise me," Odn said as he strode out into the middle of the road to square off against Sabjorn. "I wouldn't have taken you for the type to..." He leaned to the side, peering around Sabjorn directly at me. His gaze was intense and frightening and I instinctively ducked my head. "...go soft over a source. If you wanted something to fuck, you should have just told me. There are plenty of whores in the city."