Caden

[Caden]

Profile
Name: Caden
Age: 14
Race: Human
Height: 4’9” / 1.44 m
Weight: 87 lbs / 39.4 kg

Physical Description

In terms of raw material, Caden’s physical features show great promise. Unlike most children his age he is unusually well-proportioned, with none of the awkward lankiness of pubescence. Slightly hawkish features in the form of high cheekbones, a sharp nose and deep black eyes grant him a force of gaze that might be captivating. A fair complexion with a slight tan gives him an acceptably healthy hue. However, much of his natural beauty is dampened by undernourishment. Sunken cheeks give him a look of perpetual sullenness and thin limbs fail to properly define his form. His black hair receives no treatment at all except for the occasional indiscriminate snip to keep it relatively short, resulting in an extremely untidy and uneven mess.

For clothing, Caden has never worn anything better than cloth breeches and shirts. Depending on how recently he has procured them, they are in varying states of shabbiness. For the most part he makes do by gathering throwaways and scrounging up the materials to patch them himself.

Possessions

Bronze Paring Knife
One of his older possessions, this bronze paring knife has been concealed on Caden’s person ever since he acquired it several years ago. The only remarkable thing about it is a simple leaf design carved into the wooden hilt. For the most part he keeps it covered in an improvised sheath of scrap leather. To date, it has been used for everything from shearing his hair to cutting purse strings. Despite that, it is in relatively good condition since Caden makes it a point to take care of it as best he can.

Powers or Strengths

Anonymity (Magical)
Being able to move around unnoticed is a skill most street children eventually learn. Caden, however, is exceptionally good at it. Unlike most of his peers, he has managed to avoid being convicted for any wrongdoing despite frequently picking pockets and pilfering food. On the handful of occasions when he was caught in the act, his pursuers found themselves strangely unable to remember with any reliable clarity what he looked like the moment they lost sight of him, and were consequently unable to chase him down.

While many of the other urchins ascribe his ability to avoid detection and capture to a combination of uncommon skill and a disgusting amount of sheer luck, the truth is that Caden is one of the rare few who use magic unknowingly. When he sets his mind to the task of sneaking around, casual observers almost never notice him passing by and those who do catch a glimpse of him have only a vague impression of what he looks like. On his part, Caden is only conscious of employing the same precautions that any other would-be thief does - keeping to the shadows, behaving inconspicuously, being watchful, aware of his surroundings and alert to potential threats.

Due to his unconscious use of magic, its effects are not as potent as they might be in the hands of a skilled magic-user. The effectiveness of this ability is severely diminished if someone knows what he looks like and is actively searching for him. It is also unable to veil him from more vigilant people, and does not prevent him from sticking out like a sore thumb if he happens to be somewhere he’s not supposed to be. For the most part his use of magic only serves to supplement the ordinary methods of a thief, and does not carry them very far beyond what is normally accomplishable by the magic-less masses.

Deftness
Not only has Caden been blessed with uncommon grace, his natural talents have also had plenty of sharpening over the years, whether from picking pockets or simply running and dodging through the labyrinthian mess of people in crowded places. His movements are quick and precise when they need to be. He is good with his hands, possesses an excellent sense of balance and has good reflexes.

Cunning
Life as an orphan is tough, and Caden has not survived this long by being slow on the uptake. Possessed of a sharp intelligence, he employs it in every possible area, whether it’s learning a new skill, finding out where the best pickings are, or avoiding and redirecting the attention of other more domineering street rats. Given that his smaller stature puts him at a disadvantage when facing the bigger boys, he makes it a point to stay two steps ahead of the competition where possible so that he can always completely avoid a conflict. If forced into a confrontation, he usually succeeds in finding a way to either escape or dissuade his antagonists from picking on him by some other means that involves little actual physical strength.

Weaknesses

Perhaps the most apparent thing about Caden is his distance from society at large. Within the world of interdependence that the city’s poor belong to, such aversion to collaboration can be dangerous. His refusal to get too heavily involved in the lives of other street urchins has earned him a somewhat unfavourable reputation. As a result of this, few who know him are willing to help him, and given his present disposition, that is not likely to change any time soon. He is independent to a fault and often insists on doing things himself even if assistance is readily available, which often results in him suffering failure or meeting difficulties that could have otherwise easily been avoided.

To compound the problem, he often lets his curiosity get the better of him. When something interests him, he is usually incapable of letting it go and will devote a significant amount of time and attention to it, often falling into a sort of obsession. This tends to land him in situations that could have turned out more favourably if he was more disposed to accepting a helping hand. On a number of occasions, this single-mindedness has put him in unnecessary danger.

Living in poverty also means that Caden is often underfed. While he is more than able to stay well ahead of starvation, the quality and quantity of food he has access to means he isn’t as strong and healthy as a normal boy his age would be. On top of that, he is slightly smaller than average, which makes him an easy target for bigger boys if they manage to get ahold of him.

History

Caden is convinced that at one point in his life, he was part of a normal family. Most of his earliest memories place him in the Historic District’s shantytown, but mixed with them are brief recollections of a simple life in a humble house; the vague impression of a maternal figure, the smell of cooking and frustrating moments of near-recognition and an elusive sense of familiarity when passing through random places in Marn. He has never been able to satisfactorily resolve the circumstances that led to his abandonment, but what he has managed to piece together tell him that he was perhaps five years old when he found himself alone one morning in the shantytown. His parents had apparently carried him out while he was asleep and left him there, wrapped in a blanket and tucked away in the warmest niche they could find.

The only thing that kept him alive for the first few months of his time there was charity. He had stumbled out of the niche, bawling his eyes out, until some other street urchins came and smacked him around the head to get him to shut up. Confused and afraid, he set off in an attempt to find his family again.

He spent over a week wandering Marn alone, but he had no way of finding out where he lived, and the days he spent on the streets hoping against hope to meet his parents proved pointless. Since he had nowhere else to go, he returned to the niche every night, and found himself joining some of the other children. They were by no means hospitable - he was constantly pinched and bullied for their amusement - but they fed, watered and clothed him well enough so that he didn’t die of starvation or exposure. In fact, being the youngest, he was often treated with more tenderness than most, minor bullying aside. After a month, he gave up the search and stopped going off by himself, resigning himself to his lot.

Caden quickly learnt that his age would not serve him well for long. He was aware of the more severe treatment that those slightly older than him had to endure. There was an invisible barrier that prevented the boys from visiting too much cruelty on the very young, but he knew that he was going to pass that age soon. Some of his seniors were beaten, had their food stolen and others were even driven away. He was also aware that there were rival gangs of children who vied for any resources that could be gleaned, and that thus far he had been kept away from the worst of the confrontations; some of the boys and girls of his gang came back with bloodied noses and broken bones, and a few never came back at all. Faced with these impending dangers, he resolved to learn how to survive on his own so that he would be able to manage it when the time came.

For the most part, he learnt through observation. The older boys who led the gang were quick to use him as a beggar, so he spent most of his early days sitting on various streets with a tattered cloth spread before him while the rest did more active work. From where he sat, he was usually able to watch them pick unattended morsels off stall tables, slip sly fingers into pockets without being noticed, and even snatch the occasional loose pouch right off a belt while jostling around in the crowd. He was prevented from practicing since the older children did not trust him and were afraid that his ineptitude would tip the people off and force them to leave the area or risk being caught. However, his insistent pestering soon made them give way. They agreed to allow him to work with them, but if he ever got caught and put any of them in trouble, they would make sure he paid for it.

This first attempt at thievery was a mere four months after he had been taken in by the little gang of children. The threat of punishment was a dark cloud hanging over his head, and the thought of failure made his blood turn cold. When they reached one of their usual streets in the Downtown area, his resolve broke and he simply resumed his ordinary routine of begging in a corner. For fifteen minutes he endured whispered threats and jeers from some of the boys as they passed him every now and then while they worked. It was then something within him clicked and he found within him a cold determination to prove himself. He rose, darted into the winding streets behind the stores and vanished.

When the children convened about two hours later in their shantytown hideout, a flushed and triumphant Caden was already there. He had procured a whole loaf of bread and a handful of Bishani. Impressed with the pickings of his very first attempt, they welcomed him as an equal part of their gang and not a mere charity case.

By proving himself, Caden had set his course for the foreseeable future.

A Crow’s Life

With practice and patience, Caden found that he was able to master the skills that he needed to thrive in his role in life. He learned how not to attract attention to himself, how to move around without alarming the sometimes highly suspicious and paranoid denizens of Marn, how to seize brief windows of opportunity that allowed him to pilfer valuable items in plain sight, and a myriad of other competencies that formed the repertoire of skills that street rats needed to make a living off what they did. It helped that he was a quick study and had a knack for getting the trick of things even on the first try.

By the time his first two years in the gang had passed, he was almost indispensable to them. At his age of seven, most of the children in the gang had four or five years over him, but he still brought in more than anyone else did, attracted far less attention from the dreaded City Guard, and knew how to cajole the members of rival gangs into giving them leeway if they ever met out in the streets while working.

Despite all this, life was still hard. Even though he had earned the respect and admiration of the children in his gang, he was well out of the ‘untouchable’ age and now had to contend with all the other trials and dangers that lay in wait for every street rat. Some of the children did not take kindly to being outperformed by a smaller brat, and they made it a point to snub him whenever he came back from a particularly successful haul. More than once, Caden had to endure beatings, although he always somehow managed to avoid being too badly thrashed. Instead of retaliating, he learnt how to keep his head down and how to appear less of a social threat; this discretion spared him from the worst of the abuse that was ubiquitous amongst the street urchins.

During his time spent with the gang that took him in, he had grown close to two children in particular. One was a eleven year-old boy named Avery, and the other was a ten year-old girl named Triss. In terms of personality, they were all completely different. Caden was quiet, careful and patient. Avery, on the other hand, was loud, reckless and impatient enough to make up for Caden’s lack of those attributes. Triss was the common ground that mediated both their personalities; she possessed a sensitivity and compassion that was unheard of and ill-tolerated by most of the other street children, but she was capable of holding her own ground thanks to her fiery passion for life and a strong will. Their friendship was a turbulent one with ups and downs that somehow shaped and defined the political landscape that the gang was a part of even though all of them were not exactly leaders. In fact, their conflicts were something of an integral part of the life of their gang. For some reason or another, internal rivalries seemed to form and break up just as quickly depending on how the rest of the gang aligned themselves whenever the three of them had an issue with each other. Yet despite all this constant bickering, no matter how severe their disagreements, they shared an undeniable bond and always eventually made up with each other in a matter of weeks.

Bagging a Hawk

The third year of his time on the streets heralded a significant change in his life. At the age of nine, Caden was essentially at the tail end of what the street children called the ‘crow’ phase. Crows were almost never involved in serious conflict - the gangs would send in the older children to secure a space by force before having the crows regularly work the area, and crows didn’t have to worry about defending the territory; that was the domain of the older ones, the ‘hawks’. Once the people became too vigilant or the pickings too slim, the whole gang would target another area and the process would repeat itself.

When the time came or if there was an urgent need for more hawks, the children would have to go through an initiation. This rite of passage varied between gangs, but the tradition of inducting new hawks was one that all the street children kept; it was a valuable tool for establishing order within the ranks. Hawks, by virtue of age and experience, could do what they wanted, although they had the duty of guarding the gang’s territory and its members. The crows would benefit from the protection that these older children could give, provided they did their fair share of work by ensuring that the gang was fed.

Avery had already been a hawk for a year and had made it a point to share many harrowing stories of the fights he had gotten into. Caden was shrewd enough to know that most of these were either completely false or grossly exaggerated, but he understood the increased danger. Injuries were common, and some other particularly vicious gangs were not always content simply with chasing off the competition - these often made a sport of hawk-hunting. Triss was relatively new but she had many valuable tips to share, and Caden took every piece of her advice to heart; being a girl, her way of navigating the dangerous world of the hawks was more suited to Caden, who was not endowed with the same physical strength and constitution that Avery (and most of the other boys) possessed.

But before he bothered with all that, he needed to actually pass his initiation. For the would-be hawks in his gang, this involved taking down one of the gang’s present hawks and forcing him or her to submit. Those being tested were given three days to force a submission from a designated hawk, and if they failed then they would have to remain a crow until the gang saw fit to give them another chance. The older hawks, eager to see Caden tested (with others eager to see him fail) decided to set the gang’s second-in-command, a fifteen year-old boy named Berwyn, as Caden’s target.

Berwyn wasn’t second-in-command for no reason. He was as athletic as any street urchin could hope to be and had years of experience in being a hawk. He knew virtually every trick in the book, and the number of fights he had gotten into had taught him how to win a fight decisively and quickly. More importantly, he was extremely alert and often was the one knew when a rival hawk was attempting to break into their territory. Catching him off-guard would be difficult enough, and on top of that Caden had to worry about actually winning the fight even if he did manage to take Berwyn by surprise.

Fortunately, Caden wasn’t going into it completely blind. As a pretty observant fellow himself, Caden was often able to anticipate when his would-be victims would be vulnerable; their gang visited the same area for extended periods of time and after about two or three days he was usually able to reliably mark out the routines that the shopkeepers followed. This same skill he employed in his duties as a crow also carried over into daily life. After living with the gang for so long he had long ago marked out the daily routines of most of his fellow gang members, and he knew what most of them would do on any given day.

Caden spent the first day of his initiation completely out of sight. He did not meet Avery or Triss to eat as was their custom, opting instead to steal away with his own share of food. He tried to avoid being seen by anyone as he shadowed Berwyn at a distance. For the most part, Berwyn kept to his ordinary routine, but Caden could see that he was warier than usual.

On the second day, Caden was again nowhere to be found. The hawks jokingly suggested that he was so afraid of Berwyn that he had run off. Avery and Triss, who didn’t believe that he would chicken out, were worried that something else might have happened to him. They tried looking for him, but to no avail.

By the third day, Berwyn was on tenterhooks. Although he was confident that he could win a straight-on fight with Caden, he respected the boy enough to know that he wasn’t stupid enough to try that. He fully expected Caden to resort to some of subterfuge. That gnawing certainty that Caden would strike from the shadows kept him on his toes, keeping him from a good night’s sleep over the past two days.

Bleary-eyed and grumpy, Berwyn was caught literally with his pants down when Caden made his move first thing in the morning. One moment, he was taking a leak in a secluded corner slightly further away from the hideout, and the next a potato sack had been drawn over his head. It went all the way down to his arms and he felt a cord of rope tighten around the neck of the sack, effectively pinning his arms to his side. His feet were knocked out from under him and secured with more rope. Piss was flying everywhere and much to his chagrin he couldn’t stop until he was finished.

‘Got’cha!’ Caden said, quietly but triumphantly.

‘I must’ve got’cha with some piss m’self,’ Berwyn shot back, struggling in vain. ‘You’ve got no witnesses, I ain’t beat yet!’

He got the breath knocked out of him as Caden sat down on his stomach. ‘If you tell’m I beat you, I won’t tell how you got beat. Deal?’

Berwyn was quiet until Caden gave him a sharp jab in the ribs a minute later. ‘Well?’

There was some muffled cursing before Berwyn finally answered. ‘Alright, deal. Now get off and get me out of this.’

The entire gang was completely taken by surprise when Berwyn reappeared with Caden and announced that the little crow had beaten him. All were suspicious because neither of them bore any signs of having fought, but the disgruntled Berwyn refused to offer any details and Caden wasn’t telling either. When some of the hawks whispered about Berwyn letting Caden off easy, Berwyn snapped and boxed some ears. After that, no one had any objections; Caden was officially a hawk.

The Keen of a Hawk

As a crow, Caden had been something of a prodigy. Now that he was a hawk, the whole gang expected great things of him, especially since the circumstances surrounding Berwyn’s defeat were never known. The young crows looked up to him with adoration and his fellow hawks accorded him more respect than they did for each other. Only Avery and Triss continued to treat him as they always had, and because of that they gained a small measure of reverence from those who did not think it proper (or wise) to be so free with Caden.

Caden, however, did not like the attention at all and he resolved to fade into the background as soon as possible. He kept a low profile on his first few times out as a hawk as they chased off rival hawks or brought the fight to them. Once he was suitably familiar with the way things worked, he got more involved in the whole hunting process, although he went through extra trouble to make sure that Avery, Triss or other hawks he favoured were on hand to claim the credit for victories in skirmishes. It was exhausting work to lay traps and arrange ambushes in such a way that he was never in the spotlight, but he felt it was necessary. Too much attention was bad for him, and he was sure it would work against him. His efforts to divert all of it were mostly successful and in time the fame he got from his strange victory over Berwyn faded away.

Things went on as usual for another three years. Berwyn and his contemporaries were no longer around; some ‘graduated’ to older and shadier groups that skirted the law, others attempted to leave Marn to find their fortunes elsewhere, and a small number had either died or gone missing. Avery was now second-in-command and Triss was one of the more respected hawks. Life seemed as good as it could get.

Tragedy and change came in the form of a relatively new gang. Comprised almost entirely of children aged twelve and above, they were an antagonistic group that survived by subjugating other gangs. These hawk-hunters had already assimilated two smaller groups and now had their sights on Caden’s gang. Caden was first to hear of it, and he tipped Avery off. The gang decided not to risk a confrontation, and plans were made to move the next day.

They never had the chance. That night, the hawk-hunters descended on their hideout. Most of the crows went meekly with their captors, and the few who attempted to make a stand were beaten into submission. The hawks stood and fought, but the enemy had the advantage of numbers. Caden found himself cornered with Triss and the two of them managed to bring down several hawk-hunters, but in the end they were overpowered.

Caden regained consciousness some time later in the scrapyard. It was still night. The hawk-hunters had brought all the captured hawks to their hideout there, a total of five of them. At the moment they were bound and kept under the watch of a heavyset sixteen year-old who was lounging on a nearby mound of scrap.

‘Where’s Avery?’ He murmured to those closest to him.

‘Dunno,’ he heard Triss reply from directly behind him. ‘Think he got away?’

‘Tch!’ A soft snort came from the hawk on Caden’s left. ‘Got away? Yeah, he got away alright. He ran.’

‘Avery wouldn’t run,’ Triss scoffed. ‘Go sort your head out.’

‘I know what I saw,’ the boy insisted. ‘He was with the boss, and when the boss ran, he ran too. Saw them go m’self.’

‘They’re real close, Avery and him,’ another hawk chipped in. ‘Knew it’d happen. When they took over, could tell they weren’t like Rick and Berwyn. Acting all high, but they’ve got no balls. Figures they’d chicken out together when it got real tough.’

‘Don’t you dare say that,’ Triss warned, her voice rising. ‘Take that back, you little crow!’

Things might have escalated, but the hawk didn’t have the opportunity to rejoin with an insult. The hawk-hunter had descended from his perch to deliver a solid punch to the back of his head. ‘Oy, shut it.’

‘Hey,’ Triss snapped. ‘Too scared to hit someone who’s untied?’

The hawk-hunter aimed a vicious kick at her, but Caden rolled under him and brought him crashing to the floor. Triss pushed herself to her feet and slammed down elbow-first onto the hawk-hunter’s groin, eliciting a satisfying shriek of pain. The other three hawks imitated her manoeuvre; two on his gut and one on his face. The poor sod was left groaning and writing in pain with a bloody pulp for a nose.

They spent several frantic moments loosing their bonds with a piece of glass. The rest of the hawk-hunters who were present had heard their comrade’s cry and their urgent footsteps were terrifyingly close. Once they were free, they ran for their lives. They made it out of the scrapyard with several hawk-hunters hot on their heels. By unspoken consensus, they delved into the Industrial District and were able to lose them.

‘There’s too many,’ Caden said, panting. ‘We need to split. Hideout’s not safe to meet. Behind the fire hall at dawn, alright?’

The others nodded their agreement and dispersed into the night.

Dawn saw Caden safely at the fire hall without any incident. He had miraculously managed to evade detection, though there were a few close calls. But as he waited, it became increasingly clear that none of his fellow hawks had been as lucky. By noon, when no one else turned up, he decided to scout their old hideout.

Everything of value that the gang had was gone. He was sure that there hadn’t been an organised relocation; none of the markers they placed for stragglers were present. And on top of that, there were the lifeless bodies of two hawks; none of the gang would have left those untended.

Numb from the sense of loss, Caden found himself wandering until he was at the niche he had been left in seven years ago. He was too big to fit inside it now, so he sat beside the hole and cried quietly.

Eventually, he recovered himself and resolved to find out for certain what had happened to Triss. He stole a bite as he passed through the Downtown district, then made his way to the Industrial District. The hawk-hunters were still around, although in much fewer numbers. They had probably already given up the hunt and were only making a perfunctory search. He managed to evade them while he retraced the route of their flight. He found the area where they had split, then went in the direction that Triss had taken off. There were few marks to follow - Triss had always been good at sneaking around - and Caden allowed himself to hope that she was alive, and that perhaps she was only delayed.

He came to a small dilapidated wooden stall that jutted out from one of the crumbling stone buildings. Years ago it might have served as a shopfront to sell items fresh off the production line, but there was no evidence to corroborate that guess. He was about to pass by completely when something caught his eye and made his heart stop; a hand sticking out from behind the front of the stall.

A choked sob escaped his lips when he walked around to see who it was. Triss was lying on the floor, face down. Severe bruises showed up dark and ugly on most of her back, which was clearly visible because her clothes had been scattered around. He rushed forward and turned her over.

‘Triss? Triss?’

With a jolt of horror he realised that she was still alive, but that was hardly a good thing considering her present state. Most of her face was beaten and bruised almost beyond recognition, and her hand was pressed feebly against a stab wound on her abdomen. Her eyes fluttered and she let out a soft groan.

‘...Caden?’ She whispered, barely audible.

‘T-Triss,’ he stammered. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.’ He pulled her ragged shirt over her and chafed her free hand, which was deathly cold.

‘You looked for me,’ she said, her lips attempting to twitch into a smile.

‘I... ‘course I did,’ Caden said. ‘D-don’t talk. I’ll get help.’

‘No,’ she said, louder than before. ‘I’m gone. Don’t... wanna stay here... anyway. This place... sucks.’

Caden chortled weakly.

‘You... Avery...?’

‘The others... I couldn’t find them. It’s just me.’

‘Your luck... sucks... Caden,’ Triss wheezed. ‘First abandoned... now this. Listen... if Avery...’

‘If he ran, I’ll make him pay,’ Caden said grimly.

‘No,’ she said, again with surprising force. ‘Don’t... waste time... on him. And don’t... trust... those bastards... any more. They’re... not... not good... like you... Caden... you... hear me?’

Tears were running down his face now. ‘I hear you, Triss. I hear you.’

‘Don’t... waste your... time... on those kids... ‘specially not Avery... not even... worth half of you...’

It took Triss another hour before she finally breathed her last. Caden stayed by her side until the very end, and when she was gone he dressed her and somehow managed to bring her body all the way to the banks of the Ofriyu Mar river without being caught. He left her at a spot further north of the power plant, then went and found a rusty shovel in the town before he returned and started digging. It was well into the night by the time he had a sufficiently deep hole. He gently carried Triss into it and kissed her forehead. He was about to start filling the hole when a bronze gleam caught his eye; a small paring knife in her pocket. He picked it up and stowed in his shoe, then started filling the hole. By the time he was done, pale fingers of sunlight were creeping across the dark sky. He was so tired that he simply lay down next to the freshly turned earth and slept.

Uncertain Horizons

From that day, Caden separated himself from any association with the street children. Some of his old fame lingered and those who recognised him extended offers of friendship and collaboration, but he quietly turned them all down. He returned to crowing again, though now it was just for himself, and he found a new hideout for himself closer to the Historic District than most dared to venture.

His paths crossed with Avery a year after that fateful night. Caden spotted him serving as a watch-hawk in one crowded Downtown alley. He crept up on his erstwhile friend and pinned him to the ground. He twisted Avery's arm behind him and kept him in a painful lock.

‘Hello Avery.’

‘What the-- who the-- Caden?’

‘Don’t shout, or I swear you’re gonna get it. Now, explain yourself quietly,’ Caden said, twisting Avery’s arm.

There was a menace in Caden’s voice that Avery had never heard before. He wisely decided to comply. ‘I ran,’ he said simply.

‘We fought. Why didn’t you?’

‘There were too many. I wanted to get the word out to run, but there wasn’t time. So I took off with Rick.’

Caden was paralysed with disbelief. It took him a moment to gather himself before he could speak again. ‘We trusted the both of you.’

Avery attempted a shrug. ‘Things change, Cade. It was fun playing hawks and crows, but I didn’t wanna die just ‘cause I was too stupid to run.’

‘You’re still playing hawk,’ Cade spat contemptuously. His heart felt as though it were about to explode with the anger he was feeling now.

‘So what now, Cade? You gonna beat me?’

Caden did, just once. He spun Avery around and landed one right in his face, and damn did that feel good. Avery staggered back, disorientated, his nose bloody. Caden would have carried on, but Triss’ last words burned in his mind and he felt the anger drain out of him. He gave Avery a shove that landed him on his back, then disappeared without another word.

Another year passed, and Caden’s life was marked with more minor episodes. When he wasn’t crowing, he prowled around Marn looking for things to do. Sometimes, he snuck into the university to listen in on lectures. Even though he didn’t understand much, he kept coming back; there was something charming about just watching the students and noting their foibles in class, or observing the lecturers who came early to prepare.

When he turned fourteen, Caden understood that he was entering a new stage of his life. He was no longer a part of the world of street children, and he had already caught glimpses of the future that many of his past fellow hawks had gone into. Years ago, he might have had no qualms about joining those bands that vied against the City Guards, but Triss’ death had worked a curious change in him. People like them weren’t worth half of what he was, and now he understood that he wanted to live a life that was worth living.

This was it; that critical stage of decision. Caden sensed that his life was on the verge of a sweeping change, and if he didn’t do things right, there probably wasn’t going to be a second chance.

[Niabi]

Approved.