Mira Threadwell's Arc

Chapter 7 of 13

Mira reached the trial grounds with a plain single-ply cloak bundled under her arm. She had stitched it in the dark, stripped of every trick the board had stolen. The cold pathway of ice glowed under the morning aurora as she walked toward the staging area. A snow-dusted barrel stood by the fighters' platform, marking where each competitor climbed up to show themselves. Mira slowed. A tall fighter already stood on the planks above the barrel, arms spread wide. A patchwork cloak hung from his shoulders. Her doubled seam. Her bone toggles. Her work, worn by another body. He had pinned a carved serpent token to the cloak's collar, the scales catching the light like a maker's mark. He turned slowly so the crowd could see every stitch. A ring of fighters and onlookers pressed close along the glowing ice path, pointing, nodding. Someone called out a question about the shoulder. He answered as if he had built it himself. Mira pushed to the front. Her throat felt tight. She lifted her own bundle and called out that the design was hers. Heads turned. The tall fighter looked down and laughed once, short. A guild marshal stepped between them and asked for proof. Mira had none. The board had erased her name from the work the moment it was pinned. The marshal waved her back. The crowd shifted away from her and tightened around the man on the platform. Mira stood at the edge of the ice path with her plain cloak in her hands and watched her own seams take a bow. The trial horn sounded. He stepped down to fight in her gear, under his name. She did not leave. She pulled the plain cloak over her shoulders and walked toward the registration table. If he wore her work into the ring, the ring would still answer. But now she would enter behind him, unarmored in everything but thread, and the only way to take her name back was to outlast the man wearing it.