King of the Unchosen

How it begins

At the kingdom's selection, the sky gave Owen Vale an empty box.

Around him, new classes unfolded in letters of gold. Spearmaster. Flamewright. Storm Shepherd. A woman who sold turnips received a wolf the size of a pony and immediately told it to stop sniffing the cheese stall. Owen's box remained the polite gray of an unanswered question.

The herald tapped it with his ceremonial rod. Nothing happened. He tapped Owen instead.

'Perhaps you're not finished choosing,' Owen said.

'The system does not hesitate.'

'It seems to be making an exception.'

By noon, the selected adults had marched toward the guildhall, followed by cheering families and one chastened enormous wolf. Owen took his empty box back to his shoe shop. It floated beside him all the way, too high to hang a hat on and too low to forget.

Someone had left a pair of boots on the step. Their soles were burned through. The note said, Sorry. Thought you'd know what to do.

He knew exactly what to do. Cut away the ruined leather. Check the welt. Save the parts still willing to hold. His father had taught him that last instruction about shoes, though it worked on chairs and occasionally people.

When he pulled the first stitch tight, the gray box flickered.

UNRANKED ACTION RECOGNIZED.

Owen put down his awl. 'Now?'

The letters vanished. A woman in a travel-stained cloak stood in the doorway, leaning more heavily on the frame than she probably intended. Mara Holt's name appeared above her head in old gold: ranked player, retired. Someone had scratched a line through the word retired.

'Those are mine,' she said, looking at the boots. 'They used to make me faster.'

'What happened?'

Mara glanced at the empty box beside him. 'I won.'

From the square came a crash, then the frightened barking of the turnip seller's wolf. Owen's needle flashed again. This time the new word stayed.

MEND.