I tiptoed through the forest, my soft leather soles barely disturbing the underbrush. Our quarry—a magnificent, if aging stag—was barely visible through the intervening foliage. The creature had his back to us, unaware of the danger creeping up on him. Slowly, I nocked an arrow to my bow and, inch by inch, began to raise it.


    I got you now, I thought.


    “Bael, is this wise?” a too-loud voice whispered from a step behind.


    Biting back a curse, I whipped my bow all the way erect, pulled back on the bowstring, and released, all in one fluid motion.


    Only for my arrow to fly wide.


    Adron’s ill-timed words had given the stag all the warning it needed to escape. “God dammit,” I cursed.


    Adron shrank back, his face growing alarm. “What is it? What are you shooting at? Is it a darkspawn?” He half-turned, ready to flee. “I knew coming out here was a mistake. We should never have—”


    “Enough, Ado,” I said, my quiet words cutting through his incipient panic. “That was no darkspawn.”


    “No?” he asked, not looking entirely reassured. “What was it then?”


    “A stag.” I held the blond youth’s gaze. “You know, the thing we came out here hunting.”


    “Oh,” he said, deflating. “Did you get it?” he asked, trying to peer past me.


    “Of course not,” I growled, barely reining in my temper enough to muffle my words. Our quarry had not been a darkspawn, but that was not to say there were no darkspawn in the vicinity. You could never be too careful in the woods, and even as close as we were to the city, the danger was all too real.


    Adron winced, seeing the anger writ clearly across my face.


    I sighed. But it was no use blaming the other youth. It was my fault. I was the one who had convinced him to accompany me outside the city limits. I should have known better. Adron was no woodsman. And worse yet, fear had dodged his steps ever since we’d stepped outside the palisade walls.


    “So… do we follow it?”


    I shook my head. “No, that stag is long gone by now. We’ve no choice now but to return to Erast.”


    A mix of emotions crossed my companion’s face, all easy to read. On the one hand, Adron was glad to be heading back to the safety of the city. On the other, no stag meant no supper tonight.


    And not just for me and him but for everyone who depended on my hunts to feed them.


    Ah well, I thought, what’s one more night spent on an empty supper?  I’d experienced more than my fair share of them in my short life already, after all. “Come on,” I said, tugging on the other youth’s arms. “Let’s head home.”


    We emerged from the dense forest with the crisp sound of leaves crunching beneath our boots. Adron heaved a sigh of relief as his eyes caught sight of Erast in the distance, its towering walls and ramparts glistening in the midday sun.


    The sight of Erast always left me in awe. Stronghold and city both, it was a bastion against the darkspawn. Its walls were so high they seemed to touch the sky itself. Soldiers patrolled the ramparts, their steely gaze scouring the forests besieging the city. At equidistant intervals, towers jutted out like giant spears reaching for the heavens, their surfaces gleaming from the sunlight that bounced off of them. The city was a testament to human resilience, a beacon in a world nearly overrun by darkness.


    But it was not to the magnificent stronghold that Erast that our weary feet were set toward. My gaze dropped lower to the Low Quarter—Erast’s shadow and ugly sibling. The Low Quarter was a walled compound, and even calling it that much was being overly generous. City slums would be more accurate.


    The Quarter stood in stark contrast to the resplendence above. Bedraggled and rundown, what few defenses it had were weak and easily penetrable, and it was only by dint of its position at Erast’s feet that the Low Quarter had survived had long as it had. Its muddy streets brimmed with refugees, people who’d lost everything to the darkspawn and who could now afford no better than makeshift tents to while away their days.


    But whatever else the Low Quarter was, it was home. My home and Adron’s, as well as that of the other Staril refugees.


    Beginning our descent down the hilltop we stood on, Adron and I made our way toward the Quarter’s main gates. The gate, like the walls of the compound itself, was formed from sharpened wooden tree trunks tightly bound together. While the resources the Staril refugees had were scarce, wood was plentiful, and we’d done our best to fortify the compound’s walls and gates.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    It’s too bad Erast’s council didn’t let us build cabins, I lamented.


    Then we would have had proper homes to live in and not be confined to ramshackled shacks. But the city council had refused to countenance that, saying it would make the quarter too big. My mouth twisted in disgust. A poor excuse if there ever was one. Personally, I thought, they liked that we were weak and vulnerable. It kept us pliable and if the darkspawn ever came in numbers large enough to threaten Erast, it would be at the Low Quarter they would strike first.


    We reached the gate without mishap, but before we could hail the guards, Adron pulled me to a halt just outside the deep ditch circling the compound. “Bael,” he said soberly. “I’m sorry.”


    “For what?” I asked, taken aback by his sudden solemnity.


    “I ruined our hunt,” he confessed, his head bowed in embarrassment. “I know how much what you do means.” He laughed ruefully. “Heck, my stomach knows it too!”


    I chuckled, in an attempt to make light of the matter. “Ado,” I said clapping him on the back good-naturedly, “there will be other hunting trips.”


    Adron wasn’t fooled by my casual dismissal of the failed hunt; he saw right through my polite lies. Other hunts would not stop people from going hungry today. Or children starving. But before he could say more, a pair of gate guards poked their heads over the wall. Each one wore patchy armor that had seen better days. Their spears were nothing to shout about either and were more like oversized needles than proper weapons. The duo recognized us, though, and with barely a passing nod of acknowledgment, they swung open the heavy wooden gates with grunts of effort.


    Once inside, Adron turned to me again. “Today is the day, isn''t it?” he asked, his gaze flicking to the intricate tattoo on my neck.


    Unconsciously, my hand rose to feel out the small and indecipherable image staining my skin. But it was no tattoo. It was a Birth Mark, one that marked me as a Champion. Future Champion, I amended. I was not one yet. “Yes,” I confirmed. “It’s my birthday.”


    “I thought so,” Adron murmured, a strange blend of anxiety and anticipation in his eyes.


    I understood his concern. Today was my twentieth birthday—and the day I would be inducted into the System. It was the day I transitioned from candidate champion to full Champion. And it was the day the System would finally begin speaking to me. Not saying anything, I did my best to still the nervous fluttering in my stomach. There was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing I hadn’t prepared for.


    “Will you be leaving the city?” Adron asked when I remained silent. “Or does it only mean that you will be—” his gaze drifted to Erast’s high stone walls, visible from nearly every point in the Quarter—“relocating?”


    I was the only candidate champion in the Low Quarter. And that was no mistake. It was by design.


    What Erast’s council had in store for me beyond today and whether I would even comply with their wishes… I shook my head. I hadn’t thought things through that far yet. Preparing for today and doing everything I could to help keep the Staril refugees alive had been the sum total of the calculations I had time for.


    “I don’t know, Ado,” I said quietly. I held his gaze. “But whatever happens, know this—I won’t abandon the Low Quarter. These are my people, just as much as they are yours. I won’t forget them. No matter where my path leads me.”


    The words hung heavy in the air between us, a promise made—and accepted.


    “Good,” Adron said and resumed walking.


    Adron and I parted ways after, him to inform his family there would be no supper tonight, and me…. and me to my own taskmaster. As I strode through the muddy streets, I studied the people around me.


    Each face told a tale of its own, every wrinkle and scar was a story of hardship and resilience. The Low Quarter was not so much a place but a family. The Staril refugees had carved out a life for themselves here despite the utter desolation of their home city and the scorn of their new one. Erast had been far from welcoming, but it had not spurned the refugees from Staril altogether, which counted for something at least.


    Women gutted fish by the riverside, their hands moving with practiced ease, while children chased each other through the muddy streets, their laughter piercing the morning haze. A group of old men huddled around a makeshift fire pit, their gnarled hands clasped around steaming bowls of thin broth. Ado’s father was there, too, sawing away at a chunk of wood in an attempt to shape something useful out of the unyielding material. Across the street, I could see young Trinna haggling with an elf trader about the price of dried herbs.


    With every step I took into this labyrinthine heart of Staril’s nearly forgotten citizens, I could feel my own tension and anxiety seeping away. These were my people—the mothers whose stories I heard at nightfall under the twinkling stars, the children whose antics often brought a smile to my face, the old men and women who lectured me incessantly—but good-naturedly—about the dangers of the darkspawn and how to do things differently this time around.


    As I moved deeper into the heart of the Low Quarter, the sights and sounds became more intense. It reassured me, too. Despite the undoubted hardship of life in the Low Quarter, there was a vibrancy to its people that refused to be dimmed.


    Even in their threadbare clothes that clung desperately to their bony frames, there was an indomitable spirit in each one of them. They had been beaten back by the darkspawn, robbed of their homes, and left destitute, yet they were uncowed, unbowed.


    These are my people, I thought, the words ringing in my mind anew and resonating deep in my soul.


    Walking among them, I felt a familiar warmth spread through my chest—a sense of belonging that came not from shared blood but from shared hardship. These people had raised me and taught me. Every stride I took was because of them. Whatever I became, it would be as a result of their teachings.


    Protecting them was not just my responsibility; it was my duty—one I would carry out until my last breath. And as I watched an old woman distribute slices of bread to hungry children with a toothless smile, I realized it was also my privilege. For these were not just survivors—they were warriors, each with an unyielding spirit I hoped to emulate one day.


    The weight of the coming change lingered in my mind, but it was not dread that I felt. It was anticipation—a fervent hope that it would do more than create a gulf between me and my people. That I could be their Champion.


    I may not know what Erast’s council had in store for me or where my path would lead, but one thing was clear—I belonged here, among these people. Among my people. And no matter where destiny took me or what challenges lay ahead, this would always be home.