BATTLE CARDS

THE OUTPOST

The outer city was a different world.

Ren had lived his whole life inside the walls, and he'd always assumed the outer city was just a poorer, dirtier version of what he knew. He was wrong. It was a different species of place entirely — a sprawl of shacks and tents and fire pits that had grown up outside the walls like mold on bread. There were no streets here. No order. Just people surviving in the gaps between the city's protection and the demons' territory.

The Bulwark led him through it at a half-run, his hand clamped on Ren's arm, his breathing ragged. The old man was hurt worse than he was letting on. Ren could feel it in the way he moved, the way he stumbled on the uneven ground, the way his grip kept loosening and tightening like he was fighting to stay conscious.

"You're bleeding," Ren said.

"I know."

"Your nose. Your ears. The way you're walking. You're hurt worse than you're telling me."

The Bulwark didn't answer. He just kept moving.

They reached a small shack on the eastern edge of the sprawl — a lean-to made of scrap wood and canvas, barely big enough for one man. The Bulwark pushed Ren inside and pulled the flap shut behind them.

"Stay here," he said. "I need to find a healer. There's a woman two streets over — she patches up people who can't go to the Order. She owes me a favor."

"You need to sit down."

"I need to find a healer." The Bulwark looked at him. His eyes were glassy. "I'm not going to make it much further, Ren. The demon did something to me. Something inside. I can feel it eating me."

Ren's hand went to the card. "Can I help? Can I copy your power and—"

"No. Your card copies, it doesn't heal. You'd just be a shield with a hole in it." The Bulwark smiled. It was a weak smile. "Stay here. I'll be back. If I'm not back in an hour, you run. East. Toward the frontier. Don't stop for anything."

He left before Ren could argue.

Ren sat in the dark and waited.

The card was warm in his pocket. He could feel Seraphine waiting — not speaking, not yet, just present. He pulled the card out and held it in his palm.

"Seraphine."

"I'm here."

"He's dying. The Bulwark. He's dying and I can't help him."

"You can help him. You just don't know how yet."

"What does that mean?"

"Your card doesn't just copy power. It copies ability. Skill. Knowledge. If you touched a healer, you could copy their ability to heal. For ten seconds, you could do what they do."

Ren's mind raced. "But I'd be diluted. Weaker."

"Yes. But a weak healer is still a healer. And ten seconds might be enough to save his life."

"How do I find a healer?"

"The Bulwark is finding one now. When he comes back, touch her. Copy her power. Use it on him." She paused. "But you need to be careful. Copying a healer's power isn't like copying a shield. Healing takes something out of you. You'll feel it. You'll pay for it."

"I don't care about the cost."

"You should. The cost is what keeps you alive. If you don't respect it, it will kill you."

The Bulwark came back with a woman.

She was old — older than Toma had been — with gray hair and a face that had seen too much. She wore a healer's apron, stained and worn, and she carried a bag of supplies that clinked when she set it down.

"His name's Ren," the Bulwark said. "He's the one I told you about."

The healer looked at Ren. Her eyes were sharp and knowing.

"Alden's son," she said. It wasn't a question.

"You knew my father?"

"Everyone knew your father, boy. He was the best of us." She knelt beside the Bulwark, who had collapsed onto the floor of the shack. "Now hold still. This is going to hurt."

She worked quickly. Her hands moved over the Bulwark's chest, pressing, probing, and Ren could see the old man wince with every touch. She pulled a small knife from her bag and cut away his shirt, revealing a wound that made Ren's stomach turn — a black, pulsing thing on the Bulwark's ribs, like a second heart, beating with a rhythm that wasn't his own.

"The demon marked him," the healer said. "It's a curse. It's eating him from the inside."

"Can you fix it?"

"I can slow it. I can't stop it. Not without more power than I have." She looked at Ren. "But you might be able to."

Ren's heart was pounding. "How?"

"Your card. Touch me. Copy my power. I'll guide you through it."

He hesitated. "I don't know how."

"You'll learn." She held out her hand. "Your father did this once. He saved my life with my own power. Now it's your turn."

Ren took her hand.

The power flooded through him — warm and steady and alive. It was different from the Bulwark's shield. That had been solid, like a wall. This was fluid, like water. It moved through him, filling him, and he could feel the healer's knowledge flowing into his mind — the names of herbs, the pressure points, the way to close a wound and knit flesh and push back the dark.

"Good," the healer said. "Now touch him. Do what I do."

Ren knelt beside the Bulwark. He put his hand on the old man's chest, over the black wound, and closed his eyes.

He could feel it. The curse. It was cold and hungry and alive, and it was eating the Bulwark from the inside. But he could also feel something else — the healer's power, flowing through him, pushing back against the dark. It was weak — diluted, just like the card said — but it was enough. For ten seconds, it was enough.

He pushed.

The curse screamed. It was a sound that wasn't a sound, a vibration in the air that made the shack shake and the healer cover her ears. But Ren didn't stop. He pushed harder, pouring everything he had into the healing, and the curse screamed again, and then —

It was gone.

The black wound on the Bulwark's chest was still there, but it wasn't pulsing anymore. It was just a scar. A dark, ugly scar, but a scar.

The Bulwark's eyes opened.

"You," he whispered. "You did it."

Ren collapsed.

The ten seconds were up. The power was gone. He was on the floor, his body shaking, his nose bleeding, his vision swimming with black spots. He could feel something missing — something he'd paid for the healing, something he'd lost.

"What did I give?" he whispered.

The healer was kneeling beside him. Her face was sad.

"Memories," she said. "Small ones. Things you won't miss until you try to remember them. The name of a street. The face of a friend. A song your mother used to sing."

Ren closed his eyes.

He tried to remember his mother's face. He couldn't. He never could. But now there was something else missing too — something that had been there before, something he couldn't name.

"That's the price," the healer said. "That's what it costs to heal. You lose a little of yourself every time."

Ren opened his eyes. He looked at the Bulwark, who was sitting up now, staring at him with something like awe.

"Is he going to live?"

"He's going to live," the healer said. "Thanks to you."

They stayed in the shack for three days.

The Bulwark recovered slowly. The healer came every day to check on him, and every day she taught Ren something new about the card — how to hold a copy longer, how to push the power harder, how to feel the cost before he paid it. He practiced on her. He practiced on the Bulwark. He practiced until he could hold a copy for fifteen seconds, then twenty, then almost thirty.

On the third day, the healer said, "You're ready."

"For what?"

"For the frontier. For the Order's outposts. For the war." She looked at him with those sharp old eyes. "You're not the boy who came here three days ago. You're something else now. Something your father would have been proud of."

Ren didn't know what to say.

The Bulwark stood. He was still weak, but he was standing.

"We need to move," he said. "Varek's men will have tracked us by now. They'll be looking for us in the outer city. We need to get to the frontier before they catch up."

"The frontier is three days' walk," the healer said. "Maybe more, with your injuries."

"We don't have three days."

The healer was silent for a moment. Then she said, "There's a tunnel. An old smuggler's route. It leads under the mountains, straight to the frontier outpost. It's dangerous — there are things living in it that aren't demons. But it's fast. Two days, maybe less."

The Bulwark looked at Ren. "What do you think?"

Ren thought about Toma. He thought about the high-tier demon. He thought about Varek, sitting in his office, signing orders that sent people to their deaths.

"I think we go," he said.

They left that night.

The tunnel entrance was hidden behind a waterfall in the outer city — a place Ren had never been, a place he'd never even known existed. The healer led them to it, and then she stopped.

"This is where I leave you," she said. "I'm too old for tunnels and demons. But I'll tell you one thing before you go."

She looked at Ren.

"Your father was a coward," she said. "He had the power to change the world, and he hid instead. He chose safety over duty. He chose you over everyone else."

Ren's hands clenched. "Don't—"

"Let me finish." Her voice was hard. "He was a coward. But he was also a good man. And the difference between a coward and a hero isn't what they do when they're safe. It's what they do when they're afraid." She put a hand on his shoulder. "You're afraid right now. I can see it. But you're still here. You're still moving. You're still fighting. That makes you different from him."

She stepped back.

"Go. Save the world. Or die trying." She smiled. "Either way, don't come back here. This place is a shithole."