Ten tokens isn't even half of thirty.
But it's enough to make people start watching.
Not openly—no one's stupid enough to confront me head-on. Not yet. But the air has changed. The rustling trees and quiet structures across Stillwater's trial grounds feel sharper now. I can sense the shifts in qi, the faint tremors of caution as others retreat when I draw near.
I keep moving.
The eleventh token comes from a boy named Ferren, hiding in a collapsed tea pavilion behind an overgrown koi pond near the stables. He's large, armored, and tired—probably fought too many too soon.
He's halfway through chewing on dried lotus root when I descend.
Two strikes—one to the back of the neck, one to the token pouch on his waist.
Eleven.
Twelve and thirteen come from a pair of siblings—Skav and Lurell. I find them in a sunken courtyard where vines have split the tiles, growing wild and full of barbs.
They take turns keeping watch while the other rests—but they both sleep too deeply under shared illusions.
I break the spell with a disruption talisman.
They wake too late.
I leave them stunned but unharmed.
Thirteen.
The fourteenth token is harder.
Dorin is fast, slippery, and suspicious. I tail him for over an hour through a ruined library hall perched just above the inner orchard. Its floating shelves and broken stairways shift with every step.
We cross paths mid-pursuit—both of us tracking someone else.
We fight.
He's precise. Calculated. His footwork reminds me of the high-wind duels from the eastern peaks.
But precision loses to exhaustion.
I drop him with a palm to the ribs and strip the token from his wrist.
Fourteen.
The fifteenth token belongs to a girl named Hessa, who dances barefoot through the roots of a sacred tree garden on the upper terraces. I watch her set traps of silence and false echoes—clever, but not subtle enough.
She hears me too late.
One swift exchange.
She tries to vault into a tree.
I catch her foot and pull her back.
She vanishes into the underbrush with a grunt.
I walk away with her token.
Fifteen.
The sixteenth and seventeenth tokens come from a hot-headed youth named Maren, who's built a little fortress in the archways of an abandoned training yard, half-hidden behind the stables. He's surrounded by three defenders—each with one token. But he has two.
I don't go for the whole group.
I wait until he sends two of them to scout water.
Then I descend from the rafters during their meal.
I break his blade. Slam him into the courtyard stones.
He never even sees my face.
Seventeen.
The eighteenth token is earned through pain.
I cross through a pressure field beneath the shattered bell tower. My limbs go numb. My breath turns ragged.
The girl who waits inside the fog—Callen—thinks the trap weakened me enough to finish the job.
She's wrong.
I stumble.
I draw her in.
Then I break the illusion and counter with three quick jabs to her pressure points.
The fog clears. I take her token.
Eighteen.
The nineteenth token is handed to me.
The boy limps into the open, blood on his sleeve, one eye swollen shut.
"I know who you are," he whispers. "I just want to keep the limb."
I nod. Take the token.
Nineteen.
The twentieth token is offered in exchange for a name.
The girl calls herself Whisper.
She begs me not to break her mask.
"If you let me go," she says, "I'll tell you where the twins from Yarrow Hollow are hiding. They each have two."
I agree.
She tosses the token and disappears into the mist.
Twenty.
Sixteen hours gone.
Ten left to claim.
Eight hours remain.
I lean against the roots of a broken shrine just beyond the orchard's edge and count the tokens in silence.
Each one a step forward.
Each one a warning.
Tomorrow, the list of names that matter in Stillwater will change.
And I will be at the top.