Deuce, Chapter 1: Pit, Fall

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Pit, Fall

Summer leaves brushed bronze skin as Aurelius’s scuffed boots left the ground. Lean arms flexed. Claws bit bark. Curling in on himself, the boy swung onto an overhanging bough with all the effortless grace of his kind. After an entire winter’s voyage spent clambering through the rigging on his uncle’s ship, a tree was nothing.

He made it to the fourth limb without disturbing so much as a sparkfly. Gratifying, but not as satisfying as an audience. Not that his regular hunting partners...