Duty Roulette Novels & Stories

Caelum almost smiled. “That is why your name stays on the review. Keep it that way.” A large squad exercise was set for the end of the week. Two full groups of twenty. One led by a high-ranked second-year named Dain. One led by Phyna because no one else in the mixed lower-and-night collection stepped forward. Veyra gave the rules. “Hold the marked ground until the horn. No mercy on the pressure. Third-years will hit both sides. The squad that keeps the ground longest wins the rotation advantage for a month.”

With slow, rhythmic friction, he was rubbing the head of a nail against a flat piece of slate, trying to grind a flat edge onto the soft iron. "The interim committee posted the new winter schedules at the crossroad, Amaka," Julian said. His voice was thin and dry, like dry corn husks blowing across gravel. "They aren't calling it forced labor. They're calling it 'civic duty allocation.' If you don't have an official stamp from a registered guild by five o'clock on Monday, your name goes onto the snow-clearing squads for the upper road. Twelve hours a day for a single voucher of cornmeal scrip." Yusuf was down near the sump, using a piece of dry rag to wipe the cold rust off a spare iron flyw

I said, though my voice had gone tight, uncertain. "There's more," the scout said, hesitant. "The patrol rotation the enemy exploited, it was updated only yesterday. Only a handful of people had access to that specific schedule. Riven. Draven. The council itself." He swallowed hard. "And Nyra, given her standing arrangement to review defensive positions before council sessions." The chamber fell silent, the weight of that detail settling heavy and undeniable over everyone present, and I felt something in my chest crack open, grief and disbelief and a fury I didn't fully know where to direct.