First One’s Free
FIRST ONE’S FREE
When she turned nineteen, Talent Salaren started signing Talia on her papers.
The characters in the stories she studied had names like Elanwei and Althen.
Never noun names like Talent. She was still Talent at home, but she savored the small act of rebellion.
It made her feel more like a person and less like an object.
She wore black these days. Structured collars, dark lipstick, thick kohl her grandmother hated.
When she dressed that way, people didn’t look too closely at what was underneath.
She attracted enough attention as the youngest graduate in the school’s history.
She taught Starscript seminars that students much older than her fought to attend.
Her essays circulated through the Lyceum with little stars scribbled in the margins.
Praise made her uneasy, but she kept working harder, trying to deserve it.
The problem was her source material. Every approved text led back to the same narrow corridor of history.
The hidden archive had ruined her. She’d tasted real mystery, real magic.
Now the university’s relics felt like toys.
She told herself she needed more because her research demanded it.
That sounded better than admitting she was restless.
That was the year Wren entered her life. He appeared in her office doorway on a rain-dark afternoon, dripping on her polished floors.
Talia didn’t look up. “Office hours are posted outside.”
“You’re the one who reads dead languages, yeah?”
Her pen stilled. The dockside accent was out of place in the Upper City, let alone this deep into Lyceum grounds.
The boy was maybe ten, maybe even younger. He was skinny enough she doubted he’d seen three square meals a day in his life. There was mud on his boots, and the fishy smell of the docks clung to his coat. Very much out of place.
The rebellion was growing bolder and security was tighter than ever. She had no idea how he’d made it this far, and she should have called security on him.
“Starscript,” she corrected. “That dead language is called Starscript. And you shouldn’t be in here.”
“Sure, sure.” He slouched against her doorframe, eyeing the clay bowl on her desk. “Pretty. Shame it’s fake.”
“Excuse me?”
“The real ones hum,” he said. “Yours doesn’t.”
She pushed her chair out as she stood up. “Who are you?”
“Wren.” His smile had a gap in it. “I work the docks. Lots of crates come in. Sometimes stuff falls out, and I pick it up.”
“That’s illegal,” she said automatically.
“You say illegal.” He shrugged. “I say nobody misses it.”
He stepped into her office, flicked the clay bowl with one dirty fingernail. “You want to see something older than this?” He pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and held it out. An address in the Lower City. “Come tonight before sundown. First one’s free.”
He was gone before she could refuse.
For hours, she kept glancing at the address. She shouldn’t go, obviously. But what if legitimate relics were rotting in some warehouse? She’d just look. It was just research.
The Lower City stank. Piss, rot, old smoke. Bodies pressed too close in narrow streets. Dim flux lamps threw shadows that made everything look haunted. Graffiti bled across brick walls:
THE GODS ARE DEAD. WAKE UP.
PENTARCHY LIES.
Talia’s gaze jumped between the paper and the house numbers, trying to look less lost. Finally she found the address, a timber-sided townhouse with boarded-up windows. Wren sat on the porch.
Instead of going inside, he hopped to his feet and gestured for her to follow. He threaded through the crowd without looking back, and she followed. Turning around now would make her feel foolish. Plus, she was curious. Where was he leading her?
He finally paused in front of a heavy door. “Don’t break anything expensive,” he said over his shoulder. Then he yanked it open.
The whole room glowed blue.
There were tables heaped with relics—a mess of cracked ceramics, bone flutes, glass jars etched with Starscript so dense and delicate she wanted to run her fingers over it. Everything hummed faintly, a vibration she felt deep in her chest.
On a table in the middle of the room lay a round blue crystal the size of her fist with Starscript etched in parallel bands around it.
“Where did you get this?” she whispered, approaching the stone to get a closer look at the etchings.
“I thought you might like that one.” Wren seemed pleased. “That’s from Valta. They find those inside the ruins. The fae built houses on top of them.”
She couldn’t help it; she had to touch it. The moment she did, energy surged through the grooves—not just light but power, thrumming up her arm and into her chest. She gasped and pulled her hand back, but some of the power lingered. It felt like there were moths trapped behind her sternum.
“That’s not possible. Flux is just fuel.”
Wren was grinning. Heat curled under her skin. It felt like waking up. She wanted to touch it again. To take it apart and understand how it worked.
“This is dangerous,” she finally said. “You shouldn’t have it. I shouldn’t—” Then: “How much?” The words just slipped out.
“Told you, first one’s free.” He pushed off the doorframe and stalked over to the table, wrapping the relic in a cloth and handing it to her. “You’ll be back anyway.”
Her heart fluttered the entire way home, and her satchel tugged at her shoulder. She locked the door and drew the curtains. She gathered all the books and papers cluttering her desk and piled them on the floor. Then she set the stone under her desk lamp.
She copied the script carefully—first in pencil for accuracy, then in ink. When she spoke the words in Starscript, a glow broke over her like firstlight. Silver and blue and gold, pouring through her fingers, flooding her veins. She felt it in her teeth, her blood, her bones. Every nerve lit up.
Then it cut out, and the room went dark.
She sat breathing hard, palms flat on the desk, staring at it.
Flux wasn’t just fuel. It was some kind of magic. And she had touched it.
She didn’t care if this was dangerous. Didn’t care if it was illegal. She needed more.
Wren came back the next week, and the next. He learned what she wanted: the pieces that still hummed, the fragments that glowed in the dark. She paid whatever he asked.
That was around when the empathy started.
She had been holding the door open for a student when a flutter of the girl’s worry brushed her thoughts.
Later, her shoulder clipped someone else in the hall, and the man’s shame hit her like cold water.
More and more often, when she touched someone else, her skin would prickle with feelings that weren’t hers.
She told herself she was working too hard. She was just overtired. There was no one she could tell, and even if she did, it was too ridiculous to say out loud. So she withdrew into herself, taking on a lighter teaching load, working on relics at night when the campus was empty.
“Knew you’d be a good customer,” Wren said once, sifting coins with his clever dirty fingers.
“Bring me something rarer next time,” she said, lifting her chin with all the false confidence in the world.
He always did. And she always needed it.