The monster hall smelled worse than the scrap halls.

  It was sharper—iron and rot layered over a faint chemical tang that stung the back of the throat. The smell clung to clothes and hair no matter how much you scrubbed, a reminder that even dead things still carried weight here.

  Kael preferred it anyway. He worked this hall most often.

  Monster processing followed rules that didn’t change. Bone went one way. Hide another. Anything that twitched after separation went straight into sealed bins and stayed there until someone higher-tier decided it was safe to touch again.

  There was comfort in that.

  Kael took his place at the long stone table, sleeves already rolled, knife balanced easily in his hand. The carcass in front of him was a twisted thing—six-legged, fur burned away in patches, one eye melted shut. Whatever it had been before the wilds touched it didn’t matter anymore.

  “Lucky draw,” Riven muttered beside him. “At least it’s dead this time.”

  Kael snorted softly. “You say that like it’s guaranteed.”

  Riven grinned, sharp and humorless. “Statistically? No. Personally? I’m due.”

  They set to work.

  The hall buzzed with low conversation, the scrape of blades against bone, the wet sound of separation. Older workers moved with practiced efficiency, hands scarred and steady. Younger ones hesitated more, flinching when a muscle jumped or a nerve sparked unexpectedly.

  Every now and then, someone cursed softly when a tool slipped.

  No one stopped working.

  Halfway down the table, a girl from Tier Eight paused, knife hovering uncertainly.

  “Is it still active?” she asked.

  The overseer didn’t look up. “Does it matter?”

  “Yes?”

  Stolen novel; please report.

  He finally raised his head, eyes flat. “If it moves, step back. If it doesn’t, keep cutting.”

  She swallowed and obeyed.

  Kael kept his focus tight. Slice. Separate. Sort. His hands knew the work better than his mind did. That was the trick—let your body handle it so your thoughts didn’t wander.

  But they wandered anyway.

  Across the hall, Tomas worked with his usual slouch, curse mark visible where his collar dipped. Most people didn’t bother hiding theirs down here. Everyone had one. Everyone knew what they meant.

  Potential.

  And nothing else.

  Marks came in all shapes—faint lines etched like scars, darker sigils that pulsed when the air was wrong, thin rings around wrists or throats. The cursed marks didn’t really do anything—not for them, anyway. No one this low down in the March even knew why they had them. Kael’s sat low on his ribs, half-hidden unless he stretched wrong. He’d stopped thinking about it years ago.

  Marks didn’t make you special.

  They made you eligible. Or so they said. Really, Kael thought that was just a pretty lie—another one to keep gutter rats like him obedient, aiming for the inner tiers.

  Every so often, someone like that would come through the hall—Awakened, usually—and the air would change when they passed. Not pressure exactly. Density. Like the space around them carried more weight than it should. At least, that’s what it seemed like. Not everyone noticed.

  But people did notice.

  No one stared.

  You learned early that staring invited attention, and attention was never free.

  Especially not the Awakened kind.

  Today, no one like that came.

  Which should have been reassuring.

  By mid-cycle, the first body was fully processed. The next was dragged in—larger, heavier, spines ridged with half-formed bone growths that clicked faintly when disturbed.

  Riven whistled low. “That thing take out a patrol?”

  “Probably,” Kael said. “They wouldn’t waste this hall on it otherwise.”

  Riven leaned closer, voice dropping. “You hear about Lysa?”

  Kael didn’t look at him. “No.”

  “Tier Seven. Slept two rows down from us.”

  Kael’s knife paused for half a second.

  “And?” he prompted.

  Riven shrugged. “Didn’t show this morning. Board says reassigned, just like Denzel. That’s happening a lot, you know.”

  Kael resumed cutting. “But it does happen.”

  “Yeah,” Riven said. “Just… feels like it’s happening more.”

  A nearby worker glanced their way.

  Kael shifted his stance slightly, blocking Riven from view. “Focus,” he said quietly. “You’re nicking the membrane.”

  Riven huffed but obeyed.

  The overseer passed behind them, boots crunching softly on grit. Kael felt his presence without looking—the way you always did—and kept his hands moving, posture loose, unremarkable.

  “End of cycle in ten,” the overseer called.

  Groans rippled through the hall.

  When the siren finally sounded, Kael’s shoulders sagged with relief. He cleaned his blade carefully, wiped his hands, and followed the others out, muscles humming with fatigue.

  At the wash troughs, water ran red for a long time before clearing.

  Someone joked about starting a betting pool on who’d awaken first. The laughter that followed was thin and forced.

  “No one from Seven,” someone said. “Not with our luck.”

  “Awakenings don’t happen here,” another replied. “They happen to people who matter.”

  Kael didn’t join in. What use was it? Maybe years ago, a younger him might have hoped—for something more than… this.

  Back at the shelter, the reshuffle had settled fully now. Denzel’s old space was occupied by a boy Kael didn’t recognize—younger, eyes darting constantly, already curled in on himself like he was trying to disappear. In that sense, Kael related to him.

  Kael sat down slowly.

  Riven followed, quieter than usual.

  “You ever think about it?” Riven asked suddenly.

  “About what?”

  “The mark,” Riven said, tugging at his collar absently. “What it’d be like if it actually did something.”

  Kael considered the question.

  “Sometimes,” he said honestly. “Then I remember where we are.”

  Riven snorted. “Yeah. Fair.”

  Riven had always been the more hopeful of the two of them, but even he knew better than to dream that big.

  The shelter lights dimmed gradually, never fully dark. Around them, Low Tier Seven settled—bodies pressed close, breaths syncing unconsciously.

  Above them, somewhere far out of reach, Awakened walked freely.

  Below them, monsters were cut apart piece by piece.

  And in between, people slept peacefully.

  Quietly.