Chapter 21: Chapter 21: Sorting, Part 2

Rath headed into the maze, heart pounding, mind scrabbling frantically. He shouldn't care, but now that he was doing it, the desire to do well sprang to the fore.

He went left at the first split, heart pounding harder when it didn't immediately lead to a dead end. The second split he went right and that did dead end. He backtracked carefully, kept going, marking every twist and turn on his arm with his nail the way he'd done as a youth while still trying to learn the city and the docks without getting hopelessly lost.

How long it took him to find the center, he had no way of knowing. It felt like at least an hour had passed, but hopefully, the way back would move faster.

There was a cluster of guards and clerks at the very center of the large square. One clerk snapped his fingers. "The slip of paper they gave you at the start."