Path of a Songbird

One boy. One contract. A thousand ways to end a life. Wren was just a "frog in a well," a gutter-born child staring up at a sky he could never reach. But in an Empire where power is everything and Tiers are bought in blood, he's been offered a way out: a Tier 13 contract that transforms him from a street rat into the state's most intimate weapon. Under the cold, porcelain-masked tutelage of the Manager, Wren is learning that justice isn't a hammer—it's a scalpel. Armed with a [Imprint] talent that lets him harvest the skills of the condemned and a set of matte-grey knives, he must navigate a world of ritual sacrifice, high-tier rifts, and the heavy silence of the executioner's chamber. The songbird’s innocence is dead. In its place, something sharper is beginning to sing.Deritive fanwork of C. Mantis's Path of Ascension Located Here:https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40920/the-path-of-ascension