There weren’t really any kind of rules to the challenges, but Uli did have a certain kind of honor. Challenging someone with less Blood was considered dishonorable, and since the amount of Blood was basically evenly correlated to the names carved into one’s flesh, it was fairly obvious at a glance when that was happening.So, as I kept to myself while the other boys of my cohort challenged each other, my potential challengers diminished, two by two—one because they became stronger than me and wouldn’t challenge downward, and the other because they were dead, gone from the tribe but for a name etched in memory and Blood onto the victor’s body.Once they were all “stronger” than me, I would be in the free and clear until the next year’s group of boys became Bloodied. In a usual situation, a boy like me wouldn’t tolerate that and would challenge upwards, which was allowed and would be considered poor form for the challenged to turn down. The dishonor was only in seeking out someone weaker, not accepting the brave challenge of one. At our level, with so little Blood control among the newly Bloodied, it wasn’t that much of a difference between the boys regardless of wins and losses, so it was very possible for a “weaker” boy to win against a “stronger” one.I asked Daru what would happen if a newly Bloodied boy challenged really far upwards, someone like the tribe leader, and somehow won. Once Daru stopped dismissing it as impossible and accepted the hypothetical, he told me that the Blood Fever would probably be severe, possibly even fatal.Not that I intended on doing that, but I wondered how my own weird circumstances would affect that. Accepting Uqar’s Blood had been hard on me because my Will was preternaturally high, but from what I had learned, killing someone weaker should make it easier to accept their Blood, not harder.As the risk of challenges diminished, it was hard not (...)