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  After that day, no one had spoken. A somber air filled the small Manor, dull faces replaced their normally neutral attitudes and when they did speak, it was only in hushed tones, their words few and measured.

  The tension was thick enough, that a thief with the dullest blade could cut through it, and the manor was filled with bitterness and anxiety, that had all their heads down-turned.

  Two days. That was all that was left.

  And they all knew it.

  And Gabe.

  Gabe knew it more than anyone else. The others hadn’t seen what he had. They hadn’t heard the whispers that slithered through the back alleys of Srok. But Gabe had. The rumours were that Thornan was one of the strongest Veystrix in the Rat’s Guild. The boy was older, stronger, and more ruthless than any of them. Compared to Agmak, Thornan was ten times worse and a sinking feeling that he had felt in his gut kept growing worse and worse as the day drew closer.

  Gabe could still hear his father’s voice in his head, warning him. telling him to run away and abandon the group.

  “Never cross a man who’s had to kill for his supper. Those ones, they got nothing to lose.”

  And not for the first time, Gabe had listened. And that’s why he had survived this long on the streets. His father might have been a drunk, but his ramblings often held truth.

  And the truth was this. someone like Thornan—who had lived in Srok’s filth and blood-soaked alleys for as long as he had, was not just dangerous. The fact that Thornan was a Veystrix meant he had killed more people than Gabe could ever imagine.

  And That afternoon, after the group had left to scavenge in the Ashfields, Gabe decided.

  When no one was looking and they were all gone, he grabbed a few rags and some dried jerky. He left no sign of where he was going—no footprints in the dust, no note for the others to find.

  He was leaving.

  The broken Manor, where they had all hidden for weeks and spent their nights whispering plans of survival and freedom, meant nothing to him anymore. He wasn’t about to die for their cause.

  No, not like this.

  And that day. Gabe slunk through the dark alleys of Srok, moving quickly and keeping to the shadows. His heart pounded, and his body felt heavier with every step, twist, and turn.

  Every step took him further from the others, further from Clara, and further from the manor and what they were trying to build.

  Would she forgive him?

  No. Probably not.

  He shook the thought from his head and focused on the streets.

  The stench of rotting food and human waste filled his nostrils. He stepped over the sprawled bodies of the starving, their bony fingers curled around empty stomachs. A rat, half-eaten, lay in a pool of filth beside one of the lifeless figures, a dagger still buried in the corpse’s back, probably shanked in the night as he fed.

  Death. That’s all he saw in Srok, and he was unwilling to die for any cause.

  Gabe hurried his steps, moving along faster. After all, a lone teenage boy in the street could only invite trouble for themselves.

  His steps quickened as he neared the city gates leading to Sogate. Just a few more blocks. A few more corners.

  Then he’d be free.

  But Gabe wasn’t alone.

  A shadow moved behind him. A figure followed, unseen and unheard, in the darkest corners of the alleys. They watched and waited, closing the distance step by step.

  But Gabe’s mind was too preoccupied to notice. He had spent days preparing for this escape. He started with the little things, collecting them and putting them away, and then came the not-so-big things. He had done it all without the others noticing.

  Just the way he liked it.

  He didn’t want Clara to know until it was too late to stop him.

  A few more steps. A few more—

  Pain exploded at the base of his skull. The world tilted sideways. His vision blurred, and his limbs went weak. He felt himself fall, the dirt of the street rushing up to meet him.

  Then darkness.

  His head throbbed. The pain was a dull, rhythmic pounding that had him seeing red, like someone hammering against the inside of his skull. and for a moment he thought he would bleed.

  His vision swam as he opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was darkness—the kind of thick, suffocating blackness that only existed in the deepest alleys of Srok.

  Then, a voice, low and amused.

  “You really thought you could run?”

  Gabe stuttered. He recognized that voice.

  Thornan.

  Slowly, Gabe turned his head. The older boy stood over him, arms crossed, a smirk playing on his lips. He looked utterly at ease as if he hadn’t just knocked someone unconscious in the middle of the street.

  “You’re not very good at sneaking,” Thornan mused, crouching beside him. “I could hear you from a mile away. Heavy steps. Hesitation. You don’t belong in these streets, boy.”

  Gabe swallowed, throat dry.

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  “What do you want?” he rasped.

  Thornan chuckled. “That’s funny. You think you actually have a choice?” He shook his head, glancing over his shoulder.

  ——

  Clara was worried about the group.

  They had done everything they could. They had prepared for Thornan, yet morale had stalled after the first few enchanted pieces of armour. No matter how hard Marcus tried or how much he looked and searched using his innate magic, nothing else they found retained its enchantments. The greaves had been their only other success. After that, every other piece of equipment they unearthed lost its magical properties by the time it touched the surface. Runes were missing in some places, and in others, the work they did in trying to dig them out destroyed what little enchantments remained.

  And when they had taken them to Jethro, who dealt in rare finds, the iron had been brittle, useless. Worth nothing more than a few large coppers to send it to the smelters of Forgehold.

  Their dreams of gathering enough weapons and armour to stand a fighting chance had crumbled like dust between their fingers.

  But Clara had other worries gnawing at her heart.

  Gabe.

  She had seen the look in his eyes for days now—the restless glances toward the door, the way he’d linger by the gate as if wanting to leave, never to turn back.

  He was planning something. Clara had known it deep down.

  And now… she feared the worst.

  He had threatened to leave.

  He had said it.

  She didn’t know what to do.

  But she needed to talk to him.

  She could still convince him to stay.

  “Gabe! Gabe!” she called out, her voice sounding loud in the silence that washed through the broken halls of the small Manor.

  Silence.

  She had no reply even when she strained her ears for the briefest of movements

  Her pulse quickened. He was supposed to be here.

  He was supposed to be watching the Manor while they scavenged the Ashfields, keeping an eye out for any guards or any trouble, and come looking for them. He was supposed to come running for them if anything bad happened at the Manor.

  Instead…

  The building was silent.

  Too silent.

  Clara stepped inside the main room, where all of them slept on nests of rags and scavenged blankets. The walls were damp, and the floor would have been cold had she stepped on it with her bare feet. The air smelled of dust and sweat.

  Yet besides all this that had become commonplace to her and the rest of them, something felt off.

  She didn’t know what it was yet, but her gut twisted in unease. She rushed toward the corner where she slept. Dropping to her knees, she pulled away the ragged cloth she called a bed and yanked out the loose brick she used as a makeshift chest.

  Her breath hitched.

  The coins. They were still there. All three gold coins were right where she had left them. She breathed in relief for the briefest moment, and then her anger grew.

  How could he do this?

  She pushed herself to her feet, turning sharply to glare at the room. There.

  Something was still missing.

  She should have noticed sooner. She hurriedly let her feet curry her towards Gabe’s sleeping space, falling to her knees, hands skimming the surface. The rags he slept on felt wrong—lighter than before as if something had been stripped away. She lifted the cloth, and her stomach dropped. Everything was gone. What few tunics she had managed to buy for him with the little coin she had. Gone.

  His small bundle of belongings? Gone.

  The doubt she had been clinging to, the desperate hope that she was wrong, shattered.

  He had left.

  He had abandoned them.

  No—he had abandoned her. She didn’t want to believe it and give it more truth.

  ‘How could he?’ She felt the burning sob crawling up her throat, threatening to choke her and she breathed heavily.

  ‘After everything they had been through?’

  ‘How could he throw it all away?’

  Her hands curled into fists.

  No.

  She refused to believe that he would just leave.

  She had to find him.

  She had to ask him why.

  She had to stop him.

  Gabe was smart. With a Veystrix threatening his life, he would try to get as far away as possible.

  ‘But where?’

  Her mind raced through the possibilities.

  He wouldn’t go deeper into Srok. The city was a death trap. If he wanted to get out, he’d only go to one place—the gates leading to Sogate. All the other cities would not allow a filthying like him to stay with in their walls.

  She spun on her heel and bolted toward the Manor’s entrance.

  The wooden door banged open as she shoved through it.

  “Where are you going?” Zek’s voice cut through the late evening.

  “I’m going to look for him,” she said breathlessly. “I’m going. Geneve, you’re in charge until Marcus comes back. Stay in the house.”

  “Clara, wait—” Geneve tried to call out, but Clara was already moving.

  She tore through the alleys, feet pounding against the cobbled streets, breath coming fast and uneven. The air was cold, biting at her exposed skin, but she didn’t stop.

  She couldn’t stop.

  Her mind raced, thoughts a tangled mess.

  ‘What if she was too late?

  ‘What if something had already happened to him?’

  She pushed harder.

  ——

  To survive in Srok, To survive in the Mountains of Taeralis you had to be the strongest, and after half a decade on the streets begging and stealing many realized that. and those who didn’t ended in the worst places of all. Thornan had vowed himself never to be weak.

  It had been one cold morning when he had done it. Taken his first life. Become what he is now. His mother, a half-blood like him, had died under the same moon-- her body too weak to work.

  And in the days leading to her death, he had tried to feed her, but with no coin and no one willing to hear out a half-blood boy and his pains, he had to find a coin in some other way. but even this, he couldn’t make do, and when he managed to get his hands on some food to share with her, she would turn around and give him everything of the food he brought back. Thornan had eaten not wanting to see her cry.

  And when she got sick, the church of River and Sun had done nothing-- that was when he realized it. She had died a week after that, and he realized then that no one cared. Not the church, not the lords, not even the River and Sun. All he had was himself.

  In the night, as always, he had waited by the church’s cook kitchen and gotten the leftover bowls of light corn and wheat soup. That’s when he had killed. There was simply not enough food to go around after the Baron’s death. And he had followed one of the young boys. After that deed was done, that’s when ‘HE’ had found him, and for the death of a boy as innocent as any, the man had rewarded Thornan with a dried loaf of bread to soak his hunger. That’s when it all changed and he began to understand. His mother had died for nothing-- had he only done what he’d done a week earlier, his mother would still be alive . and yet now he had nothing. Nothing to hold him back and the man knew it.

  Back from his mission in Sogate and feeling three gold richer, he was making his way to what he called a new project. The group of filthyings who had impressed him with how much gold they made, and, with Scar Giver leading them, he could use her unlike Agmak who was a waste.

  He could have waited for another day but he was feeled with excitement. the way the barons son had begged for his life… ‘yes.’ he wanted to feel it again. That high of knowing you were on top and no matter what they did, they could not stop you. a grin come onto his face.

  ‘Ohh, i can just imagine how they will beg--‘he thought. If Victor had taught him anything, it would have been that the strongest deserved to rule.

  Thornan came to a stop suddenly, for if he hadn’t, he would have missed the sight of the scrawny-looking boy leaving the manor he was watching.

  “And where are you going,” he wondered aloud.

  Thornan stood up from the shadows he had stopped to watch and monitor the group. and looking closer at the boy who had been tasked with watching the groups belongings, he saw the thick band of rags tied on the boy’s back, interested in what the boy was up to, he followed.

  He followed until he finally saw where Gabe was headed. For all Thornan’s strength, he was no fool-- stepping into the lands of Sogate after he had just taken the life of the Baron’s son was a stupid idea. The veystrix knew that without a doubt that the man and his knights would be looking for any shady characters. No, he knew after the death of someone so important to the city, all the veystrix would have fled from Sogate to Srok and Quanta, the other city in the fifth wall.

  Thornan didn’t let him go any further. he made his way out of the shadows and in an instant he was behind Gabe and the smaller boy was down holding his head in a semi conscious daze.

  “What do you want?” Gabe rasped, but it turned out that he had not hit the boy hard enough.

  Thornan chuckled, finding the question amusing. “That’s funny. You think you actually have a choice?” He shook his head, glancing over his shoulder.