PART ONE: THE CHILD
"I'll kill you when I find you, you little bastard!"
His father's voice echoed through the narrow streets of Ashwick, slurred and terrible. The words bounced off stone walls and wooden shutters, carrying that particular quality of drunken rage that Petro had come to know as intimately as his own heartbeat.
Petro Marok pressed himself deeper into the shadows of his alley hiding place, nursing his bruised hand and biting his lip to stifle the sobs that wanted to escape. His ribs ached from last week's beating—his father had kicked him for spilling water on the floor—and the pressure of his body against the cold stone made the pain flare fresh. He was low to the ground, hidden behind the butcher's shop in a cramped space between the building's back wall and a pile of rotting refuse. The smell was terrible—old blood, spoiled meat, rat droppings, the sweet-sick stench of decay that coated his tongue and made his empty stomach churn.
But it was better than the stench of his father's breath. Better than the reek of cheap ale and cheaper rage that followed the man everywhere like a second shadow. Better than the smell of his own blood mixing with sawdust on the floor of their hovel.
He liked it here, alone and ignored, because it was a place he could rest and think away from the mockery of other children. The butcher never came back here. Nobody did. The garbage attracted rats, and the rats attracted nothing but disease and filth. Petro had watched them skitter through the refuse at night, their beady eyes reflecting the moonlight, their long tails dragging through the muck. Once, he'd caught one in his hands—desperate enough for food that even a rat seemed appetizing—but it had bitten him and he'd let it go, watching it disappear into a hole in the wall while blood dripped from his finger.
He was like those rats, he thought. Scrounging for scraps. Living in filth. Feared and despised by everyone who saw him.
It was the perfect hiding spot for a boy who was worth about as much as the refuse itself.
His father's voice came again, closer now, and Petro pressed himself flatter against the ground. A spider crawled across his hand and he didn't move, didn't even breathe. His heart hammered against his ribs so hard it hurt. If his father found him here...
The footsteps passed. Faded. Gone.
Petro released a shaky breath. His whole body trembled—from cold, from fear, from the lingering effects of the beating that had driven him here in the first place.
But now, all he could think about was how badly his knuckles hurt. The physician had examined them briefly—too briefly—and declared that nothing was broken. Just bruised, the old drunk had said. His father told him to man up, stop being a little coward. But Petro didn't care what his father thought. His hand hurt. It hurt so badly that he couldn't close his fingers without tears springing to his eyes. He was miserable. He was cold. He was alone.
The late afternoon light barely penetrated his hiding spot. Ashwick was a mining town nestled in the foothills of the Greymount Range, and the buildings were built close together to conserve heat during the bitter winters. Even in autumn the shadows were thick and cold between the cramped structures. Petro pulled his threadbare coat tighter around his thin shoulders and examined his hand for the hundredth time.
The knuckles had swollen to twice their normal size, purple and mottled like rotten fruit. Each joint throbbed with its own heartbeat of pain. He tried to flex his fingers and hissed through his teeth, fresh tears welling up. Maybe the physician had been wrong. Maybe something was broken after all. Not that it mattered. Even if every bone in his hand was shattered, his father wouldn't pay for proper treatment. The man barely spent coin on food.
None of the kids his age even cared that he was in pain. Why would they? He was Petro the beggar's boy, Petro the bastard's son, Petro the worthless. When word of the sparring match spread through the town's children, they'd laughed at him and scorned him. He'd heard them whispering behind his back as he fled the courtyard, their mockery chasing him like thrown stones.
He hadn't even wanted to spar with Hank. Everyone knew that was a losing proposition. Hank was the Guard Captain's son. Hank was being taught how to use a sword by his father's men, trained every day to be a fighter. He had good food and new clothes and a warm bed. He had everything Petro didn't.
Petro's father was a miner, spending his days underground hacking at rock and his nights drinking away whatever coin he earned. He was strong from the labor—broad-shouldered and thick-armed, with hands like leather-wrapped stones that could crush a boy's arm without effort. And he was cruel. The cruelty wasn't the result of the drink; the drink just made it worse. Without ale, his father was cold and distant, viewing Petro as little more than a mouth to feed, an expense to be resented. With ale, he became violent, unpredictable, a force of nature that couldn't be reasoned with or escaped.
Petro bore scars all over his body to show how much his father cared about him.
The thin white lines on his back from the belt—eight of them, layered like the rings of a tree, marking years of misery. His father used the belt when he was merely annoyed. When he was truly angry, he used his fists, his boots, whatever was close at hand. The evidence of those rages was written across Petro's body in a language of bruises and breaks that never fully healed.
None of the other kids did anything about it. Some pitied him, he supposed. Most laughed at him. They said they would rather be a bastard than have his life. They said at least a bastard's father might be someone important, someone rich. Petro's father was neither. He was just a drunk who'd married a woman stupid enough to bear his child before dying of fever three winters past.
Petro barely remembered his mother. He had flashes—a soft voice singing him to sleep, gentle hands stroking his hair, the smell of bread baking in the hearth. But those memories were faded, worn thin by time and grief. He didn't even know what she'd looked like. His father had burned her portrait the night she died, along with everything else she'd owned. "No point keeping reminders," he'd said, and drunk himself into a stupor while the flames consumed the last traces of the woman who'd loved them both.
Sometimes Petro wondered if his mother had known what his father was. If she'd seen the cruelty lurking beneath the surface and married him anyway, hoping to change him. Or if his father had hidden it, showing her only kindness until it was too late to escape.
Either way, she was gone now. And Petro was alone with the monster she'd left behind.
***
Three nights ago had been particularly bad. The beating that followed his father's lost pay had cracked one of his ribs. Even now, every breath sent pain lancing through his side.
That was how it always was. The violence was random and terrible, and then it was over—his father leaving for the mines without a word, as if nothing had happened. Just silence and the promise of more pain to come.
***
So he avoided everyone. He kept to himself. He was used to being alone and neglected. He was used to their scorn and their cruelty and their casual dismissal of his existence.
What he wasn't used to, however, was their attention.
Today had been awful. Little saint Hank, whose father was Captain of the Guard, had been sparring in the courtyard outside the armory. He liked to show off his skills, beating down anyone his age who dared to challenge him. Never mind that the other children had never even held a sword before. Never mind that most of them couldn't afford to eat properly, let alone train with weapons. Hank liked to demonstrate his superiority over the lesser children of Ashwick. It made him feel important. It made him feel like the lord he would never be.
Petro had been minding his own business, searching for scraps of food behind the baker's shop. He'd found half a meat pie that morning, only slightly green with mold, and he'd been hoping for similar luck near the armory. The soldiers sometimes threw out food that had gone stale, and stale food was better than no food.
That was when Hank decided he wanted to spar with Petro.
"You there! Beggar boy!"
Petro's stomach clenched at the sound of Hank's voice. He tried to keep walking, tried to pretend he hadn't heard, but the other children were already moving to surround him.
"I said stop, beggar boy." Hank stepped in front of him, blocking his path. The Captain's son was taller than Petro by half a head, well-fed and muscular for his age. His clothes were clean, his hair neatly combed. Everything about him screamed wealth and privilege. There was something else too—a strange warmth that seemed to radiate from the boy, like heat rising from sun-baked stone. Petro had noticed it before, though he'd never understood what it meant. "Where do you think you're going?"
"Nowhere," Petro said quietly. "I was just—"
"Looking for scraps? Like a dog?" Hank grinned, and the other children laughed. "I've seen you digging through the garbage behind the shops. It's disgusting. You're disgusting."
Petro's face burned. "I should go."
"No, I don't think so." Hank twirled his wooden practice sword with casual grace, the movement fluid and practiced. "I need someone to spar with, and you'll do."
"I don't know how to fight."
"I know. That's what makes it fun."
Petro tried to explain that he had no training, no skill, no desire to fight. He tried to walk away, to slip through the ring of children that had formed around them. But when Hank said he wanted something, he got it. That was how it worked in Ashwick. The Captain's son had only to speak and everyone jumped to obey.
Hands grabbed him from behind—rough, careless hands that dug into his thin arms and yanked him backward. He stumbled, tried to find his footing, but they were already shoving him into the center of the ring. The crowd closed behind him, cutting off any escape.
"Please," Petro said. "I don't want to do this."
"Nobody cares what you want, beggar boy." Hank took up a fighting stance, his wooden sword held expertly before him. He looked like a knight from the old stories, noble and dangerous. "Now pick up your weapon."
Someone pressed a wooden blade into Petro's hands—a heavy practice sword meant for a boy twice his size. The grip was too thick for his small hands, the balance all wrong. He tried to lift it and felt his arms strain with the effort. The tip wavered in the air, heavy as an anvil.
"Look at him!" one of the children jeered. "He can barely hold it!"
"He's going to drop it on his own foot!"
"This is going to be good."
They laughed. They all laughed.
Hank didn't wait for Petro to ready himself. He moved forward in a blur of motion, his wooden sword whistling through the air. The first blow caught Petro on the shoulder, a crack of pain that made him cry out. He tried to raise his own sword to block, but it was too slow, too heavy. Hank was already spinning, striking from the other side, the blade catching Petro across the ribs with a sound like a butcher's mallet hitting meat.
Petro staggered. His eyes watered. He could barely see through the tears.
"Defend yourself!" Hank shouted, laughing. "Come on, at least try!"
He tried. He swung his sword in a clumsy arc, putting all his strength behind it. Hank sidestepped easily, like it was nothing, like Petro was moving in slow motion. The momentum of the missed swing carried Petro off balance and he stumbled forward, nearly falling.
Hank hit him in the back. Hard. The blow drove the air from Petro's lungs and sent him sprawling to his knees.
The crowd roared with laughter.
"Get up," Hank said, circling him. "The fight's not over."
Petro got up. His arms were shaking. His legs were shaking. Everything hurt. But he got up anyway because the alternative was to stay down, to admit defeat, to let everyone see him lying in the dirt like the worthless beggar they all thought he was.
This wasn't the first time Hank had singled him out for humiliation. The Captain's son seemed to take particular pleasure in tormenting Petro. Perhaps because Petro was an easy target—too poor to fight back, too weak to defend himself, too friendless to have anyone come to his aid. Or perhaps it was simply that Hank enjoyed cruelty for its own sake.
Last month, Hank had "accidentally" knocked Petro into the horse trough outside the stables. The water had been ice cold, and Petro had spent the rest of the day shivering, his clothes soaked through. The other children had laughed. Hank had apologized to the stable master—so sorry, didn't see him there—while smirking at Petro behind the man's back.
The month before that, Hank had stolen the bread Petro had managed to earn by running errands for the baker. Just took it right out of his hands, broke it in half, and threw both pieces into the mud. "Oops," he'd said, grinning. "Beggar's food belongs in the dirt anyway."
And there were other incidents. Too many to count. A push here. A shove there. Insults whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. Public humiliations designed to remind Petro of his place at the bottom of Ashwick's social ladder.
He raised his sword again.
It wasn't a fight. It was a beating. Hank was toying with him, the way a cat toys with a mouse before the kill. Every time Petro tried to stand, Hank knocked him down again. Every time he tried to defend himself, Hank found another opening. The blows came from everywhere—his arms, his legs, his ribs, his back. Each one was precise, controlled, delivered with just enough force to hurt without breaking bones.
Hank was good. Really good. He'd been trained by his father's men since he could walk, had spent hours every day learning the sword while Petro had spent those same hours scrounging for food and dodging his father's fists. This wasn't a fair fight. This was never meant to be a fair fight.
This was entertainment.
"Is that all you've got?" Hank taunted, circling around him like a predator. "My little sister fights better than you, and she's only six!"
The torch on the nearby wall flickered and flared, though there was no wind. Petro barely noticed—he was too busy trying not to die.
The crowd laughed. Someone threw a rotten apple that splattered against Petro's shoulder, sending chunks of brown mush down his shirt.
"Hit him again!" a boy shouted.
"Make him cry harder!"
Petro tried to raise his sword to defend himself, but his arms were shaking so badly he could barely hold the weapon. The wooden blade dipped, wavered, and Hank saw the opening immediately. He struck low, catching Petro's ankle with a sweeping blow that knocked his feet out from under him.
Petro crashed to the ground hard. The impact jarred his already-bruised ribs and drove the air from his lungs in a whoosh. Dirt filled his mouth. His teeth clicked together so hard he bit his tongue, and blood mixed with the grit on his lips.
"Get up!" Hank commanded, prodding him with the tip of his sword. "We're not done yet!"
Petro tried. He pushed himself onto his hands and knees, his vision swimming, his ears ringing. But before he could stand, Hank kicked him in the side. Not with the sword—with his boot. A solid, cruel kick that sent Petro rolling across the packed earth of the courtyard.
The crowd roared with approval.
"That's it! Show him who's boss!"
"The beggar needs to learn his place!"
Petro lay on his side, gasping for air. His whole body hurt. The old bruises from his father's beating three nights ago were screaming in protest, joining forces with the new pain from Hank's assault. Tears streamed down his face and he couldn't stop them. He wanted to. God, how he wanted to. Crying just made it worse. Crying gave them more ammunition, more reasons to laugh.
But he couldn't help it. The pain was too much. The humiliation was too much.
He was too much of a coward to fight back and too much of a fool to have avoided this in the first place.
"Look at him!" one of the girls called out. "He's crying like a baby!"
"Mama! Mama!" another voice mocked in a high-pitched whine. "The mean boy hit me!"
Laughter. So much laughter. It surrounded him like a physical thing, pressing down on him, suffocating him.
Hank grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him upright. Petro's feet barely touched the ground as the bigger boy held him up like a rag doll.
"One more time," Hank said, his voice low and dangerous. "Get your sword. Fight me properly. Or I'll make sure everyone in this town knows you're not just poor—you're a coward too."
The threat hung in the air. As if things could get worse. As if Petro's reputation could sink any lower than it already was.
But somehow, he knew Hank would find a way. The Captain's son had influence. He had friends. He had a voice that people listened to. If he decided to make Petro's life even more miserable, he could do it.
So Petro picked up the sword. His hands were shaking so badly the weapon clattered against the ground twice before he managed to grip it properly. He raised it in a pathetic approximation of a guard position.
"That's better," Hank said, grinning. "Now at least try to make this interesting."
He didn't wait for Petro to ready himself. He lunged forward, his sword moving in a blur of practiced strikes. High, low, left, right—Petro couldn't track the movements. He tried to block, tried to parry, but he was too slow, too clumsy, too untrained.
The wooden blade cracked against his forearm. Then his thigh. Then his shoulder. Each impact sent a jolt of pain through him, and each time he cried out, the crowd laughed harder.
"Dance, beggar boy!" someone shouted. "Dance for us!"
And Petro did dance, in a way. He stumbled and dodged and tried desperately to avoid the worst of the blows, moving in a graceless, panicked shuffle that must have looked ridiculous. His feet tangled. His sword dropped again. He fell to one knee.
Hank stood over him, breathing easily, not even winded. "Had enough?"
Petro nodded frantically. "Yes. Yes, I give up. You win."
"Of course I win." Hank's smile was cold. "I always win."
"Please," Petro gasped, tears streaming down his face. "Please stop."
"What's that?" Hank cupped a hand to his ear, grinning. "I can't hear you, beggar boy."
"Please!"
"Louder!"
"Please! I give up! You win!"
The crowd jeered. They called him names—coward, weakling, pathetic. They threw handfuls of dirt at him and told him to get up and fight like a man. Some of them were children he'd seen around town, faces he recognized from the market and the streets. They weren't his friends—he didn't have any friends—but he'd thought they were at least neutral. Now they were laughing at him, reveling in his humiliation, enjoying every moment of his pain.
This was the reality of being at the bottom. This was what his life would always be.
Hank let the pleas go on for a while, basking in his victory, drinking in the admiration of his audience. Then, with theatrical slowness, he lowered his sword.
"All right, beggar boy. I'll let you go." He smiled, that confident, cruel smile of someone who has never known hardship. "But first, let me show everyone a proper disarm."
He feinted high—a strike toward Petro's head that made him flinch and raise the heavy sword in a desperate block. Then Hank pivoted, dropped low, and swept his blade in a vicious arc that cracked against Petro's exposed knuckles.
The pain was immediate and absolute.
It wasn't like the other blows—those had been controlled, measured. This one was meant to hurt. The wooden blade struck the bones of Petro's hand with a crunch that he felt as much as heard, and agony exploded from his fingers all the way to his shoulder. White light flashed across his vision. His lungs forgot how to breathe.
He screamed.
The sword fell from his nerveless fingers and clattered to the ground. Petro clutched his ruined hand to his chest, tears pouring down his face, the pain so intense he couldn't think, couldn't move, couldn't do anything but scream and scream and scream.
The crowd erupted.
Not with concern. Not with sympathy. With laughter. Wild, delighted laughter, as if his agony was the funniest thing they'd ever seen.
"Did you see his face?"
"He's crying! Look at him cry!"
"Run home to your daddy, beggar boy!"
Petro ran.
He couldn't remember deciding to run. One moment he was on his knees in the center of the ring, and the next he was shoving through the crowd, stumbling down the street, his vision blurred with tears, his hand screaming with every step. The laughter followed him. The jeers followed him. The mockery chased him through the streets like a pack of hunting dogs.
Worthless. Pathetic. Crying baby. Coward.
He ran until his lungs were burning. He ran until the pain in his hand was nothing compared to the fire in his chest. He ran until he found an old barn on the edge of town, empty and forgotten, and there he buried himself in the hay and wept until no more tears would come.
They would never accept him. That hope—if it had ever existed—was dead now. He would always be at the bottom. He would always be the beggar boy, the worthless one, the target.
This was his life. This was all his life would ever be.
They wouldn't accept him. That dream had slipped away years ago, if it had ever existed at all. But did they need to mock him and abuse him? Was it really so enjoyable to treat him like dirt? The ones like Hank would never understand what it was like to go hungry, to sleep in alleys, to flinch at every footstep because it might be your father coming to beat you again.
Many hours passed before he finally snuck out of the barn and made his way home. The sun was setting by then, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple. Smoke rose from chimneys throughout the town. Normal families were sitting down to dinner. Normal children were being tucked into bed.
Petro crept through the streets like a thief, staying in the shadows, avoiding anyone who might recognize him. His father's house was on the edge of the mining quarter, a cramped single-room hovel with a leaky roof and gaps in the walls that let in the winter wind. The door hung crooked on its hinges. The window was covered with oiled paper instead of glass.
He heard voices inside and froze, pressing himself against the wall. His father rarely had visitors. The man had no friends. His drinking companions at the tavern tolerated him only because he bought rounds when he was flush with coin, and that was seldom. Most nights he drank alone, muttering curses into his cup, glaring at anyone who looked at him too long.
"—nothing's broken," someone was saying. "Just badly bruised. The swelling will go down in a few days."
The voice was thin and reedy, the voice of an old man. Petro recognized it after a moment—the physician, the one who'd examined his hand earlier.
Petro's heart lurched with something dangerously close to hope. His father had hired the physician to look at his injuries? The man had actually spent coin on him? For the first time in his life, his father had cared enough to pay for help?
Hope swelled in his chest, warm and unfamiliar. Maybe things were changing. Maybe his father regretted the way he treated him. Maybe this was a turning point, the beginning of something better.
But even as the thought formed, Petro knew it couldn't be true.
His father had never spent money on him. Not for food—Petro ate scraps from garbage piles. Not for clothes—he wore the same threadbare rags until they fell apart. Not for medicine when he was sick, not for shoes when winter came, not for anything that might make his miserable life slightly less miserable.
His father didn't love him. His father barely tolerated him. His father would sooner spend coin on ale than on his own son's health.
There had to be another explanation.
He crept closer to the window and peered through a gap in the oiled paper. The paper was thin and yellowed, patched in places where it had torn, and through the gap he could see into the hovel's single room.
His father stood in the center of the room, swaying slightly. He was a big man with a miner's build—broad shoulders, thick arms, hands like shovels. His face was red from drink, his eyes bloodshot and mean. Beside him stood the physician, an old man with a sparse beard and watery eyes. The physician smelled of hard liquor even from here, but he was one of only two healers in Ashwick, so people took what they could get.
"Fine then," the physician said, tucking his instruments back into his bag. "Now about my payment—"
"Payment?" Petro's father laughed, a harsh bark that held no humor. "I didn't hire you, old man. You came here on your own. You think I'm going to pay you for something I didn't ask for?"
The physician's face went pale. "But the boy—your son—"
"Isn't worth a bent copper. He got himself hurt being stupid. That's his problem, not mine."
"The child needs care. His hand—"
Petro's father moved fast for a drunk. His fist crashed into the physician's face with a meaty thud, and the old man went down hard. Blood sprayed from his nose across the dirt floor. He tried to scramble away, but Petro's father grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up, only to hit him again. And again. And again.
Petro pressed his good hand over his mouth to stifle a cry. He'd seen his father beat men before—he'd been beaten by the man more times than he could count—but there was something especially vicious in this assault. The physician had come here out of kindness, out of concern for an injured child. And now he was being punished for it.
Finally, Petro's father threw the bloody, dazed man toward the door. "Get out! And if you come back, I'll kill you!"
The physician stumbled out into the street, clutching his broken nose. Blood dripped through his fingers, leaving dark spots on the dirt. He staggered away without looking back.
Petro's father stood in the doorway, breathing hard. Then his gaze swept the street and locked onto the shadows where Petro was hiding.
"I see you, boy."
Petro ran.
He heard his father bellowing behind him, heavy footsteps pounding the packed earth, but he didn't look back. He was small and fast, and he knew the streets better than anyone. Within minutes he'd lost the man in the maze of alleys and side streets that made up the poorer quarter of Ashwick.
That was when he'd found his way here, to his hiding spot behind the butcher's shop. He'd crawled into the cramped space between the wall and the garbage pile, pressed himself into the corner, and finally let himself cry.
That had been hours ago. The sun had set completely now. The only light came from the distant flicker of torches on the main street and the pale glow of the moon through scattered clouds. Petro's tears had dried, but the pain in his hand hadn't faded. If anything, it was worse.
He should try to sleep. There was nothing else to do. His father would be passed out drunk by now, snoring in his chair with an empty bottle in his lap. Petro could sneak back, grab the thin blanket that served as his bed, and find somewhere warmer to spend the night. But the thought of going back to that house, of smelling the stale ale and seeing the blood the physician had left on the floor—
No. He'd rather be cold.
He fell into a fitful sleep, dreaming horrible dreams. Dreams of his father's fists. Dreams of Hank's wooden sword cracking against his knuckles. Dreams of the other children laughing, laughing, always laughing. He dreamed of his mother, though he barely remembered her—just a soft voice and gentle hands—and woke with tears freezing on his cheeks.
People walked past his alley throughout the night. He heard their footsteps, their voices, the creak of cart wheels. No one stopped. No one looked. He was invisible, which was exactly what he wanted to be.
He woke the following morning shivering and exhausted, his joints stiff from sleeping on the cold ground. Pale light filtered down into his hiding spot. He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, stretched out his young back, and yawned so wide his jaw cracked.
His hand still hurt. The swelling hadn't gone down at all. But at least he was alive. At least he'd survived another night.
Then he heard it: the sound that had woken him. Not footsteps or voices. Something else. Something he'd never heard before.
Marching.
The steady, synchronized tromp of many feet moving in perfect unison. The clink and rattle of armor and weapons. The rumble of horse hooves on packed earth.
Petro crawled to the edge of his hiding spot and peered out into the alley. The main street was visible at the far end, and what he saw there made his breath catch.
Soldiers.
Not the town guard—he knew them all by sight. These were different. They wore crimson tabards over polished steel armor that gleamed even in the weak morning light. Their helmets were adorned with black horsehair plumes. They carried spears and shields and swords that looked freshly sharpened.
He tried to count them but didn't know how to go past twenty, and there had to be at least twice that many. Maybe three times. They filled the street from side to side, marching in perfect formation, their faces hard and cold beneath their helmets.
Imperial soldiers. He'd heard stories about them but never seen them in person. They served the Emperor himself, traveled the land enforcing his laws and his faith. For them to be here, in a small mining town like Ashwick...
Something was very wrong.
One of the street urchins, a girl named Suzanne, came running toward him. She was small and thin, with dirty blonde hair that hung in tangles around a face that might have been pretty if it were ever clean. Her clothes were even more ragged than Petro's—a dress that had been patched so many times it was more patches than original fabric—and she ran barefoot despite the cold. Her feet were callused and tough from a lifetime of going without shoes, but they were also covered in small cuts and scrapes from the cobblestones.
She was like him. An orphan in all but name, with parents who were dead or might as well be. Her mother had sold her for a jug of wine when Suzanne was three years old, and she'd been living on the streets ever since. She slept in doorways and under carts, ate whatever she could steal or scavenge, and survived through a combination of luck, cunning, and sheer stubbornness.
She was the only person in Ashwick who didn't look at Petro with pity or contempt. She looked at him like he was a person. Like he mattered.
Two weeks ago, she'd found him behind the tanner's shop, curled up and shivering after his father had thrown him out in the rain. She'd shared her blanket—a threadbare scrap of wool she'd stolen from a merchant's cart—and sat with him until the storm passed. They hadn't talked much. She'd just been there, a small presence in the darkness, reminding him that he wasn't completely alone.
Last week, when he'd managed to steal a whole loaf of bread from the baker's window, he'd split it with her. They'd sat together in an abandoned stable, eating in companionable silence, and for a little while, the world hadn't seemed quite so terrible.
Yesterday, she'd shown him a new hiding spot—a gap beneath the old granary where the floor had rotted through. "The rats are smaller here," she'd said, grinning at him with her gap-toothed smile. "And there's usually some spilled grain we can eat."
She talked about leaving sometimes. Not with any real plan—just dreams. She wanted to see the sea. She'd never seen it, but she'd heard merchants talk about it—endless water stretching to the horizon, salt air and screaming gulls and ships with white sails. She collected pretty stones and bits of colored glass, keeping them hidden in a hole in the wall of the old granary. "When I have enough," she'd told Petro once, "I'll trade them for passage on a ship. Then I'll sail away and never come back."
It was a child's dream, impossible and beautiful. But she held onto it with a fierceness that Petro admired. Even when the world was cruel, she found something to hope for. She saw beauty where others saw only garbage. That was Suzanne—stubborn and hopeful and alive in a way that Petro had forgotten he could be.
Small kindnesses. Small moments. But they meant everything to Petro. In a life filled with cruelty and indifference, Suzanne was the only light he had.
"Petro! Petro, what's going on?"
He shook his head, watching the soldiers march past. "I don't know. Who are they?"
"Knights!" Suzanne said, her voice pitched high with excitement and fear. Her eyes were enormous, like shining emeralds catching the morning light—by far her best feature, beautiful even through the dirt. She was younger than him, but only by a few weeks. Sometimes they went digging for food together, sharing whatever scraps they found. She'd shown him the best places to find day-old bread and vegetables that were only slightly rotten. She'd shown him how to avoid the town guard, how to read the weather to find dry places to sleep, how to survive.
She was the closest thing he had to a friend. The only friend he'd ever had.
"They're going to the duke's manor," she continued, bouncing on her heels with nervous energy. "There's so many of them! I tried to count but I ran out of numbers."
"Why are they here?"
"I don't know." She leaned in close to him, conspiratorial. He could smell her stale sweat—the same smell he carried himself, the smell of street children who had no way to bathe—but doubted he smelled any better. "But someone said he's a demon worshipper."
Petro's stomach dropped. "Who? The duke?"
"Uh-huh." She nodded vigorously, her tangled hair bouncing. Then her face fell, worry creasing her brow. "Does that mean I'm a demon worshipper?"
Petro shook his head quickly. "No, Suzi. You don't even know what a demon is."
She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, suddenly angry. "I know more than you do!"
"Maybe," he admitted. Suzanne was clever in her own way. She could read—not well, but better than Petro—and she knew how to count to a hundred. "But right now, don't say anything. About demons or worshipping or any of it. Just stay quiet."
"Okay." She nodded, some of her fear returning. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. It was a shy smile that lit up her dirty face. "Thanks, Petro."
He was about to tell her it was no problem, that he'd always look out for her, but he never got the chance. A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind, spinning him around like he weighed nothing, and he came face to face with one of the knights.
The man was huge—as tall as Petro's father but twice as broad. He had a scruffy black beard and beady eyes that peered out from beneath his plumed helmet. There was no sympathy in those eyes, no kindness, no curiosity. Just calculation. Cold, hard calculation, like he was evaluating a tool.
"You. Boy. Are you the captain's son?"
Petro's mouth went dry. "No."
"Do you know where he is?"
"No," Petro replied, too quickly. His voice came out thin and frightened. The knight's grip on his shoulder tightened, metal gauntlet digging into flesh.
"His name is Hank, we were told. Listen very carefully, boy." The knight lowered himself down to look Petro in the eye. He spoke slowly, emphasizing each word like Petro was simple. "If you know where he is, then it is essential that you tell us where he is."
The knight's breath smelled of onions and sausage. His eyes were pale blue and utterly empty. This was a man who had killed before. A man who would kill again without hesitation.
Petro didn't like him. He didn't like any of this. He doubted these soldiers had anything good planned for Hank, and even though Petro didn't like the other boy much, he didn't exactly hate him either. Hank was nice sometimes, when he remembered that other people existed. He was just self-absorbed and inconsiderate. Like most rich kids. Like most kids who'd never gone hungry.
At this time of day, Petro was fairly certain Hank would be at the armory training with his father's men. Or maybe at the small chapel near the town center, where the Guard Captain's wife liked to pray. Those were the places Hank spent most of his mornings.
He also knew, without a doubt, where Hank wouldn't be.
"He's at the library," Petro said. The lie came easily. "At this time of day, he's always at the library."
Ashwick's library was a small, dusty building on the far side of town, near the old well that had gone dry ten years ago. Hardly anyone went there. The books were moldy and the librarian was deaf. It would take the knights a good hour to march there, search the building, and realize they'd been tricked.
The knight studied Petro's face for a long moment. "Are you sure?"
"Uh-huh." Petro nodded, keeping his expression innocent. "I'm sure."
The knight released his shoulder and stood up. Something flickered in his eyes—doubt, maybe, or suspicion—but he didn't press further. He turned to leave.
"What about 'im?" another man asked, stepping forward out of the column of soldiers. This knight was shorter than the first but just as broad, with a scarred, pockmarked face and a nose that had been broken several times. A jagged scar ran across his right cheek, pulling his lip into a permanent sneer.
When this man spoke, he dropped every other letter, talking like he had dirt in his mouth. "What about him" became "wha' abou' 'im," and "some more" became "sumower." He sounded uneducated and mean. He reminded Petro of his father.
"The priest said we needed sumower examples," the scarred knight continued.
The first knight scratched his chin, considering. His gaze moved from Petro to Suzanne, who was standing frozen behind him, her small hand clutching the back of his coat.
"True," the first knight said slowly. "But we have enough boys."
His eyes settled on Suzanne.
"Girls, on the other hand..."
The second knight laughed. It was a wet, phlegmatic sound that made Petro's skin crawl. "If the priest don't want her, then I'll keep her for meself."
The words hit Petro like a physical blow. He knew what the man meant. Even at his age, living on the streets, he knew. He'd seen the way men looked at women in the taverns. He'd heard the stories about what happened to girls who wandered too far from home after dark.
Suzanne clutched Petro's arm, her face white with terror. Her emerald eyes were huge, her whole body trembling.
The second knight stepped forward and grabbed her around the waist. She screamed as he jerked her away, her fingers raking down Petro's arm.
"Petro!"
He lunged after her, catching her hand. For a moment they held on, her small fingers gripping his with desperate strength. But his injured hand couldn't take it. Pain shot through his swollen knuckles and his grip failed. Her fingers slipped through his.
The knight threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. She squirmed and kicked, beating her small fists against his armored back, but she might as well have been hitting a stone wall.
"We got us a live one!" the scarred knight said, laughing again.
"Petro!" she cried, reaching toward him, tears streaming down her face.
"I'll come for you," Petro said.
The words burst from him without thought. He hadn't planned them, hadn't even known he was going to speak. But when the words were out, hanging in the air between them, he realized he meant them. If anyone in this godforsaken town was his friend, it was Suzanne. She was the only one who'd ever shown him kindness. The only one who'd ever treated him like he mattered.
He would come for her. No matter what it took.
The knight carried her away, her screams growing fainter as he disappeared into the column of soldiers. The first knight, still holding Petro's shoulder, chuckled sardonically.
"A noble gesture, boy. But you should be grateful that she was here at all." He leaned down, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "Otherwise, it would be you over my friend's shoulder. And his tastes run in many directions."
Then he shoved Petro hard against the alley wall. Petro's head cracked against the stone and his vision went white. By the time it cleared, the knight had vanished into the passing column of soldiers.
Petro forced himself to his feet, ignoring the throbbing in his skull. The soldiers were still marching past, hundreds of them, their boots tramping in perfect rhythm. And the people—the townspeople—were being herded along with them. He saw bakers and butchers and farmers, all being pushed and prodded toward the center of town. Toward the courtyard where all major gatherings were held.
Something big was planned.
Petro pushed himself off the wall and joined the flow of people. His hand ached. His head ached. But none of that mattered now.
He had to find Suzanne.
He had to save her.
Whatever these knights had planned, whatever terrible thing was about to happen, he would not let them take his only friend.
He would come for her.
He'd promised.
