"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 hiding place behind the butcher's shop, 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. 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.
The hiding spot suited him, alone and ignored. Nobody came back here. 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. Like those rats, he thought. Scrounging for scraps. Living in filth. Feared and despised by everyone who passed by.
Ashwick was a town built on ore and obedience. The iron mines cut deep into the hillside north of town, their dark mouths like wounds in the earth that never healed. Every morning before dawn, the miners descended—his father among them—and every evening they emerged coated in dust and bitterness, their backs bent from hours of swinging picks in tunnels too low to stand. The Church of the Lord of Light owned the mines, owned the land beneath the town, owned the very air the miners breathed. Father Tobias kept meticulous records of every ounce of ore extracted, every candle consumed, every shovel that needed replacing. What he did not record were the men who coughed blood after twenty years underground, the children who went hungry when their fathers drank their wages, the quiet desperation that settled over the town like mine dust settling on windowsills.
The town had its hierarchies, as rigid as the stone walls that enclosed it. At the top sat Duke Aldric in his manor house, nominally the lord of these lands but increasingly powerless against the Church's encroachment. Below him came the Guard Captain and his men, who kept order with casual brutality. Then the merchants, the craftsmen, the miners. And at the very bottom, below even the stray dogs that picked through the middens, were the children nobody wanted. The ones like Petro.
His father's voice came again, closer, 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.
The footsteps passed. Faded. Gone.
A shaky breath escaped his lips. All he could think about was how badly his knuckles hurt. The physician had examined them briefly—too briefly—and declared nothing was broken. Just bruised, the old drunk had said. But the knuckles had swollen to twice their normal size, purple and mottled like rotten fruit. Each joint throbbed with its own heartbeat of pain. Flexing his fingers sent a hiss through his teeth, fresh tears welling up.
None of the kids his age cared that he was in pain. Why would they? Petro the beggar's boy. Petro the worthless.
He hadn't even wanted to spar with Hank. Everyone knew that was a losing proposition. Hank was the Guard Captain's son—trained every day to be a fighter. Good food and new clothes and a warm bed. Everything Petro didn't have.
Petro's father was a miner, spending his days underground hacking at rock and his nights drinking away whatever coin he earned. The mines belonged to the Church of the Lord of Light, and the Church counted its ore. It didn't count its orphans' bruises. Father Tobias had made this much clear the one time Petro had crept to the church and shown him the purple marks on his ribs. "Honor thy father, boy," the old priest had said, barely glancing up from his ledger of mine outputs.
Petro barely remembered his mother. Flashes—a soft voice singing him to sleep, gentle hands stroking his hair. 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.
Some nights, when his father passed out early enough that Petro could creep back inside, he would lie on his straw pallet and try to reconstruct her face from those fragments of memory. The shape of her jaw. The color of her eyes. But each year the image grew fainter, like a charcoal sketch left in the rain. He was losing her by degrees, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Most nights he didn't make it inside at all. He had learned the geography of Ashwick's forgotten spaces the way other boys learned their letters—the gap beneath the tanner's workshop where the floor joists trapped warmth from the curing fires above, the abandoned root cellar behind the chandler's shop where mice nested in old straw but at least the wind couldn't reach, the hollow beneath the bridge where the stream's murmur masked the sounds of his crying. Each hiding place had its season and its dangers. The tanner's was warmest but attracted other vagrants who might steal his shoes. The root cellar was driest but sometimes the chandler's apprentice would check it and chase him out with a broom. The bridge was safest but coldest, and twice he had woken with his fingers so numb he couldn't feel them for hours.
***
The sparring match had been earlier that day. Hank had spotted Petro searching for scraps behind the baker's shop and decided he wanted entertainment.
"You there! Beggar boy!"
Petro's stomach clenched. He tried to keep walking, tried to pretend he hadn't heard, but the other children were already moving to surround him. Hank stepped in front of him, blocking his path—taller by half a head, well-fed and muscular for his age. A strange warmth radiated from the boy, like heat rising from sun-baked stone, and with it came a faint scent Petro couldn't name—sharp and metallic, like the air above the smithy's forge when the quenching water hissed to steam, but thinner somehow. Wrong.
"Looking for scraps? Like a dog?" Hank grinned, and the crowd laughed. "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."
Someone pressed a heavy practice sword into Petro's hands—too thick for his small grip, the balance all wrong. Hank didn't wait for him to ready himself. He moved forward in a blur, his wooden sword catching Petro on the shoulder with a crack of pain. Then spinning, striking from the other side, the blade catching his ribs with a sound like a butcher's mallet hitting meat.
It wasn't a fight. It was a beating. Hank was toying with him, the way a cat toys with a mouse. Every time Petro tried to stand, Hank knocked him down again. Every time he tried to defend himself, Hank found another opening. The torch on the nearby wall flickered and flared, though there was no wind, and that metallic tang sharpened in the air, biting at the back of Petro's throat like copper filings on his tongue.
He tried. Swung his sword in a clumsy arc, putting everything behind it. Hank sidestepped easily, like Petro was moving in slow motion. The momentum carried him off balance and he stumbled forward. Hank hit him in the back. The blow drove the air from his lungs and sent him sprawling.
The crowd roared with laughter. Someone threw a rotten apple that splattered against his shoulder.
"Had enough?" Hank stood over him, breathing easily.
Petro nodded frantically. "Yes. You win."
"Of course I win. I always win." Then, with theatrical slowness, Hank feinted high—a strike toward Petro's head that made him flinch—pivoted, dropped low, and swept his blade in a vicious arc that cracked against Petro's exposed knuckles.
White light. The cobblestones rushing up. Bones crunching—the vibration shooting through his entire arm and lodging behind his eyes. Lungs seizing. Falling. Nothing left but the sound of his own screaming.
The crowd erupted. Not with concern. With laughter.
Running. Down the street, vision blurred with tears, his hand screaming with every step. Running until the hiding place behind the butcher's shop swallowed him, and there he buried himself in the refuse and wept until no more tears would come.
***
Fitful sleep claimed him in the shadows, bringing horrible dreams. Morning came with cold, pale light filtering into his hiding spot. His hand still hurt. The swelling hadn't gone down.
Then he heard the sound that had woken him. Not footsteps or voices. Something else.
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. 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 wore crimson tabards over polished steel armor that gleamed in the weak morning light. Helmets adorned with black horsehair plumes. 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 three times that many. They filled the street from side to side, marching in perfect formation.
Imperial soldiers. For them to be here, in a small mining town like Ashwick, something was very wrong.
He scrambled out from behind the butcher's shop, curiosity overriding caution. The streets were already filling with townsfolk emerging from their homes, drawn by the commotion. Miners stood in doorways with pickaxes still in hand, their faces smeared with yesterday's dust. Women clutched their children close. Old men shook their heads, muttering about omens and portents. The entire town seemed to hold its breath, watching this river of crimson steel flow through their streets.
One of the street urchins came running toward him—a girl named Suzanne. 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, and she ran barefoot despite the cold.
Like him. An orphan in all but name. The only person in Ashwick who didn't look at Petro with pity or contempt. She looked at him like he was a person.
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 stolen blanket and sat with him until the storm passed. Before that, she'd shown him the trick of slipping into the baker's courtyard just after the ovens were banked—the cobblestones held warmth for hours, and if you pressed your back against the oven wall you could almost forget you were sleeping outside. She had a genius for survival that Petro admired but couldn't replicate, and a fierce loyalty that seemed to extend to everyone the world had discarded. She fed the stray cats behind the tannery. She brought water to old Marcus when his legs gave out and he couldn't reach the well. Small kindnesses. Small moments. But they meant everything to Petro. In a life filled with cruelty, Suzanne was the only light he had.
She'd asked him once why he didn't fight back against his father. He'd stared at her for a long time, trying to find words for the complicated truth—that part of him still wanted his father to love him, still believed that if he was quiet enough, obedient enough, the hitting would stop and the man his mother had married would come back. Suzanne had watched his face and understood without him saying it. She'd simply taken his hand and squeezed it, and they'd sat together watching the sunset paint the mine-scarred hills in colors that almost made the place look beautiful.
"Petro! What's going on?"
He shook his head, watching the soldiers march past. "I don't know. Who are they?"
"Knights!" Her eyes were enormous, vivid green catching the morning light. "They're going to the duke's manor. Someone said he's a demon worshipper."
"The duke?"
"Uh-huh." She nodded vigorously, then her face fell. "Does that mean I'm a demon worshipper?"
"No, Suzi. You don't even know what a demon is."
A hand grabbed his shoulder from behind, spinning him around. One of the knights—huge, with a scruffy black beard and beady eyes that held no sympathy.
"You. Boy. Are you the captain's son?"
"No."
"Do you know where he is? His name is Hank."
Petro was fairly certain Hank would be at the armory. He also knew where Hank wouldn't be. "He's at the library. At this time of day, he's always at the library."
The knight studied his face, then released his shoulder. Another soldier stepped forward—shorter but just as broad, with a scarred face and a nose broken several times.
"What about 'im?" the scarred knight asked. "The priest said we needed sumower examples."
The first knight's gaze moved from Petro to Suzanne, who was clutching the back of his coat.
"True. But we have enough boys." His eyes settled on Suzanne. "Girls, on the other hand..."
The scarred knight laughed—a wet, phlegmatic sound. "If the priest don't want her, then I'll keep her for meself."
The words hit Petro like a physical blow. Even at his age, living on the streets, he understood what the man meant.
The scarred knight stepped forward and grabbed Suzanne 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. Slipping. Her fingers sliding through his. Pain shooting through his swollen knuckles, and his grip failing—the world tilting sideways, going wrong.
The knight threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. She squirmed and kicked, beating her fists against his armored back.
"Petro!" she cried, reaching toward him.
"I'll come for you," Petro said.
The words burst from him without thought. But when they hung in the air between them, he knew he meant them. She was his only friend. The only one who'd ever shown him kindness.
He would come for her. No matter what it took. He'd promised.
***
Something big was about to happen. The certainty settled deep in Petro's chest as he pushed through the crowd toward the town center. The air itself was different—heavy, charged, like the moments before a thunderstorm. A strange scent threaded through the press of bodies—not the familiar stink of unwashed wool and fear-sweat, but something beneath it. Coppery and sharp, like blood on hot stone. It burned faintly in his nostrils, a sensation he had no name for.
The square was packed with humanity. Hundreds of people, maybe a thousand—the entire population of Ashwick crammed together. A line of crimson-tabarded knights divided the crowd into two groups, standing between them like a living wall of steel. Their hands rested on sword hilts. Their faces were blank, the faces of men who had done this before.
To the right was the smaller group. Merchants in fine wool, nobles in silk. And at the front, Duke Aldric himself—tall and broad-shouldered, with silver-streaked dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard. His clothes were torn, his face bruised, one eye swollen nearly shut. But he stood straight. Whatever they'd done to him, they hadn't touched the core of him—the part that was duke, was leader, was the man who'd opened his granaries two winters ago when children were starving.
Beside him stood the Duchess, her hair hanging in tangles. Young Edgar looked terrified. And near the back, Hank stood beside his father—the Guard Captain, stripped of his weapons, face a mask of controlled fury. The boy who had beaten Petro yesterday looked different now. He looked scared.
To the left was the larger group—commoners and laborers. The ones the Church deemed worthy of salvation.
A fat knight with a clipboard directed Petro left. "Do you follow Mithras?"
"Who?"
"The demon lord. Do you worship him?"
Petro shook his head. He'd never even heard the name.
Searching for Suzanne, he ran up and down the edges of the left group, shoving through gaps between bodies. She wasn't there. His heart pounded harder. He dodged around the perimeter, craning his neck to see past the wall of knights.
She was near the front of the heretics' cluster. Her small form was almost lost among the adults, but he could see her tangled hair, her thin shoulders hunched. She was staring straight ahead with glazed eyes, terrified and utterly alone.
They'd put her with the heretics.
They'd put his only friend with the people they were going to—
His mind shied away from the thought.
A grinding sound cut through the crowd noise. Knights were pushing something into the square—a large wooden platform on iron-rimmed wheels that squealed against the cobblestones. At its center sat a heavy block of oak, waist-high, worn smooth by use. A curved groove had been cut into its top—a hollow where a neck would fit. The wood around the groove was stained almost black.
Beside the block, mounted on an iron stand, hung a great axe. Its handle was wrapped in dark leather, the head broad as a man's chest, its cutting edge honed to a gleaming line. The rest of the blade was dull and pitted with age, but that edge was immaculate—the meticulous attention of a craftsman applied to an instrument of death.
A man near Petro whispered: "Gods help us. It's the headsman's block."
On the platform stood a man in pristine white robes. Tall and thin, with a thick black mustache and jet-black hair. He stood perfectly still, hands folded, dark eyes sweeping over the gathered masses with serene indifference. The copper scent intensified as the priest raised his chin, and with it came something else—a thick, cloying sweetness like overripe fruit left to rot in summer heat. The combination coated Petro's tongue and made his eyes water.
A minute passed in absolute silence. Then the priest stepped forward.
"The Lord of Light gives us everything," he said, his voice deep and rhythmic, trained to carry across large crowds. "All we are. All we become. These are His gifts to us. He gives us everything, yet asks for very little in return."
He paused, letting the words roll out like thunder.
"There are some who won't accept his gifts. They scorn what they do not understand. Such people are to be pitied. And there are others still who do understand, yet willfully disobey His will. They seek to do harm and to disavow His teachings. Such people are heretical in nature and disastrous to culture."
His voice hardened on those last words. Heretical. Disastrous.
"We priests are shepherds. We tend to the Lord's flock. But we are also gardeners. We seek out the weeds that run rampant in His garden and root them out. Only after the garden is purified can the Lord's flowers truly flourish."
Thunder rolled in the distance, punctuating his words. Dark clouds gathered on the horizon. Knights began passing out torches, the flames casting dancing shadows across the square, making the axe's edge seem alive.
"As you can see, the Lord's light is diminished here. In this duchy, there is corruption. Those who scorn His will. Those who worship demons."
A man from the heretics' group shouted: "Mithras is not a demon!"
A guard drove his spear butt into the man's stomach. He collapsed, gasping. The priest held up a hand.
"Peace, brother. The man speaks from ignorance." His voice rose, filling the square with thunderous righteousness. "Mithras was a false god worshiped by pagans. A demon who promised power and seduced the weak-minded. The Collapse itself was birthed from their arrogance!"
The crowd shifted, restless, afraid.
"But our Lord is a benevolent Lord. He believes that all of us deserve a second chance. We are imperfect beings living in an imperfect world." His expression turned cold. "However, there are those who cannot be saved. Today those people will be purged in His light."
He pointed toward the headsman's block.
"And, like the phoenix that must experience death to be reborn, so too will this duchy be reborn in the light of our Lord!"
A ragged cheer rose from part of the crowd—the Church's supporters, the frightened ones clinging to any promise of salvation. The locals remained silent, watching with hollow eyes.
Petro wasn't listening anymore. He was staring at Suzanne across the divide, watching her tremble among the condemned. His chest ached worse than his swollen knuckles. She'd shared her blanket with him. She'd held his hand when the rain wouldn't stop. And now she stood among strangers waiting to die, and he was ten years old with bruised ribs and a hand he couldn't close and nothing—nothing—he could do about it.
He'd promised her. The words still lived in his throat, stubborn as a heartbeat. *I'll come for you.* He didn't know how. He didn't know when. He only knew that the promise burned in his chest like a coal he refused to put down, and that if he let it go out, whatever was left of him wouldn't be worth saving.
The priest raised his hands to the sky, white robes billowing in the rising wind.
"Bring forth the unbelievers," he cried, "and together we shall be reborn!"
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