Morning light seeped through torn awnings and half-shattered windows. It rolled across broken roofs and tangled wires, warming the dirt paths that stretched like veins through the slums of Veyrune.
Kaien walked with the rhythm of someone who knew where not to step. He avoided loose boards and rotting planks. He ducked beneath hanging laundry, sidestepped rusted carts, and passed beneath ropes strung with chipped bone charms meant to ward off misfortune.
Children crouched in a circle near the well, carving shapes into the dirt with sticks. They did not look up. A woman nearby sharpened a knife on a flat stone while watching her neighbors argue over moldy bread. A pair of men were dragging a gutted animal across the alley to a black pit behind the butcher stalls.
No one spoke to Kaien. They knew him. Or they knew enough to leave him alone.
He stopped at a cracked wall where ivy had overtaken the stone. Beneath the vines was a faded mural. It had once shown a god, maybe Ra or someone from the solar clans. Now only the outline remained. The rest had been scraped away, as if the wall itself had rejected the divine image.
A cold breeze passed.
It should not have. The slums were too tightly packed for wind like that.
Kaien turned, slow and steady. Nothing behind him. Just more dust. More stone.
He kept walking.
An old woman sat on a mat beside a bowl of marigold petals. Her eyes were clouded white, but they followed him. She said nothing until he passed her.
Then she whispered.
"Child of silence. Child without a thread."
Kaien stopped. He turned back, but her gaze was on the sky. The petals in her bowl had begun to float, untouched by any breeze.
The light around her seemed dimmer now. Not darker. Just… faded.
He stepped closer.
"Did you say something?"
Her head tilted. Slowly. Her mouth opened. Her voice came again, dry as paper.
"They will see you soon. The Veins will scream."
Kaien felt his skin crawl. He backed away, heartbeat steady but rising beneath his ribs. He said nothing else. He walked until the air felt normal again.
But it didn't.
Everything seemed too still.
When he reached the alley behind the forge district, he stopped to take a breath. The sky above was pale blue, clear and unchanging. Crows perched along the rooftop, unmoving. Watching.
The air shimmered once. Just for a second.
Then, beneath his skin, something pulsed.
A cold thread. Deep. Faint. Not pain. Not heat. Something else.
Kaien froze.
He pressed his palm to his chest. There was nothing unusual. No wound. No mark. But the feeling remained. A subtle vibration just beneath the surface.
He stood there, in the middle of the alley, breathing carefully as if something might break if he moved too fast.
The feeling passed.
But it did not leave.
Kaien lowered his hand and looked around. Nothing had changed. The sky remained pale. The crows had flown. Somewhere in the distance, a market bell rang twice midmorning.
He shook his head once, as if that might clear the lingering sensation beneath his skin. It didn't. But it faded enough for him to ignore.
This wasn't the first time he had felt something strange. He had learned not to talk about it. The last boy who claimed to see things that weren't there ended up in the Soul Quarter, chained to a whispering stone until he forgot his own name.
Kaien wasn't interested in being remembered like that.
He tightened the wrap around his wrist and kept walking. One more delivery, then maybe he could rest. Maybe he'd even find enough bread for a full meal today.
The streets widened as he neared the trade hub, where the lower merchants bartered their wares at crooked stalls. Clay pots, dull knives, woven mats, dried herbs. Most of it was worthless. Some of it stolen. All of it necessary.
Kaien slipped between two shouting vendors and dropped a folded note into the hand of a courier boy who nodded once and disappeared.
Work finished.
He stepped back into the shade of an old doorway, leaned against the frame, and closed his eyes for a moment. The sun had risen high enough to make the stones burn beneath every footstep. Voices echoed around him sharp, impatient, tired.
He listened.
Not for anything specific. Just the rhythm of the city. That constant noise layered over silence like a thin skin. When it broke, you noticed.
Today, it had not broken.
That should have comforted him. It didn't.
He looked toward the Inner Ring. The towers shimmered with golden light as always, guarded by divine banners that danced without wind. Somewhere beyond those walls, the gods' chosen walked gilded halls and spoke prayers carved into their very names.
Kaien turned away from the sight.
He knew his place.
The slums had raised him. The dust had shaped him. The hunger had taught him. There was no path waiting beyond these alleys. No temple would ever claim his blood. No crest would ever burn on his skin.
He was fine with that.
Mostly.