The sound of footsteps came first. Soft. Careful. Wrong. I froze mid-step, the sack of bread slipping against my shoulder. The last alley before home stretched ahead, dark, narrow, quiet. Too quiet. The feeling crawled up my spine. That itch between my shoulder blades. The kind that never lied.
Someone was behind me. Don't look. Don't run.
Running made them chase. Screaming brought others. Others were worse. I gripped the sack tighter and kept walking my tiny legs not fast enough. The shadow detached from the wall behind me. Then came the voice. "Easy there, boy…"
Deep. Rough. Too calm. I knew he would rob me or worse for this amount of food. I turned at the last second. Just enough to see the glint of a blade before it was already coming down. I twisted. A whisper of steel cut the air. Then heat ripped across my face. The burn of it was sharp, wet warmth running down my face. He swung again. I ducked, stumbled, hit the wall. My shoulder cracked against the stone. Instant horrible pain. Air gone from my lungs. I dropped the bread.
He laughed, a sound too close to not human to feel real. "Hold still!"
I didn't. Couldn't. He lunged again. I threw my arm up and something inside me snapped. Not bone, something deeper. The air shuddered. It burst from me, wild and invisible, knocking him back half a step. Just enough. I ran. Not fast enough. He grabbed my hood and yanked me backward, slamming me into the ground. The world cracked white for a second. My ears rang. I couldn't breathe. The world bent sideways. He pinned me. Heavy. Reeking of sour ale and sweat. His knife flashed again it was bigger than my arm. I twisted. The blade skimmed my ribs, tearing my shirt open. Hot blood bloomed across my side. My breath came out in a strangled sound I bit down to kill.
No noise. No sound. Noise meant death. Always.
He was laughing again. "You've got some magic in you, don't you? I can feel it." The world slowed. Breath. Blood. Stone. Then he lunged.
I tried to kick. He caught my leg. I bit his wrist, hard enough to taste copper. He roared, jerked back. I pushed my feet against the wall to roll, slippery with my own blood. My hands hit a puddle. Cold. Thin. Water. It responded before I thought, before I even meant to. The puddle rippled. Froze. The cobblestones turned slick under him. He slipped. I scrambled up, lungs heaving. A step from the wall. My side screamed with every breath. My hands were shaking too badly to form a fist. The man snarled and came at me again, knife high.
I raised my arm to block. Too slow. The blade cut deep into my forearm. White heat. Blood sprayed from the wound. I didn't scream. I wanted to. My throat locked. My other hand shot forward, trembling. The air bent again, sharp, thin wind cutting between us. He blinked, surprised, as dust and grit stung his eyes. I ran at him. No plan. No thought. Just panic.
He swung blind. Missed. I slammed into his chest, too small to move him. But enough to throw him off balance again on the slick ground. We fell together, tangled, breathless. His knife skittered across the ground. We hit hard. My head cracked against the stones of the wall. He rolled on top first. Heavy.
I could feel every rib of his pressing into mine. Every breath was a scream I didn't let out. He reached for the knife. I reached for anything. The cobblestones were wet again. My blood. The puddle. I didn't care. I pressed my hand flat. It froze in a thin but solid sheet. The knife handle stuck to the ground mid-reach. His hand closed over nothing but ice. He cursed and tried to wrench it free.
I used the second I had left. My hand, still shaking, still slick with blood, closed around a chunk of frozen water I didn't remember making. It wasn't a weapon. Just a jagged piece of ice shaped by panic and chance. I drove it upward. It hit his shoulder first. Didn't stop him. He hit me. Hard. My vision went black for a second. My ears screamed. My chest wouldn't rise. I couldn't breathe. He shifted his weight to pull the knife free. He pulled with both hands. Needing to free his weapon. I gasped, rolled out from under him. My hands clawing at the ground, trying to crawl away. He caught my ankle. Dragged me back.
No, no, no—
I twisted, flailing, kicking, sobbing without sound. Air.
It ripped out of me, a burst that tore at my chest. The wind shoved him off just far enough that I could move. I grabbed the shard again, half-melted now, sharp and jagged. I did the only thing my body knew how to do. Survive.
I drove the ice dagger straight into his eye. I stabbed. Once. Twice. The shard slid through skin, then hit something solid. I pushed harder. He screamed. A third time. The ice splintered on the last hit. Something warm sprayed across my face. I didn't stop until he stopped moving. Slumped into a heap half on me. The silence after was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. I lay there, gasping, staring up at the black sky. The world smelled like iron and wet stone and bloody meat. I pushed at the man's chest. He didn't move. I pushed harder. Still nothing. Finally, I shoved with everything I had, rolling his dead weight off me. The cold cobblestones pressed against my cheek. I stayed there for a moment. Breathing. Trembling. Alive. Barely. My blood mixed with his.
The bread lay scattered a few feet away, one loaf crushed, the rest intact. I stared at them through blurry eyes, tears I didn't remember crying freezing halfway down my face. I crawled toward the sack. Because even now, even bleeding and shaking and half-broken, I knew one thing. If I didn't bring that bread home, none of this would matter. This much would feed us for a week.
I stood. Froze the wound on my arm to stop the bleeding. I walked to the body. The body didn't move. Not when I shoved it. Not when I rolled it onto its back. Not even when I pried the fingers loose from the knife, one by one. I didn't feel anything. Not relief. Not horror. Just cold and pain. Mostly pain. I kicked his body once. Then I spit on him. Only after the rage passed did my common sense kick in. I crouched, wiped my hands on my shirt, and started rifling through his pockets. Three silver pieces. My breath caught. Three. Silver. Pieces. That was wealth. That could buy food for a week, maybe two.
Next, a worn gambling ticket. Not surprising. But then I found the letter. Cindy, one of the women who worked at the inn with my mom, could read. She'd taught all of us slum kids how to read in secret. Something that could get her in trouble. Reading wasn't illegal, but it was frowned on. Poor kids weren't supposed to be literate. We were just cannon fodder waiting for conscription. I unfolded the letter and read it. My name was there. My name. My description. A list of my usual paths. My mom's name. The man had been paid to kill me. Three silver coins now. Three more after. Six silver. That was the going rate for a child slave. That's what I was worth. I stared down at his body, hatred curling in my gut. I touched his skin and drew the magic out of him. All the marks he'd stored, all the spells stored beneath his flesh, I took them. I ripped them from him. His power became mine. I kicked him one more time for good measure. I stared at the hole where his eye had been. My hand still shook, still stabbed air that wasn't there. I left him there, in his own puddle of blood and shit.
I pulled the sack of bread close to my chest and began the long walk home. The streets were darker now. Quiet. But not the kind of quiet you trust. I kept to the walls. Moved fast, even though every step sent fire up my side. My hands were sticky with blood. My shirt clung wet to my ribs. I couldn't stop thinking about that letter. Someone had paid to kill me. Not rob me. Not rough me up. Kill me. Whoever it was… they knew my name.
By the time I got to the tavern, my vision was swimming. The world tilted when I stepped through the back door. I made it two steps into the kitchen before I slumped against the wall. That's where my mother found me. She gasped, dropping a bowl. It shattered, but I barely flinched.
"Dreniel!" She was beside me in seconds, hands running over my face, my chest, my side.
"I'm okay," I lied. I wasn't. "I brought the bread."
She looked at the sack I'd refused to let go of and then back at me, eyes shining with something between heartbreak and pride. She helped me to a chair. Grabbed the bottle. I didn't even argue. She poured the alcohol straight into the wound. I didn't scream. But colors, I wanted to. She whispered an apology and held her hand over my ribs. The faint green shimmer, her magic flickered, weak and trembling. The same way her hands always shook when she'd skipped her dinner again. She had just enough to close the worst of it. It hurt less after. Barely. She rested her forehead against mine. "You came back," she whispered. "I don't know what happened, but you came back. I'm proud of you."
I wanted to tell her. About the man. The coins. The letter. But I didn't. Not yet.
She gave me stew. The kind that had more water than meat, but it was warm and filling. I ate it sitting on the kitchen floor while the rest of the tavern buzzed just on the other side of the wall. Safe. For now. When I finished, I climbed the attic stairs, past the sleeping little ones. I crawled onto my cot. The straw poked through the blanket. My ribs ached. I finally pulled the letter from my shirt. I stared at the perfect writing in the candlelight. The way my name curled off the page like I was important. Like I was someone worth killing.
Why?
I turned it over and over in my hands. Three silver coins.
That's what I was worth tonight. Maybe less. Someone out there wanted me gone. I tucked the letter under my pillow. I didn't sleep. Not really. I just lay there in the dark, staring up at the slanted ceiling, listening to the quiet breathing of all the others, and wondering: What exactly did I survive? And what happens when they try again? Six silver coins. Next time, they'll have to spend more.