The silence after the mob's collapse was louder than the riot had been.
Niamh stood in the shop's doorway, dagger trembling in her hand, the weight of years pulling heavy against her shoulders. Her breath came in ragged pulls, not from exhaustion, but from the sight before her.
The street was a graveyard of frost.
Bodies lay sprawled where they had fallen, limbs encased in jagged ice. Some twitched weakly, breath fogging against their frozen prisons. Others were perfectly still, eyes wide with terror, lashes rimed in white crystals. The flames of torches still guttered in the snow-glass fragments scattered across the ferrocrete, sparks hissing into nothing.
And at the center of it all stood Jade.
Her Jade.
The boy's silvery-blue hair fluttered in the unnatural wind of his aura, strands catching glints of neon from the city signs above. His small frame seemed impossibly fragile against the carnage surrounding him, a child's shoulders beneath a black turtleneck. But the blindfold across his eyes glimmered faintly, betraying the impossible power that burned beneath.
She could still hear his voice echoing in her ears:
"This is my battle. Not yours."
Niamh had known he was different. Since the moment she had found him, she had understood that he was not like other children. His hands were too steady, his words too precise, his presence too… sharp. He carried the weight of lifetimes in the way he looked at people, as though nothing truly surprised him.
But this…
Her knees nearly buckled.
This wasn't the first time she had seen him kill. But.....
"Seven years old," she whispered, the words tasting like ash. Her dagger slipped from her fingers again, clattering against the frozen street.
From the shadows, Gorvoth exhaled a long ribbon of smoke from his pipe, his scarred face unreadable. He leaned on his cleaver-sword, gaze fixed on Jade as if measuring him against some long-forgotten memory.
"He's stronger than you thought," Gorvoth said simply. His voice was rough, calm, too calm.
Niamh whirled on him. "Stronger? He's a child! He shouldn't be—" Her voice broke. She forced herself to swallow and start again. "He shouldn't be standing in blood and frost like this!"
But Gorvoth did not move, did not blink. "And yet here he is. Alive. Them, not."
The words struck like a blade.
....
Jade finally turned, frost whispering off his boots as he stepped toward them. He moved carefully, without hurry, as though the battlefield around him were nothing more than an evening chore completed. His face was calm—too calm—but his lips pressed faintly, betraying the smallest tension.
Niamh saw it. She had always seen through him, no matter how he tried to mask. But that only made her chest ache more.
"You—" She tried to speak, then stopped, tried again. "You killed them."
Jade paused. For a long moment he said nothing, standing still in the broken light. Then he inclined his head slightly. "Yes."
The simple answer made her shiver.
"They would have killed you," Gorvoth added, not unkindly.
But Niamh's eyes did not leave Jade. "You're seven. Seven." Her voice cracked. "You were supposed to… to learn, to play, to grow slowly. You weren't supposed to…"
Her gaze swept over the bodies again, children not much older than Jade himself. Powder still clung to their lips, staining them pale blue, marks of desperation scrawled across skin too young for such violence.
"…this."
Jade stepped closer. The frost withdrew slightly from his path, as if afraid of him. He stopped just short of her, tilting his head, blindfolded eyes aimed at her face.
"You told me once," he said softly, "that the slums will eat me whole if I am not careful."
Her throat tightened.
He continued, voice calm, steady, but too old for him: "I chose to eat them first."
The words punched through her like cold iron.
For a long while, only the faint crackle of ice settling filled the silence.
Niamh pressed her hands to her face, hiding the hot sting in her eyes. Tears threatened, but she bit them back, refusing to let them fall. He could not see her cry—he must not. Not when he already carried so much.
When she lowered her hands, Jade was still watching her. Or perhaps not watching—sensing. She could never tell what those strange eyes beneath his blindfold perceived.
"Do you hate me now?" he asked quietly.
The question broke her.
Her knees gave out, and before she could stop herself, she had pulled him against her chest, clutching his small frame fiercely. Her fingers tangled in his silvery-blue hair as if holding on could drag him back from the abyss she feared he was already tumbling into.
"No," she whispered fiercely into his hair. "Never. Never hate. But Jade—you're still my baby. Even if you're strong, even if you're… terrifying. You're still my baby. And I can't—" her voice cracked, "—I can't lose you to this city."
He did not push her away. But he did not melt into her embrace, either. His arms stayed at his sides, calm, resigned.
When he spoke, it was with that same unsettling steadiness. "You won't lose me."
She pulled back enough to cup his face in her palms, forcing him to face her though the blindfold hid his eyes. "Promise me. Promise me you'll stay… you'll stay a child at least a little longer. That you won't let this world turn you into something else."
Jade tilted his head faintly, as though considering the weight of such words. Then he gave the smallest nod. "I'll try."
It wasn't enough. But it was all she could cling to.
Behind them, Gorvoth finally spoke again. His tone was quiet, almost thoughtful. "If he's this strong now, what will he be at adulthood?"
The question twisted in Niamh's chest. She had no answer.
But she knew one thing for certain: tonight, she had not just seen the slums rise against them. She had seen the first crack in Jade's childhood shatter, a shard of innocence broken forever.
And she feared the city of Nexus had no idea what it had just awoken.
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Author San here :
I didn't know writing about a grown man transition into a child with an adult mind would be this difficult.. This chapter took me three days to write because I didn't know how to make Jade behave as a child as well as an adult .. ugh I hope you understand somewhat
Thanks for reading ☺️
Suggestions and advices are always appreciated, Nicely of course.