Month 1, Year 1273 – Grey Harbor
The great hall was heavy with judgment and the scent of burning cedar. Marcus stood before the hearth, shoulders squared despite exhaustion.
"Thank you, Father. No allowance is fair—only a roof and bread. My debts are mine to clear."
A faint, stubborn smile crossed his lips.
"I'll find a way. No— I must. You'll see."
His eyes searched his mother's, his sister's, catching the hope they dared not voice.
"If you'll excuse me… I need to think. I won't waste this last chance you've given me."
He left before pride or panic could stop him. The hush that followed was total—the only sound the fire's last pop and the soft gasp Hellena stifled in her sleeve.
The corridors stretched ahead, familiar yet foreign. His bed would be cold tonight, but his mind burned with plans and fear, and the stubborn ember of resolve. Outside, the city breathed with the tide. Tomorrow would be his first day living on what he earned, not what he was given.
The door shut behind him, muffling his footsteps and leaving the great hall in a silence thick enough to measure in coins. Dusk bled through the windowpanes, painting Roger Kennard's face in weary lines.
Hellena spoke first, her voice thin as frost. "You could have been kinder. He's just a boy. He's never known hardship, not truly."
Roger didn't look up. He closed the ledger with a snap, tapping the desk in that old, anxious rhythm. The fire glowed across his knuckles.
"That's the trouble. He's sixteen and knows nothing but easy bread and second chances. If I wait any longer, he'll waste himself—and our name. This is the only mercy left."
Marco straightened from the wall, arms folded. "He won't last a week in the Sprawl," he muttered. "You should have sent him out with nothing at all. Let him learn."
Leonna rounded on him, her voice sharp as a drawn needle. "And if he fails? If he's hurt? You talk as if he's a stranger, not our brother."
She turned to Roger, anger brightening her cheeks. "He isn't worthless. He just needs someone to believe in him, not another punishment."
Roger exhaled slowly, the edge of his mouth softening.
"I do believe in him. That's why I haven't sent him to the docks in chains. But I won't shield him from consequence—not anymore."
The fire cracked. The city bells faintly chimed beyond the walls.
Hellena rose, gentler now. "He's young. There's still time for him to change. I'll send some bread to his room."
Roger nodded without a word.
Leonna slipped away, perhaps to knock quietly at Marcus's door before dawn.
Marco stayed by the fire, his pride masking the worry in his eyes.
The Kennard family, each alone in their thoughts, faced the night with the same hope—that by some miracle, Marcus might yet prove them all wrong.
The next day, Day 2 Month 1 1273
Dawn rolled across Grey Harbor like dull pewter, washing the city in cold mist. From his attic window, Marcus watched rooftops silvered with frost, crooked chimneys exhaling smoke, ships rocking in the bay, their masts scribbling shadows over pale water.
The city below breathed like a living ledger—every bell, cart, and hungry gull a column of need and ambition. The Sprawl was already stirring: vendors shouted, dockhands cursed, and somewhere in the alleys, dice clattered on cobblestone.
In Grey Harbor, coin spoke every language.
A single copper bought a loaf of bread, a mug of ale, or a few hours of forgetfulness.
Ten coppers made a silver—the wage of a day's labor, the price of a night's rest, or the cost of a guard's silence.
Ten silvers made a gold—the coin that decided whose names were remembered, and whose bones sank beneath the harbor mud.
Marcus dressed slowly, the chill biting through his shirt. His purse was lighter than pride: twelve silver, a few choppers, and debts heavier than the fog outside.
Downstairs, the manor kitchen buzzed with life—the cook cursing the king's new flour tax, a scullery girl counting loaves, a stableboy whispering about "the merchant's son who fell from favor."
Everywhere Marcus turned, the truth echoed: In Grey Harbor, nothing is free.
He stepped into the street. The air smelled of salt, smoke, and opportunity. Today, Marcus Kennard was just another debtor with a roof over his head—and a world waiting to see if he'd rise or drown.
He slipped into the market as the morning haze lifted from the river.
The city's heart beat there, a wide muddy avenue lined with stalls and stone shops—a spine of trade that pulsed from dawn to dusk.
A woman in a patched blue dress weighed loaves on iron scales, shouting prices as fishermen paid in greasy choppers. A spice merchant from the Free Marches argued in broken Valorian with a baker's boy, cinnamon dust swirling between them.
Children counted coppers, haggled over bruised apples, and dreamed of silver.
Barrels bearing the Kennard crest stood beside rival brands, salt-white and weather-worn. Marcus saw respect in some eyes, contempt in others. He was used to both.
The smells of the market changed with the sun—morning's fish and brine giving way to yeast, sweat, and roasting onions; by afternoon, sweetness from honey carts mingling with ale and horse dung.
At the coin-changers' table, silver was bitten, weighed, and whispered over. A sailor pawned his boots for two silver and a promise. A debt collector read names from a slate, voice flat as a judge's verdict.
Marcus's stomach knotted. He watched, calculating every price and profit shouted in the chaos. Merchants barked until hoarse, undercut each other to ruin, swung fists where numbers failed. There was no gap for him to slip into—not with his debts, not with only twelve silver and a ruined reputation.
No opening for him—not yet.
Then hunger bit deep. He glanced at crusts in a beggar's hands, at the steam rising from stew pots. Bread, stew—simple, cheap, yet in that moment, they might as well have been gold.
A memory struck: a night long ago, stumbling home broke and drunk, craving warmth and food so badly he'd pay anything for it. That was the key.
It wasn't the bread itself that mattered—but when hunger hit. Need and want, colliding at the perfect hour.
Most folk walked past a stall without care—but catch them after labor, drunk, rain-soaked, or cold, and even stew became a feast.
That was the angle.
It wasn't about outbidding or out-shouting his rivals. It was about being there at the moment of weakness—selling the right thing to the right person, at exactly the right time.
He grinned to himself, hunger forgotten for a heartbeat.
"Not what they want… but when they want it most."
For the first time that morning, Marcus smiled. Hunger dulled, purpose sharp. Somewhere amid the noise of trade and toil, he could already hear it—the faint, promising sound of his first profit waiting to be made.