The rain had ended by morning, but the streets still smelled like rot and smoke. Puddles caught bits of sky between the cracks, small and dirty mirrors no one wanted to look into. I sat near one of them, watching my reflection ripple each time a drop fell from the broken roof above.
That's when I heard footsteps. Light ones not the heavy kind that meant trouble.
"You'll catch a cold sitting there."
I turned. A girl stood a few paces away, her brown hair tucked under a worn scarf, eyes bright with the kind of light people lost down here. She was maybe a year older than me not much, but enough to look like she'd already learned how to survive.
"Are you new around here?" she asked.
"Been here long enough," I said.
She grinned. "Then you're doing it wrong. No one just sits still unless they're waiting for death or bread."
She sat down beside me before I could tell her to go away. She smelled faintly of charcoal and something cleaner — soap, maybe. That alone set her apart from the rest of the street.
"The name is Lira," she said, stretching her legs out. " what about You?"
"Zero."
"That's not a name," she said, amused. "That's a sentence."
"It's what people called me," I said. "And I stopped arguing a long time ago."
She laughed softly the sound of someone who hadn't given up yet. It was strange hearing it here, in a place that killed laughter faster than hunger.
We talked a little. She told me she'd come from the southern slums, near the wall. Her parents were gone, like most, but she'd been working odd jobs hauling crates for merchants, carrying water for the forge until something changed.
"You're looking at a freshly awakened, blue at that," she said suddenly, eyes glinting.
I blinked. "Blue?"
> "My talent grade," she said proudly. "They tested me two days ago. Blue-grade it's average not like noble-born brilliant, but good enough. They said I can control mana properly once I join the training outpost."
She said it like she'd just been handed the world.
"You'll join the military?" I asked.
"Of course. It's the only door open to us. Those with power get a uniform. Those without get chains." She smiled like the thought didn't scare her at all. "With blue, I might even reach Bronze rank before seventeen. That's when the academies start accepting recruits. If I'm lucky, I'll see the inside of a real city."
Her excitement was contagious, the kind that painted over how cruel her words really were. I'd seen what the "outposts" did to recruits from the slums — sent them to guard lines near the wild zones where beasts roamed. Few came back. But Lira didn't seem to care. Or maybe she did, and just refused to let fear take that hope from her.
"You said blue is average," I said quietly. "Then what's below that?"
"White and Grey." She leaned forward, counting on her fingers. "White can't sense mana at all they're basically normal people, doomed to stay that way. Grey can sense it, but barely. They can train up to Iron One if they're lucky before their cores run dry."
She grinned. "Blue's the middle. Strong enough to climb but Weak enough to keep dreaming."
"then what's above Blue?"
"Green, Red, purple, and then the impossible one Black ." Her eyes sparkled. "Those are noble grades. You can go your whole life down here and never even meet someone with that kind of mana. They're born in cities, under banners and blessings."
She said it like she had memorized every rank already, like it was a promise she meant to climb toward no matter how far it looked.
"You'll make it," I said.
She looked at me for a moment, surprised. "You think so?"
"You sound like someone who already has."
She smiled again not mockery this time, just warmth. "You've got a good mouth for words, Zero. Ever think of using it to ask for help instead of keeping quiet?"
"Help doesn't come free."
"Neither does hope."
That shut me up. She laughed again, then tossed me a small, rough bun she'd been keeping in her pocket. "Eat. You look like you haven't had a full meal since winter."
I hesitated, then took it. It was hard and half-stale, but to me, it tasted better than anything I'd eaten in weeks.
We talked until the sky dimmed into copper. She told me stories about the tests the district officials ran how they made the kids hold crystal orbs that glowed with the colourof their mana, and how the other street rats stared in awe when hers shone blue. She said she'd never seen her own hands look that bright before.
"Maybe I was meant for more," she said quietly. "Maybe we all are, but the world just forgets most of us before we have the chance to prove it."
I didn't know how to answer that. So I didn't. I just watched her as she looked up at the rooftops, her scarf fluttering in the wind like a bird that had never been caught.
When the lamps began to light in the upper streets, she stood.
"Training starts tomorrow. I'll be leaving for the outpost before dawn," she said, brushing dust from her knees. "If you're still around when I come back, maybe you'll have awakened too."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I will just drag you along anyway." She grinned. "Can't leave a zero behind."
She walked away before I could reply, vanishing into the misted edges of the alley. Her laughter lingered after she was gone soft, distant, but real.
That night, I dreamed of a blue light flickering in the dark, too far to reach but bright enough to make me try.