Night has swallowed Liveria.
Inside the palace walls, a thousand lanterns burn like captured stars.
Music floats on perfumed air; silk rustles; wine the color of blood pours endlessly into crystal cups.
Children of nobility laugh as they chase fireflies across lawns watered by the tears of the city below.
Outside, darkness is absolute.
An owl beats its way over the broken districts: roofs collapsed inward like broken ribs, windows blind with rags, streets that stink of piss and despair. It passes the mid-class nobles' lanes (clean, quiet, smug), then drops lower, circling once, twice, before settling on a crooked sign that reads ROMAN STREET in flaking gold.
A man walks beneath it.
Erwin.
Thirty-three years old and already a ghost.
His coat is more patches than cloth. His shoes are held together by hope and wire. His cheeks are sunken so deep the bones cast shadows; his eyes are ringed black from nights spent working until the lanterns guttered out.
But tonight he is smiling.
A small, fierce, trembling smile that has no business existing on a face so hollowed by hunger. Because tonight is different.
He clutches a tiny leather pouch to his heart like it is the only holy thing left in the world.
Inside: two thin strips of butcher's meat and seven copper coins.
Half a month's wage.
He is rehearsing the moment in his head, over and over, the way starving men rehearse feasts.
Layla, baby, close your eyes… now open them.
Look what Daddy brought. Real meat, sweetheart.
For your seventh birthday. We're going to cook it slow, with the last onion, and you'll eat until your belly is round and warm and you fall asleep dreaming of tomorrow instead of crying from hunger.
He whispers the words under his breath as he walks, tasting them like sugar.
Seven years old and you've never had meat. Never once. But tonight you will. Tonight you'll know your daddy moved the world for you.
He is so lost in the dream that he does not see the man step into his path.
A soft collision.
His mud-encrusted fingers brush pristine white silk.
The world ends in an instant.
Carlos of House Veyne (mid-tier noble, tavern owner, fat with other people's money) whirls, face purpling with outrage.
"You filthy animal!"
Erwin drops to his knees before the blow even lands, forehead scraping the dirt.
"I'm sorry, my lord—please, I didn't see—"
The first slap splits his lip.
The second snaps his head sideways.
"You didn't see me?" Carlos roars. "Do you know who I am?"
Boot meets ribs. Once. Twice. A wet crack.
Erwin curls around the pouch like a mother shielding her child, gasping, tasting blood.
"Please forgive me... my daughter… it's her birthday today… she's waiting…"
Carlos laughs, a wet, ugly sound. He grabs Erwin by the hair and yanks his head back so hard the tendons scream.
"Lick. My. Boots."
He grinds Erwin's face into the mud. "And give me that pouch, thief."
Erwin is sobbing openly now, tears cutting rivers through the filth on his cheeks.
"I'll lick them… I swear… just not the pouch. It's meat. For Layla. She's seven tomorrow. She's never—"
Carlos spits full in his face. The glob lands warm across his eyes.
"Guards!"
"Guards!"
"He stole my pouch!!"
Two armored men spill from the tavern doorway.
Erwin tries to crawl backward. "No—no, please, I didn't steal—"
A gauntlet closes around his throat and slams him against the wall. The second guard drives a fist into his gut so hard his vision whites out.
"Give it back, rat."
Erwin clutches the pouch with both arms, cradling it against his heart.
"It's just meat… two pieces… for my little girl's birthday… please…"
The guard punches him again. And again.
In the struggle the pouch tears free.
It falls.
For one heartbeat the world holds its breath.
The owl drops from the sign like a dark angel.
Talons close around the small leather bag.
One beat of wings.
Two.
Gone.
Erwin sees it vanish into the night and something inside him dies louder than any scream.
"No…"
A sound rips out of him that is not human.
"Layla—no—come back—please—"
The whip rises.
The first lash flays skin from his back.
The second.
The third.
He collapses to his knees, arms still reaching toward the empty sky where the owl disappeared.
Blood pours from his nose, his mouth, his torn back.
Between lashes he whispers the only prayer he has left.
Layla… baby… I'm sorry…
Daddy tried…
I just wanted you to have meat on your birthday…
I just wanted you to smile…
Another crack of the whip.
His voice breaks into a child's sob.
"I love you, baby…
Happy birthday…"
The owl is already far above the palace walls, clutching the small, bloody pouch that holds a father's entire world.
High above the eastern guest manse it claws at the leather, trying to rip the pouch open mid-flight.
A frantic twist, a slip of talons; the small bag tumbles from the sky.
It lands with a soft thud in the moonlit grass just outside the gate.
Luan is standing there alone, staring up at the palace walls as if measuring how many deaths it will take to breach them.
His burned hand has finally stopped smoking, but the skin is raw, pink, and trembling.
He bends slowly and picks up the small leather bag, turning it over in his palms...(warm leather, faint smell of butcher's blood and copper) like it's something sacred and cursed at once.
Then without a word, ties it securely to the frayed belt of his motley, right beside the silent bells.
A promise he doesn't yet understand.
Soft footsteps on stone.
He turns.
Elsbeth stands framed in the doorway, bathed in lantern-glow.
The mud is gone. The filth, the tears, the market's hatred; all washed away.
She wears deep midnight-blue silk that pools like liquid night around her feet, the gown her mother wore the last time she was ever allowed to be a queen.
The wilted daisy is still tucked behind her ear, defiant and perfect.
She raises one hand in a small, almost shy wave.
"The carriage is here," she says, voice steady, but her eyes are still red from crying. "Sir Rowan is waiting."
Luan forgets how to breathe.
Leonard steps out behind her, buckling a borrowed sword, and catches the look on Luan's face.
The words from inside still echoing in Leonard's ears, soft and lethal:
"If she suffers, I cease to exist."
Leonard swallows, says nothing.
The three of them walk to the carriage in silence.
"Sir Rowan is already on his horse, waiting near the carriage."
Luan climbs in last. Inside, the lanterns sway. The seats are velvet. The world smells of wax and polished wood instead of blood and fish.
Leonard tries to break the tension and fails. He nods at Luan's belt.
"What's that?"
Luan touches the pouch absently. "An owl dropped it. I… kept it."
Elsbeth's gaze flickers to the small bulge of leather, then away. Something tightens in her jaw.
Leonard exhales, rubbing the back of his neck. "Putting strange owl-gifts aside… I'm afraid those sanctimonious bastards in the council won't hear a single word we say."
Elsbeth looks out the window as the palace gates loom closer, golden and hungry.
"They will have to," she says, quiet, deadly, final.
"Because I am done asking."
She does not see Luan's hand settle protectively over the hidden pouch.
She does not know about the vow he made:
If tonight demands a price, I will pay it.
All of it.
So none of it touches her.
The carriage rattles on.
The palace draws nearer.
And somewhere outside the walls, a little girl is still waiting by a cold hearth, clutching a wilted daisy, whispering "Daddy, hurry home…"