Morning arrived in the Lower City without warmth.
This was not unusual. Warmth did not belong here. It gathered in higher districts, where stone was kept clean and roofs did not leak, where people woke because they chose to rather than because the cold demanded it. In the Lower City, morning came as a change in light only, a thin signal that survival costs had resumed.
Light slid down between leaning buildings and broke apart on hanging cloth and cracked wood, never quite reaching the ground. The stone beneath the awnings was damp and cold, carrying the smell of old rain, rust, and bodies that had slept too long in one place. Footsteps passed in uneven rhythms. No one lingered.
No one ever lingered here unless they had nowhere else to be.
The Lower City existed below notice. It was not governed in the way the rest of the city was governed. Rules reached it late, enforcement arrived inconsistently, and protection did not arrive at all. What remained was habit. People moved the way water did when poured into broken ground — filling gaps, avoiding resistance, settling where pressure was lowest.
Kael lay beneath a collapsed awning, one shoulder pressed into stone, his body curled just enough to protect heat. His breathing was shallow and controlled, timed so that the ache in his side would not deepen. One sleeve of his coat lay flat and empty against his chest.
He had learned not to sleep deeply.
Deep sleep cost too much.
Someone stopped near his head.
Kael did not open his eyes.
A boot scraped lightly against stone.
"Still here?" a man said.
The voice was neither loud nor curious. It carried the ease of someone who did not expect resistance, the tone of a person whose life had taught him that things moved when he told them to. Men like this did not shout. They did not need to.
Kael's fingers tightened once against the inside of his coat. His breath paused, then resumed at the same shallow pace.
Nearby, someone snorted. Another person laughed under their breath and kept walking. The sound of footsteps swallowed the moment almost immediately.
Kael waited until the weight of the presence shifted away before pushing himself upright. The motion was slow, practiced. He sat for a moment longer than necessary, letting the cold settle fully into his joints before standing. Moving too quickly first thing in the morning invited mistakes, and mistakes were remembered.
Dust slid from the awning as he moved. It caught in his mouth, dry and bitter.
He brushed at his coat with the back of his hand. The dust clung anyway.
"That's lucky," he murmured, not quite to himself.
Luck, here, meant not being kicked awake.
He took the narrow paths toward the basin, avoiding the stairways that climbed upward and the guards who lingered where paths widened. The city rose in layers without walls. You did not cross them by accident. People who tried were corrected, sometimes with words, sometimes with hands, and sometimes by not being seen again.
The basin sat wedged between two darkened walls, the water surface constantly disturbed by hands that never fully cleaned themselves. The air smelled of damp cloth and metal. Voices echoed strangely here, overlapping and never quite belonging to anyone.
This place was tolerated because it was useful. A city could endure hunger longer than thirst.
Kael knelt, adjusting his balance without thinking about it. His shoulder dipped slightly as he reached for the water. His body compensated automatically, shifting weight through his hips rather than his back.
A broad-backed man stood at the basin, feet planted wide. His eyes flicked down, paused briefly on the empty sleeve, then lifted away again.
"Careful," the man said. "You'll spill it."
The words were not concern. They were instruction, issued without expectation of gratitude.
Kael's jaw tightened. He dipped his hand anyway, slower this time. Most of the water slipped through his fingers before he could lift it. He drank what remained without looking up.
A woman nearby clicked her tongue.
"Waste," someone muttered.
No one moved aside to make space.
The water tasted of old stone and iron. It scraped his tongue as he swallowed, leaving his mouth dry almost immediately. Clean water was not meant to be enjoyed here. It was meant to keep people functional.
Kael stood and stepped away from the basin. His shoulder ached faintly, the reminder settling in now that the moment had passed. Behind him, the voices resumed their normal pace, as if nothing unusual had happened.
Because nothing had.
The market was already awake.
Merchants shouted prices like accusations. The smell of bread cut sharply through sweat and refuse. Coins rang against stone. Feet scuffed constantly, the sound never stopping long enough to rest. Buyers argued not because they expected fairness, but because argument was the only leverage they possessed.
Kael moved to the edge of the square and lowered himself beside a broken pillar. Whatever it had once supported was gone. What remained was shadow.
Shadow mattered.
He placed his wooden bowl between his knees and angled his body so the empty sleeve faced the stone. Presentation mattered. Too much damage drew attention. Too little invited testing. The Lower City was not cruel out of malice. It was cruel because cruelty simplified decisions.
A merchant noticed him almost immediately.
"You again?" the man said from behind his stall.
The merchant's hair was thinning, his robe stained from years of handling goods that never improved his standing. His irritation was habitual, not personal. Kael was one of many small irritants in a life that did not move upward.
Kael curled his fingers around the rim of the bowl. The wood was rough, a splinter catching lightly in his skin. He did not look up.
"Every morning," another voice added nearby, amused. "Like mold."
The speaker was younger, sharper, still capable of humor. His laughter carried just enough edge to remind those nearby that he had not yet learned caution fully.
A few people glanced over. Most looked away just as quickly. A coin clinked into the bowl without stopping.
Kael's breath slowed. He let the sound pass through him.
The merchant snorted and turned away, already dismissing him. The market noise closed back in, sealing the space as if Kael had never been noticed at all.
This was acceptable.
Then the sound changed.
Not silence. Attention.
The flow of bodies shifted subtly, bending around a new presence. Kael felt it before he understood it, a tightening in his chest that had nothing to do with breath. He lowered his head at once.
Boots stopped near him. More than one pair. The men wearing them stood unhurriedly, their weight settled, comfortable.
They were not guards. Guards announced themselves.
"These spots fill up fast," one of them said mildly.
Kael did not answer yet.
"This spot's reserved," another added.
Kael's grip tightened around the bowl.
"I was here," he said quietly.
The words landed anyway.
Someone laughed. Short. Sharp.
"Listen to him," another voice said. "He thinks stone belongs to him."
The first man nudged the edge of the bowl with his boot.
"Move."
Kael hesitated. Not from defiance. From calculation. The pillar mattered. The shadow mattered. Without it, the sun would force him into a worse place.
"I can shift," he said.
The kick came anyway.
The bowl cracked. Coins scattered across the stone and rolled into feet that did not stop to return them.
"I liked that one," Kael said.
No one answered.
The pain arrived late, blooming through his side as he knelt to gather what remained. His balance wavered briefly before he corrected it. He counted the coins as he picked them up, fingers moving steadily despite the tremor.
Enough for bread.
He stood and pulled his coat tighter around the empty sleeve. The air tasted dry, dust clinging to the back of his throat.
As he walked away, he remembered the order of their laughter.
That mattered.
Behind him, the shadow of the broken pillar lingered a fraction longer than the sun allowed.
Then the city swallowed him without noticing.
It had no reason to remember the child.
And no memory at all of the man he used to be.