...Beginning

Lior had never been above the sewers.

Not really.

He had climbed up the ladder before, sure—peeked his head into the streets, run errands when Cass needed him to, darted between shadows when the bigger kids chased him. But he had never spent a whole day in the world above.

Not until today.

Today, his mother took him to work.

***

Elsha walked like a ghost.

She moved silently, weaving through the filthy streets without a sound, her thin frame swallowed in layers of patched cloth. The people of Blackmire barely looked at her as she passed. She was nothing to them.

But Lior?

People saw Lior.

Too small. Too hungry. Too out of place.

The city looked at him like a stray dog sniffing at doors where it didn't belong.

Still, he stuck close to his mother's side, his little fingers clutching the fabric of her sleeve as they made their way through the winding streets. Up past the dock district, past the factories with their belching black smoke, past the crowded marketplace where butchers hacked at meat and fishmongers shouted prices Lior couldn't even dream of paying.

And then—

The Doe House.

Lior had never seen anything so clean before.

The Doe House wasn't rich—not compared to the Lords and the Merchant Kings of Blackmire—but to a boy from the sewers, it might as well have been a palace.

The floors were polished wood, the walls painted a color that was not rot, and the air smelled like bread instead of mold and piss. There were windows. Windows that weren't broken or boarded up, windows that let in sunlight.

Lior barely had time to gawk before Elsha placed a firm hand on his shoulder.

Stay quiet. Stay still. Do not be seen.

He understood.

Elsha never spoke, but he had always understood her.

So he sat in the kitchen corner on a little wooden stool, watching as his mother worked.

Elsha did not stop moving.

She scrubbed the floors until her hands were red. She washed linens in scalding water. She peeled potatoes with practiced efficiency, cut vegetables with the precision of someone who had been doing this her entire life.

She did not hesitate.

She did not rest.

And no one thanked her.

The Doe family didn't even look at her. The lady of the house gave orders without meeting her eyes. The children of the Doe family ran past her, laughing, playing, not even acknowledging that she was there.

Lior sat in the corner and watched his mother be invisible.

And something boiled inside him.

It wasn't until midday that someone finally noticed him.

Not a servant. Not a maid.

A boy.

Laurence Doe.

The eldest Doe son. Ten years old. Four years younger than Cass. He wore a stiff-collared coat, polished boots, and an expression of mild curiosity as he peered at Lior like one might inspect a particularly odd-looking insect.

Lior had seen rich boys before.

Usually from a safe distance.

He had watched them through shop windows, behind street corners, and from the safety of the sewer grates, peering up at their clean boots, their soft hands, their bellies that had never known hunger.

They were untouchable.

They had the kind of safety and arrogance that only money could buy.

And now, for the first time in his life, one of them was staring right at him.

Laurence Doe—ten years old, two inches taller than Lior, dressed like a little lord in a navy-blue coat with gold buttons—stood in the doorway of the kitchen.

And he was staring.

Lior sat on his stool in the corner, his small body tense, his nails digging into his palms.

The rich boy tilted his head.

"Who are you?"

Lior didn't answer.

Laurence took a step closer, the polished heels of his boots clicking against the wooden floor.

"Are you a new servant?"

Lior stayed quiet.

The last thing he needed was to speak out of turn and have his mother punished for it.

Laurence huffed, unimpressed.

"Do you even talk?"

Lior's fists clenched.

Yes, you rich little shit, I talk.

But he kept his mouth shut.

Laurence folded his arms.

"You're filthy."

Lior gritted his teeth.

Laurence smirked. "Did they find you in a gutter?"

Lior exhaled slowly through his nose.

"Do you even know how to read?"

Lior stared at the boy.

Laurence's grin widened.

"You look like a sewer rat," he said, his voice light, teasing. "Mother says the city is full of them."

Lior kept his face blank, but his nails dug deeper into his palms.

Laurence took another step forward, his clean, manicured fingers reaching toward Lior's sleeve.

"Your clothes are strange. What fabric is thi—"

Lior snatched his wrist.

The movement was so fast that Laurence barely had time to react.

Lior's small fingers locked around the rich boy's wrist, tight as iron.

Laurence's smirk vanished.

The room went still.

Lior leaned in.

Laurence swallowed. "Let go."

Lior did not let go.

Instead, he smiled—a small, sharp little thing.

"You know what we do with rats in the sewer?" he whispered.

Laurence blinked rapidly, trying to jerk his hand away, but Lior's grip tightened.

"We catch them," Lior continued, voice soft. "We snap their little necks."

Laurence paled.

Elsha's shadow suddenly fell over them.

Lior released the boy's wrist immediately, hands flying back into his lap.

Laurence stumbled backward, rubbing his wrist as he gawked at Lior, as if seeing him for the first time.

Then he turned on his heel and stormed out of the kitchen.

Lior sat back on his stool, chest rising and falling, fingers still tingling.

His mother did not reprimand him.

She only placed a gentle hand on his shoulder.

A warning.

Do not ruin this.

Do not make them notice us more than they already have.

Lior nodded.

He would behave.

For now.

But inside, he swore—

One day, he'd never have to sit still again.

***

When the sun began to set, Elsha finished her work.

She collected her measly wages, pocketed a few crumbs of leftover bread, and took Lior's hand.

And they left.

Back through the streets. Back past the market stalls. Back through the grime and the filth and the real Blackmire.

By the time they reached the sewer entrance, Lior's feet ached. His stomach grumbled. His tiny hands were still balled into fists.

And Elsha?

Elsha just kissed his forehead.

And in that moment, in the damp, stinking dark of their real home—

Lior thought she had never looked more strong.

Elsha did not drag her feet, no matter how much they ached.

She had been walking this path for years, and exhaustion was a companion she no longer acknowledged. It whispered in her bones, clung to the bruises on her hands, but she did not let it slow her. The sooner she got home, the sooner she could rest.

Behind her, Lior followed, his little hands clenched into fists, his face unreadable.

She did not ask what had happened with the Doe boy. She had seen it. The way Lior had gripped his wrist. The way Laurence had fled, rubbing at his skin as if it burned.

Elsha only placed a hand on Lior's shoulder. A silent warning. A reminder.

Stay invisible. Stay alive.

Lior said nothing, only nodding once, quick and sharp.

And so, they walked.

The sun was setting, casting long shadows over Blackmire's streets, warping buildings into jagged shapes.

Elsha's path took them past the comfortably poor.

Not the wealthy, like the Doe family, who sat in dining halls with warm meals and candlelight. Not the utterly ruined, who slept beneath bridges or curled in doorways, waiting for morning like scavengers waiting for scraps.

No, these were the ones in-between.

The ones with small homes—not grand, but with doors that locked.

The ones with candles in their windows, flickering warmly, their yellow light spilling onto the streets like an invitation to a life Elsha could never afford.

She did not envy them.

She did not hate them.

She simply walked past, unnoticed and unwanted.

The market had mostly closed by now.

The daytime noise—the shouting, the haggling, the smell of fresh bread and roasting meat—was fading into the nighttime hush. The remaining merchants were packing up, pulling their carts toward home.

But not all of them.

Some still lingered.

A butcher with thick arms and a red-stained apron dumped a bucket of guts into the gutter, washing the blood from his hands. A fishmonger, her hair tied back in a greasy scarf, threw a half-rotten herring into the street, where a pack of stray dogs lunged at it.

And then, of course—

The scavengers.

Elsha moved quickly, tucking Lior closer to her side.

The scavengers were watching.

The Unseen Hunger of Blackmire

Hunger made people dangerous.

The moment her shift ended, she stopped being a servant and became just another woman in the streets. And Lior?

Lior was small. Small enough to steal.

She felt the eyes on them—men slouched in alleys, women pretending to sort through baskets of discarded fruit, children watching from doorsteps with sharp, calculating looks.

Blackmire had two kinds of hungry people.

The ones who begged.

And the ones who took.

Elsha made sure to move quickly.

She did not meet anyone's gaze. She did not stop. She did not speak.

And when a man sitting against a crumbling wall muttered something low and ugly as she passed—

She ignored him.

She had to.

She could not afford a fight.

Not tonight.

By the time they reached the old sewer grate, the streets were nearly empty.

Lior went first, slipping into the narrow gap with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times before. Elsha followed, lowering herself carefully down the rusted ladder.

The air changed immediately.

The cold, damp stink of the underground settled around them. A familiar misery.

She had not been born here.

She had not always lived in the filth beneath Blackmire's streets.

But she had no memory of a time before it, either.

She only knew this.

The darkness. The wet stone. The narrow tunnels where her children slept curled against the walls like little birds in a nest too small to hold them.

This was home.

And when she stepped into the tunnel and saw Cass sitting on the ground, cradling their little sister, and her husband, silent as always, working on an old rope with tired hands—

She let out a breath.

She had made it through another day.