The cart creaks with every turn of the wheels.
Old wood. Mud-caked axles. A tarp that smells like smoke and mildew.
The driver hasn't spoken since we left the docks.
Didn't ask questions. Didn't want answers.
Fine.
I've got enough voices in my head to keep me company.
Change the world, Aren.
Her voice won't stop.
It's quiet now, but somehow that makes it worse.
Like it's sitting just behind my ear, waiting for me to agree to something I don't understand.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.
"Change the world?" I mutter. Am I out of my mind?
I'm not a hero. I'm not a leader. I'm not even a good person.
I'm a knife with legs.
I look down.
The kid's still asleep against my chest. Light. Warm.
Trusting.
And it terrifies me.
I'm nothing but a gutter rat with a talent for hurting people."
An eighteen-year-old freak with no Gift, no plan, and no right to promise anyone anything.
The words sting more than I expect.
Because they're true.
"What the hell am I supposed to do?" I whisper.
I can't light a fire with my hands or throw someone across a room.
All I've got are scars and instincts. And most of those are wrong.
I lean back against the wall, staring into the black.
"Is change even possible?"
Not for someone like me.
I've done things people don't come back from.
I glance down at the kid.
I could leave.
Just walk when the cart stops. Slip into the next city. Find a dark hole and disappear.
No one would know.
He's young. Someone else might find him. Might raise him better.
I swallow.
But that's a lie, and I know it.
No one's coming.
Not for him. Not for me.
He shifts against me, and something in my chest knots tight.
"Do I even deserve to stay?" I whisper.
No answer.
Just the squeak of wheels.
The weight of a boy who doesn't know whose arms he's in.
"No," I say. "It's not about me."
"It's about him."
I stare at his face. Still sleeping. Still breathing soft and even.
But all I see is the moment he finds out.
Do I tell him?
Will he ever look at me and not see a monster?
Or do I lie—carry that weight so he never has to?
I shut my eyes.
"He'll hate me," I whisper.
"Maybe he should…"
A faint shimmer crosses his skin—soft, golden, like breath made visible.
"Gifted," I mutter.
I don't know what he did to me that night.
But I felt it.
That light tore me open—showed me everything I've spent years trying to bury—Kaelen, my mother, the boy I used to be.
"How's a powerless piece of filth supposed to protect someone like you?"
I guess I'll do what I've always done.
Lie. Steal. Cut corners. Cut throats, if I have to.
If being scum is the only way to keep you alive—
Then I'll be the worst kind there is.
The cart jostles over a rock.
The boy shifts, then settles deeper into me.
I freeze.
"I haven't had to worry about someone else in a long time," I whisper.
"This is going to be hell."
I sit there in silence.
The boy breathes steady against me. Unaware.
Unburdened.
Outside, the night stretches on.
The noises of the city are gone now—no shouts, no clanging tin, no alley dogs fighting for scraps.
No sermons bleeding through cathedral glass.
Just the slow grind of wheels through dirt.
The whisper of wind in tall grass.
The creak of old wood shifting under weight.
Even the air smells different.
Damp, green, real.
Like the world had been rotting beneath my feet for years, and I'd only just stepped into something that could still grow.
The road blurs.
The cart rocks in a soft rhythm, and the night outside is too quiet.
Even the driver is silent—no curses, no humming. Just the creak of wheels and the groan of old wood.
I lean back, just for a second.
I feel a familiar warmth.
And I'm gone.
I'm there.
Back at the clay pits.
Watching him.
Watching them.
"Another dream?"
"No… a memory. But… how?"
My breath caught.
That laugh. That voice. The flower behind his ear.
It wasn't just any memory.
It was him.
Kaelen.
And Reyda was there.
He always adored her—followed her like she hung the moon.
Followed her like she was his own personal sunrise—always trailing behind with that dumb little grin, clutching his doll, barefoot and beaming like she was made of magic.
And Reyda? She let him.
Sometimes she even played along. Once, she brought him a dried flower—half-dead and crumbling—and tucked it behind his ear like a crown. He spent the rest of the day showing it off like he'd just been knighted.
My brother was so nice—so painfully innocent—it sent chills down my spine.
He was the kind of good Dravorn didn't let survive.
I watched him give up the last bite of our bread to a bruised-up kid with no shoes and no thanks. No hesitation.
Another time, he sat beside a stray cat with a mangled paw. Pet it for over an hour. Got bit hard enough to bleed.
Didn't flinch.
Didn't cry.
Just smiled at me like it was nothing.
"That means he's feeling better," he said.
I asked him once, "How do you know when someone's hurting?"
"I don't know," he said. "I just feel it. Like a cold feeling in here." as he pointed to his chest.
Stupid, soft thing to say.
I told him not to say crap like that out loud. Not here. Not around them.
He nodded like he understood.
Then hugged me anyway.
Present
I jolt awake.
The cart lurches—hard.
A bump in the road knocks the breath out of me.
And in my arms, the boy stirs.
Small hands shift. Eyelids flutter.
Then, groggy, quiet:
"Where's Mama?"
My heart drops.
The silence that followed was excruciating.
Not because it was quiet.
Because it waited.
Hung in the air like smoke that refused to rise. Like the world itself had paused to hear my answer.
I opened my mouth.
Tried to speak.
But the words—
They refused.
Like saying them would make it real.
Like the truth might crack open the air and swallow us both whole.
So I said nothing.
My throat's dry. My mind won't stop spinning. Every time I look at the boy, I think about what I should've said—and what I didn't.
The silence hangs. Unforgiving. Heavy.
Then a creak. The cart slows.
The driver mutters something sharp under his breath.
And my stomach drops before I even see them.
Lanterns. Shadows. Armor. Radiant Order.
I peek through the flap.
White robes. Gilded metal. A banner stitched in fire and gold.
The mark of the Immortal Flame.
My blood goes cold.
Something ancient stirs in my chest—panic without a name. A terror with teeth.
I can't remember why.
But every part of me remembers what it felt like.
Heat. Screaming. Hands tearing me away.
And eyes—
One pair of eyes that didn't look back.
My breath hitches. I press my back to the wooden wall, heart slamming like it wants out of my ribs.
"Not them," I whisper. "Not again."
The boy stirs in my arms. Just a twitch.
And the thought comes fast. Cold.
If I leave now…
If I slip through the other side of the tarp, vanish into the smoke—
They'll never know I was here.
He's just a kid. He's better off without me. Maybe. Maybe.
My fingers twitch.
I glance down at him.
Still breathing soft. Still trusting.
He has no idea.
No idea what's about to happen.
Or what I might do to survive.
Again.
I shut my eyes.
The light outside grows closer—footsteps now. Boots. Voices.
I press my hand over the boy's chest, steadying his weight against mine.
He shifts, unaware.
I should move.
Do something.
Every instinct in me says run.
Leave him.
Survive.
It would be easy.
My legs tense.
My fingers twitch.
But I don't move.
Not yet.
Outside, the boots grow louder. Voices. Light seeping through the canvas like it wants to burn everything it touches.
The boy breathes against me. Warm. Trusting.
And I just sit there—
Waiting.
Not because I've made my choice.
But because I can't.
Not yet.