The Higaru slums weren't just poor; they were a living thing, a tapestry woven from grime, desperation, and the stubborn reek of survival. The stench of rotting fish from the nearby docks hung perpetually in the air, a thick miasma that clung to clothes and skin, mingling unpleasantly with the acrid, metallic tang wafting from the ramshackle forges further down the mud choked lanes. It was the smell of forgotten things, of lives ground down by the relentless wheel of the city above.
Inside Aki's crumbling shack, the dim light of a single, guttering tallow candle fought a losing battle against the encroaching gloom. Shiro's fingers, raw and cracked from cold and labour, bled freely as he chiselled another star into the rotting wood of the wall beside Aki's pallet. Each strike sent a fresh jolt of pain up his arm, crimson droplets welling like tiny, desperate jewels before soaking into the thirsty timber. His hair, a shock of imperious white usually hidden beneath a grimy scarf, hung in jagged, soot streaked curtains over eyes the colour of aged amber, catching the faint moonlight filtering through a hole in the roof like a tarnished, unwanted crown.
The grooves were crooked, the lines uneven, a constellation born of frustration and necessity. Yet, a soft, wheezing chuckle cut through the rhythmic tap tap tap of the chisel. Aki, frail as a dried reed beneath her thin blanket, traced the largest star with a trembling finger, her knuckles swollen with joints worn by years of toil Shiro couldn't imagine.
"Looks like a dying firefly.," she rasped, the sound like dry leaves scraping stone.
Shiro paused, wiping sweat and grime from his brow with the back of his hand, leaving a fresh smear of red. He forced a grin, though it felt tight on his face. "It's Polaris, Aki," he lied smoothly, the familiar falsehood tasting like ash. "The Sovereign's Star. Guides kings and idiots alike through the dark."
Aki's chuckle dissolved into a rattling cough that shook her thin frame. She waved a dismissive hand, weak but insistent. "Kings," she managed between gasps, "don't starve."
The words landed with a familiar weight. Shiro's gaze flickered to the near empty pot simmering over the meagre fire, the few root vegetables bobbing like pale ghosts in the thin broth. His stomach clenched. "Neither should we," he replied, his voice low, the defiance aimed at the uncaring walls, the indifferent slum, the unseen Sovereigns far above. He turned back to the carving, the chisel biting deeper, pouring his frustration into the wood. "Just a little more scrap metal tomorrow. Maybe the blacksmith needs extra bellows work".
Suddenly, the fragile quiet shattered. Outside, the sharp, rhythmic clatter of hooves on packed earth echoed, unnaturally loud and fast for Higaru. Shiro froze, chisel poised mid strike. Wealth meant trouble here. Trouble usually meant Temple guards demanding 'offerings' or merchant brats slumming for cheap thrills. He peered through a crack in the warped door plank.
A carriage, sleek and black, far too fine for the rutted tracks of Higaru, rattled past. Moonlight glinted coldly off gilded edges and polished lacquer, a stark, arrogant intrusion into the pervasive grime. Shiro tensed, muscles coiling, ready to melt into the deeper shadows if it stopped. But it didn't slow. Instead, as it rounded a bend, something small and dark tumbled from the window, landing with a soft thud in the mud near the shack's entrance.
The carriage vanished as quickly as it appeared, swallowed by the labyrinthine alleys, leaving only a settling cloud of dust and the fading echo of hooves.
Heart pounding against his ribs, Shiro waited a breath, then two, listening. Only the usual slum sounds resumed, distant arguments, a baby's thin cry, the ever present drip of water. He edged the door open, the damp, cold air hitting his face. There, half sunk in the foul mud, lay a small silk purse, pristine white already succumbing to the brown filth. It had split open on impact, spilling a scatter of silver coins. They lay there, catching the moonlight like fallen stars against the dark earth, a small fortune gleaming amidst the decay. The purse itself bulged, filled to the brim.
Shiro stared, disbelief warring with a desperate, clawing hope. Aki. Medicine. Real food. Weeks of it. The image of Aki eating a full bowl of stew, colour returning to her cheeks, was intoxicating. He took a step forward, then stopped dead. But she'd kill me. Or worse, the guilt would. Aki's fierce, unwavering code echoed in his mind: "We steal bread if we must, not silver. Silver brings the Temple down on your head like a hammer." He pictured her face if she knew, the disappointment sharper than any blade.
"Hey!" The shout tore from his throat before he could think, raw and urgent. He lunged out of the shack, mud sucking greedily at his worn boots. His breath plumed white in the sudden chill as he sprinted after the vanished carriage. "You dropped your purse!" The words felt futile even as they left his mouth, swallowed by the vast, uncaring night. Only the mocking swirl of dust remained.
He stood panting, staring at the treacherous gleam in the mud. Take it. Run. Aki needs… But the image of the Temple guard's sneer, the cold weight of chains, was equally vivid. Guards. Hand it in. Walk away. It felt like tearing out his own heart. With a groan that was half frustration, half resignation, Shiro scooped up the coins, fingers numb despite the adrenaline. He shoved them back into the sullied silk, the fabric feeling alien and dangerous in his calloused hand. He couldn't look at them.
The journey to the stone guard post near the slum's edge felt like walking to the gallows. The two guards lounging outside, armour dull in the moonlight, watched his approach with bored contempt.
"What d'you want, slum rat?" one grunted, not bothering to stand.
Shiro thrust out the purse, the silk starkly white against his grimy palm. "Found it. Dropped from a fancy carriage." His voice sounded flat, dead.
The guard snatched it, his eyes widening slightly as he felt the weight. He peeked inside, a slow, unpleasant smile spreading across his face. He didn't count it. He simply tucked it into his belt pouch with a dismissive jerk of his head. "Right. Get lost."
No thanks. No record. Nothing. Shiro knew the silver was gone, vanishing into the guard's own pockets. A hot wave of fury warred with crushing despair. He'd done the 'right' thing, and it tasted like bile. He turned away, shoulders hunched, forcing himself not to look back.
As he trudged back towards the market lane, seeking the scrap metal merchant before he closed, he felt it, a gaze like ice shards scraping his spine. He glanced sideways. Beneath the crumbling archway of a derelict shrine, a gaunt figure stood swathed in faded Temple robes. Priest Gin. His hollowed eyes, devoid of warmth, were fixed not on Shiro's face, but lower, on his belt where the frayed edge of his tunic had ridden up, revealing the corner of one of his star carvings tucked there. The intensity of that stare raised goosebumps on Shiro's neck, colder than the night air. Crazy old ghost, Shiro thought, echoing the merchant's sentiment, and deliberately looked away, quickening his pace. Gin was just another fixture of Higaru's madness.
The scrap metal merchant, Old Man Hirato, was already shuttering his stall when Shiro arrived. His gnarled fingers trembled as he counted the few pitiful bits of copper wire and bent nails Shiro offered. The meagre pile looked even smaller under the flickering light of Hirato's lantern.
"Make it quick, boy," Hirato muttered, his rheumy eyes darting nervously past Shiro's shoulder. His voice dropped to a whisper. "The star obsessed bastard… sniffin' around again. Like a bloodhound."
Shiro frowned, the image of Gin's icy stare fresh in his mind. "What bastard?"
Hirato jerked his chin, barely perceptibly, towards the deeper shadows across the lane. There, beneath the tattered awning of a boarded up tea house, stood Priest Gin. Motionless. Unblinking. His skeletal fingers weren't clasped in prayer; they were clenched around a pendant hanging from his neck. It was star shaped, wrought in some dark, dull metal, but as Shiro watched, horrified, it pulsed with a faint, sickly light, like a dying ember. The light didn't illuminate; it seemed to suck the surrounding shadows towards it, making the air around Gin feel heavier, denser, charged with an unseen storm. Gin's hollow eyes were locked onto Shiro's belt, onto the carvings.
"Crazy old bastard," Hirato spat, shoving a small vial of murky green liquid into Shiro's hand. "Now take your medicine and fuck off. Don't bring his eyes this way again!" His fear was palpable.
Shiro pocketed the vial, the glass cold against his skin. He stole one last glance at Gin. The priest hadn't moved, but the pulse from the pendant seemed stronger, hungrier, casting faint, jagged shadows that writhed unnaturally on the wall behind him. Destiny? Shiro turned and ran, the feeling of unseen, icy eyes boring into his back all the way to Aki's shack.
Hours bled into dusk, painting the slum rooftops in bruised purples and deepening greys. Shiro was returning from the communal well, bucket heavy in his hand, when he saw the boy.
He stood out like a pearl in a coal scuttle. Merchant silks, deep indigo and impossibly clean, draped a frame that moved with a contained, predatory grace, like a caged hawk assessing its confines. His jet black hair was swept back with oil, severe and precise, save for a single, defiant streak of silver that slashed through it like the tail of a comet. His eyes, a startling storm grey, scanned the squalor with detached curiosity, not disgust, but an intense focus that missed nothing. They swept past crumbling walls, listless faces, piles of refuse… and locked onto Shiro with unnerving precision.
The boy moved towards him, not with the wary shuffle of slum dwellers, but with the silent glide of a shadow given form. His polished boots, fine leather, somehow avoided the worst of the mud and filth with an eerie, practised precision. He stopped near Shiro's usual spot by a broken cartwheel, not a stall, just a place Shiro sometimes laid out carvings when desperation outweighed caution. The boy lingered, picking up a discarded, rusted compass Shiro had found weeks ago, turning it over with long, elegant fingers.
Shiro tensed, setting the water bucket down. Trouble. Wealth always was.
The boy spoke without looking up, his voice smooth as polished marble, devoid of inflection. "You're the thief."
The accusation hung in the cooling air. Shiro's hand instinctively went to the medicine vial in his pocket. Guard? Noble's son? His jaw tightened. "What?"
Finally, the storm grey eyes lifted, pinning Shiro with an unnerving directness. "The one who returned my purse." A statement, not a question.
Relief warred with fresh irritation. The carriage owner. Shiro brushed a strand of white hair from his eyes, meeting that intense gaze. "Not a thief. Just someone who didn't want your trouble landing on his head."
"Honesty?" A faint, humourless smirk touched the boy's lips. "In Higaru?" He flicked a silver coin through the air towards Shiro. It spun, catching the dying light. "A rare star indeed."
Shiro watched the coin arc, the memory of the guard pocketing the purse flaring hot. Charity stung worse than theft. He snatched the coin out of the air and flicked it back with a sharp snap of his wrist. It landed precisely at the boy's polished feet. "Keep your charity. What do you want?"
The boy, Kuro, he named himself, ignoring the question, crouched abruptly, his movements fluid and economical. He reached not for the coin, but for a piece of scrap wood leaning against the cartwheel. One of Shiro's discarded carvings, a clumsy attempt at Ursa Minor. Kuro brushed dust from its surface with a fastidious finger, his storm grey eyes narrowing as they traced the grooves. "This," he murmured, his voice losing its smoothness, gaining an edge of… something. Disdain? Recognition? "This isn't Polaris. You've completely misaligned the Little Dipper. See? Kochab shouldn't be level with Pherkad here. The handle's bent."
Shiro bristled, humiliation warring with the absurdity of the critique. Who was this pampered cunt? "Rich brat," he retorted, the words sharp. "What do you know about stars? Can you even see them through the roof of your gilded carriage?"
Kuro's head snapped up. The detached curiosity was gone, replaced by a sudden, fierce intensity that made Shiro take an involuntary step back. "More than you," Kuro stated, the words low and cold, colder than the draft seeping through Aki's walls. He traced the groove representing the pole star. "Polaris…" He almost spat the name. "It's not a guide. It's a fixed point in a shifting sky. Change your perspective, shift the heavens…" His finger stopped, digging into the wood. "…and it betrays you." He withdrew his hand abruptly, as if the star's jagged lines had bitten him.
Shiro watched him, arms folded defensively across his chest. The raw emotion in Kuro's voice was unexpected, jarring. "You sound like you've been burned," Shiro observed, his own anger momentarily banked by curiosity.
Kuro's expression shuttered instantly. The intensity vanished, replaced by that cool, polished mask. He straightened, a sharp, predatory movement, his gaze flicking past Shiro to the grimy window of a nearby shack. A large crow perched on the sill, its head cocked at an unnatural angle, its prismatic galaxy eyes fixed on them. "Bored, more like," Kuro said, his smile returning, all teeth and no warmth. "Astronomy's a pointless hobby when the stars themselves are liars." The statement hung, heavy with unspoken meaning.
A floorboard creaked sharply in the alley behind Kuro. Shiro saw it, the subtle, instantaneous transformation. Kuro didn't startle; he focused. His body went perfectly still, then taut, every muscle coiling like a drawn bowstring. His storm grey eyes, fixed on the alley entrance, held the sharp alertness of a cornered predator. Shadows shifted beyond the cracked glass of the shack window, the distinct, imposing outline of a figure clad in boots of pure, lightless obsidian leather. Motionless. Watching.
"Anyway." The tension bled out of Kuro as swiftly as it had arrived, replaced by a languid nonchalance that felt deliberately performed. He brushed imaginary charcoal dust from his immaculate sleeves with fastidious strokes. From an inner pocket, he produced a small, folded scrap of parchment. He didn't hand it to Shiro; he tossed it casually onto the broken cartwheel. It slid across the grimy surface, unfolding slightly to reveal a corner inked with the distinctive, jagged spine of the constellation Cassiopeia, alongside fragmented, precise handwriting:
Polaris declination: 22.5°
Cassiopeia's tilt: West, not East
,P.P.
"Burn that," Kuro said, his voice regaining its smooth detachment, though his eyes flickered once more towards the alley entrance. "If you've got any sense." He turned to leave, then paused, adding over his shoulder, the words dropping to a near whisper laced with something almost like warning, "Or don't. Stars make poor allies."
Shiro snatched up the parchment, his calloused fingers smoothing the crease. He squinted at the precise angles, the unfamiliar notations. "Who's 'P.P.'?" he demanded, the cryptic message sparking a reluctant curiosity that momentarily overrode his distrust. Dead poet? Paranoid scholar? Why give this to me?
Kuro was already moving, a shadow melting towards the encroaching dusk. "A dead poet. A paranoid scholar. A puppet Prince." He waved a dismissive hand without looking back. "Does it matter?" He reached the mouth of the alley where Shiro stood, but Shiro shifted, blocking his path, his amber eyes narrowed.
"Why leave this with me?" Shiro pressed, holding up the parchment. The absurdity of it, a rich boy dropping star charts on a slum carver, warred with the intensity he'd glimpsed beneath Kuro's polished surface. Was this a trap? A noble's cruel joke?
Kuro stopped. He turned his head slowly, the fading light catching the silver streak in his hair. The smirk was back, but it was brittle, not reaching his cold, storm grey eyes. "Call it a test," he said, the words deliberate, weighted. "See if slum rats know their stars better than the kings who claim them." His gaze flickered past Shiro again, towards the obsidian booted figure who had taken a silent step forward, frost crunching faintly underfoot.
Outside, the crow on the windowsill let out a harsh, grating caw that sliced through the tense silence.
Shiro held his ground, the parchment crumpling slightly in his fist. The air crackled with unspoken threat, from Kuro, from the watcher in the alley, from the cryptic message itself. "And if I pass?" Shiro challenged, his voice low.
Kuro's eyes met his, and for a fleeting second, the polished arrogance cracked, revealing something sharper, hungrier beneath. "Then maybe," he murmured, the words barely audible, "Polaris isn't the only traitor in the sky." He sidestepped Shiro with that unnerving grace, pausing at the threshold where the slum lane met the deeper shadows. He glanced back, his profile stark against the bruised sky. "If we meet again…" The hint of something that might have been anticipation, or perhaps just morbid curiosity, flickered in his gaze. "…try not to die before I can decide if you're worth the trouble." It wasn't friendly. It was a gauntlet thrown down.
Shiro snorted, a harsh sound in the quiet. "Same to you, stargazer."
The ghost of a smirk touched Kuro's lips, genuine, fleeting, and gone in an instant, as he vanished into the gloom of the alley, moving swiftly and silently away from the obsidian booted figure who melted back into the shadows after him. The crow launched itself from the sill with a heavy flap of wings, following its master, leaving behind only a single, frostbitten fig stem on the grimy wood.
Shiro stood alone in the gathering dark, the cold seeping into his bones. He looked down at the crumpled parchment in his hand, then towards the alley where Kuro had disappeared. The encounter left him unsettled, a whirlwind of confusion, anger, and that damned, persistent curiosity. Who tests slum rats? What trouble? He tucked the parchment into his belt, next to his carvings, the cryptic angles pressing against his hip. He picked up the water bucket, the weight suddenly heavier. Stars make poor allies, Kuro had said. Shiro looked up at the sky, already obscured by smoke and the slum's perpetual haze. He couldn't see Polaris. He wasn't sure he wanted to.
The fig stem was gone the next morning, blown away or taken by some scavenging creature. Shiro almost convinced himself the entire encounter had been a strange dream born of hunger and Gin's unsettling presence.
Yet, as dusk painted the slums once more in shades of grey and purple, a familiar silhouette detached itself from the deeper shadows near Aki's shack. Kuro stood there, leaning against the crumbling wall as if he owned it, another scrap of parchment rolled in his hand. No preamble. No apology for the accusation or the cryptic warning. He simply watched as Shiro carved another star, Cassiopeia this time, jagged and proud, into the wall near Aki's sleeping pallet. The lantern light caught Shiro's white hair, making it glow faintly, a stark, ethereal contrast to Kuro's oiled black waves and the severe silver streak.
"The throne tilts too far north here," Kuro stated, his voice flat, pointing a polished fingernail at a groove near the top of the constellation. "And Orion's Sword bends west, not east. You've inverted it." He unrolled the parchment, a complex star chart, inked with meticulous precision on what looked like stolen ledger paper.
Shiro paused, the chisel hovering. He glanced at Aki, her breathing shallow but even in sleep, then back at Kuro. The rich boy's reappearance was baffling. "Why?" Shiro asked, the word heavy with genuine confusion. He gestured with the chisel at the chart, then at his own crude carvings. "Why bother about stars? Especially my stars?" He couldn't fathom the interest. Was it mockery? Some elaborate game?
Kuro stepped closer, his storm grey eyes fixed on the chart, not Shiro. His fingers tightened around the edges of the parchment, the knuckles whitening slightly. "They fill minds," he said, the words clipped, almost defensive. "My father burns charts like these. Calls them the scribbles of fools and dead poets." He spoke the word 'father' with a particular, icy disdain.
Smart man, Shiro thought instinctively, recalling Aki's warnings about attracting the wrong kind of attention. Yet, despite himself, his eyes were drawn to the intricate lines on Kuro's parchment, the precise positions of stars he'd only ever guessed at. He'd already found himself surreptitiously trying to sketch the angles from the first fragment Kuro left. He forced a shrug. "Sounds wise. Stars don't fill bellies."
"No." The word was a sharp crack in the quiet shack. Kuro finally looked up, his gaze meeting Shiro's. The polished arrogance was absent. In its place was something raw, almost vulnerable, a fierce, burning frustration. "He just doesn't understand," Kuro muttered, his voice dropping low, intense. "Because he can't control them." He thrust the chart towards Shiro. "Here. Burn it, keep it, use it to patch a hole. Doesn't matter." But the intensity in his eyes said it mattered very much indeed.
Shiro hesitated, then slowly took the parchment. The lines seemed to shimmer in the lantern light, holding secrets Kuro wouldn't, or couldn't, speak. He looked from the chart to the intense, storm grey eyes watching him, then to his own rough carving on the wall. The world outside Aki's shack suddenly felt stranger, more dangerous, and infinitely more complex than it had just days before. The stars, it seemed, were no longer just shapes in the wood. They were becoming a map to something he didn't understand, drawn by a boy who moved like a shadow and spoke of betrayal in the sky.