The city had forgotten what it was before the fall. Once, it had been a hub of trade, its towers proud and gleaming, ships sailing in from across oceans. Now those towers were hollow spires, jagged ribs against a grey sky. Windows gaped like broken teeth, the glass long since scavenged. Smoke clung to the upper levels where squatters burned whatever they could to stay warm. The main streets had become a marketplace of desperation: patched tents and shacks pressed close together, stalls piled with scrap metal, rusted weapons, sacks of grain that never looked enough to feed a fraction of the people who begged for them.
Banners marked every corner, the warlord's sigil, painted black on red cloth, straining against the wind. The soldiers beneath them were less impressive. Men with dented armor and hungry eyes, rifles held more like threats than tools. They prowled between stalls, collecting tribute in coins, food, or flesh. When they passed, conversations died to whispers. People bartered like thieves, eyes down, shoulders hunched, afraid the very wind might carry their words into the wrong ears.
Caden threaded through the crowd with the light, careful step of someone who had spent his whole life pretending not to exist. His bundle of wire clanked softly at his side, salvaged from a ruin beyond the northern wall. If he was lucky, he could trade it for bread. If he was unlucky, a soldier would take it for "tax."
He kept his head low. His shaggy black hair fell into his eyes, hiding the way they darted from shadow to shadow. His clothes were patched in three different colors, boots a size too big, the laces tied around his ankles to keep them from slipping. His hands stayed clenched tight around the bundle, not just to protect it, but because he never liked them free in crowds. He couldn't risk brushing against anyone for too long.
He still remembered the last time. Years ago, when he was younger, when his control was nothing. One moment, he had been playing with his parents. The next, the air around him had folded inward, pulling, tearing, devouring. The memory was a blur of screams and silence, a hole where a home should be. He hadn't cried since. He had only learned to keep his hands close, his breaths steady, and his temper buried so deep it would never surface again.
A shout cut across the marketplace.
"Tribute."
A soldier blocked his way, one hand outstretched. His armor was scuffed, his face shadowed with stubble. The smell of rotgut clung to his breath. He jabbed a finger at Caden's bundle.
Caden's stomach twisted. He needed that wire. Without it, no bread, no trade, nothing.
He forced himself to meet the soldier's eyes, if only for a heartbeat. "Just scrap, sir. Worthless."
The soldier sneered. "Then you won't miss it."
Caden's mind raced. Run? Stupid. Fight? Suicidal. Beg? Worse. His grip on the wire tightened until the edges bit into his palms. He had to think fast.
Behind the soldier, a dog barked, startling a nearby mule. The beast reared, knocking a barrel from a stall. The crash drew shouts. For a moment, the soldier turned his head.
Caden slipped sideways, ducking beneath an awning, vanishing into the tangle of canvas and smoke. By the time the soldier noticed, he was already three stalls away, pressed against a wall, heart hammering. He held the wire to his chest, relief and guilt knotted together in his gut. He hated stealing seconds of life like this. But that was survival. Quick, quiet, invisible.
By the time he reached the far edge of the market, the sky had begun to change. Clouds gathered in slow spirals, thick and dark, blotting out what little sun there was. The wind shifted, carrying the smell of something foul, not smoke, not rot, but sharp, like iron and ash. People muttered about rain. But Kai's skin prickled. He knew storms, and this didn't feel like one.
He hurried home.
Home was a gutted shop on the city's eastern fringe, its roof half-collapsed, but its walls sturdy enough to keep the wind out. Inside, it was warmer, lit by a single oil lamp. His family, not by blood, but by choice, was waiting.
Mara, the woman who had taken him in, sat cross-legged on a blanket, mending a coat. Her hands were quick despite the missing fingers on her left. Beside her, Taren, a boy only a year younger than Caden, poked at the fire with a bent rod, humming tunelessly. The smell of boiled roots and thin broth clung to the air.
Caden's shoulders eased for the first time all day.
"You're late," Mara said without looking up.
"Soldier trouble," Caden muttered, setting the wire down. He forced a crooked smile. "But I still have all my bones, so… win."
Taren grinned. "One day you'll get caught."
"One day you'll stop burning dinner."
"Hey" Taren threw the rod at him, and Caden dodged, laughing for the first time in days.
For a moment, the world outside, the soldiers, the hunger, the memories he couldn't bury, didn't matter. They ate together, huddled close, sharing what little they had. The laughter softened into quiet. Mara hummed an old song, something from before the fall, though the words were long forgotten.
Caden let himself believe, if only for a heartbeat, that things could last like this.
But when he stepped outside later to fetch water, he saw them.
Shadows at the far end of the street. Too dark, too tall, moving wrong against the torchlight. They stood still, like silhouettes watching him. Then, as he blinked, they were gone. Only the wind stirred the dust where they had been.
Caden's chest tightened. He told himself it was nothing. Tricks of tired eyes, smoke drifting strange in the night. But as he turned back toward the ruined shop, the clouds above split with a low, unnatural rumble, and the air smelled like the moment before something breaks.