----------"The rings of hierarchy keep the nation civilized." - Grand tutor Mazel--------------
The Bottom Ring didn't sleep so much as collapse.
Bodies lay sprawled against stone walls, on rotting planks, in the damp of forgotten cisterns. A man could close his eyes here only to dream of hunger, only to wake again to the same weight pressing his chest. Jalen had grown used to it. He learned to measure time not by the bells tolling above but by the twitch of his empty stomach and the rhythm of overseers' whips.
Yet that night, long after labor ended and the watch fires guttered low, he lay awake. The cellar he had claimed for himself was quiet but not still. Spores drifted in the air, faintly glowing motes that rose from cracks in the stone. He could feel them even when his eyes were closed, brushing against his skin like invisible threads.
And when his thoughts sharpened—when anger coiled in his gut—the spores shifted, drawn to the heat of it.
That frightened him most of all.
Morning brought no relief.
The overseers shouted them awake, dragging workers by the hair when they did not rise fast enough. The day's assignment was stone-hauling, carting broken slabs from collapsed shafts back to the pits. Jalen strained his shoulders raw, sweat burning into his scars, but the labor was nothing compared to the whispers that followed him.
Darrin.
The butcher's boy did not hide his interest anymore. He leaned against the tannery wall with a cleaver still in his belt, watching Jalen like a hawk circles a hare. When the shift ended and the crowd dispersed, Darrin appeared at his side, smile thin, eyes sharp.
"You're wasting it," he said, keeping his voice low. "That… thing you can do."
Jalen stiffened. "Say less."
"I'll say what I want," Darrin replied, tugging his apron tighter around his wiry frame. "I saw the guard. Saw him choke on air that wasn't there. I don't need to know how it works. Only that it does."
Jalen started walking, but Darrin fell in step with him, the smell of raw meat clinging to his clothes.
"There's coin in this," Darrin continued. "Silver tongues for rent. You make someone cough, stumble, faint—easy work. I talk, you act. We split the take."
"I won't."
"You will."
The words landed like shackles.
That evening, Darrin put his plan into practice.
They met near the spice stalls where trade from the Upper Rings trickled down—rare herbs, dried fish, the bitter root that the priests claimed sharpened thought. The merchants here kept purses close, but coin changed hands all the same.
Currency in Orrhollow was simple but merciless: round crimson shards stamped with the mark of the crown, larger glows of for heavy trade, and scraps of copper colored dusts for the poor. In the Bottom Ring, even a glow could mean food for a week.
Darrin eyed a merchant with a fat pouch at his belt. "That one," he muttered. "He owes me for spoiled cuts last month. You just… make him stumble. Long enough for me to lift it."
Jalen's chest tightened. "And when he dies choking? What then?"
"Then we're rich," Darrin said, grinning, though sweat gathered at his temple. "Now do it."
The spores stirred. Not because Jalen willed them, but because his anger flared. He felt them prickle in his throat, dancing in the air around his lips. He clenched his jaw and turned away, fighting the pull.
But the merchant suddenly coughed. A harsh, hacking sound that bent him double. Darrin's eyes widened, and in an instant his hand darted, knife flashing as he slit the pouch free. Coins clattered softly into his apron.
The fit passed. The merchant straightened, confused but alive, patting his belt only when he had moved several stalls away. By then, Darrin and Jalen were gone.
Later, in the butcher's shed, Darrin poured the spoils onto a table. Glows gleamed blue in the flickering light, more wealth than Jalen had ever seen up close.
"See?" Darrin said, eyes bright with triumph. "We could eat for months on this. We could buy passage out of the Bottom."
Jalen stared at the coins. Each one seemed heavier than stone, stamped with the crown's sigil—a reminder of the rulers who looked down on them from gilded balconies. The air around him thickened as the spores pressed closer, feeding off the churn of his emotions.
He swallowed hard. "That wasn't me."
"Don't lie," Darrin hissed. "I saw it. You don't even have to try anymore, do you? The things come alive when you're angry. Like they want to serve you."
Jalen's hands curled into fists. "And if they do?"
"Then you're cursed—or blessed. Doesn't matter. What matters is coin." Darrin shoved a handful of glows into a small pouch and tossed it at him. "Your share. Don't look at me like that. You'll take it, or I tell the priests."
Jalen caught the pouch without thinking. The weight of it pressed against his palm, cold and unfamiliar. Glows had never been his. In the Bottom Ring, he had been beaten for stealing bread, whipped for stepping out of line. Now wealth lay in his hands—and it tasted like ashes.
That night, alone again in the cellar, Jalen poured the coins onto the floor. The spores reacted instantly, swirling around the metal as though tasting its shine.
"Is this what you want?" he whispered. "Blood for coin?"
The spores pulsed faintly, responding not to his words but to the bitter edge of his voice. His chest tightened. He thought of the guard, of the way his throat had swollen shut. He thought of the merchant's sudden cough.
And he realized something terrifying.
He hadn't controlled either moment.
The spores had responded to him—his fear, his anger, his hate. Not his will.
They were alive.
And they were hungry.
Days passed, but peace did not return.
Darrin grew bold with coin in his pocket, strutting through the alleys as though he were master of the Bottom. He demanded more: another theft here, a distraction there. He pressed Jalen harder each time, his voice sharper, his eyes darker with greed.
And Jalen obeyed—because what choice did he have?
Every refusal risked exposure. Every hesitation gave Darrin another reason to remind him of the priests, of the gallows. The spores stirred constantly now, restless with his rage. Sometimes, when he laughed bitterly or spat in disgust, they leapt without command, swirling in faint patterns that only he could see.
He was becoming a danger even to himself.
And Darrin knew it.
The boy no longer looked only at coin. Sometimes, when he thought Jalen wasn't watching, his gaze lingered on the spores dancing faintly in the gloom, half in awe, half in terror.
But always, always with hunger.