The rain never stopped in the Outer District. It soaked the torn cloth over the roofs. It pooled in gutters and made the streets slick with oil and mud. The air always tasted metallic.
My first memories are rain and the sting of my mother's hand. She kept a bottle on the table and a temper in her voice. "You are nothing," she said once as if naming me. The slap cut harder than hunger.
We lived in a small tin house. It kept out some wind but not much else. I learned early how to keep my voice small and my hands empty. Sometimes I found bread in the rubbish. Sometimes I did not.
Even while I learned to be small I felt something else in me. A flicker when fear came. A warmth when anger rose. I did not understand it. I only knew the feeling waited under my ribs.
Lira found me the night she brought me half a piece of stale bread. She was small and quick. She shoved the food into my hand and walked away like she had not given anything. "Stop staring," she said without looking. "Eat."
She did not stay long. She moved through the alleys like water, light and dangerous. I watched her go and felt something like wanting, but I never named it then.
The towers burned white in the distance. Trains carried the rich up and away. People looked up when the lights passed, like asking a god for mercy. I looked at the mud.
The city took and it took until nothing was left. I hated it for that. I hated the lights and the people who lived under them. I hated the way my mother sang to strangers for coins and then spat on me for asking for more.
That night I dreamed of water red as iron. A shape moved below the skin of the sea. A voice said my name. I woke with my hands glowing for a heartbeat. The light slipped away and I thought it was only a dream.
I was wrong. Far above someone read a screen and saw numbers not matching and sighed. The ledger had hiccuped in a way only men in clean rooms could see. They called it a minor error. They did not know the dark had already found a home.