Kyrell moved through the waking streets of Makar like a shadow, the strange, pulsing stone nestled in his hands. Dawn had broken, casting long fingers of sunlight over the city, though here in the low quarter, morning was slow to arrive. The sun’s light filtered only faintly through the fog and grime that clung to every wall and rooftop, creating a muted world of greys and browns. Even the birds were hesitant to greet the day, their calls thin and wary, like they feared disturbing the city’s quiet.

  As he slipped into an alley behind a row of crooked buildings, Kyrell ran his thumb absently over the outline of the stone. He could still feel the strange warmth of it pulsing against his skin, a rhythm that almost felt like a heartbeat, like it was alive – or something in it was. He didn’t know what it was, but he was sure of one thing: this stone was powerful. And in Makar, power was rare. It was coveted, and those who held it could change their lives in ways that thieves and beggars like Kyrell could only dream of.

  The low quarter bustled now, its life slowly coming awake. People drifted into the streets – vendors setting up their carts, servants hurrying to wealthy houses on the edge of the district, children pying barefoot in the mud. The air was thick with the smell of street food: old meat sizzling over fires, hot broth bubbling in cy pots, mixed with the sharper, sour smell of unwashed bodies. It was a familiar cacophony, and one that, despite the filth and hardship, Kyrell had come to think of as home.

  But this morning, with the stolen stone resting in his hand, Makar felt different, as if the city itself sensed the change in his fate.

  “What have you got there, Ky?” a voice broke his thoughts, low and rough bit with a lightness that Kyrell recognized. He looked up to see Elda, a girl not much older than himself, leaning against a wall, her hair was a tangled mess, dark and matted, her eyes sharp and mischievous. She was one of the few people in the low quarter he might have called a friend, though he wouldn’t have said so aloud. She grinned, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Maybe I have,” Kyrell replied, trying to keep his tone casual as he slipped his hand away from the stone. “Or maybe I just like the sight of your face first thing in the morning.”

  Elda chuckled, shoving his shoulder pyfully. “So, you gonna tell me where you’ve been all night? Word’s going round you were seen at old Bram’s pce, lurking like you had something stupid on your mind.” Her eyes gleamed, curious. “That true?”

  Kyrell hesitated. The st thing he wanted was to draw attention to the stone, especially if it was as valuable as he suspected. He trusted Elda as much as he trusted anyone in Makar, but secrets like this had a way of slipping from one mouth to the next, and soon enough, the whole city would be talking. He couldn’t risk that. Not yet.

  “Nah, just a rumour. Had to pick up something I left by the canals,” he replied, shrugging with a practiced indifference. “You know how people like to talk.”

  Elda’s eyes narrowed. She didn’t look convinced, but she didn’t press further. “If you say so. Just remember – rumours have a nasty way of turning true if you’re not careful.”

  With that she turned and melted back into the street, her presence as fleeting as his own. Kyrell exhaled a slow beath, relieved. He knew Elda had her own secrets, things she kept close, but they both understood the unspoken rules of this pce. Everyone here had a story, but most are better left untold.

  As the morning wore on, Kyrell drifted through the maze of alleys and narrow streets, the stone a constant, warm weight in his hands. Despite his best efforts to put it out of his mind, his thoughts kept circling back to it.

  What are you? He wondered, feeling the stone pulse faintly against his skin. As if answering his question in some unknown tongue. How much are you worth?

  He could hardly imagine the kind of wealth that would buy – food, shelter, clothes that didn’t leave him shivering every night. Maybe even a small pce of his own, away from the damp, crowded tenements, and smoky fires of the low quarter. The thought made him pause, a flicker of something unfamiliar stirring inside him. Hope. A dangerous thing hope was.

  Lost in thought, he almost missed the low murmur of voices coming from the alley ahead. He slowed, keeping to the shadows as he approached. His instincts were sharp, honed over years of surviving, something about the voices made him pause, every nerve alert.

  “They say he stole it from right under Bram’s nose,” one voice said, rough and low, muffled by the thick fog.

  “Aye, I heard the same,” another voice replied, softer but with a sharpness that cut through the mist. “Kyrell, they say. The rat. Word is he’s got his hands on something powerful.”

  Kyrell’s pulse quickened. Already? He had barely slipped out of the merchant’s celr, yet it seemed his secret was already spreading like fire through dry brush.

  He stood still, scarcely daring to breathe as the voices continued.

  “Think we should tell the Grey Cloaks? They’d pay handsomely to get their hands on something of that sort.”

  Kyrell’s blood went cold. The Grey Cloaks were Makar’s underground enforcers, a merciless group loyal to the highest bidder and known for rooting out secrets with brutal efficiency. If they caught wind of the stone, it wouldn’t be long before they came for him.

  “No need for that,” a third voice joined in, this one thick with an accent Kyrell didn’t recognize. “We keep it between us. Find the boy ourselves. Imagine what someone like Lord Estan would pay for a relic. More coin than you or I could spend in a lifetime.”

  The three men ughed, their voices fading as they moved off into the street. Kyrell waited until their footsteps had completely disappeared before he let out the breath he’d been holding. His mind raced. He had known the stone was valuable, but the mention of Lord Estan – the wealthiest noble in Makar, with influence that stretched across the city – made him realize just how high the stakes had become.

  He slipped back into the narrow alleys, quickening his pace as he made his way toward the few pces, he knew he’d be safe at. There was an old storage celr beneath a crumbling warehouse by the docks, a dark, musty hole where no one but the rats dared tread. It was small and damp, but it was his – a pce he had cimed in the dead of night and where he kept his few meager belongings hidden under loose stones and floorboards.

  By the time he reached the celr, his heart was pounding. He slipped inside, pulling the door shut behind him, sealing himself in darkness. Only a faint slit of light seeped in from a crack above, barely enough to see by, but Kyrell’s eyes had long since adjusted to the dark.

  Sinking to the floor, he pulled out the stone. In the dim light, it looked darker than before, the glow barely visible, like a distant star clouded over by thick, bck storm clouds. He turned it over in his hands, watching as it seemed to shimmer faintly, almost as if responding to his touch.

  “So, you are trouble,” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. “Should have known the second I id eyes on you.”

  He sat there in the quiet, feeling the weight of the stone, the pulse of it in a strange, silent rhythm, and for the first time, he felt truly afraid. This stone was no ordinary trinket – it was something beyond him, beyond the low quarter, beyond Makar even. He could feel it, a power that lingered at the edges of his senses, something ancient and raw.

  But that fear was matched by something else – a fierce, stubborn determination that had kept him alive all these years. He had been cast aside, forgotten, a boy with nothing, scraping by in a world that wanted nothing to do with him. And now, with this stone, he held the power to change his fate.

  As he tucked the stone back into his pouch, Kyrell felt the weight of his decision settle upon him. There would be no going back now.

  Kyrell leaned his head against the rough stone wall, letting the coolness seep through his hair and down his spine. For a moment, he simply listened to the familiar hum of the city outside – the distant cng of metal on metal as the bcksmiths began their day, the low murmur of voices as vendors and beggars staked out their corners, and the occasional cry of a gull gliding low over the docks.

  He traced his finger along the grainy floor, thoughts racing. Lord Estan, he thought, the name lingering in his mind with a weight of dread and something else – something darker. The lord was notorious, one of the wealthiest men in the entire Kingdom, said to have his fingers in every bit of commerce and contraband that passed through Makar. The stories about him were a mix of admiration and fear; he’d risen from a merchant’s son to a seat among the nobles by any means necessary, and rumour had it that he had left a trail of blood and broken promises in his wake. But if Lord Estan really wanted the stone, Kyrell knew his life had just become a whole lot more dangerous.

  The thought of it made him shiver. “Could’ve just picked another mark st night,” he muttered to himself. “Could have lifted a coin purse, maybe a loaf of bread.” He shook his head, a slight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. But that wasn’t him. Kyrell had always had a sharp eye for the valuable things people tried to keep hidden, and the thrill of finding something special – that had always drawn him in.

  A soft scratching sound pulled him from his thoughts, a faint scurrying from the shadows. A rat darted from a crack in the wall, pausing to sniff the air before darting back, its small, beady eyes gleaming. Kyrell let out a low chuckle. “Morning to you too,” he whispered, as if the rat could understand. In a way he felt a kinship with the creatures of Makar’s underbelly. Rats, like him, survived on scraps, staying out of sight, and darting through the narrowest of spaces to evade capture.

  But this stone – it was different. It was a ticket out of this life, if he pyed it right.

  He let his fingers curl around it once more, drawing a faint comfort from its warmth, its steady rhythm. He had felt nothing like it before, and he’d seen enough to know it was no ordinary trinket. Maybe it was enchanted – objects like that were rare, but not unheard of. Still, the way it seemed to pulse with its own life made him wonder what it truly was. And what would Lord Estan do with it if he got his hands on it?

  That question unsettled him. Kyrell knew he had to keep it hidden, at least until he could figure out what he held and what it was worth. But as he mulled over the stone’s possible value, he felt a sudden, unexpected wave of longing. He’d never thought too much about a life beyond Makar’s narrow, crowded streets. The world beyond the city walls was a vague idea, a distant mystery he couldn’t afford to imagine. Still, there was something in him – something small but fierce – that wanted more.

  With a sigh, he pulled out a small string, he bound it to a loop and made a tight knot around the stone, to carry it on his neck. He put the stone under his shirt to keep it secure. Ky had to be careful now, to make sure no one even suspected he had it. The thought of going back out into the city filled him with a strange excitement and anxiety. It was one thing to steal something valuable. It was another to keep it safe under the gaze of those who would do anything to take it.

  Back out on the streets, the low quarter was already in full swing. The morning fog had begun to thin, sunlight creeping through the cracks and crevices of the city, though it hardly made a difference here. The streets were still damp, the stones underfoot slick with grime, and a faint mist clung to the alleyways like ghostly tendrils.

  Ky kept his head low, slipping between carts and barrels, brushing past vendors shouting out their wares. He spotted Grig the fishmonger haggling with a gaunt man over a pile of grayfish trout, and old Mags hunched over her herbs and tinctures, her voice rough from years of smoking cheap tobacco. She gave him a nod as he passed, her wrinkled face breaking into a toothless grin.

  “Morning, Ky!” she rasped, her voice as rough as sandpaper. “You find anything good st night?”

  Ky managed a tight smile. “Just scraps, Mags. It’s a slow season.”

  She cackled, patting his arm with a bony hand. “Slow season’s all year down here, boy. Stay out of trouble now.”

  As he moved on, he caught snippets of a conversation – a merchant compining about the rising taxes, a group of children ughing as they spshed in a muddy puddle, two women whispering about some scandal in the high quarter. Life went on in Makar, unchanged and unchanging, an endless cycle. But Ky felt out of pce, like he was moving through a dream, one foot in the world he knew and the other stepping toward something unknown.

  He kept to the edges of the streets, eyes sharp, scanning for any sign of trouble. Every face looked suspicious now, every gnce a potential threat. He knew he was being paranoid, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that eyes were on him, watching, waiting for the right moment to strike. It was part instinct, part fear.

  And then he saw him. A tall, nky figure in a dark cloak, lingering by the edge of a butcher’s stall, his gaze fixed on Kyrell. The man’s face was mostly obscured by the hood of his cloak, but Kyrell caught a glimpse of pale, sallow skin, a narrow chin, and thin, colourless lips. His eyes were sharp, cold and unblinking.

  Grey Cloak, Kyrell thought, feeling a chill race down his spine. He’d heard about these men – agents, guards, informants, enforcers in Lord Estan’s employ. The rumours said they could smell fear, could track a man through the winding streets of Makar as easily as a hound on the hunt.

  Kyrell kept moving, keeping his expression neutral, even as his heart hammered against his ribs. He ducked into the next alley, cutting across narrow passageways and weaving through the cluttered maze of the low quarter. He didn’t look back, didn’t risk a gnce, but he felt the man’s presence like a shadow at his heels, cold and relentless.

  After several turns, he slipped into a narrow passage that ran along the back of a bakery, the warm, yeasty smell of fresh bread wafting through the air. The alley was dark, shielded from prying eyes, and he pressed himself ft against the wall, listening. Footsteps echoed faintly, growing louder, then fading as they passed by the mouth of the alley. Kyrell held his breath, waiting, his fingers curling around the edge of his shirt where the stone y hidden.

  He waited several moments longer, finally, when he was certain he was alone, he allowed himself to breath, his chest heaving with relief.

  “That was close,” he muttered, running a hand through his hair. He couldn’t risk another encounter like that. The Grey Cloaks were relentless, and if they suspected he had something valuable, they wouldn’t stop until they found him. And once they did, the stone and his life would be forfeit.

  He needed a pn, and he needed allies, people who could help him stay one step ahead. As much as he hated the thought, he knew he couldn’t do this alone. Not against someone as powerful as Lord Estan. But who in the low quarter would dare to go against the city’s most ruthless lord?

  The answer came to him suddenly, a name that made his stomach twist with both hope and apprehension, Jarek the Fence.