By the time I was one, there were three things I knew for sure: I was not in my old life anymore, my name was Aaron and my mother would not let me touch the ground.
It had been one year since the alley and the woodsmoke lunatic, and life hadn't become kinder; it had simply rearranged itself into tents. My mother, a woman I'd come to know as "Elara" based on the camp's whispers, had popped out of bed after the birth like a woman who considered childbirth a light warm-up set.
No wailing, no dramatic collapsing-she bounced up, tied her hair, and started moving through the camp with the casual speed of someone who'd been doing this whole outlaw motherhood thing for years. She cooked. She patched boots. She barked orders.
I, however, was strapped to her chest in a sling like some sort of treasure she refused to set down.
I had limbs. Technically? Mostly for show. My legs could kick, my arms could flail, which is to say i had the mobility of a stuffed sock with ambitions. The sling was a strategic decision on her part: she carried me everywhere, which meant I saw very little for myself and overheard everything.
See, the trick in this world wasn't faces- at least not for me. Faces were mostly useless. Instead, people came with a little aura of their own: white particles that clung to them like iron filings to a magnet.
But it wasn't just light. Thanks to whatever cosmic joke landed me here, I didn't just see the light; I understood it.
It wasn't a guess. It was a download.
When the cook, a burly man name Hobb, walked by; I felt satisfaction. I felt the sticky, warm intent of someone who had just perfected a stew. The particles radiating from him didn't just look like bread; they were the concept of sustenance.
My father, the Captain-a man named Valen- had an economical halo. His particles were tight, and sharp. They didn't doddle; they marched. Looking at him felt like looking at a loaded crossbow.
Then there was the old man who piqued my interest. His aura was a faint, dirt-brown hue that screamed exhaustion, but underneath all that static... was the distinct, heavenly vibration of fermentation. He smelled like beer. He felt like beer. And for that, he was my favorite person in the camp, even if my mother avoided him like the plague.
There were about thirty of them in the clan. Thirty people who could break camp and vanish before the magistrate's ink had dried.
The main tent was the oddest thing in camp- "the command tent"- but not for the reasons everyone else gossiped about. Everything in my world registered the same way- a haze of white particles that gathered around people and object and told me who and where they were. Chairs were clouds you could sit on, fire were red bushes of heat, and ropes were faint lines of dust you tripped over.
The command tent, though, was different. I couldn't pick out poles or canvas; instead the particles pressed up against an invisible silhouette and stayed there like frost on glass. Where other object let the motes drift and ripple, the dust around that tent clung thick and immovable, forming a hard-edged boundary I could feel with the back of my head.
It wasn't just shelter. My brain supplied the understanding instantly: Structure. Ward. Concealment.
It felt like someone had whispered "stay" to the universe, and the universe had obeyed.
It was always astonishing to me how fast thirty people could turn a clearing into a functioning village and then dissolve it again like it had been a dream.
That was their entire survival tactic, I guess our survival tactic. Move, not be found.
Bandits moved like clockwork to avoid both.
My mother dragged me into the command tent more than I had any right to be. She'd sling me up, press me into her chest so I could hear the maps rustle and the murmured strategies, and I would sit there, furious at the humiliation but fascinated as well.
"Scouts report a magistrate road two days' north," a voice would rumble. "We shift before moon's quarter,"
They spoke like they believed logistics were an art form. They were right. Rumor-gleamed from half-heard order- was that the Governor of Belgica was gunning for bandits, and the local magistrate had a special fondness for public hangings. Bandits moved like clockwork to avoid both.
One night, while the red hue of the fire sparkled and everyone was planning the next day's move, I overheard something I wasn't supposed to hear.
They were talking about me.
My mother sat near the fire, her aura flickering with a soft, blue anxiety. "His pupils... they're gray, Valen. It's like he doesn't track things like others..."
Valen-my father- sighed softly. His sharp, efficient aura softened just a fraction, the spikes dulling. "We'll keep him close. For now."
"He can't see, Valen."
"He sees something," Valen murmured. "I've watched him. He tracks movement but doesn't actually focus. He looks at the tent's wards like he's reading a book."
He paused, and the particles around him tightened again.
"He'll be useful either way."
That word-useful-irked me in all sorts of ways. Useful how? To your purpose? To be a lookout? To be bait?
From the way they phrased it, even an idiot could put the pieces together: They knew I was blind. They'd noted the gray pupils as a defect, but Valen saw an oppurtunity. They weren't cruel, exactly; they were practical. Bandits had to be. Efficient. Ruthless with time and resources.
I hated them for it and found their competence oddly admirable.
So there I was at one year old: strapped in a sling, half fed on breast milk and whatever Hobb the cook called stew, cataloging thirty souls by their magic-halos.
Reincarnated? Check. Blind? Looking like it. Bandit-raised? Unfortunately. Useful? Apparently.
When the tent quieted down and the camp settled into its practiced breathing, I let myself drift-less sleep this time, more thinking. The world outside would move again, reroute for the authorities, and the cradle of straw I slept in would be folded and loaded into a pack like everything else.
I tested my useless legs inside the sling, small, impotent kicks that felt like protest. The last thing I cataloged before the night took me was a little, furious plan.
If they wanted a useful child, they were about to find out they'd made a terrible bargain.
And maybe, just maybe, I'd figure out how to get a drink out of that old man.