Chapter 16 – The Trapped Girl
The girl was born behind high walls.
Marble floors, polished until they reflected lantern-light. Silk curtains that never saw dust. Servants who moved quietly, eyes lowered, hands always full of something—documents, tea trays, cloaks.
At banquets, she sat three seats down from the head of the table, too close to be forgotten, too far to be heard. Her father laughed loudly, goblet in hand, trading stories of land, taxes, and "discipline." Her mother smiled politely, saying the right words at the right time.
Outside the estate walls, people whispered that the family was powerful. Efficient. Unyielding.
Inside, the girl learned very quickly that power meant numbers on parchment, not faces in the crowd. When she once asked why a village petition had been refused, her father tapped the ledger and said:
"Because they cannot pay."
"But they will starve," she'd said.
"They will live," he replied, pouring himself more wine. "People always do. Or they don't. Either way, the accounts must balance."
The servants took away the rejected petition. The girl never saw it again.
***
The fall came quietly.
No riots. No sudden flames. Just more letters than usual, stacked on her father's desk, marked with unfamiliar seals.
First came the auditors. Then the inspectors. Then the soldiers.
One morning, the banners over the estate—rich, dark cloth embroidered with the family crest—were taken down and replaced with plain imperial colours. The guards at the gate changed without ceremony.
Her father shouted about mistakes, about how everyone "did it this way," about political rivals. Her mother went pale and started praying more than speaking.
The girl was too young to understand the charges, but old enough to understand one thing:
Everyone who had smiled at them in public stopped coming.
One carriage after another rolled out of the courtyard, not with guests, but with chests and boxes. Confiscated. Seized. Reclaimed, the officials said.
By the end of the week, the estate was nearly empty.
On the final day, when the hall echoed too loudly because all the furniture had been taken, the soldiers came with a short list and a shorter command.
Her father was led away with his hands bound.
Her mother clutched at his sleeve until someone gently peeled her fingers off. They said words like "trial" and "hearing," but none of them sounded like "return."
The girl reached out, but there were too many arms between them.
By nightfall, her mother had locked herself in what used to be her room. When the girl knocked, there was no answer. By morning, there was still no answer.
The officials said it was grief.
The servants packed what little was allowed and left through the back gate, one by one, eyes wet or carefully blank.
No one stayed.
Except a man in a plain coat, waiting in the courtyard with a rolled parchment in his hand.
He bowed just enough to be polite, not enough to be respectful.
"I am here as a representative of your father's creditors," he said. "Certain debts must still be repaid."
"I don't have any money," the girl said. It was the first time she had ever said those words and meant them.
The man smiled without humour.
"You do not," he agreed. "But you are… collateral."
His grip on her arm was gentle, but unmovable.
She left the estate through the servants' gate, not the main one. No carriage, no luggage. The house did not look back at her.
***
The lower city smelled different.
The girl learned that first.
Smoke, sweat, rotting fruit, old rainwater that never quite dried between the stones. People shouted instead of speaking. Dogs barked. Children laughed too loudly in alleys that were too narrow.
The man in the plain coat brought her to a building near the docks.
From the outside, it looked like any other warehouse—wooden walls, wide doors, crates stacked high. Inside, it was something else.
Men with knives at their belts and eyes that weighed everything. Women counting coins behind tables. Boys and girls moving through the shadows, quick fingers lifting small things from careless pockets.
"This," the man said, pushing her gently forward, "is where you repay your father's generosity with other people's money."
She was handed off to someone rougher, someone who smelled like pipe smoke and fish.
"Too small to scare anyone," the new man said, looking her up and down. "But small is good. Small fits through gaps."
They tossed her a plain cloak and a cap to hide her hair.
Her first lessons were not about stances or forms. They were about hands and eyes.
How to slip fingers into a pocket without jostling. How to watch people's shoulders, not just their hands. How to disappear into a crowd if someone shouted "thief."
"How much do I have to bring back?" she asked once.
"As much as you can," the man said. "And more."
"And if I don't?"
He looked at her for a long moment.
"Then you eat less," he said. "Or not at all."
She understood that perfectly.
***
The first time she stole, it was a handkerchief.
Not money, not jewellery. Just a piece of cloth from a distracted merchant's sleeve display.
Her heart pounded so loudly she could barely hear the market noise. Her fingers shook so badly that she almost dropped it.
She returned to the warehouse expecting praise.
Instead, the cloth was tossed aside, and she received a slap hard enough to blur her vision.
"Useless," the man said. "Can't eat linen."
Her cheek burned. Her eyes stung. She bit her tongue and went out again.
The first time she felt something like pride was when she brought back a purse heavier than her palm. Coins clinked as the man weighed it.
"Now that," he said, "is something."
He tossed her a slightly larger bowl of stew that night.
It tasted like victory and cheap meat.
***
The first time she killed someone, she didn't mean to.
She was older then. Taller. Her face had lost some of the softness of childhood, sharpened by hunger and late nights. The city had carved new lines into her.
The job was supposed to be simple.
In through a side window—she was still small enough to fit. Open the back door from inside. Let the others in. Grab what they pointed at. Get out.
She counted her breaths as she squeezed through the window and dropped quietly to the floor.
The room smelled of ink and dust. Shelves lined the walls, heavy with scrolls and ledgers. A desk sat near the center, papers stacked in neat piles.
She moved to the door, fingers feeling for the bolt—
"Who's there?"
The voice came from behind the desk.
A lantern flared.
A man in plain clothes, older than her but not old, stood up too quickly, knocking over a chair. His eyes went wide when he saw her.
He wasn't a soldier. Not a guard. Just a clerk who had worked too late and fallen asleep at his desk.
They stared at each other.
If he shouted, the others would run. She would be caught. She had no letters, no name that mattered anymore. Just a face the city wouldn't remember for long.
"Please," she whispered, throat dry. "Just… stay quiet."
His mouth opened.
Sound started to form.
Her hand moved before her mind did.
The knife was small, more tool than weapon. It slid between ribs easier than she expected, like pushing into thick cloth.
Warmth rushed over her fingers.
The man gasped once, eyes wide with something between surprise and fear. His legs folded. The lantern tipped, flame flickering wildly before settling.
She pulled her hand back.
The knife stayed.
He tried to breathe. Blood bubbled at his lips instead.
Her heart pounded so loudly she thought the whole street could hear.
Footsteps thundered at the back door.
"What's taking so long?" someone hissed.
She stumbled over, fingers slick, and fumbled with the bolt.
The door opened. Rough hands pushed past her, heading straight for the shelves.
"Grab the money drawer," someone said. "And any sealed documents."
No one asked why there was a body on the floor.
No one looked at her shaking hands.
Later, when they counted the haul, someone clapped her on the shoulder.
"See?" he said. "You can handle yourself."
She nodded.
She washed her hands in a bucket behind the warehouse until the skin went raw, but it felt like the blood was still there.
That night, she lay on her thin mattress in the corner and stared at the ceiling.
She tried to remember the man's face.
It blurred with all the other faces she passed in the streets.
Eventually, it blurred too much to recall at all.
***
Time moved.
The girl grew.
The plain cloak was replaced with better fabric. The cap with a hood that shadowed her face. The small knife with something longer, better balanced.
She learned more than theft.
She learned where the guards changed shifts. Which alleys flooded first when it rained. Which tavern owners would look away for coin and which would sell information for less.
She listened when the men at the tables talked about whose debts were piling up, which merchant had refused to pay for "protection," which minor noble liked to wander the wrong streets after dark.
She learned how to speak like a street rat when she needed to, and like a noble when it worked better.
"People trust certain accents," the man in the plain coat said once, years after he'd first taken her arm. "They trust those who sound like them. Or like those above them. You already know one of those."
So she used it.
She walked into shops with her shoulders set like they had been at banquets, voice steady, words polished.
"Such a shame if something happened to this place," she'd say, fingers tapping the counter. "A broken window. Spoiled stock. Unfortunate, isn't it, how accidents happen in crowded streets?"
Coins changed hands.
Soon, it wasn't her bringing money back to someone else.
People brought it to her.
They came to the room above a tavern, the walls stained with smoke, the window overlooking the twisting streets below. The chair she used was old, but people still called it a "seat."
They called her things too.
"Boss."
"Madam."
"Her."
On colder nights, some whispered other titles. "The one who owns the alleys." "The one you pay if you want to move goods unseen."
Their fear built a throne of rumours around her.
She sat on it because there was nowhere else left to sit.
***
It didn't last.
Nothing in the lower city ever did.
It started with whispers.
A new inspector. A new captain of the city guard who didn't drink with the old gangs, who didn't accept heavy purses with light smiles. A new order from above: clear the rot, make the streets "safe."
Safe for who, no one said.
Then came the posters.
Sheets of cheap paper nailed to walls, flapping in the wind. A drawing that was almost her, and words underneath promising coin for information. People laughed at first.
"Looks nothing like her," they said. "They never even seen her face."
The reward doubled.
The laughing stopped.
Meetings in the smoke-stained room grew tense. Some of her people said to lay low. Some said to hit back harder, remind the streets who they belonged to. Some said nothing at all, eyes already measuring exits.
She planned routes, bribes, backup plans.
It still wasn't enough.
The raid hit just before dawn.
Not the usual slow stomp of bored patrols, but a fast, hard knock at every door at once. Boots on stairs. Shouted orders. The crack of wood giving way.
The first scream came from the far end of the alley.
By the time it reached her ears, the men on the lower floors were already drawing blades.
"Roof!" someone shouted. "Use the roof—"
Crossbow bolts punched through the windows before he could finish.
She saw one of hers—a boy who had once brought her stolen oranges, grinning with juice on his chin—jerk backward and fall with a sound that wasn't quite anything.
Smoke grenades rolled under doors. The room filled with coughing, burning air.
She grabbed the hidden trapdoor and shoved it open.
"This way!" she shouted, grabbing the nearest arm and dragging.
A girl with quick fingers. A man with more scars than hair. Two brothers who always fought with each other and for each other. A handful of faces she had learned to rely on.
They dropped into the narrow passage under the floor.
Above, the door smashed in.
"Move," she hissed, pushing them ahead. The tunnel was low and cramped, timber creaking. Dust fell with every distant impact.
Someone behind her gasped, stumbled.
"I can't see—"
"Just follow my hand," she said, reaching back without looking.
Her fingers closed on empty air.
The sound that followed was muffled but unmistakable.
Steel meeting flesh. A choked cry. The tunnel shook as someone above fell.
She didn't stop.
She couldn't.
The first rule of the lower city had always been simple: if you stopped, you died.
The passage spat her out into a side alley near the river. Cold air hit her face. She coughed, lungs burning.
She turned back to count who had made it.
One. Two. Three.
No more.
The girl with quick fingers. Gone.
The scarred man. Gone.
The brothers. Gone.
All that was left of them was smoke rising over the rooftops and the echo of boots.
Sirens wailed somewhere distant.
For the first time since she had been dragged through the servants' gate as a child, she felt something close to panic claw at her throat.
"Back," she whispered, even though she knew it was useless. "I have to go back—"
A hand grabbed her wrist.
The man in the plain coat, older now, face set in a hard line.
"Go back and die?" he said. "Don't be stupid."
"They're—"
"They knew the work," he snapped. "Same as you."
She yanked her hand free.
"Then what was the point?" she demanded. "All of it—"
His gaze flicked to the smoke, then back to her.
"Point?" he said. "The point was living long enough to ask that question. Be grateful you still can."
He melted into the alleys, coat vanishing into shadow.
She never saw him again.
***
The cleanup was not gentle.
Every tavern that had once taken her coin was questioned. Warehouses she'd used were sealed or set on fire. People who had once flinched at her name whispered it now only when they were sure no one else could hear.
The city guard didn't need to kill her.
They just had to make sure everyone knew they would pay for hiding her.
Doors that had opened quietly before stayed closed when she passed.
The room above the tavern was gone—boarded up, then burnt, then left to rot, a black skeleton against the sky.
New faces took over old corners.
She watched from shadows as a different group leaned against a wall she used to own with a look. Their laughter was loud. Their knives were new. Their confidence was cheap.
Once, one of the boys glanced her way.
Their eyes met.
He looked straight through her.
Like she was just another stray.
***
The coins she had hidden didn't last.
Small stashes under broken stones, in loose bricks, behind rotten beams. Enough to buy nights under roofs, bowls of stew, clean water… for a time.
But fear made prices climb.
"Dangerous times," innkeepers said, palms out. "Costs more to keep the watch from looking too closely, you understand."
She understood.
Her last stash was three coins in a crack under a step near the river.
She took them out, held them in her palm for a long moment, then spent them on bread that was already going stale and a thin cloak that couldn't quite keep the wind out.
After that, there was nothing left to sell but herself.
And no one wanted what she had been.
The underworld queen was a liability. A possible informant. A reason for the guard to kick in a door.
The noble girl she had once been no longer existed on any ledger.
All that remained was a too-thin body, a hood pulled low, and a pair of hands that shook when they were too empty.
***
She tried stealing again.
Old instincts, old routes.
But the city had changed.
Extra guards at the market corners. New patrols in the alleys. Posters, more accurate now, nailed at eye level where everyone had to look.
Someone had gotten a better description.
A tighter jawline. A sharper nose. A scar she didn't remember getting drawn in with careful ink.
She saw her own almost-face staring down at her from a wall.
The reward below it could have fed the entire street for a month.
Her fingers went numb.
She slipped her hand into a pocket once—a merchant's, easy mark, just like before—and felt the old thrill for a heartbeat.
Then a guard's hand closed around her wrist like an iron shackle.
"What do we have here?" he said.
She twisted, slipped, dropped the coin she hadn't even had time to grab, and bolted.
Boots pounded after her.
She still knew the alleys.
She turned left, right, ducked under laundry lines, vaulted a low wall that scraped her shins. For a moment, it felt like it used to.
Then the stitch in her side hit.
Hunger had eaten away at the strength she used to have. Her breath tore at her throat. Her legs refused to move the way they once did.
She stumbled.
Hands reached for her hood.
A cart rolled out from a side street at that exact moment, pulled by a swearing driver and a stubborn mule. The guard cursed as he nearly ran into it, losing his grip on her.
She rolled under the cart, out the other side, and kept running until her lungs felt like they would burst.
Eventually, the shouts faded.
The posters did not.
***
In the end, she sat down.
It wasn't a decision, not really. More like everything else being stripped away until there was nowhere left to go.
An alley, not the worst, not the best. Near the main road, where people passed often. Close enough to the market that the smell of food drifted in, far enough that they wouldn't chase her away immediately.
She sat with her back against a wall that had once been part of her territory.
Now it was just cold stone.
Her cloak was thin. Her hands were thinner.
She found a cracked bowl in a rubbish heap and set it down in front of her.
When people walked by, she lowered her head.
It was easier that way.
Sometimes a coin clinked into the bowl.
Sometimes a heel kicked it aside.
Sometimes someone recognised nothing at all.
Once, she thought she saw a familiar face—a boy who had run messages for her, now older, with new scars and someone else's colours on his belt.
He glanced at her, expression closed. His eyes slid over the worn cloak, the too-thin hands, the empty bowl.
Then he looked away and kept walking.
She didn't call out.
She wasn't sure what name she would even use.
***
At night, when the stalls closed and the street lamps burned low, the alley grew quiet.
The city noise became a dull, distant hum.
She pulled her knees to her chest and stared up at the slice of sky visible between the rooftops.
The stars were there, same as always.
They did not look back.
Her stomach ached. Her fingers were numb. Every bruise pulsed in its own rhythm.
She thought of marble floors.
Of ledgers.
Of ledgers again, in darker rooms, with different numbers.
Of hands that had taken from others. Of hands that had pushed a knife between ribs. Of hands that had pointed and said, "Teach them a lesson."
She looked at those hands now.
They shook when she held them up.
They looked small again. Not like a queen's. Not like a noble's. Just like a girl's.
Her eyes burned, but the tears froze halfway down her cheeks in the cold.
Her voice, when it came, was a rasp she barely recognised.
"…Someone…"
It caught in her throat.
There was no one in the alley but rats and shadows.
She lowered her head, forehead pressing against her knees, arms wrapped around herself because there was nothing else left to hold on to.
"…please help me."