I walked the streets of Solstice as night settled fully into place, the moon casting its pale blue light across the stone.
The city breathed around me.
Steam rose from grates and gutters, curling upward before being torn apart by the wind.
Even at this hour, Solstice refused to sleep.
There were fewer people on the streets, but the crowd was still there. It had simply learned how to move quietly.
My boots struck the stone in a steady rhythm as fragments of conversation drifted past me, arguments muttered too low to carry blame.
Laughter that came too late in the night to be honest, bargains whispered as if the walls themselves were listening.
None of it mattered. Not yet.
There was a reason I had come here.
I would cultivate myself, build something new, gather followers who believed not in crowns or bloodlines, but in results.
That was the intent.
But intent required a foundation, and the foundation I had uncovered was too large to confront directly.
This operation spread across multiple cities. Solstice was only one knot in a much wider web.
The capital alone had remained untouched, protected by visibility rather than virtue.
I exhaled through my nose and slipped between buildings where the light thinned and the stone narrowed.
The city changed character there. The air grew heavier, damp with old heat and rusted iron.
I traced runes along the walls as I walked, subtle and spaced wide, letting them sink into the city's bones.
This place pulsed louder than the rest.
Investigation took little time. The magic bent strangely here, space folding inward just enough to notice. When I stepped fully into the shadowed passage, the revelation was immediate.
Cages.
Rows of them, stacked and reinforced, iron bars etched with suppressive marks.
Animals paced in tight circles. Monsters lay still, eyes dull, magic dampened to something barely alive.
Mythical creatures huddled in corners, wings bound, horns sawn short.
And then there were the children.
Boys and girls pressed together in too-small spaces. Some stared without focus.
Others cried quietly, as if sound itself might earn punishment.
A few were so young they still smelled of blood, birth barely behind them.
I turned my face slightly, just enough to avoid retching.
This was not something I could understand. It was simply something that existed, and therefore something that would have to be destroyed.
[Nicholas was a vile man, but there were depths even he refused to descend.]
I steadied my breathing as footsteps approached.
The man who greeted me was clean and well-fed.
Plump cheeks, heavy brown eyes, a groomed beard that had never known dirt.
He wore a fitted vest over a white shirt, rings glittering on nearly every finger.
A cane tapped softly against the stone as he walked, more ornament than necessity.
His hat sat low, decorated with small golden trinkets that chimed faintly when he moved.
"Greetings, dear customer," he said smoothly. "I hope you haven't come to bargain. Prices are fixed. Now, what would you like?"
I flicked my vision open briefly, just long enough to confirm what I already suspected.
There were few paths for this man. Fewer still that ended with me killing him here.
I shut it again and wiped beneath my nose.
"I'm looking for a boy," I said. "Preferably a teenager. High potential."
Nobles came to places like this for many reasons. Some wanted disposable hunters.
Some wanted pets. Some wanted things they would never name aloud.
I would end all of it eventually, but not tonight, and not alone.
I could not act as a royal here. Authority would only burn the web tighter.
The man's smile widened, pleased. "Ah. I have just the one. Come. He's in the back."
He turned without hesitation and began walking. His trust made sense.
The trinket hidden in my palm marked me as someone who had passed their test.
Access was earned, not bought.
Solstice hosted too many noble gatherings, too many masked indulgences, for secrecy alone to protect a place like this.
And this was only one location.
We went deeper, past the noise, past the cages that held creatures still capable of growling.
I heard it as we passed, a low, animal sound dragged from a throat too weak to use it. I did not turn my head.
Then came the voices.
Soft pleas.
A girl calling for someone who would never answer.
A boy whispering promises he could not keep. Hands pressed against bars. Nails scraping metal.
I ignored them all.
The hallway narrowed, stone walls close enough to brush my shoulders. At the end stood a cell more reinforced than the rest.
Inside sat a boy.
Young. Too thin.
His eyes lifted slowly when we approached, dull not from ignorance, but exhaustion.
The man gestured proudly toward the cell. "And here he is."
He said it with open delight, as though presenting a finely bred animal. The sound of his voice made my skin crawl.
[Nicholas was holding back. The question was never if, only how long.]
The boy inside did not move.
Not when the door scraped open, not when the light reached him.
He sat exactly as he had before, back against the wall, hands resting loosely in his lap.
His chest rose and fell, slow and shallow, as if even breathing were something he did out of habit rather than need.
There was an aura about him, subtle, restrained, like a blade wrapped too tightly in cloth.
His skin was dark and rough, weathered despite his age, close enough to my own that it made my stomach turn.
His eyes were a pale, washed blue, unfocused, staring somewhere past the bars rather than at us.
Thick, tightly curled hair covered his head, cropped short.
His frame was lean and toned, the build of someone who had worked hard long before he should have had to.
"This one," the man continued casually, "we found laboring himself half to death for his sick mother."
He chuckled. "After we killed her, of course, we took him. Seemed a waste not to."
The words were delivered without emphasis, without malice. Just business.
"He's strong," the man went on, circling the bars.
"Unnaturally so. Knows how to throw a punch, too. That made things troublesome."
He tapped his cane against the floor. "So we couldn't bind him fully. At best, he's… agreeable."
I knew what he meant. A slave seal, half curse, half ritual.
It required the subject to be broken down to the edge of death, weak enough that resistance was impossible.
Most did not survive the process.
And yet this place held over a hundred captives. Humans. Monsters. Children.
I clenched my jaw. "How much?"
The man's grin widened. He rubbed his fingers together slowly, savoring the moment.
"I'll be generous. Ten gold. Shouldn't be much for someone like you."
He glanced back at the boy, his smile turning knowing.
"He's entertaining, too. If you're into that sort of thing. Just… take good care of him for me, hm?"
Something in my chest snapped.
[That was the final push. Nicholas took after Mirabel in more ways than he liked, his temper among them.]
My sword was in my hand before the thought finished forming. I swung.
Steel met steel as the man snapped his cane upward. The polished wood split, revealing a thin blade hidden inside.
The impact rang sharply through the corridor.
He sighed, almost bored. "We always get people like you. Saviors. You all die the same way."
Runes tore free from my body, igniting the narrow hall in pale, vicious light.
I met his eyes. "Trust me," I said quietly. "In my eyes, you're already dead."