The dawn came slow over Varentis, a creeping thing of grey and cold, but it changed in the early hours, the drunks dragged themselves home, the night merchants packed up their stolen wares, and the garrison patrols thinned just enough for men like Darian to move unseen.
Smells of ash and river fog, the scent of glacium fires mixing with the salt air from the docks. Somewhere in the upper districts, the nobles would be waking to servants bringing warm water and fresh bread.
Down in the Gutters, they had a saying, the only breakfast was what you could steal.
Darian knew the streets well enough to take the back paths, narrow alleys slick with night rain, past doors that led to places best left unnamed.
He wasn't alone. Varentis was never empty.
A woman sat on the steps of an old shrine, cradling a bundle of cloth that might have been a child or just another rag-doll dream left to rot. A pair of gutter-urchins darted past, one slipping a hand into a merchant's belt while the other caused a distraction.
Further ahead, a man with a silk sash whispered to a hooded figure, their words clipped and tense. Darian caught a piece of it as he passed.
"—shipment leaves at dusk, through the black gate. Payment upon arrival."
He didn't slow. Didn't turn. But he remembered the words.
Everything in Varentis was a trade. Coin for silence. Blood for power. Names for names.
And right now, Darian was running low on all three.
Darian lived in a place that didn't have a name, because names gave places meaning, and the Empire had long since stopped giving meaning to the Gutters.
It was a half-collapsed tenement, the bones of an old Winterfyrian watchtower repurposed into shelter by those who had nothing else.
The people here were the forgotten, widows of men sent to die in the Cold Marches, ex-legionaries who drank away their pensions, gutter-urchins who would never see the inside of a schoolhouse.
And him.
A boy who had once been noble, now sleeping in a place where nobility meant nothing.
Varentis was a city of layers.
At the top sat the Palatine and his local government, the Empire's chosen ruler, a man with power but little real control. Beneath him were the former aristocratic families, also referred to as Nobles; they owned the land, the trade houses, and the pockets of the men who enforced the law.
Then came the Syrs, merchant princes; no ancient lineage, but rich enough to matter. Some had charters from the Empire, others had bought their place with bribes and careful partnerships. They controlled the needs and the wants; the money.
And then, in Darian's opinion, were the real rulers of Varentis.
Not the ones in marble halls or gilded towers. Not the Palatine with his guards or the Imperial clerks with their stamped decrees. No... The true power lived in the cracks, in the smoke-filled rooms, the blood-slick alleys, and the coin-counting silence of the city's back rooms.
Their names weren't spoken in the daylight. They were whispered at night, behind closed doors, and only when you were sure no one was listening.
The Black Vultures were the oldest. Quiet, calculating, and everywhere. They ran the smuggling lanes, the black tunnels beneath the docks, the sealed crates with no paper trail, the people and things that were never supposed to be seen again. If it had value and no official record, odds were the Vultures had their claws in it.
The Silk Veil dealt in pleasure and secrets. Velvet-gloved hands with knives beneath. They ran the brothels and gambling dens, the high-end parlors where nobles lost their coin, and sometimes more. They sold powdered dreams and quiet poison, seduction and scandal, always with a smile. Half the court owed them something. Some owed everything.
The Sable Sons ruled the Gutters like warlords. They didn't ask. They didn't deal. They told. Protection rackets, muscle for hire, debt collection, street justice, and most importantly, the Pits. If someone vanished in the Gutters, it was usually the Sons who made it happen. They ran their turf like a militia, with ranks and rules and no room for softness.
And the Red Rats, those twitchy-eyed lunatics, they controlled the flow. Dust. Drip. Redleaf. If it dulled pain, lit your brain on fire, or turned you into something less than human, it passed through their hands. They cooked it, cut it, sold it. Every addict in Varentis paid them tax, whether they knew it or not.
Between the four of them, the city was carved up like a corpse on a butcher's block. Each took their share. Each stayed in their lane... most of the time. But boundaries blurred. Knives crossed. Blood spilled. And sometimes, someone new tried to climb.
Crews like Darian's? They were nothing in the grand scheme. Street rats with big dreams. Dozen-man gangs running card games, lifting crates, picking bones off the scraps. Sometimes the Clans used them. Sometimes they crushed them. Either way, they didn't care.
Darian ducked under the old arch and into the courtyard, skirting the stairs, too many boards missing, too many bones broken on 'em already.
The yard behind the tower was busy, same as always. Smoke from cookfires curled in the corners, kids darted between crates with rat bones in their hands, and old women haggled over wilted greens like they were gold-plated.
He moved through it with ease, nodding to some, shouldering past others.
"Still breathing, Pup?" someone called from a crate.
"Unfortunately," Darian muttered, not breaking stride.
A toothless man shuffled up and spat at the ground near Darian's boots. "Should've been you down in the dirt, not the Butcher."
Darian didn't break stride. Just glanced sideways. "Didn't know ghosts placed bets."
The man snorted, all pink gums and sour breath. "Saw the whole thing. You got lucky. Butcher'll be back on his feet soon enough."
Darian smirked. "Good. Gives you time to lose your money twice."
That earned a snort from a nearby washerwoman and a few chuckles. The kind of gutter-banter that didn't mean much unless it turned bloody.
He kept moving.
Noise, stink, heat, the tower held too many people, most of them desperate, all of them watching. Somewhere overhead, a baby wailed. Someone argued in three languages at once.
The pipes above hissed like dying snakes, and the smell of fishgut stew turned sharp in the morning sun.
At the far wall, the old water pump groaned like it hated its job. A queue had already formed, bent cans, chipped clay jugs, and people pretending not to look at each other.
Darian fell in at the back, hands in his pockets, ribs still aching.
When he reached the pump, Darian filled a battered tin cup halfway. Cold water, clean enough.
He brought it to his lips, but didn't get a sip before a familiar voice piped up from the left.
"Knew you had some footwork in you," Old Tammar said, leaning hard on the stone wall beside the pump.
The old fighter looked like he'd been carved out of dried leather and bad decisions. His nose had been broken more times than the Empire had provinces, and one eye drooped from a long-healed socket crack. His coat was stitched from at least three others, and his boots were held together more by faith than thread.
"Saw you duckin' and twistin' like a Drennic viper," he went on, nodding with a grin that showed more gum than tooth. "Reminded me of when I was champ of the Blackwall Pits, thirteen wins straight. Broke a man's leg so clean it whistled when he walked."
Darian glanced over. Tammar was already grinning at nothing in particular, waving one hand like he was still giving a victory speech.
The same patched coat, the same boots, and the same stink of fried garlic and regret. The usual.
"Didn't you say it was nine wins and a draw last week?" Darian asked, sipping his water.
Tammar blinked. "Different season."
"Mmh." Darian nodded, fighting a grin. "Pretty sure last season it was the Hollowstone Pits. And it was a rib you broke, not a leg."
"Boy, I've had more seasons than you've had shoes," Tammar muttered, straightening up a little. "Point is, I had style. They used to call me the Grey Flash."
Someone in line snorted behind them.
"Didn't they call you 'Slips' 'cause you fell off the platform mid-fight?" came another voice, Barda, the tall seamstress with three teeth and a sharper memory than most gave her credit for.
Laughter stirred through the line. Tammar didn't miss a beat.
"That was a tactical slip. Threw the man off his rhythm."
Darian drained the last of his water and hooked the cup back in place.
"Well, if I ever slip in the pit, I'll call it a tribute," he said, clapping Tammar lightly on the shoulder as he passed.
"Just don't steal my moves, boy," Tammar said, already turning to the next poor soul in line.
"Had a spin-step they used to train militia on, back in the day. Could crack a man's jaw and braid your hair in one motion, ask anyone who was there."
He was still talking as Darian walked off, the courtyard folding around him again, same pump, same people, same stories told a dozen different ways. Just another morning in the Gutters.
Nearby, a woman strung fish on a wire, selling what little she had left before the city guards came through for their cut.
A couple of ragged boys watched Darian from a doorway, eyes sharp, waiting to see if he'd drop something worth stealing.
The sun barely rose over the Gutters. Not properly. It bled through smoke, slipped between rooftops, and smeared across the broken glass of upper windows like a wound that never quite healed.
Even now, with morning technically clawing at the sky, Varentis still felt like night.