The Warden's grudging permission was a key turning a lock I hadn't known existed. Each evening, as the sun set behind the western mountains, I slipped through the prison gates, trading one cage for another. The city was a sprawling maze of my own making, and my nightly search was a desperate attempt to reconstruct a ghost. The guilt of not being there in Dalia's final hours was a sliver in my heart. I needed to know what those hours were like. Had she been afraid? In pain? Did she have a message for me? A final wish I could grant to atone for my failure? Each closed door and dead end was a fresh torment, another turn of the screw.
Tonight, a thin strand of possibility had drawn me to the weavers' district. A market woman had mentioned a weaver who was a friend of the innkeeper, Lady Hamil. It was just a rumor, but it was all I had. I moved through the narrow streets, the air smelled of damp wool and dyeing vats. The possibility was a tight, painful coil of anticipation in my gut.
From a side alley, a man stumbled into my path, his expression one of desperate hope.
"It's you!" he exclaimed, his voice jarringly loud in the stillness. "The fire-tamer! The one-eyed man who spoke to the Elders!"
I froze, every muscle tensing. Before I could form a reply, two other figures detached themselves from the shadows behind me. They were not petitioners. They moved with a chilling purpose, their hands tucked into their robes.
"Elder Ermias sends his regards," one of them said, his voice low and sharp. A knife, long and thin, appeared in his hand. "He dislikes loose ends."
Kael's voice, an echo in my mind: _Never fight on their terms. The world is your weapon._ Another lesson surfaced, one he'd drilled into me for countless hours in the yard. _"Your eye is gone,"_ he'd stated, a simple fact. _"Your enemy knows this. He will come from your blind side. Never stop moving your head. Listen. Feel the air. Make your weakness a trap."_
I kicked a stack of empty dye pots, the heavy ceramic crashing against the cobblestones with a sound that shattered the silence. As the assassins flinched, I bolted, not toward the open street, but deeper into the labyrinth of alleys, forcing them into a space where their numbers were a hindrance.
The fight was brutal. I was desperate for survival. They were on me in seconds, their movements coordinated, professional. I kept my head on a constant swivel, my good eye taking in the world in sharp, staccato bursts. I used a discarded loom beam for leverage, swinging it wide, forcing them to respect my reach. One lunged from my left—my blind side—and just as Kael had trained, I didn't try to see him; I reacted to the scuff of his sandal, pivoting and slamming a heavy wooden shutter on his reaching hand. A crunch of bone and a hissed curse told me I'd found my mark.
I was holding them. I was using Kael's brutal lessons to turn their professional confidence into frustration. But as I spun to face the second man, my boot heel slid on a patch of slick, spilled dye I hadn't seen in the gloom. It was a moment of sheer bad luck, a variable Kael could never have trained me for. My balance faltered for a fraction of a second. It was all they needed.
As I tried to regain my footing, a blade sliced deep across my forearm. The pain was a searing, white-hot fire, a shock that nearly stole my breath. But seeing my own blood changed something. The desperation to escape gave way to cold calculation. I wasn't going to run. I was going to finish this.
The man with the knife lunged again, expecting me to retreat. Instead, I dropped the heavy beam and grabbed a weaver's shuttle from a nearby cart—a weighted piece of wood the size of my fist. I hurled it at his face. It struck him square on the nose with a sickening crack. He staggered back, howling, his hands flying to his ruined face.
His partner came at me, his own blade now drawn. I kicked over a basket of spun thread, the thick, strong cords spilling across the cobblestones. He stumbled, tangled in the sudden obstacle. It was the opening I needed. I seized a heavy clay pot full of dark blue dye and heaved it with all my strength. It shattered against his chest and head, drenching him in the sticky, blinding liquid. He screamed, clawing at his eyes, disoriented and helpless.
I stood over them, my breath coming in ragged gasps, the loom beam now back in my hand. The one with the broken nose stared up at me, terror in his eyes. The other was still trying to claw the dye from his face. The urge to bring the beam down, to end them, to answer their violence with finality, was a hot pulse in my veins. But Elias's voice cut through the rage. "Justice is a structure, Nadim, not a cudgel." Killing them would make me no different from Ermias.
"Go back to your master," I said, my voice low and shaking with adrenaline. "Tell him his message was received. This is my reply."
I left them there and made my way back to the prison, a grim sanctuary in the growing darkness. I stumbled into my small Steward's quarters, my heart hammering against my ribs, my arm dripping blood onto the cold stone floor. I tore a strip from my tunic, my fingers clumsy, and tried to staunch the flow, my mind reeling. The world would not even let me mourn in peace.
A sharp knock came at my door.
Adrenaline surged through me. I grabbed the heaviest thing I could find—a brick from the new kiln, as perfect and hard as stone—and stood beside the door, ready.
"Steward Nadim?"
I opened the door a crack. It was the Captain of the Guard. I'd seen him in the Warden's office earlier, delivering a report. His presence here, at my door, was a violation of every protocol. He was alone. I lowered the brick.
His eyes widened as he saw my bleeding arm and the blood on the floor. "Gods," he breathed. "He moved faster than I feared."
"Who did?" I asked, though I already knew.
"Elder Ermias," the Captain said, his voice urgent. "The Princess learned that this afternoon, the King signed a warrant for your arrest on fabricated charges of sedition. She sent me to warn you. We knew Ermias wouldn't let the insult from the Council stand. I came to tell you to watch your back. It seems I am too late."
I stared at him, the pieces clicking into place. The attack, the warrant, the Princess's warning—it was a coordinated assault. "She sent you?"
A bitter, humorless laugh rose in my throat. "Your King flogged me for stealing a flower to save my sister. This city let her die. Now his daughter wants my help to save her title and her skin? Why should I trust a single word from anyone in that palace?"
The Captain's gaze was steady. "Do not trust her. Trust the facts. The King is leading this city to ruin. Elder Ermias just tried to have you murdered. The system you are trying to navigate is broken and corrupt. The Princess is not asking for your trust. She is offering you a weapon. The law is a weapon she knows how to wield, but only you have the credibility with the people to give it an edge." He paused, letting the weight of his treasonous logic settle in the small room. "I am not here on her behalf. I am here on behalf of the city. My city. The one you saved from burning. Your sister loved this city. Surely she had her reasons."
He had laid the pieces on the board. Ermias's assassins hunting me in the streets. The King's warrant waiting to cage me again. A city on the brink, led by a madman. And a council of cowards waiting for a leader. They had all tried to make me a victim—a prisoner, a corpse, a pawn. But the Captain's message had given me something else entirely: leverage. It was a choice. I could let the corrupt powers of the city crush me, or I could use the tool they had inadvertently handed me to fight back.
My grief for Dalia was a cold, dead weight in my gut, but the attack had ignited a protective rage. They had not just tried to kill me; they had tried to silence the very idea that competence and justice could exist in this city. I had failed my sister. I would not fail the city she had once loved.
"Where?" I asked.