The scent of burnt bread and sour ale clung to the wooden walls of the old tavern like ghosts that refused to leave. Morning light poured through the cracked shutters in pale streaks, brushing against flour-dusted tables and empty stools. A few embers still glowed in the stone hearth, the only warmth in the otherwise cold and quiet space.
Syaoran stood behind the counter, sleeves rolled to his elbows, dusting soot from a cracked baking tray. His black hair clung to his forehead, damp with sweat despite the chill. The oven fire had died sometime in the night, and the cold had crept in like a patient enemy.
He didn't shiver.
He never did.
A kettle hissed on the iron stove behind him. He turned it off just as the old woman came hobbling in from the back room, wrapped in a patched shawl.
"Up before the sun again?" she said, her voice rough from age and smoke.
"You were coughing." Syaoran placed a chipped mug on the counter and poured her hot water with crushed lemonroot—bitter, but good for the lungs.
She smiled gently, eyes crinkling. "Still watching over this old husk, are you?"
He didn't answer, only pushed the cup toward her and returned to cleaning.
The old woman—Madam Rinna, to most—had taken him in when he was barely able to walk, left at her door in the dead of winter. No name, no family. She gave him warmth and bread and never asked for anything in return.
So he stayed. And he worked.
Even if the kingdom around them decayed.
Outside, bells rang—a slow, heavy chime. Three times.
Execution day.
Rinna stiffened slightly but said nothing. The king's justice didn't concern them—until it came too close. Syaoran dried the tray and stacked it neatly.
"Don't go near the plaza," Rinna said, her voice lowered now.
"I wasn't planning to," he replied coldly.
He already knew what the bells meant. Another rebel caught. Another public display of the king's mercy. Syaoran had seen it before—men and women torn apart in the name of order, screaming until their voices broke.
They screamed like his mother had.
He could never remember her face. Only the scream.
He stepped out the back door into the alley, pulling a worn cloak around his shoulders. The city of Velmire stretched in gray stone and rusted iron, choked by the smog of forges and the soot of endless chimneys. Floating far above, barely visible through the clouds, shimmered the underbelly of a skyward city, its towers glinting gold in the morning sun.
A world unreachable. Untouchable.
Down here, rats fought over crusts and children sold their teeth for soup.
Syaoran moved quietly, boots crunching against frozen dirt. He wasn't headed toward the plaza—but something tugged at him. A cold whisper, a faint charge in the air. Like a storm hiding just beyond sight.
He paused at the corner of a crumbling archway and looked down a side alley.
A figure stood there—cloaked, hunched, trembling.
Blood dripped from their arm.
Syaoran's eyes narrowed.
Rebel? Thief? Or something worse?
A crack split the air—a flicker of blue light burst from the figure's hand before vanishing.
Lightning.
Syaoran stepped forward.
Whatever was happening in Velmire's shadowed streets, it was beginning to reach him.
And he was done hiding from it.