The alley reeked of iron and rot.
Syaoran approached slowly, his boots silent against the frost-slick stone. The cloaked figure slumped against the wall now, one hand pressed tightly to a wound just below the shoulder. The other arm—barely visible—still crackled faintly with fading sparks.
Lightning magic.
Not common. Not legal either. Especially not for someone bleeding in the gutters of Velmire.
Syaoran kept a safe distance. "You're losing blood."
The figure flinched. A boy, maybe no older than twenty. Short hair, mud-streaked face, wide eyes like a cornered animal. He opened his mouth, but the words didn't come—just a hoarse rasp.
Syaoran's gaze flicked to the wound. Deep but not fatal. A blade slash, rough and quick. Likely from the city guards—or worse, the Black Watch.
"You shouldn't be here," Syaoran muttered.
The boy coughed. "Heard... the tavern... safe."
His voice was barely above a whisper. Still, the words froze Syaoran in place.
"Who told you that?"
The boy blinked hard, as if trying to remember. "Crimson cloak... red eyes. Said the bakery boy would help..."
Crimson cloak.
Syaoran's jaw tightened. He'd heard rumors—about a masked rebel who wore red and slipped through the city like a ghost. Some called her the Crimson Moth, others swore she wasn't real at all.
If she'd sent this boy, that meant the rebellion wasn't just stories in the smoke anymore. It meant they were here. In Velmire.
Syaoran looked back toward the tavern, just barely visible through the maze of alleys.
Madam Rinna would never turn away the wounded. But hiding a lightning mage, injured and wanted, could bring the Black Watch down on them in minutes.
He looked at the boy again—barely conscious now.
"Damn it," Syaoran muttered.
He crouched, threw the boy's arm over his shoulder, and began dragging him back the way he came.
---
Rinna didn't speak when she saw the blood.
She simply cleared a corner of the kitchen, laid down a rolled mat, and fetched her herbs.
The boy's name was Teren, a courier for the rebellion. He'd been caught smuggling something through a checkpoint—a letter, sealed with a strange black wax. Syaoran watched as he clutched the scrap of paper even as he passed out, fingers tightening like it was more precious than his own life.
That night, Syaoran couldn't sleep.
Not from the smell of blood. Not from the boy's labored breathing.
But from the letter.
He hadn't read it, but it called to him. Like it knew him.
Like it wanted him.
By morning, the city bell rang twice.
Two chimes.
Another arrest. Another public execution.
But this time, there was a rumor.
A rebel had escaped.
And the Black Watch was searching door to door.
Syaoran looked down at the sealed letter, now hidden under the bread ovens.
Then at the boy, unconscious and fevered.
Then out the window, where smoke was rising from the west district.
Bread. Blood. Ashes.
This city was about to burn.
And for the first time in years, Syaoran felt the heat rising in his own chest.