The fire breathed.
Slowly. Deeply. Like a living beast pressed up against the ceiling.It swallowed air and spat out red, then yellow, then a light that hurt the eyes.
The boy raised the hammer for the tenth time.His hands were stiff knots. His skin was burned and crusted with coal dust.He didn't count the blisters anymore. He counted strikes.He counted to forget the pain. To pretend it mattered.
One. Two. Three.The metal was red.Four. Five.Orange now.Six. Seven.Sweat slid down his back like warm oil.Eight. Nine.His arms were shaking.Ten.
He struck. The metal flattened, obedient.Then he let the hammer drop beside his boots, panting.
"Done."
His voice barely echoed. Swallowed by the heat, drowned in the breath of the forge.
Somewhere behind him, the old man spat.
"Five seconds too late, half-portion."
The boy turned his head slowly, eyes half-closed, dark sweat trailing down his temple.
"If you want machines, forge them yourself."
The old man approached. Slowly.Dragging his bad leg like something that had tried to leave him years ago.He carried a coin pouch. Old, cracked leather, half-dead.He tossed it without a word.
It landed in the boy's palm.
Clink. Clink. Clink. Clink.
Four coins.
He clenched his jaw.
"Four?"
The old man stared with one pale, clouded eye.
"I said ten clean ingots. Not ten pieces of regret hammered into shape."
The boy sighed. Long, rough.
"Do I get taxed for suffering now?"
He didn't throw the pouch. He didn't argue.He just pocketed it — like swallowing a bitter fruit whole.
And then he left.
The light outside punched him in the eyes.Harsh. Wet. Full of salt and smoke and too many voices.
The docks of Scendhal groaned like a wounded machine.Ships loomed — massive iron beasts with flanks slick with oil and old blood. Their chimneys, twisted like horns, exhaled thick plumes of white steam. Chains clanged. Steam hissed. Crates dropped. Screams and laughter tangled in the air like seaweed.
"Ah… Scendhal," the boy muttered. "Smells like rotting squid and broken dreams. Home sweet home."
He weaved through the crowd. Quick steps, low shoulders. Invisible.He was smaller than the others, leaner, sharper. But faster.
An old woman at a gemstone stall watched him pass, suspicion in her pupils like knives.
He raised both hands.
"Easy, grandma. Not stealing today. Maybe tomorrow."
His stomach growled. Loud. Obscene.
Then came the smell.
Butter. Burnt sugar. Black salt.Heat that hooked itself right behind the teeth.
He turned without thinking.And saw it.
The bakery.
Wedged between two filthy buildings, it stood like a hallucination.The window was full of golden spirals and sweet-glazed coils.Tarts shaped like sea serpents. Braided bread glowing like amber.
He stopped dead.
"You want my soul? Take it. Take my lungs, too. I don't even like breathing."
He pressed a palm to the glass. His breath fogged it slightly.
Then he stepped back.
"Not today. Today's fish day."
He left the scent behind like a prince walking away from a queen.
The secondary dock was rougher. Quieter. The kind of quiet that smelled like bad news.Fewer smiles. More blades. More blood in the corners.
He found the stall he wanted."Three blood-morques. No more."
The fishmonger didn't speak. Just tossed a dripping sack of flesh and scales.It hit the boy's chest like a curse.
"Don't die eatin' that, kid."
"I'll try not to chew too loud."
The bag sagged in his grip. He tucked it under his arm, already turning toward home.
His place was under the southern bridge.Between two rusted pillars, a shack made of stolen tin sheets and stitched tarp.Half a room. Half a roof. Half a life.
He walked.
The weight of the fish shifted with every step.His boots slipped on the wet stone. The salt clung to his ankles.
And then he stopped.
Something moved above.
Not a bird.
A shape. A silhouette.
Wings.
Huge. Real. Brown as old leather, and powerful.
Not steel. Not machine. Not dream.
A man. Flying.
The boy's mouth opened slightly.His heart stuttered. Not out of fear. But something older.
He didn't know what he was looking at.He just knew it didn't belong here, in this rotting port, in this broken city, in this life made of ash and scraps.
The wings beat once.Twice.
The man vanished, heading toward the open sea.
The boy stared.
Then whispered, low and sharp, the kind of whisper that could bruise a bone:
"I wanna fly too."
And for the first time in days,he forgot he was hungry.
***
He pushed open the sheet of metal that served as a door. It groaned like a wounded animal.
Inside, the shack was tiny. Half wedged beneath the bridge's rusted supports, just big enough for a creaking bed, a crooked shelf, a stone circle for fire, and a table blackened by time and heat.Salt clung to the walls. The air was damp, tired, and worn thin.
He stood at the threshold for a moment, fish sack in hand, his head slightly bowed. A sigh slid past his teeth.
"You saw that guy with the wings," he muttered into the empty space. "And here I am, grilling fish under a bridge. What a life arc."
But he smiled. Faint, crooked. Tired. Real.
It was home.
He shut the metal behind him, tossed the sack onto the table. There was something sacred about this place. A space forgotten even by the city. And him in the middle of it, like a scrap king. The bed squeaked just from being looked at. The shelf held nothing. Or close to it. An empty tin box. A bent nail. A tooth. He'd forgotten whose. Everything of value he carried on him. Always.
He laid his hand flat on the table.
"All right. Time for the royal feast."
He dropped onto a stool made of three different chairs, pulled a thin knife from his boot, and grabbed one of the fish.
"You, my scaly friend, have no idea how glorious you're about to become."
He laid it out on a burned wooden board, slid the knife in behind the gills, and sliced. Smooth. Precise. The fish twitched once, barely. Dead long ago.
He split it open, let the guts fall into a rusted bowl.
"Respect the guts," he muttered. "Even ugly bastards deserve a clean exit."
He rinsed the halves in cloudy water, then reached under the shelf for a tiny tin. Opened it with a delicate flick.
Inside was a dark red paste. Almost black. Oily. Dangerous-looking.
He scooped out a smear with his fingertip and spread it between the two halves of fish like paint.
"Fire paste from the lower docks. Questionable origin. Highly suspect ingredients. Absolutely divine."
He closed the fish back over the filling. Sealed.
Then knelt by the fire pit, pulled out a soaked wick, struck a spark. The flame caught with a hiss. Small. Flickering. Alive.
He smirked.
"You're the only one around here who listens."
He placed a battered pan above the fire, waited until the iron began to whisper.
Then stood, grabbed a bottle from the shadows. No label, of course.
A dash of oil. Not too much.
The fish hit the pan with a crackling roar.The scent of chili and salt blasted the room.
He stumbled back, coughing.
"Damn sauce. You trying to assassinate me?"
He bent over the fire again, eyes watering, smiling like an idiot.
The fish began to curl at the edges. The skin blistered golden. The red paste bled out gently from the seam.
He squinted down at it, arms crossed.
"Look at that. That's not dinner. That's art. If I had a clean plate, I'd hang you on the wall."
He tilted the pan. Adjusted. Focused. His stomach growled like thunder.
"Just one more minute, Your Highness. Good food takes time. We're not savages."
The shack flickered in the firelight. Warm. Smoky. Like an old ritual.
He lifted the pan to check. The bottom was crisp, the scent perfect.Done.
He lowered the pan.
The fire popped once.
Then a voice spoke. Calm. Just behind him.
"Smells really good."
He didn't flinch.Didn't turn.
He raised an eyebrow, tilted the spatula like a sword, and answered as if this was a perfectly normal moment in his day.
"Obviously it's good. I don't cook. I compose. Mozart of fish. Pleasure to meet you."
Then he turned around.
And froze.
***
He turned around.
No one.
Just the walls of his shack.Bent metal. An empty shelf. Smoke curling up lazily from the firepit.No figure. No breath. No visitor.
He stood frozen, eyebrows furrowed.Nothing in the shadows. Nothing on the floor. Just air and soot.
"Okay. I've officially cracked. Congratulations, brain. You win."
He forced a laugh, but his jaw was tight. Something cold had crept down his spine like a fingertip made of ice.
He turned back toward the fire.
The pan was empty.
The fish was gone.
He didn't blink.A vein twitched in his temple.
"No. No no no. No."
His hands went up as if pleading to the gods.
"Who steals a fish. From a pan. While it's still cooking."
He kicked the table leg. The entire shack shuddered.
"This some kind of test? Some weird initiation? Huh?"
He stormed to the door. Shoved aside the scrap metal flap.
It swung open.
And the world wasn't there.
No bridge.No port.No smoke-stained sky. No rotten stone. No salty wind.
Instead, he stood on the threshold of a vast hall.
He didn't move.Didn't breathe.Not fear.Something deeper. Disbelief.
The chamber stretched far beyond his eyes.
The floor was made of black obsidian, polished so sharp it reflected not just light but memory.The walls were woven with pale marble and raw gold, tangled together like veins of a living thing.Pillars rose like towers, etched with symbols that hummed at the edge of understanding.Thousands of blue lights floated in the air — not bright, not warm, just watching. Their glow was the color of breath held too long. Cold. Suspended.
The ceiling stretched into shadow.The silence was alive.
And at the far end of the hall…a throne.
Empty.
His lips parted.He looked down at his own hands.
"I'm dead. That's it. Starved to death and now I'm stuck in some budget afterlife hallucination."
He looked up at the walls, at the impossible beauty.
"I've never even dreamed something this fancy."
He took a step.His boot clicked against obsidian, sharp, clean.Then nothing again.
He kept walking.The blue lights pulsed faintly.The throne pulled at him.
Not like a prize.Like gravity.
"This is insane. None of this is real. And I still haven't eaten."
Then, behind him, a voice.
"Do you like it?"
He turned fast.
Nothing.
No one.
The silence remained. Untouched.
He clenched his jaw.
"Great. Talking disembodied voice. Sure. Why not. Just bring back my fish when you're done playing creepy."
He rolled his eyes upward, arms wide.
"If this is a test, I'm failing on purpose. Loudly. With flames."
He turned back toward the throne.
And froze.
Someone was sitting there.
No sound. No motion.He hadn't seen him arrive. Hadn't heard a thing.
The man sat still.
He wore a long black robe, the fabric rippling softly like oil beneath moonlight.His hair was blond — too clean, almost white.His skin was pale, untouched, inhumanly smooth.And his eyes…
They were red.
Not bloody.Not burning.
Red like frozen rubies, flawless, suspended behind glass.
On his head sat a crown.Black. Simple. Silent.
Not carved from metal. Not bone.Something else.Something that did not belong in this world.
The boy didn't speak.Couldn't.
He stared.The air in his lungs stopped moving.
A king?A god?A demon?
He didn't know.
But the man stared back.
And he smiled.
Not wide. Not cruel.Just enough.
Just enough to say
none of this was by accident.
***
He stood motionless before the throne.His breath wouldn't come. His hands trembled. His legs couldn't decide whether to run or collapse.
"What the hell is this..." he whispered.
The words left his lips and vanished halfway through the air, like the hall refused to echo them.
Everything in him screamed that this wasn't real.And yet—everything around him felt more solid than the iron of the forge, heavier than the smoke of Scendhal.
The man on the throne didn't move.Those crimson eyes studied him with quiet attention.A predator at rest.
The boy clenched his fists.
"I don't understand anything... but one thing's damn sure."He stepped forward, pointing a dirty finger at the throne."You stole my fish. And I'm starving. So give it back, Your Highness... or whatever you are in your royal slippers."
A soft laugh slipped through the air.
The man's voice didn't hit like sound—it flowed.Serpentine. Warm.A silk glove on skin. A whisper in the bone.
"My honored guest... such delicious tone. So raw. So loud."He spoke slowly, savoring each word like ancient wine."I welcome you... to my humble abode."
The boy raised his arms, exasperated.
"Humble? This place looks like you swallowed a palace and threw up marble."
The man chuckled.A low sound, musical and grave.Even the walls seemed to vibrate with it.
"You're not wrong, little forgemouth. But you see… modesty is a habit one loses quickly, when one has been... bored… for, oh... a thousand years."
The boy blinked.
"A thousand years and no fish? Yeah, that would drive anyone mad."
The man's smile widened.He rested a pale hand on the armrest of his throne.Golden threads trickled through his fingers, like living dust.
"Long ago, this place rang with voices. With laughter. With screams.Now… I find nothing worth listening to. Nothing new.The world has dried out.And I am left with stillness. With watching. With silence."
He rose.
No sound accompanied his motion.Each step down the throne's stairs was weightless, like gravity had stopped caring about him.
"And then, suddenly..."
His red eyes narrowed slightly, glinting like a blade in the dark.
"...a boy appears in my hall.A boy who talks to fire. Who mocks hunger.Who dares to raise his voice in my presence."
He stopped in front of him.Too close.
The boy's heart slammed against his ribs.
"I think I took a wrong turn. My bad. I'll just go now, yeah?"
The man tilted his head, baring a knife-edge smile.
"Ah. If only it were that simple.But you see... accidents do not happen here."
The boy opened his mouth, but the voice cut sharper this time.
"Look at your feet."
He did.
His pulse dropped like a stone.
His body was standing.But his head…his head lay on the floor.
It had fallen clean off—his own face staring up in horror, eyes wide, lips half-open.Blood spread beneath it in a perfect circle.
He screamed.
A raw, animal scream.The obsidian floor cracked underfoot.And the world unraveled.
A snap of fingers.
The scene folded in on itself like a sheet of water.The head rose.The blood vanished.The air returned.
He was whole again.
Gasping, he touched his neck.
"What the hell was that..."
The man stepped closer, unbothered, calm.
"A simple demonstration. I dislike disrespect at my table."
"Got it... loud and... extremely clear."
"Good."
The smile returned.The man raised his hand.
Something appeared between his fingers. A sheet.
Or something like one.
It wasn't paper.It wasn't metal.It breathed. Subtly.A soft tremor pulsed in its surface.
Golden glyphs moved across it, alive, shifting, spiraling.Not written — born.
The boy squinted.
A sharp pain cracked through his skull.He groaned, teeth clenched.
"What is this thing…"
"A contract," the man answered gently."An ancient bond. A promise. A fate.These glyphs are living knowledge."
He extended the contract.
The palace's dim blue light slid across its skin.
"Sign it, young blackblood.With your name… and with your blood."
The boy stared at him.His throat dry.Fingers twitching.
He understood.Not logically — viscerally.
There was no door out of this place.No return. No waking up. No choice.
"And if I don't?"
The man's eyes flared. Slow. Controlled.
"Then you won't be needing your body anymore."
Silence.
A long breath.
The boy took the contract with two fingers.The surface was warm. Almost breathing.
He unsheathed his knife. Pricked his finger.
A drop of red fell onto the page.
The glyphs rippled.They stirred like beasts that had been starved.
He hesitated.
Just a second.
Then he wrote.Each letter slow.Painfully real.
His name.
Once it was finished, the glyphs coiled around the word.They burned, hungry, devouring it into light.Gold so bright it turned white.
He stared at the ink.At his own signature.
A crooked smile tugged at his mouth.
The man stepped forward. Slowly.His red eyes fell to the page.
He read the name aloud.
And in this silent hall where death itself lingered...
he gave the boy back his name.
"Riven."
***
The word fell like a key into a lock.And something inside him—clicked shut.
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The name no longer felt entirely his.It had been said for him, not by him.As if it had been carved long ago on a stone he'd never touched.
He lifted his eyes to the man seated atop the throne.
"So… that's it? It's signed. We're done. I can go now?"
The man waved a single hand.Casual. Lazy. Disinterested.
"Of course."
Silence followed.But it had changed.It wasn't the silence of threat anymore.It was something else.Something waiting.
Riven turned slowly.Each step toward the door echoed like it was sinking into something soft and hollow.
The great door stood before him.Tall. Cracked with pale light.He reached out his hand.
Fingers brushed the cold metal—and behind him, the voice came again. Smooth. Almost amused.
"Ah… I nearly forgot."
He stopped.
The man hadn't moved. Still seated, still watching.Still smiling.
"A small gift."
Something flew through the air.
Riven caught it without thinking, hands open.
It hit his palms with a dull, cold weight.He looked down.
A compass.
But it was wrong.It was all black—every part of it.Black metal, black glass, black casing.No needle.No markings.No light reflected from its surface.
It was like holding a shadow that had been caged in iron.
He turned it in his hand. Tapped it once.
"You're giving me a broken compass? You trying to get me lost again?"
The man's smile stretched a little wider.
"It's not broken. It's asleep.It doesn't point north…It points to what you refuse to face."
Riven didn't answer.
His fingers closed slowly around the thing.The cold was fading, but something colder had replaced it.Something that felt… inside.
The light in the hall dimmed.
And the door—opened.
Outside, a breath of wind.Salt.The ghost of the sea.
He stepped through.One foot, then the other.
Behind him, the door closed.No sound.No farewell.
And in his hand,the black compass stayed still.Heavy.Silent.Waiting.
***
He stepped through the door.
One step.One breath.And the world was different.
The cold palace, the glowing glyphs, the obsidian throne — all of it vanished like mist curling back into the sea.
He blinked.
He was home.
The scrap-metal roof creaked in the wind.The walls shivered in rhythm with the night.Smoke, salt, and the faint scent of fried fish floated through the air.
He blinked again.Once. Twice.
"What the hell…?"
His eyes swept across the narrow space—then locked onto the table.
He froze.
There, sitting neatly on his dented plate, was the fish.The same one.Whole. Steaming. Perfectly cooked.Hot oil glistened on the charred skin, and the spicy red sauce still pooled around the edges.
He narrowed his eyes.
"This has to be a joke."
He stepped closer.Touched it.Heat radiated up through his fingertips.
"It's hot. No way."
He dropped into the wobbly stool.
Then he ate.No fork. No bread. No hesitation.
Just teeth. Hands. Hunger.
The sauce seared his tongue, made him cough once, sniffle twice, but he didn't stop.
"I made a deal with a demon king… for this?" he muttered, cheeks full.
He swallowed. Another bite.
"Yeah. Totally worth it."
A short, rough laugh burst out of him.Real. Unfiltered.Almost joyful.
He leaned back, licking his fingers, eyes still gleaming with disbelief.
"I've lost my mind."
The fish disappeared in under three minutes.He wiped his greasy hands on his pants, sighed, then reached into his pocket.
The compass.
Still black. Still heavy.
He set it on the table in front of him.
"Come on then. Let's see what you do, cursed little thing."
He spun it.
No response.No needle.No shimmer.Just blackness. Matte, dull, bottomless.
"You won't even show me north, huh?"
He blew on it.Tapped the side.
Nothing.
He laughed again.Dry this time.Tired. Crooked.
"I swear… I just signed a soul pact for grilled fish and a depressed compass."
He picked it up and turned it in his palm.No reflection.No warmth.No meaning.
"If you start glowing or vibrating while I sleep, I'm burying you under a brick."
He rose from the table.
Kicked out the last embers in the fire pit.
Then collapsed into the pile of stitched blankets and rope that passed for a bed.
The frame groaned under his weight.The wind outside had shifted.
He lay on his back, still.
The compass rested on his chest, pressed into his palm.
"If you're my new magical conscience or something… please sleep too."
His eyes fluttered.His breath slowed.The name still echoed faintly behind his ribs.
Then sleep came.
Heavy.Warm.And black.