The village market was a nervous heart, beating in a way that was too fast and too shallow.
The hot, scouring wind from the farm had followed them, funneling down the narrow main street. It kicked up dust devils that danced between the stalls, making the canvas awnings snap like gunshots. The air smelled of overripe melons, animal dung, and a sharp, metallic tang of fear.
Mordecai felt it the second they stepped into the square. The usual Saturday morning bustle was gone. People were trading, but they did so in low, urgent murmurs, their eyes darting, their shoulders hunched.
"Cai," Silas whispered, his usual boisterous energy shrinking in the oppressive atmosphere. He nudged Mordecai with a heavy elbow. "Look."
Parked by the village well, gleaming like obsidian predators, were two Dragon's Claw motorcycles. The same ones from the road. The riders were leaning against the well's stone wall, not shopping, just watching. Their presence was a poison, and the entire market was sick with it.
"This is bad," Silas said, pulling his empty feed sack a little closer, as if it were a shield. "Let's just get the grain from Hemlock's back alley and go. This place has the taste of a fresh grave."
But Mordecai didn't answer. He had stopped, his gaze fixed, not on the Dragon's Claw, but past them.
He'd found her.
She was a splash of impossible color in a world of brown dust and gray fear. Esther. She was standing by old Myra's flower stall, a small, stubborn patch of beauty at the edge of the square. She was trying to buy a small bunch of purple-and-white wildflowers, and even from this distance, Mordecai could see the wind pulling at her wheat-colored hair, whipping it across her face.
It was the first time he'd let himself truly look at her in weeks. He drank in the sight, the simple, agonizing way she tucked her hair behind her ear, the focused frown as she counted out a few small coins. His chest ached with a feeling so sharp and clean it was almost pain. It was a longing not just for her, but for the kind of man who could walk up to her, smile, and buy her those flowers.
A man who wasn't him.
"Oh, gods, you're doing it again," Silas groaned, his voice a mix of exasperation and genuine pity. "You're doing the 'haunted brooder from behind the vegetable cart' look. It's not romantic, Cai. It's terrifying. You look like you're going to steal a cabbage and then yourself."
"Shut up, Si," Mordecai breathed, but there was no heat in it.
"I will not! Go talk to her. Say 'Hello, Esther, the wind is particularly...'—I don't know—'...windy today. Would you like me to... block it with my face?' Just something!"
"And say what?" Mordecai said, the words a low, bitter growl. "After she's done talking to him?"
Silas's face fell. "Ah, hell."
The crowd near the flower stall had shifted, parting like a school of fish for a shark. Kael was walking toward her.
He was the antithesis of Mordecai. Where Mordecai was earth and sweat, Kael was leather and steel. He wore a high-collared black shirt, perfectly tailored, and his dark hair was tied back in a way that looked effortlessly elegant. He moved with a lazy, liquid grace, a silver-stamped Dragon's Claw insignia on his belt catching the dull light. He was flanked by the two thugs who'd been at the well, and he moved with the absolute, unthinking confidence of a man who had never been told no.
Mordecai's hands, resting on the worn wooden handles of the empty wheelbarrow, clenched.
Kael didn't just walk up to Esther; he arrived. He stopped in front of the stall, completely blocking her in, and smiled. It was a bright, predatory smile that showed all of his teeth.
"Esther," he said, his voice a smooth, confident purr that carried on the wind. "Buying flowers? They're lovely. But they can't compare, can they?"
Mordecai watched Esther's body language change. Her shoulders tensed, her back straightened, but the smile she gave him was brittle, a thing of pure, desperate politeness. It was the smile of the snared rabbit.
"Hello, Kael," she said, her voice small. "They're just for my mother's window box."
"A noble cause." Kael reached out and, instead of touching the flowers, he brushed a loose strand of hair from Esther's cheek. It was a gesture of shocking, public intimacy.
Esther flinched, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, but Kael saw it. His smile widened.
Mordecai took a step. A single, involuntary lurch forward.
A hand like a steel trap clamped onto his arm. "Cai, don't," Silas hissed, his voice a low, terrified vibration. "You can't. You know you can't."
Mordecai was frozen, transfixed by the horror film unfolding twenty yards away. He was breathing through his nose, a hot, rapid rush of air. He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, a desperate, trapped thing.
"You know, the Regional Competition is in two weeks," Kael continued, leaning against the stall, invading her space, forcing her to lean back. "My camp is hosting the final celebration. You should come. My guest, of course."
Esther's face was pale. "Oh, that's... that's so kind, Kael. But I'll be working. My father needs me at the shop..."
"The shop." Kael's smile didn't waver, but his eyes went cold. It was the shift from a thriller to a horror movie. "Right. Your father's tannery. I heard he's having trouble with his lye shipment. A real shame." He picked up the small bunch of wildflowers Esther had been holding and twirled it between his fingers. "Supplies are... tight. It would be terrible if someone's shipments were... delayed. Indefinitely."
The threat was so naked, so brutal, that a small, collective gasp went through the few people still close enough to hear.
This was the action. Not a punch, but a cold, calculated squeeze. This was how they ruled.
Esther's fake smile dissolved. Now, it was just fear. "Please, Kael... don't. My father has nothing to do with—"
"He has everything to do with you," Kael said simply. "So. The celebration. You'll be there."
It wasn't a question. It was a verdict.
Mordecai's self-control snapped. He ripped his arm out of Silas's grasp and started forward. He didn't have a plan. He was just a raw nerve of rage, a walking fire of shame and fury. He was going to... something. He was going to...
He never got the chance.
As if sensing the new ripple of tension in the crowd, Kael looked up from his prey. His eyes scanned the market, and in one terrible, heart-stopping moment, they locked onto Mordecai.
A slow, delighted smile spread across Kael's face. It was the smile of a cat who had just seen a second, fatter mouse. He'd found a new, better source of entertainment.
"Well, well," Kael said, his voice rising, projecting to the entire square. He dropped Esther's flowers and crushed them under his boot, a casual, symbolic act of destruction. He didn't even look back at her.
He walked straight toward Mordecai.
The crowd didn't just part; it evaporated. One second, Mordecai was in a market; the next, he and Silas were standing alone in a wide, silent circle of dirt, with Kael and his two thugs closing in.
"Silas," Mordecai said, his voice a hoarse croak.
"I'm here, Cai," Silas whispered, his face the color of spoiled milk. He stood his ground, but he was shaking so hard the empty sack on his shoulder rattled.
Kael stopped five feet from them. He was, to Mordecai's shame, a head taller, and the sunlight seemed to love him, catching in his clean hair and on his silver insignia. He looked Mordecai up and down, from his worn boots to his sweat-matted hair, and his lip curled in a sneer of pure, unadulterated disgust.
"Look, boys," Kael said to his men. "The rats have come out of the barn. I was just passing your family's... what do you call it? A 'dojo'?" He tapped his chin. "That's right. The 'Rising Slum.' We were just admiring the new paint."
One of his thugs, a man with a jaw like a block of wood, snickered.
Mordecai said nothing. His jaw was a block of cement. He was staring, not at Kael, but at the patch of dirt just to the left of his head. He was a volcano, and he was terrified that if he opened his mouth, the entire world would end.
"What's the matter, farm boy?" Kael goaded, taking another step. He was in Mordecai's space now, close enough for Mordecai to smell the expensive soap on his skin. "Nothing to say? Your grand-daddy teach you to be silent, right before he taught you how to run away?"
He shoved Mordecai's shoulder.
It wasn't a hard shove. It was a "testing" shove. An insult. A gesture that said I can do this, and you can't stop me.
Mordecai's world narrowed to the point of impact on his shoulder. Every instinct, every ounce of rage and humiliation from the ditch, from the dojo, from the last ten years of powerlessness, screamed at him to act. To hit. To destroy.
But he couldn't.
Silas's voice, a terrified whisper: "Cai. No. Think of your grandmother. Think of the farm."
And he did. He thought of Comfort, alone. He thought of the dry fields. He thought of the two thugs behind Kael, whose hands were already resting on the weighted clubs at their belts.
He did nothing.
"Hah!" Kael barked, a short, sharp laugh of triumph. He shoved Mordecai again, harder this time, staggering him back a step. "I knew it! Nothing! A gutless, dirt-eating... nothing. Just like him."
Mordecai's eyes finally met Kael's. And Kael saw the raw, unbound hatred there. He saw the murder. And it delighted him.
"You've got his eyes, though," Kael whispered, his voice suddenly intimate, a lover's threat. "The same 'I'm-going-to-kill-you' look. Tell me, farm boy... did he look like that when he died? Or did he just cry?"
Mordecai's hands, his farmer's hands, his only weapons, were clenched so tight his fingernails bit into his own flesh, drawing blood. He could feel the sting of it, the warm trickle.
He said nothing.
Kael's smile was a thing of pure, victorious malice. He had won. He had proven his point to the entire market. He had broken Mordecai without throwing a single punch.
"Pathetic," Kael spat. He turned his back on Mordecai—the final, ultimate insult.
He walked away, his thugs falling into step behind him. He didn't look back at Esther. He didn't need to. He had claimed her, shamed her protector, and owned the entire square.
The market noise rushed back in, but it was different. It was the sound of people pretending they hadn't seen what they'd just seen.
Mordecai was left standing in the circle of shame, his shoulder aching, his hands bleeding.
He saw Esther. She was still by the flower stall, her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. She was crying. And as he watched, she turned and fled, running from the market, running from him.
Silas put a heavy, trembling hand on his shoulder. "Cai... it's over. Let's just... let's go home."
Mordecai finally uncurled his fists. He looked at the bloody crescents in his palms. He looked at the empty space where Kael had stood. He looked at the ruined flowers on the ground.
"Yeah," Mordecai said, his voice a dead, hollow thing. "Home."
He turned and walked away, leaving the wheelbarrow, leaving the feed, leaving the last shred of his pride in the dust of the market square. He was a bomb that had failed to go off, and the silence was deafening.