Theron had exactly three copper coins in his hand.
He counted them twice. Then a third time. Still three. He sighed and handed them to the baker without looking up. Bread cost three coins. He had three coins. That was the end of it.
"Barley or wheat?" the baker asked.
"Barley."
He took the loaf and turned away. It was hard, dry, and tasted like sawdust. But it was food. He didn't have the luxury of complaining.
He was about to leave the market when the crowd started shouting.
Not the normal shouting. Not the kind where someone was arguing over the price of fish. This was loud, excited, the kind of noise that meant something worth watching was about to happen.
Theron followed it.
The center of the agora had been cleared. Merchants pushed their stalls to the edges. A wide open circle of bare stone and sand waited in the middle, and hundreds of people pressed in from every side to get a look.
Near the front, nobles sat in wooden chairs under linen awnings, already drinking wine. They looked bored. They already knew how this would end.
Everyone knew.
Two men stood facing each other in the open space.
The first was Kyros. Son of Lord Aristophon. Twenty-two years old, golden skin, confident smile. He wore a crimson tunic and a copper pendant shaped like a flame hung around his neck. He looked like he was about to win, because he was about to win. He always won.
The second man was a stranger. Tall, broad, a long scar across his cheek. He wore plain leather and carried nothing. A challenger from the city of Porthos, someone whispered. He had come to test himself against Aristophon's son.
A herald announced the rules. No weapons. No killing blows. Magic only.
The crowd went quiet.
Kyros moved first.
He dropped into a low stance and swept his right hand downward. His fingertip traced a shape in the sand, fast and smooth, like he'd done this a thousand times. Because he had.
A circle appeared in the sand, glowing faintly blue-white. Inside it, three lines connected three points on the circle's edge, forming a triangle. The whole thing took about four seconds.
Kyros stepped up to the circle. He placed his left foot at one point on the edge, his right foot at another. Then he raised both hands, palms out, fingers spread, and held them at two specific spots along the circle's rim.
The angle between his hands was precise. Not wide open. Not a right angle. Something in between. Something exact.
Theron noticed. He didn't know why yet. It just stood out to him, the way a wrong note stands out to someone who's listened to music their whole life.
Kyros took a deep breath. Held it for one second. Then spoke.
"Φλόξ, καῦσον, πῦρ ἀνάπτω."
Fire erupted from the triangle's apex.
Not a spark. Not a flicker. A solid bolt of flame, as thick as a man's arm, shot straight at the stranger like a spear made of fire. The crowd gasped.
The stranger was ready.
His own circle was already drawn in the sand — Theron had missed it — and his hands were already moving. A wall of water materialized in front of him, curved like a shield, shimmering and solid.
The fire hit the water.
For a moment, it held. Steam exploded outward. The stranger gritted his teeth, arms shaking. Three seconds passed. The crowd held its breath.
Then the shield cracked.
It didn't break everywhere at once. It broke at one specific point — near the upper edge — and the fire poured through like water through a hole. It hit the stranger in the chest and threw him flat on his back.
He didn't get up.
The crowd roared. Kyros lowered his hands and smiled. The herald declared him the winner. Servants rushed forward to help the fallen man. Nobles raised their cups.
It was over.
Theron didn't cheer.
He was staring at the sand.
Most people in the crowd saw what they expected to see: a noble-born mage defeating a common challenger. Proof that magic was a gift from the gods, passed down through bloodlines. The strong inherit power. The weak do not. That was how the world worked. Everyone knew it.
Theron didn't know it. He suspected it. But he had never been able to prove it wrong. Not yet.
But right now, standing at the edge of the crowd while everyone celebrated, he was looking at something that didn't fit.
The circle. The triangle. The angle of Kyros' hands.
And the exact spot where the water shield had broken.
He waited until the crowd started to thin, then pushed forward until he reached the edge of the cleared space. The sand was still marked. The herald hadn't raked it yet.
Theron knelt down and pulled a piece of charcoal from his belt. He always carried one. Old habit.
He started measuring.
He used his fingers as a ruler. One finger-width at a time. He measured the circle's diameter. Then the triangle inside it. Then the distance from the center to each point where the triangle touched the edge.
The numbers weren't round. They weren't simple. But they were the same every time.
The diameter of the circle compared to the height of the triangle was always the same ratio. Approximately 1.618 to 1.
Theron had seen this number before. In geometry books he'd borrowed. In lectures he'd listened to from the back of crowded halls. The Greeks had a name for it. The golden ratio.
He measured again. It held.
He looked at where the fire had broken through the shield. Then he looked at the triangle's apex — the top point. It was aimed at exactly that spot. The geometry hadn't just created fire. It had aimed it. Like an archer drawing a bow.
"Move along." A guard had appeared behind him. "Show's over."
Theron stood up. "I was just looking."
"Look somewhere else."
He left.
That night, Theron sat at his small table in his small room and drew the circle nineteen times.
Each time, he measured the ratio. Each time, it was 1.618 to 1.
Each time, he drew the triangle inside it. Each time, the apex pointed in the direction the fire had traveled.
It wasn't random. It wasn't luck. It wasn't a gift from the gods.
It was a pattern.
And patterns could be understood.
He wrote in his notebook, the one he kept under his mattress where no one would find it:
The circle ratio is always 1.618. The triangle aims the fire. The hand positions were exact — not casual, not random. Measured.
Question: Why that specific ratio? What happens if it's different?
Question: Does everyone use the same ratio for fire? Or only Aristophon's family?
Question: Is this actually magic? Or is it something else?
He stared at the page for a long time.
Tomorrow, he would watch the nobles train. He would watch their circles. Their hand positions. Their techniques. He would write everything down.
And if the ratio was always the same — if it held true across different mages, different days, different spells — then the nobles' greatest secret wasn't a secret at all.
It was knowledge. Specific, measurable, teachable knowledge.
And if it could be taught, then anyone could learn it.
Anyone.
Theron closed the notebook and hid it back under his mattress. He blew out his lamp and lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling.
He had no way to test any of this. No access to magical texts. No way to practice without being caught. No resources, no status, no power.
But somewhere in this city, nobles trained every single day. Drawing their circles. Casting their spells. Repeating the same patterns over and over.
And Theron had found a job that let him watch.
He had questions now. Real ones. The kind that demanded answers.
And for Theron, that had always been enough to start.
End of Chapter One