1
MEGAN
Lowtown rain batters my shoulders in freezing sheets, driving the soot of the upper-tier foundries and the sulfurous reek of Undercity exhaust straight into my lungs. I drag the collar of my threadbare cloak higher, ignoring the wet weight of hair plastered against my nape. Water scours the foundry grime from my skin, but I do not seek shelter.
I am tracking a bad sum.
Two men. Bull-necked and scarred. They wear the oiled leather coats of a lesser merchant house, the stamped insignias half-faded by weather and violence. Their boot heels grind into the cobblestones with an arrogant, unhurried rhythm that belongs strictly to licensed flesh-traffickers.
I stalk them past a collapsed Zagfer masonry shop. Freezing mud seeps through the cracked soles of my boots, numbing my bare toes. Survival here means reading the ledgers of the street—calculating odds before a blade ever clears a scabbard. Two armed men shifting their weight into the dead-end drainage alleys equals a hunt.
And I know who is sheltering in those alleys tonight.
A terrified shriek splinters the drumming rain.
The sulfurous rain shreds my throat with every frantic footfall. My slight, expendable frame allows me to slip through tight fissures between the crumbling stone buildings where larger predators jam. I hit the alley’s blind corner too fast, my bare palms slapping against the moss-slick brick, scraping the skin as I brake.
The traffickers have Pellin cornered against a rusted iron drainage grate. The boy is nine years old, all sharp elbows and dark curls, clutching a half-rotted turnip to his chest like a royal tithe.
The larger man reaches inside his coat. Heavy slave-irons clatter in his grip.
The equation fails in my mind. I have no weapons. No armor. The Undercity teaches a simple arithmetic: humans are livestock. Livestock do not fight the wolves.
I refuse to let them take him away.
My fingers scrape through the freezing debris of the alley, closing around the neck of a discarded ale bottle. I whip the base against the stone abutment. Stout green glass shatters, leaving an uneven, wicked crescent.
I thrust my body between the towering men and the boy.
"Pellin." I pitch my voice to cut through the roar of the storm. "The grate. Now".
The scarred trafficker halts. A wet, ugly laugh vibrates in his chest, amused by the absurdity—a freezing mortal wielding garbage against armored hounds.
"Look at this." He shifts his heavy boots in the mud. "Two for the tally tonight. The master pays double for a spirited one".
"Run, Pellin!"
I dive straight into the brute's guard as his hand reaches for my hair. Dropping my weight, I slash upward with every ounce of strength in my shoulders. The glass bites deep into hisforearm. It tears through the thick, oiled leather, meeting the wet, heavy resistance of muscle.
Hot, copper-scented blood spatters across my face.
He roars, stumbling backward to clutch the ruin of his arm. But I underestimated the second man's speed.
Thick, calloused fingers lock around my throat.
I am torn off my feet. Solid brick meets my back with a sickening crack. The impact rattles my skull, driving the last ounce of breath from my lungs. The broken bottle slips from my numb grip, shattering into useless dust on the cobblestones.
"Stupid little beast." His breath washes over my face, reeking of stale ale and chewing root.
The grip tightens. My windpipe crushes. The world narrows.
The edges of my vision fracture into black. The storm feels distant. But the Lowtowns taught me that yielding to the slaughterhouse only hastens the blade.
I thrash violently against the brick, kicking out to break his stance. The freezing mud of the alley sucks greedily at my legs, tearing my ruined boots from my feet. My fingers claw at his iron grip, yielding nothing. Abandoning my hands, I thrust my chin forward and sink my teeth into the exposed veins of his inner wrist. I bite down with feral desperation, grinding my jaw until the hot, metallic taste of his blood floods my tongue.
The hound snarls. The crushing pressure on my windpipe stutters. I drive my bare knee upward, aiming for his groin, but the angle is wrong. My bone jars against the brutal muscle of his thigh.
He slams me against the brick. A serrated hunting knife clears the leather sheath at his belt, the jagged steel catching the sputtering glow of a nearby alchemy lamp. The blade arcs toward my ribs.
