Alpheo turned at the sound of shuffling footsteps, only to see a boy, no older than ten, standing barefoot on the stony road. He was shivering, his thin arms wrapped tightly around a small pouch.
He didn't pull it back, nor did he run. Around them, the street had fallen still.
Some had already fled, unwilling to witness what had just unfolded. Others remained frozen, locked in the grip of silent horror. Fathers pulled their children away by the hand, casting hurried glances over their shoulders.
None wanted to witness two murders the same day.
The boy's eyes met Alpheo's, and whatever youthful light had once danced in them earlier that day was gone. In its place was something colder. Steeled. The boy unfortunately, took him at a bad moment.
A dark pool of blood crept between the cobblestones, slowly inching outward from the half-severed throat of the old man.
It reached Alpheo's boots, staining the edges. He didn't move. Didn't flinch. Death, in that moment, wasn't poetic or profound. It was simple. Final. Just the sudden extinguishing of a life. No gods. No songs. Just a soundless snap.
And still the boy stood there.
He had won the wager, but it felt like he had lost something greater, maybe his life?The answer was to be revealed soon, so he waited.
A chill crawled up his spine. The hunger that had driven him was still there, gnawing at his ribs, but it no longer felt like a reason, only an excuse. He didn't understand why he had done it.
Why he had risked everything? Now, he couldn't speak. Couldn't move. His hands trembled, and his gaze was fixed on the man who had killed so easily.
"You… y-you promised," the boy finally stammered. His voice cracked beneath the weight of the silence. "You said you'd keep your word."
Alpheo didn't answer at first. He glanced over his shoulder. His companions stood a few paces behind, staring, confused, as if still trying to piece together what had happened. They hadn't seen what he had seen. They didn't understand what made him strike. But even they hadn't dared to intervene.
And yet this child not even into his tenth year, had dared to steal from him.
Alpheo looked down again.
Slowly, deliberately, he reached out. His hand, cold and rough, settled on the boy's trembling fingers. The contact made the child flinch, but he didn't pull away.
Without speaking, Alpheo looked once more at the corpse lying motionless on the stones. The fury that had driven him moments ago was gone. Only a strange, distant calm remained.
"I suppose I did promise," he said quietly.
Then he unhooked the pouch from his own belt and placed it into the boy's small hand, no ceremony, no warning, no fanfare. Just a final gesture between the living.
He let go.
The pouch felt heavier than stone in the boy's palm, its weight far greater than the few coins it carried.
Alpheo, rather than angered, found himself surprised. Amused, even, but above all interested.
"You got a name?" he asked, voice low but not unkind.
The child hesitated, eyes darting between the pouch and the man who'd given it. "The others call me Rat's Teeth," he murmured.
Alpheo tilted his head. "And why's that?"
In response, the boy parted his lips to reveal two front teeth, chipped in half, as if cracked on stone or snapped from a fall. Alpheo studied them for a moment, then let out a quiet breath.
He kinda does look like a rat....
"Very well. I'll call you Ratto. '' Alpheo laughed at his private joke ''That sound good to you?"
The boy nodded, though it was clear he didn't quite understand.
Alpheo turned his gaze skyward for a long moment. Clouds crawled across the pale sun. Then he looked back down at the boy.
"Tell me, Ratto," he said, voice slipping into something softer, more thoughtful. "Do you think all men are equals?"
The question hung in the air, strange and heavy. Ratto said nothing, unsure whether it was a riddle, a lesson, or a trap.
"A king and a beggar," Alpheo went on. "They both starve without food. Both bleed when cut. Both rot when buried. They might pretend otherwise, but flesh doesn't lie. Not to time. Not to death."
Still, the boy said nothing, only watched him with wide, uncertain eyes.
"You can't measure greatness," Alpheo continued, his tone darkening, edged with something almost poetic. "You can only feel it. Sense it. Like a fire under a man's skin. A king wasn't always a king. Someone, long ago, was so mighty or so monstrous that the world bent around them. That's how thrones are made. Not from law. From legend."
He knelt slightly, lowering himself to the boy's eye level. His hand rested firm on the boy's narrow shoulder, voice now a conspiratorial whisper.
"Today, you were nothing more than a tool to me. I wanted to see what my companions would do if a child tried to steal from me. When I killed the old man, they froze. All of them,veterans, warriors, all dressed in armor and yet disarmed. But you…"
He leaned in just slightly, eyes gleaming.
"You moved."
The boy's breath hitched.
"You reached for what you wanted," Alpheo said. "Without permission. Without fear. You—a boy—did what soldiers would not. That is beautiful, I believe."
His grip tightened , as if excited to have someone to talk to.
"Those who defy fate, who rise above their place in the worls. They are the cursed. The saints. The monsters. The heroes. And you, Ratto… you, showed more courage in a single moment than half the men I've led in battle."
He stood, eyes still on the boy.
"Do you want them?" he asked, voice low, edged with something deeper than mere challenge. "Take them. They're yours. You earned them, more than most men earn anything in this life. If food is all you seek, if a full belly is your prize, then claim it. You've already proven your worth."
He paused, eyes searching the boy's face, not for fear, but for hunger of another kind.
"But is that enough for you?"
The boy said nothing, only stared, caught between the promise of gold and the fire in Alpheo's voice.
Alpheo shook his head slowly, eyes piercing yet strangely tender. "No. I see it in you. You're not like the rest. You crave more, don't you? Just like me. Not coin. Not comfort. More."
He leaned in, voice dropping to something like reverence. "This world will offer you nothing, Ratto. No hand will reach to lift you. No fate will favor you. What you want, you must take. Like a god, wrench it from the jaws of those too timid to seize it."
He cupped the boy's dirt-smudged face in his calloused hands, thumbs gently brushing the grime as though unveiling something sacred.
"They will never understand," he said. "The weak, the content. They will never know what it means to hunger not for food, but for everything. They will never taste the sweetness of defiance. But we will. Some may be the spark that will set the world ablaze. The pyre may be your doing."
With a sudden motion, Alpheo drew his bloodied sword, the steel catching the light, gleaming with fire and memory. He held it aloft, as though it bore a crown.
"In my right hand, I carry war," he declared. "In my left, peace. Two blades of the same sword. One cannot live without the other. And just as greatness walks beside greatness, so too shall the meek lie among themselves, forgotten."
He lowered the sword between them and extended his hand to the boy.
"Now choose," Alpheo said, voice like a vow. "A choice that no man, no god, no curse can take from you. It is yours only.
Perhaps the only one truly to be yours, for the rest of your life."
The boy stared at the sword, then at the hand, then at the man who offered them both. His small fingers reached forward, trembling with effort and resolve. He gripped the hilt and tried to lift it,only for the blade to swing awkwardly in his grasp, too heavy for his arms, the steel dancing as if mocking him.
Alpheo watched with pride.
"I see," he said softly, a smile ghosting across his lips. "You've made your choice."
He stepped forward and bent low, pressing a kiss to the boy's tangled, mud-streaked hair. In that moment, he did not see a beggar child, or a thief, or a tool.
He saw himself and all the injustice that came from it.