I suppose I should start at the beginning—before I unlocked my class, before I understood the depth of cruelty masked by silk smiles. Back when life was simple, when I believed the world played by rules that favored the virtuous.
I had a happy childhood, all things considered. Heir to the Mordane family, one of Amara's most influential houses. Two doting parents eager to spoil me, a future etched in polished marble, and a name that opened doors before I'd learned to walk through them. I had it all—or so I thought.
But happiness is a brittle thing, easily shattered in a world where greed wields sharper teeth than morals.
It all came undone the year my grandfather and father died. An accident in the mines, they called it—straight-faced, solemn, and utterly unconvincing. Even as a child, I could see the lie gleaming beneath their feigned sympathy. And why bother hiding it? The vultures were already circling, talons poised, waiting for the ink to dry on the death notices.
Our "friends" and "allies"—the very people who toasted our successes at gilded banquets—descended like locusts. What should have been mine was bartered away in hushed rooms, signed off with a handshake and a dagger in the back.
I was nine. Soft from comfort, powerless against the predators that carved up my birthright with well-practiced smiles. My mother? She tried. She pleaded, bargained, and called in every favor from those who once claimed to owe her everything. They nodded, murmured assurances, then stood by as the walls of our world crumbled.
I learned quickly that "friend" is just another word for "opportunist." They'll clasp your hand, beam at you over wine, and count the seconds until your fall is convenient.
By the time they were finished with us, I had nothing left but my mother and a few trinkets—faded echoes of a life stolen too soon. We were cast out of the upper district, flung from opulence into the mire of the lower quarter. A cesspit of desperation where survival meant discarding every shred of dignity.
The fall was like plunging into icy water, every breath a struggle against the weight of it. But my mother? She didn't flinch. She adapted with an ease that left me reeling. "When in Amara, act as an Amarai," she quipped, the old city motto twisted into something sharp, almost mocking.
Only then did I glimpse the woman beneath the veneer of respectability. Before she became the refined lady of the Mordane household, she'd been a dungeon explorer—a mercenary who carved through shadows for treasure and glory. Stripped of her titles, that side of her resurfaced: fierce, unyielding, gleaming like steel forged in the depths.
Within days, she found us a damp room in a tenement that groaned with mold every time it rained. One bed, a chipped table, threadbare linens. It was hardly luxury, but there was food on the table, and the door had a lock—two luxuries in the lower quarter.
For me, it was survival at its rawest. For her, it was a return to the battlefield. She wore her resilience like armor, and though she never said it outright, I knew she was training me to do the same.
That tiny, rain-soaked hole wasn't much, but it was ours. A small win, yes, but in our new reality, I learned to measure success by inches, not miles.
The lower quarter was a different breed of hell—where the stench clung to everything, thick as the cobblestones, and cruelty wasn't an exception; it was currency. And me? I was nothing but fresh meat, a soft, privileged mark with no survival instincts. My mother, of course, seemed oblivious of that fact. She'd throw me out into the streets to run errands; Pick up a parcel, get water from the well and other odd jobs.
The first time I met Warren and his friends, I had just completed one of these errands, I was on my way home when i saw a fruit stand filled with apples, with the remaining change i had left i bought an apple. An apple, for her. She liked apples. I thought it might make her smile, something simple to brighten the day.
Then, out of nowhere, a stone hit me square in the side of the head. Pain shot through my skull, sharp and sudden, and I staggered, barely understanding what was happening before my knees gave out. Gravel tore into my palms as I hit the ground, but I didn't let go of that apple. Not even when they surrounded me, laughing, kicking at my ribs.
I clutched it like it was my last possession, my last shred of pride. Stupid, really. In the end, my grip slipped, and they took it.
I dragged myself home, battered and bruised, to find Mother waiting. She always waited by the window, her silhouette framed in the pale, sickly glow of streetlights filtering through the grime-streaked glass. Smoke curled from her pipe in slow, deliberate spirals, filling the room with the scent of cloves. She didn't turn when I stumbled in, blood trickling down my face, the warmth of it soaking into my skin.
She only glanced up once, sharp as a blade, before setting her pipe down. No gasp. No cry of concern. No tender hands pulling me into her arms. Just that cold, measuring look—like she could see right through me, stripping away any pretense I had left.
Without a word, she crossed the room with practiced efficiency and grabbed the rag she kept soaking in the basin.
"Sit."
It wasn't unkind, but it wasn't soft, either.
I sank into the rickety chair by the table, clutching its edge like I could hold on to the last remnants of something that resembled dignity. She dabbed at the cut on my head, and the sting of it made my eyes water. Not from pain, though. No, what burned wasn't the injury—it was the fact that I'd lost that apple. That I'd lost it to them.