Rain again.
It always rained in that city—as though the heavens themselves had grown tired of watching children die in the gutters. The scent of mildew and decay rose from every stone. It clung to the air like a curse.
Elias stood barefoot in a narrow, half-flooded alley, his threadbare shirt clinging to his small frame. His silver hair was soaked and plastered to his forehead. Each breath he drew quivered against the cold, and the murky water lapping at his ankles chilled him to the bone.
Beside him crouched Levi—his closest friend, his only friend. The younger boy pressed his thin body against a crumbling wall, his breath shallow, his eyes focused through a hole in the stone.
"Do you see it?" Elias murmured.
Levi nodded. "Baker left his cart. Just for a moment."
Steam still curled from beneath the linen cloth covering the goods. The scent of warm bread drifted through the air like some cruel god's joke. Elias's stomach twisted painfully. It had been two days since their last real meal—half a potato they'd fought rats to steal.
"It's a risk," Elias muttered.
Levi didn't respond right away. He glanced up at the rooftops, the windows. Shadows shifted. Voices carried from distant alleyways. Guards. Vendors. Watchful eyes.
But then his jaw set. "We'll starve before morning. Risk is all we've got."
Elias looked down at his hands. Thin. Trembling. But still fast.
"Now," Levi whispered.
They moved as one.
First Elias—fluid, low to the ground, silent as rain. His hand slipped beneath the cloth like a ghost, curling around a warm, dense loaf. Then another.
A heartbeat later, Levi followed, snatching a third.
For a single moment, it felt like they'd done it.
But fate rarely favored the desperate.
A sharp bark tore the foggy air.
"Thieves!"
Everything blurred.
Elias turned—but too slowly.
An iron rod struck his ribs with bone-cracking force. Pain exploded through his side. He staggered and fell, the bread rolling from his fingers into the mud.
Levi screamed. Tried to run.
A heavy hand grabbed him mid-stride, lifting him into the air like a ragdoll.
A man loomed over them.
No—not a man.
A monster in human skin.
Thick arms, skin like leather, eyes black and dead like old coal. Gold teeth gleamed behind cracked lips.
"Well, well," the slaver sneered. "Look what the gutters coughed up."
He knelt and grabbed Elias by the collar, jerking him upright. Elias bit back a cry, his side screaming in agony.
The man studied him for a moment, and something flickered in his gaze—interest.
"Silver hair? Hah. Might fetch a decent price from one of those noble freaks. Maybe even the collectors in the Inner Ring."
Elias met his gaze, unmoving. Blood dripped from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes—those pale golden eyes—remained cold.
The slaver's smile widened.
Levi kicked and struggled, but the man holding him only laughed. "Feisty little thing. We'll break that spirit soon enough."
They were dragged through the streets—faces turned away, doors shut quickly, as if the sight of suffering might stain the eyes.
No one helped.
No one ever did.
The slave pens lay beneath the city, where the rain did not reach—but the stench did. Rot. Urine. Death.
Elias and Levi were thrown into a wooden cage, the door slammed shut behind them with a finality that made the soul shrink.
For a time, they didn't speak.
They huddled together in the corner, their backs to the wall, arms wrapped around their knees. Rats scurried in the dark. Somewhere nearby, a girl sobbed endlessly.
Days blurred into nights, and nights into suffering.
Food came once a day. A bowl of cold porridge and foul water.
If they were slow, they were beaten.
If they asked questions, they were whipped.
Elias bore it in silence. Levi cried at first, but even tears dried when the soul grew too tired to feel.
What hurt most wasn't the bruises or the hunger.
It was the helplessness.
The bitter taste of being nothing.
Not even human.
Just goods.
Just property.
Sometimes, in the quiet moments before sleep, Elias would whisper stories to Levi—of places beyond the city, where the sky was blue and clean, and boys like them could eat when they were hungry and sleep without chains.
Levi always listened, eyes closed, a faint smile on his lips.
They both knew it was a lie.
But lies could be warm.
Then came the day everything changed.
A storm passed through during the night, and the morning sky opened with unusual clarity. Light filtered through the slats of the cage roof, golden and gentle, as though trying to offer apology.
The slave market stirred with renewed life. Merchants barked prices. Nobles strolled past cages with sneers and laughter, inspecting bodies like fruit.
Elias sat in the back, wrists bruised, gaze hollow.
Levi was beside him, quiet but alert.
Then the murmurs began.
"A Church envoy?"
"No… not just an envoy. Look at their robes…"
Five figures appeared, dressed in radiant white and crimson. The symbol of the Holy Dawn—a burning sun—shone on their chests.
Their faces were unreadable. Cold. Almost ethereal. They walked as if they floated above the filth, untouched.
Among them walked a girl—no older than Elias, but cloaked in power.
Her veil shimmered with inscriptions. In her hands, she held a staff shaped like a sunburst, glowing faintly with divine light.
She passed cage after cage.
Until she stopped.
Before theirs.
"…Him," she said.
Her voice was soft. Melodic. But there was no warmth in it.
Only fate.
The others gathered quickly. Whispers exchanged.
"The resonance. It's stronger than we expected."
"He fits the marks. The timing. The blood."
Levi blinked. "What are they talking about?"
The girl knelt before the cage. Her eyes, half-shadowed behind the veil, locked onto his.
"You were born beneath a veiled moon," she said. "Your path is written in light."
Levi recoiled slightly. "I… I don't understand…"
"You don't need to."
She rose, motioned.
The merchant rushed over, fumbling with keys.
Elias stood.
His fists clenched.
But the girl didn't even look at him.
As they opened the cage and pulled Levi out, he turned in panic.
"Wait—! What about Elias?!"
The priestess finally looked at him.
Their gazes met.
Something flickered in her eyes. Recognition? Pity?
No. Not pity.
Indifference.
"He is not the one we seek."
Just like that.
One sentence.
And everything fell apart.
Levi screamed. Struggled. Called his name.
"Elias!"
But Elias didn't move.
He didn't scream.
He didn't beg.
He just watched—like a statue left in the rain—as the only person who ever mattered was dragged away.
That night, Elias lay shackled, staring up at the stars through the slits in the wood above.
The wind howled through the broken boards.
He didn't cry.
Didn't speak.
Didn't sleep.
He just stared.
And then, hours later, when the moon crept high and alone across the sky, he whispered:
"…So that's how it is."
He turned his face away.
And never looked at the stars again.