My tiny legs carried me as fast as they could through the darkening alleys. I didn't want to be out here after sundown. The dark meant danger. I'd always known that. Anyone who'd grown up here knew it, and even outsiders would feel it in their bones. The magic beneath my skin writhed, ready to burst free at my command, responding to the fear crawling up my spine. My mom had given me fifty copper coins, a fortune to some. I was supposed to buy ten loaves of bread. I'd done it, stacked them in a sack nearly as big as I was, and now I was on my way back. Normally, the baker delivered straight to the tavern where my mom worked, but we'd run out early, three days too soon. That meant she'd sent me.
I picked up my pace. That itch between my shoulder blades, that creeping, crawling feeling that someone was watching. It had started two alleys ago. I knew better than to ignore it. Out here, that feeling meant run. I'd learned that by the time I could walk.
I cut through the last alley before the inn came into view, the darkest stretch of road between me and safety. That's where I knew it would happen. He was waiting. I didn't see him. I felt him, predator in the shadows. But I kept walking, pretending I didn't. If I was lucky, I'd outrun him. If not…
He lunged. A man, tall and hunched, with a knife and the stink of desperation. He came at me fast. I'd never been attacked with a weapon before. But I'd been fighting since the day I was born, fighting to live. I moved. He slashed again, the blade nicking my cheek. Blood trickled warm down my skin, and I hissed. I didn't cry out. Crying out could mean death. Crying out could bring more.
He came at me again, and this time I cast. I pulled from the markings etched down my legs, white-hot lines of magic stored there like weapons waiting to be used. I pushed air beneath my feet, speed magic. I zipped out of his reach, fast enough to make him stumble. The marks on my skin glowed, deep and solid black, the rare kind, the dangerous kind.
"Damn it, boy!" he shouted, twisting after me. "Hold still!"
He didn't care about the bread. He didn't care about hurting me. He wanted what was on me, what was in me. If he stabbed me, he'd steal the magic stored beneath my skin. All of it. Every bit of power I'd ever managed to save. Then he'd leave me bleeding in the street.
I summoned ice. Not because I wanted to, because I had to. I couldn't magnetize his blade yet, couldn't pull it to me. I hadn't figured out how to make metal weapons of my own. I'd been playing with shadows too, but I still couldn't wield them, only call them like smoke that refused to solidify. So this was it. My best bet. I shaped the ice into a jagged dagger, fingers shaking with adrenaline. I lunged and stabbed at him. He dodged, fast. I knew I was small. I knew I was slow. But I also knew this: I would survive.
He roared and rushed me. I tried to dodge, but his blade caught me in the ribs. My dirty shirt split. Blood bloomed across my side in a hot, spreading line. I clenched my teeth. Still no scream. Still no sound. Noise drew attention. And attention meant death.
I fell back on what I knew. Ice. The magic that came easiest, the magic everyone had, the kind no one looked twice at. I froze his feet solid. For one heartbeat, one stupid blink, he looked down to unfreeze them. That was all I needed. I shoved air beneath me, a burst of speed magic flaring from the black marks on my calves, and launched myself at his face.
I drove the ice dagger straight into his eye.
He screamed. He started to fall, but I wasn't done. I pushed the blade in deeper. He crumpled on top of me, heat, stink, dead weight. I gagged, shoved him off with everything I had, then rolled away, panting.
I kicked his body once. Then I spit on him.
Only after the rage passed did my common sense kick in. I crouched, wiped my hands on my shirt, and started rifling through his pockets.
Three silver pieces. My breath caught.
Three. Silver. Pieces. That was wealth. That could buy food for a week, maybe two.
Next, a worn gambling ticket. Not surprising. But then I found the letter.
Cindy, one of the women who worked at the inn with my mom, could read. Said she used to be a noble's daughter. No one knew if it was true. She never denied it. Honestly, I think she liked the mystery. She'd taught all of us slum kids how to read in secret. Something that could get her in trouble. Reading wasn't illegal, but it was frowned on. Poor kids weren't supposed to be literate. We were just cannon fodder waiting for conscription. I unfolded the letter and read it.
My name was there. My name. My description. A list of my usual paths. My mom's name. The man had been paid to kill me. Three silver coins now. Three more after. Six silver. That was the going rate for a child slave. That's what I was worth. I stared down at his body, hatred curling in my gut. I touched his skin and drew the magic out of him. All the marks he'd stored, all the spells carved beneath his flesh, I took them. I ripped them from him. His power became mine. I kicked him one more time for good measure. Then I left him there, in his own puddle of blood and shit.
I pushed open the door to the inn, clutching the sack of bread against my ribs. My shirt stuck to the wound. My cheek still bled. My mother looked up from wiping the counter. She saw the blood, the limp in my step. But her eyes went straight to the sack. "Dreniel. Did you get the bread?"
Somehow, it had made it through the fight untouched.
I nodded. She took it from my arms, set it on the counter. Only then did she acknowledge the rest of me. "What happened? Someone try to rob you?" she asked, already reaching out.
I didn't tell her the truth, that someone had been hired to kill me. That there might be others. That I was worth exactly six silver coins. I just nodded again. She pressed her hand to my side. Warmth surged into the cut. Her orange healing magic, not much, but enough to stop the bleeding. She didn't bother with the slice on my cheek. She probably didn't have enough left. She kissed my forehead. "Thank you for getting the bread," she said softly. "You're such a good boy. My brave, stoic boy. I'm glad you were able to defend yourself." She smiled faintly. "And I'm glad that bastard is dead. I hope you kill every one of them that try to harm you, my special boy."
She set a steaming bowl of venison stew in front of me. More than usual. A reward.
After dinner, I did what my mother told me to, I played with the other children. Only, playing meant sparring with magic. We practiced simple casts and dodges, sharpened what little control we had. The oldest kid still living full-time in the tavern attic was ten. After that, you were expected to earn your own keep. Some of the older ones came back now and then, renting space when they could afford it, but the attic was mostly ours. Bastards and orphans and the pink ladies' kids packed tight in splintered bunks and threadbare blankets.
There were ten women and twenty-six children. Birth control was expensive. The spell to prevent pregnancy? Even worse, a messy mix of red and yellow magic: creation and destruction fused into one. Red was already uncommon, tied to emotions, passion, pain. But yellow? Creation magic? That was the rarest of them all. Even in a yellow district like ours, we didn't have enough healers to keep babies alive, let alone stop them from being born. More babies had come through this attic than I could name. Most didn't stay long. Only one out of four lived past their first year. And only one out of ten of us would make it to ten. That's why they didn't give the women birth control. They needed more bodies for the mines. For war. For the fires they'd send us into without a second thought. We weren't children. We were resources. Cannon fodder. So we trained. Quietly, in the shadows of the rafters, between broken floorboards and whispered warnings.
Anytime someone came through the tavern who could use magic, I asked questions. Every question I could think of. I'd trade errands, cleaning, coin, even scraps of my own stored magic just to keep them talking.
A few months back, a man started visiting the women here. He was a drinker and a show-off, casting illusions with a flair for the dramatic. Purple magic. Mind tricks, shadows, fear and memory. I sold two of my stored spells to buy him drinks, real spells I'd carved into my own skin, just to get him to loosen his tongue. It worked.
He liked to talk about himself. Most men like that do. I memorized every word. How he pulled shadows from cracks in the walls. How he twisted them into blades, how he made someone forget their own name for an hour. I watched, listened, practiced. I can't do what he did, not yet. But I can summon the dark. I can make it dance for me. That's a start. After the younger kids fell asleep, I crawled into my bunk, pulled the stolen letter from my pocket, and read it again by the glow of the lantern outside. The flickering light turned the ink to shadows, but the words were burned into my mind. My name. My description. My death. Someone had paid to kill me. Not just a boy. Me. I didn't know who. Not yet. But I would.
I lay there staring at the ceiling, the sounds of sleeping children all around me, the hum of stored magic low and steady beneath my skin. My ribs still ached where the blade had cut me. My cheek had dried into a scab. My body would heal. But the truth in that letter, it changed something. I was only five years old. Someone had already decided I was dangerous enough to kill. I curled my fingers, felt the whisper of ice stir at my fingertips, and finally let sleep take me.