"Knowledge isn't light; it is fire.
Touch it with a child's hand and it eats you.
Hold it like a blacksmith and the world bends to your will."
— Fragment, The Ashen Codex
---
The tavern stank of wet boots and cheap ale. Smoke pressed low against the rafters, every table alive with chatter, dice, and slaps of coin. The kind of place where a man could vanish if he wanted—or be noticed for all the wrong reasons.
I had no intention of vanishing. Not until I found a new hustle.
The lady-in-waiting came again, tray balanced on her hip. Not a noble, not even close. A waitress. She had already brought me a receipt once, thinking I was ready to leave. I wasn't leaving. Not until I figured out what came after slavery.
Slaver's gold was sweet but shallow. A trend. Every fool with a rope and a knife had joined the game, and when everyone hunted, prey grew scarce. Prices fell. Markets soured.
I drummed my fingers on the table. What else?
Enforcer? A badge and a blade, culling other traders. But no—sooner or later they'd turn on me, not for what I did, but for what I was. My old title still cursed me.
Theater? I could sing, yes. I could tear the room apart with a verse stolen from another world, laugh as they blinked at sounds their ears couldn't house. But novelty wasn't bread.
A brothel? Flesh always sells—but here? Women were too cheap. Easy to buy, easier to bed. To profit I'd need silk, polish, artistry. The kind found in eastern quarters where beauty was cultivated like jade. I had none of that.
A priest, then. A pastor. Humanity starved for gods, for something to kneel to. Yes, I thought, almost laughing. My father had spat on the divine, called prayers a fool's luxury. And here I was, calculating what robes might fetch in a starving world.
I stood. Enough thought. Time to move.
At the counter, I reached for my coin—and saw her.
Her shoes were yellow, soft leather darkened by tavern grime. Her dress, a pink thing with a ribbon tied too loosely at the waist, stood in contrast to the drab uniforms of her sisters. Her hair was free—wavy, black, untamed, a ripple of midnight cascading to her shoulders. And her eyes… blue. Not the blue of sky, but the blue of deep water. The kind you could drown in before you realized you'd stepped off the shore.
She smiled as she took my payment.
She didn't move like the others. Didn't lower her head. She watched me. Watched too closely, as though weighing me in silence. Did they think I would run without paying?
I slid an extra coin across the counter. "A tip."
Her lips curled, and so did mine.
I leaned closer. "Would you show me the nearest church?"
The noise of the tavern pressed against us. A sister—broad-shouldered, flour on her apron—looked up from the back and frowned. "Where go you now, Lysandra? Father'll have words if ye linger past the bell."
"I shan't tarry," the girl in pink answered quickly, slipping her apron free. "I but guide a scholar hence."
A scholar. The word made me almost laugh aloud.
Her expression puzzled, almost alien. Then she asked, "Are you a scholar?"
I blinked. What kind of question was that? I asked for a church, not a discourse. But I said, "Yes."
She smiled, as if that answer unlocked something only she knew, and tugged me toward the door.
---
The streets breathed.
Rain had scrubbed them clean, leaving the cobbles shining under lantern-light. Market stalls were half-shuttered but still alive with cries—fishwives haggling, a man swearing over stolen pears, dogs snapping at each other in the alleys. The air smelled of iron and spice, and the voices of the crowd tangled like weeds, rough and real.
She pulled me through it all, pink ribbon trailing, yellow shoes splashing mud.
I let her drag me, watching the way heads turned as we passed. She looked too bright against the soot and smoke. People whispered, eyes narrowing—why was she with me? Who was I? My lips tightened into a smile. Let them wonder.
We slipped through a crooked alley, where laundry dripped from lines above and a beggar muttered prayers to a coin that wasn't there. Beyond, a market square opened, quieter now, its fires banked low. She moved quickly, weaving through it, then up the slope of a hill where grass bent under the damp wind.
At the top, a tree leaned crooked, and under it lounged her friends. Not maids, not sisters. Children. Teens with hollow cheeks, eyes sharp with curiosity. They stirred as we approached.
She whispered to them. Coins appeared—small, worn, clutched in desperate fingers. They pressed them together and held them out to me.
I stared. Not much, but more than I expected. Why?
Then the questions began. One after another, tumbling, a chorus of voices:
What do we do if fire eats our roof?
What spell beats the sickness in the well?
How do you cheat a mage in cards?
If a man steals bread for his dying mother, is he guilty or saved?
They pressed in, hungry, not for bread but for answers.
And I understood.
This was a godless world.
---
"It is no fable — in this godless world, blasphemy spreads as wide as heaven once was, and defilement walks unchained. The ancient holds no mystery, for wonder has been squandered, and magic worn thin with repetition. Why bow to a god, when every unholy marvel is but another trick of sorcery? Men toil only to mend their burdens, while those enthroned are but the few who have severed themselves from the very notion of burden."
---
The girl looked at me as though I were a prophet.
A scholar, she thought. A teacher.
I remembered scraps of school, torn from me when my family was cast out. By their standards, I was no master. But here? Compared to them? I was Prometheus with flame in hand.
If I taught them the logic of my world, a logic cut clean, unwarped by magic, and let them bend it into this one—they would rise. Enter universities. Climb into thrones. And through them, so would I.
My cult awaited.
The night deepened. The girl's eyes fixed on mine. "If thou art truly a scholar…" She hesitated, breath catching. "…then tell me—what is thy name?"
The world stilled and the shadows hazed blue.
In my pocket, the silver clock ticked. Once. Twice. Then struck twelve.
I opened my mouth—
And the scene collapsed into rain.
---
A boy stood alone in the storm.
Blue hair plastered to his skull, water running down his face like blood disguised as tears.
His eyes lifted, sharp as lightning.