The cliffs outside Vallur were sharp and jagged, jutting into the sea like the teeth of a beast. Few people came here—too far from the markets, too dangerous with their crumbling edges. But Arjun returned often, for beneath the windswept grass lay the mound of earth he had raised with his own hands.
It was his mother's grave.
The city had no priests for the poor, no prayers for the forgotten. Only the endless sea bore witness. Yet Arjun came in silence, night after night, staring at the dirt mound until his eyes burned. He brought no flowers; he had none to give. What he offered instead was hunger, rage, and the vow that still burned in his chest.
On this night, the sky was heavy with clouds, and the moon hid behind them. Arjun knelt in the grass, his face lit faintly by the glow of Vallur's distant lanterns. In his fist, he held the silver coin Ratan had given him. He had not spent it yet, though hunger gnawed at him. To Arjun, the coin was not food. It was proof. Proof that he could seize more than scraps, that power was within reach.
He set the coin atop the mound, his small hand trembling. "I'll make you proud, Ma," he whispered. "I'll carve my name into this world. Riches, power, respect… I'll take it all."
The waves crashed far below, as if answering.
Arjun sat back, staring into the dark sea. He was ten years old, alone in a city that did not care whether he lived or died. But inside him, something larger stirred—an ambition that refused to be drowned by poverty or loss.
That night, he made his promise.
Not to survive.
But to conquer.
Years passed like storms rolling over Vallur.
Arjun grew taller, stronger, his body hardened by hunger and work. He ran messages for smugglers, lifted crates at the docks, scrubbed ships for a handful of coins. Every job taught him something—the routes of patrol guards, the hierarchy of gang bosses, the weaknesses of men drunk on power.
By fourteen, his fists were calloused and his arms corded with muscle. By sixteen, he had already fought more street battles than most men twice his age. His reputation grew in whispers: a boy who never backed down, who fought with the ferocity of a wolf.
He still visited the grave. Always at night, when no one could see him. He no longer wept—those days were gone—but he spoke to the mound of earth like a confidant. He told it of the men he had beaten, the gangs he had outwitted, the coins he had stolen. And each time, he renewed his vow:
"This is only the beginning, Ma."
By eighteen, Arjun had become a man in body and in mind. His shoulders were broad, his jaw set, his eyes sharper than ever. He had learned to speak little and watch much. People mistook his calm for humility, but beneath it lay ambition as vast as the sea.
He worked now under small-time gangs, running errands, carrying blades, guarding shipments. Men twice his age gave him orders, but Arjun obeyed without complaint. Inside, he was studying—how power moved, how alliances formed, how betrayals broke them apart.
The gangs of Vallur were many, but none truly ruled. Each fought for scraps, squabbling like dogs over bones. Arjun watched and thought: Fools. They fight for crumbs when there is a feast waiting beyond the city.
The thought had come from whispers—rumors carried by drunk guards in taverns, by merchants careless with their tongues. Stories of mountains to the north, where gold flowed like rivers. A place hidden from maps, guarded by a single family whose cruelty was legend.
Dhanvara Mines.
At first, Arjun dismissed the tales as drunken fantasies. But the more he listened, the more details aligned. Too many smugglers had vanished on northern routes. Too many coins bore strange markings, unlike Vallur's mint. And always, the name Patil appeared—the family said to own the mines and the slaves who bled within them.
The rumors gnawed at Arjun's mind. He thought of his mother's words: The world only bows to power. What greater power could there be than a mountain of gold?
One evening, after a successful smuggling run, Arjun sat with his companions in a dockside tavern. The air stank of sweat and rum, sailors brawled in the corners, and the wooden floor was slick with spilled drink. At their table, a guard from the northern hills drank heavily, his tongue loosened by ale.
"A mountain, I tell you!" the man boasted, slamming his mug on the table. "Gold enough to drown a kingdom. Hidden in Dhanvara. But you'll never see it, not unless you're chained to the rock like the poor devils who dig it."
Arjun leaned forward, feigning drunken laughter. "And who owns this mountain, friend? Who hides it from the world?"
The guard spat. "The Patils. Bastards. Keep thousands of workers locked away. No one gets in or out without their say. And the king? Hah! He turns a blind eye, so long as their gold fills his coffers."
The table erupted in jeers and disbelief, but Arjun stayed quiet, his mind whirring. A hidden empire of gold. A family fat with power. Slaves with no hope of freedom.
That night, he lay awake in his cot, staring at the tavern's rotting ceiling. His companions snored around him, their bellies full of ale, their ambitions small. But Arjun's thoughts burned brighter than ever.
Vallur was a prison of scraps. But beyond its walls lay something greater—an empire waiting to be taken.
Weeks later, Arjun made his decision.
He visited his mother's grave one final time before leaving the city. The mound of earth was weathered now, the grass taller, but it still stood firm against the sea wind. He knelt, pressing his palm to the soil.
"Ma," he said softly. "You told me to take what I need. To make the world bow. I will. I swear it."
His hand tightened into a fist. "There's gold in the mountains. Enough to buy kings, enough to crush empires. I'll claim it, and when I do, no one will ever look down on me again."
The waves roared below, carrying his vow into the dark.
Arjun stood, adjusting the pack on his shoulder. He wore the rough clothes of a laborer, his hair grown shaggy, his face hardened by years of the streets. To any who saw him, he was nothing more than a poor worker heading north in search of coin.
But within him burned the ambition of a wolf.
As he turned his back on Vallur, the city's lanterns glimmered faintly against the horizon. He did not look back. His path lay ahead, into the mountains, toward the whispers of Dhanvara.
And though he walked alone, he carried with him the weight of a promise—to his mother, to himself, to the world.
He would rise.