"Shhh… Granny will hear us. Act like the walls have ears."
Tylussian tiptoed ahead, across the cold wooden floor, easing his weight down carefully so the planks wouldn't groan beneath him.
Rocco hated this part. Not the sneaking, but the waiting. The way his heart sped up until his chest felt too small to hold it. The way his breath came shallow no matter how hard he tried to slow it.
Bartok brought up the rear, silent as always, with a steadiness Rocco envied.
The orphanage was old and poorly kept, its halls long and narrow, its walls bare except for cracks and stains that no amount of scrubbing ever seemed to remove. At night, every sound carried. Even the rain on the roof felt loud, tapping in uneven rhythms as it masked the sound of footsteps.
"Stop," Tylussian whispered. "I hear something."
A tapping sound echoed down the corridor before quickening into heavy thuds.
The three pressed against a wall and peeked around the corner as the sound grew louder. A figure rushed past the far end of the hall as it inhaled in sharp, panicked bursts.
Rocco's stomach dropped.
"I've never seen Granny run before," he whispered. "Maybe… we should go back."
Granny never runs. She walks, slow and stubborn, even when her knees hurt. She walks through storms, through sickness, through shouting children and leaking ceilings. Seeing her rush down the hall sent a cold knot twisting through Rocco's chest.
"Grow a spine," Tylussian murmured, though his voice wasn't as steady as he pretended. "We're weak—and they knew it. You heard how those cultivators treated Granny. They killed Sis—" Tylussian exhaled sharply.
Rocco nodded quickly despite his shaking hands.
They moved forward, climbing the narrow stairs toward the upper floor where the storage rooms were kept. The walls were lined with boxes of old ledgers, donated books, and bundles of linen too worn to be useful but too scarce to throw away. The air grew cooler on the third floor, damp and heavy with the smell of old wood and mildew.
The floor creaked beneath them.
Rocco winced and held his breath, waiting for a shout that didn't come.
"Bartok," Tylussian whispered, "light your torch."
Bartok hesitated, shielding the spark with his palm before striking flint to steel. The flame bloomed small and unsteady, barely strong enough to push back the darkness. It painted the storage room in a weak orange light, revealing rough shelves, warped crates, and stacks of thin, uneven books tied together with twine.
The trio crept slowly, searching through the shelves. Rain pattered against the roof above them, dripping somewhere far down the hall where a bucket had been placed weeks ago. The orphanage creaked and sighed around them, tired in a way Rocco understood all too well.
"This is taking too long," Tylussian whispered after a while. "We need to split up. Bartok… can you light our torches?"
Rocco's throat tightened.
He didn't like being alone up here. The shadows between the shelves felt thicker, heavier, as if they pressed in closer the farther he went. Still, he nodded and held his torch out. The wick caught easily, the flame wavering as if uncertain it wanted to live.
Rocco turned away quickly, moving down a narrow aisle between stacked crates. He told himself to focus. To look. To be useful.
He scanned titles he barely understood as his fingers brushed against rough paper and cracked spines. His thoughts kept slipping, drifting back to Granny running, to the way her breath had sounded, to the way her steps fell on the creaking wooden floor.
Then he saw it.
A thin book wrapped in oilcloth, tucked behind a warped shelf.
Granny's voice echoed in his memory.
Not that one, Rocco. Some knowledge costs more than it gives.
His pulse quickened as he slid the book free, peeling back the cloth just enough to glimpse the strange, precise symbols inked across the cover. Cultivation.'\
He carefully placed the book inside his shirt and then started tiptoeing back to meet Tylussian and Bartok.
That was when he smelled smoke.
At first he thought it was the torch. He lifted it closer, checking the wick, but the smell lingered. It didn't belong in a place that always smelled of damp wood and dust.
He turned and saw a thin ribbon of gray rising from the floorboards behind him—exactly where he'd been standing a moment before.
I was right there. My torch was right there.
"No—"
The word barely left his mouth before something crackled. A dull crack sounded from below, like a door slammed too hard, followed by a rush of hot air that swept through the storage room.
Fire blossomed along the floorboards near the wall, racing across old wood that had been drying for decades.
Rocco screamed as he stumbled backward and fell. The torch slipped from his hand. Flames climbed shelves, caught paper and cloth and dust all at once.
Tylussian and Bartok came running, their torches bobbing wildly. Rocco sat frozen, staring at the flames as they spread faster than his mind could keep up.
"I—I'm sorry," Rocco gasped. "I didn't mean—"
Tylussian didn't ask questions. He snuffed his torch and grabbed Rocco's arm hard enough to hurt. "Run."
The hallway was already filling with smoke as heat pressed down from above. The wood beneath their feet grew warmer with every step, the boards creaked and snapped as the fire chased them through the narrow hallways of the third floor.
Then came the piercing screams.
They rose from below, desperate, echoing through the stairwell. Rocco's legs nearly gave out. He knew those voices. He knew who slept down there.
The stairs were engulfed in flames by the time the trio reached them.
Tylussian skidded to a stop, his fingers still gripping Rocco's arm. Fire blocked their path, cutting them off completely from the lower floors.
"This way," Tylussian commanded, already turning toward the old prayer hall at the far end of the floor.
They burst through the doors.
The air inside was darker, thicker, heavy with dust and the faint, lingering scent of old incense. Rocco stumbled, his foot catching on something unseen, and he went down hard. The breath punched out of him and his vision flashed white.
His shadow danced and flickered across the walls of a large wooden hall, the sound of splintering wood filling his ears. His eyes were locked on the flames now encapsulating a quarter of the room.
The screams from below rose again, they grew sharper, stabbing Rocco like a thousand knives. His shoulders curled inward as his nails dug into his forearm.
The thought crushed down on him, heavy and suffocating. This was his fault, if he ran, it meant admitting it. If he ran, it meant surviving while Granny and almost everyone he knew burned.
He tried to move but his legs refused.
"Rocco!" A shout cut through the noise.
Rocco took a half-step forward, hesitantly, unsure if he wanted to escape the fire.
The ceiling groaned as a deep crack thundered overhead.
The beam came down with a sound like the building tearing itself apart. Then the weight hit. Rocco slammed to the floor with a wooden beam pinning his body. It crushed his torso, forcing his chest to heave and compress. His vision grew blurry and then blue.
He heard a faint, muffled sound, "Rocc—" and then he felt the cold grip of fingers tugging on his right leg. Rocco was terrified, he didn't want to cause more pain. With force, Rocco rasped but he could only produce a hoarse whisper, "Run, I'm not worth it."
He only heard three words. "I know you."
The weight lifted off of his chest, forcing him to scramble to his knees, his head was still light and dizzy. He looked up to face a vague figure, "grab my shoulder." He recognized Tylussian's voice and simply obeyed. His consciousness disappeared momentarily as he felt his stomach lurch upward into his chest. A piercing pain traveled through his left shin, forcing the world to go numb and then black.
Later—much later—there was mud. Rain. Smoke fading into the sky. Tylussian's breathing. Bartok's hands, shaking as they dragged him away from the orphanage toward a thin fence.
Rocco's left leg was broken, but that wasn't the worst of it. His arms and legs felt strangely numb, as if they no longer belonged to him, while his torso and face burned with a deep, relentless pain that throbbed and flared with every breath.
The orphanage collapsed behind him with a sound like a long, broken sigh.
He couldn't stop staring at the building. Couldn't stop thinking of Granny running, of the smoke, of the screams, of the brothers and sisters he knew his entire life.
He wanted to apologize. To explain. But, how could he explain to those who were already dead?
"Quiet," Tylussian whispered. "I hear something."
Mud squelched behind the thin wooden fence as two figures approached, their footsteps uneven.
"Abetha, that hag. This is what she deserves."
Rocco's gut twisted.
"She was far too fond of her useless orphans," the first voice continued. "They could have served as a cultivation furnace. Instead, she chose to burn with them—"
"Waste of space," the second voice interrupted. "We should have burned this place down long ago."
The three thirteen-year-olds lay on the ground silently as they slowly passed out into the quiet stupor of night.
***
The first rays of sunlight crept over the mud, slowly bringing light to the tragedy that had transpired the night before.
Rocco woke up first, agony flooding from his torso and face as his frayed skin met the burning sunlight.
Rocco looked to his right to find Tylussian, his skin peeling and glinting as it reflected the sun. Tylussian pushed himself upright, wincing as he looked at Rocco's leg.
"You scared me," he said quietly.
Rocco didn't answer. Instead, he carefully reached into his torn clothes and pulled something free.
A book.
Bartok stared.
Tylussian's face twisted. "What's the point of getting strong now?" His voice cracked on the words. "We couldn't save Granny. Everyone's dead."
Silence held for a beat.
Rocco looked at him, his gaze unwavering, and for the first time since the fire, his words didn't shake. "There are some people who don't belong under this sun."
He lowered his eyes to the book.
He'd expected it to be burned or warped by the heat. Instead, it was perfect. Untouched, as if the fire had never dared touch it.
However, something had changed.
The title was no longer the same.
Cultivation
for the children of blood.