The boy learned early that the city did not care if he lived.
Morning crept in through the alleys like a thief , quiet, unwanted, and cold. Stone pressed against his back where he had slept beneath a collapsed awning, half-hidden from the street by crates that no longer belonged to anyone. The air smelled of damp rot, old refuse, and the faint bitterness of smoke from cookfires burning in districts he would never enter.
He opened his eyes slowly.
"Still here," he murmured.
His voice scraped against his throat. He cleared it once, winced, and decided that was enough talking for the day.
The Lower City was already awake.
It always was.
People here did not wake because they were rested. They woke because stillness was dangerous. If you did not move, someone else moved you out of the way, out of a space, out of life.
He rolled onto his side and pushed himself up with his single arm, the motion practiced and economical. He did not rush it. Rushing made people stare. Staring led to questions. Questions led to pity or cruelty, and both were expensive.
"That's lucky," he told himself, flexing his fingers. "Too lucky."
Luck, he had learned, was a word people used when they did not understand why something went wrong or didn't.
He brushed dust from his clothes with the back of his hand. The dust ignored him and settled back immediately.
The streets twisted like scars through the Lower City. Buildings leaned inward, as if sharing secrets. Laundry lines sagged under the weight of clothes that never fully dried. Faces passed him without pause , sharp-eyed, hollow-cheeked, wary. A few glanced at his empty sleeve and looked away too quickly, as though afraid the absence might be contagious.
Good.
Pity distracted. Fear respected distance.
He stopped at a public basin, bracing himself against the stone edge as he cupped water one-handed. It spilled more than he drank, but he had learned to accept inefficiency where the world demanded it. The water tasted faintly of metal and old stone.
"Better than yesterday," he said. "Yesterday tried to kill me."
He moved toward the market square, choosing side paths that kept him away from guards and away from the stairways that led upward. The Upper City rose above them all, clean and distant, separated not by walls but by money and permission. You did not cross into it accidentally.
You were born there.
Or you were not.
The market square was already loud by the time he arrived. Hawkers shouted prices. Buyers shouted insults. Somewhere, a fight broke out over a loaf of bread and ended quickly when someone bled.
He took his usual place near the edge of the square, beside a broken stone pillar that might once have held a statue or a proclamation. Now it only held shadows.
He sat carefully, positioning himself so his missing arm faced the pillar, not the crowd. Presentation mattered. Too much damage invited scavengers pretending to be benefactors.
A wooden bowl rested between his knees, steadied with his foot. Old. Cracked. Still usable.
"Let them pretend they're generous," he whispered. "I'll pretend I'm grateful."
Coins fell now and then. Mostly copper. Occasionally iron. Silver was a dream.
He did not beg aloud. Begging invited attention, and attention invited cruelty disguised as instruction.
Time passed.
He listened.
Arguments. Deals. Lies. The market had a rhythm. Once you learned it, you could predict when to look away and when to shift your weight so no one decided you were in the way.
A group of men passed nearby, laughing too loudly.
"They say the old world was ruled by immortals," one said. "Men who could split mountains with a word."
Another snorted. "And they say rats can turn into women if you look away long enough."
The group laughed.
The boy tilted his head slightly.
"Immortals," he repeated under his breath. "Busy lot, if they ever existed."
Stories of cultivators were told the way children told ghost stories. Exaggerated. Impossible. Safe because they were dead.
Everyone knew the truth.
Power belonged to gold. To contracts. To men with guards.
The pressure came suddenly.
Not like weight. Like silence.
Conversations faltered. A few heads turned instinctively toward the square's entrance. The boy felt it in his chest, first a faint tightening, as though the air had learned a new rule and forgotten to explain it.
He frowned.
"That's new," he muttered.
A man entered the square wearing a long coat dyed in a color the Lower City did not produce. Dark red. Expensive. Guards followed him.
The market bent around them.
The boy lowered his head immediately.
Rich men were worse than violent ones. Violence was honest.
A guard's boot nudged the edge of his bowl.
"This spot's reserved today," the guard said.
The boy did not look up.
"I was here first," he said quietly, tightening his grip on the bowl with his one hand.
The guard scoffed. "Move."
The boy hesitated.
Not because he was brave. Because the pillar mattered. The shadow mattered.
"I can shift a little," he offered.
The guard raised his foot.
The boy sighed.
"Always feet," he murmured. "Never words."
The boot did not come down.
Confusion flickered.
Then irritation.
The guard kicked the bowl instead.
It shattered.
Wood splintered. Coins scattered.
The boy flinched...late.
"I liked that bowl," he said softly.
No one answered.
He gathered the coins one-handed, slower now, more deliberate. He counted them carefully.
Enough for bread.
"Good," he decided. "Still good."
As he stood, a faint shudder passed through the sky....so slight it could have been imagined.
The boy pulled his coat tighter around the empty sleeve.
"Wind's wrong," he murmured.
He walked toward the bakery, steps measured.
Behind him, the broken pillar cast a shadow that lingered just a little longer than the sun allowed.
He did not look back.
As he walked, he counted his coins again. Not because he needed to, but because the habit calmed him.
One. Two. Three.
The numbers came easily. Automatically. With the quiet certainty of someone who had counted far more important things before.
The thought made him pause.
He frowned, just slightly.
"That's… strange," he murmured.
Then he shook his head and continued on.
The city swallowed him whole.
It did not notice the child.
And it had no reason to remember the man he had once been.