The first thing Kai remembered wasn't the blood.
It was the smell of scorched cabbage drifting from the hearth, and the way the floorboards groaned under the weight of boots that didn't belong in their house.
They were heavy boots. Confident boots. The kind worn by men who knew no one would stop them.
His father, Ren, stood between the guards and the table. He had once been a soldier, before age and poverty bent his spine and dulled his hands. Tonight, he looked small. His shoulders were tight, his fingers shaking as he pushed a pouch of coins forward.
"Please," Ren said. "Take it. Just leave."
The answer came as a sound.
A mace swung low.
There was a crack—not sharp or clean, but wet and muffled, like a branch snapping inside a sack of meat. Ren screamed as his kneecap shattered, his legs folding beneath him. His face struck the dirt floor hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs.
Kai moved without thinking.
He was nine. Small. Too slow.
A hand clamped over his face like an iron vice. Leather pressed into his skin, reeking of sweat, horse musk, and old oil. Fingers dug into his cheeks, forcing his head back. His feet left the ground for a moment.
He couldn't breathe.
Couldn't scream.
He could only watch through the gaps between fingers.
The noble stepped forward.
Valen.
His skin was pale as milk, untouched by sun or labor. His clothes were immaculate—dark velvet trimmed with silver thread. He didn't spare Ren a glance as the man writhed on the floor.
Valen's eyes were fixed on Kai's mother.
What followed wasn't sudden. It wasn't merciful.
Time stretched, warped into something ugly. Heavy thuds echoed through the house—slow, rhythmic, deliberate. His mother screamed at first, calling Kai's name, then begging, then producing only raw sound scraped bloody by pain.
Ren sobbed. Apologized. Promised everything he had. Promised things he didn't.
He didn't die a hero.
He died forced to watch.
Eventually, even Valen seemed bored.
He sighed softly, as if inconvenienced, and drew a thin, elegant blade. With practiced ease, he slid it across Ren's throat.
The blood didn't spray.
It leaked.
It spilled across the dirt floor and crept toward Kai's bare toes, warm and sticky, soaking into the cracks between boards.
The hand released him.
Kai collapsed to his knees in the red slush, his body shaking violently, his mouth open but silent.
Valen crouched in front of him and lifted Kai's chin with the tip of his sword. Blood dripped from the blade onto the boy's chest.
"You're looking at me like you want to kill me," Valen said, amused. "That's good."
Kai didn't blink.
"Hate is useful," Valen continued. "It's the only thing that'll keep a rat like you alive."
He stood, wiping the blade clean on Ren's sleeve.
"Keep it," Valen said as he turned away. "It's the only honest thing you'll ever own."
The boots walked out.
The door slammed.
The floorboards groaned one final time.
Silence followed.
Kai stayed on his knees.
His hands shook so badly his fingers knocked against each other. His chest felt hollow, like something essential had been torn out and left an empty cavity behind. He waited for the sound of shouting. Of footsteps. Of someone arriving too late but still arriving.
Minutes passed. Maybe longer.
Nothing came.
The fire crackled softly in the hearth. Smoke drifted lazily toward the ceiling. The blood around his feet cooled, losing its warmth, turning thick and dark.
Surely someone would come.
A neighbor. The City Watch. Anyone who cared that a house had gone quiet in the slums.
No one did.
That was when Kai understood.
The world had already decided this house no longer mattered.
He looked at his parents' bodies. They hadn't been weak. They had worked. They had followed the rules. Paid their dues. Lowered their heads when nobles passed.
And it hadn't mattered.
Rules weren't laws.
Laws weren't protection.
They were decorations—stories the powerful told themselves so they could sleep at night.
Kai pressed his palms into the floor until pain shot up his arms, anchoring him.
If this was how the world worked, then he would learn it properly.
He wouldn't beg.
He wouldn't pray.
He wouldn't wait.
He would remember Valen's face. The way he spoke. The certainty in his voice. The ease with which he decided who was allowed to exist.
One day, Kai promised himself, someone would kneel like this because of him.
And the world would call it order.