Life was not easy for Orin Kaelen. The streets had no warmth, no kindness—only hard stone, cold nights, and the ceaseless hunger of mouths with nothing to feed them. He had once been a boy with innocence, a boy who still believed the world might have room for him. That belief was stripped away the moment the alleys became his only home.
Hunger was his first tormentor. It stalked him like a wolf, gnawing until every rib was a knife against his skin. He clawed at rubbish heaps for scraps, fought other children for crusts stiff with mold, and drank from barrels filled with rainwater when wells turned bitter with disease. He learned quickly that spoiled food came with fevers, that a simple cut left untreated could swell with infection, that a cough could linger like a curse until one day the coughing child never woke again.
Orin became clever in his scavenging. He waited near bakeries, knowing the moment when charred loaves were tossed into bins. He marked which fountains had water that smelled clean, which carried the metallic tang that heralded a slow death. He ran errands for healers, carrying bundles of herbs through crowded streets in exchange for a crust of bread or the mercy of a poultice when fever took him. It was not enough to feed him, yet it was enough to keep him alive.
Hunger, though, was only the beginning.
The streets themselves teemed with predators disguised as men. Gangs of older boys roamed in packs, lean and feral, their laughter sharp as broken glass. They took from the weak what little could be carried—coins stolen, rags stripped, food seized. Orin learned to survive not by strength but by cunning. He played at being useful, darting between shadows as a messenger, distracting marks, or luring victims toward ambushes he had no hand in striking. From those predators he learned the first rules of intimidation, the art of deception, and how to make himself appear smaller when danger required him to vanish.
Worse still were the adults who prowled the alleys with eyes like knives. Some sought to conscript children into crime, others into begging, still others into darker fates. Orin's survival became a discipline of disappearance. He memorized escape routes, taught his limbs to scale walls faster than others, slipped into cracks too narrow for grown men. He carried in his mind a single commandment, carved deeper than hunger: Always keep three exits in sight.
Even the watch was no safer. To guards, a child without family was vermin—vermin to be whipped, extorted, or used. Orin studied them with the same cold precision he gave to scavenging. Some patrols demanded coins or bread. Others carried cruelty as if it were a badge, striking for the pleasure of it. Still others could be distracted long enough for him to vanish behind carts or plunge into alleys.
Beggars were no kinder. Street corners were territories marked not with banners but with bruises and knives. A child who begged in the wrong place could expect fists at best, a blade at worst. Orin learned to map these invisible borders, to step softly across them only when humility could shield him.
Yet the most dangerous temptation was not violence but kindness. The smiling merchant who promised work. The gentle woman who offered food. The strangers whose words dripped with care. Behind each promise was the hook—slavery, abuse, betrayal. Orin learned to stare at smiles until he saw the hunger behind them. He became a boy who did not believe in gifts, for every gift demanded more than it gave.
And when night fell, the streets became crueler still. Shadows birthed drunk soldiers with groping hands, cutpurses with quicker knives, killers who claimed the darkness as their throne. Children vanished without a sound, swallowed by alleys no one dared to search. Orin learned to disappear among crowds by day, and by night he climbed to rooftops where only the wind dared to touch him. Hunger was cruel, yet safer than the dangers below.
The world itself conspired against him. Winters gnawed at his bones until he shivered through sleepless nights. Summers burned his skin raw, his lips cracked until they bled. Rain turned alleys into rivers that carried away the weak. Orin scavenged clothing from refuse piles, stitched scraps with stolen needles, and built hovels of broken wood. Sometimes he shared fires with others who had nothing, and in those fleeting hours he learned the truest law of the streets: survival itself was an art.
Hunger made enemies of children who should have been friends. Companions who laughed with him by day betrayed him by night for the crust in his pocket. Orin learned to smile, to joke, to feign loyalty—but his hand always rested near a stone, a knife, a shard of glass.
Then came the night when desperation cornered him. Older boys, teeth gleaming with malice, pressed him against a wall. Or perhaps it was the drunk whose eyes promised murder. The memory blurred, but the choice remained clear: strike, or die. His fingers closed around a stone. A dagger slipped from another's belt. A shove sent someone thrashing into the river's black waters. When the struggle ended, blood clung to Orin's hands, hot and terrible.
He stared at it, trembling, as if the red itself might burn him. Yet the truth crystallized with dreadful clarity: to live, someone else might have to die. From that night forward, he never again feared the price of survival.
That first kill was not an end but a beginning. It hardened him. It stripped from him the illusion that innocence could endure. And it opened his eyes to another way of surviving.
Criminals were not merely predators—they were hunters who sometimes hunted together. They despised weakness, yes, and devoured the helpless, yet among themselves they formed packs. Packs that fed each other, sheltered each other, defended each other. Orin, weaker and alone, realized a terrible truth: to escape being prey, he would have to learn to run with the predators.
So he watched them. He studied how gangs of thieves carved out their little kingdoms, how they lured victims with smiling children, how they robbed with knives sharp as whispers, how they melted into shadows before the watch arrived. They hated each other as crows did, yet in times of famine even crows picked the same carcass.
Orin was already blooded. Already guilty. The thought whispered to him in the dark: if he could mimic usefulness for scraps, why not mimic usefulness for something more? Why not survive by proving himself valuable to the very monsters who once devoured him?
The decision settled into him with the heaviness of fate. Orin would no longer run from the beasts of the alleys. He would approach them. He would offer himself, not as prey, but as a tool.
And so, after his first kill, Orin Kaelen sought the company of criminals. He crossed the invisible lines he once avoided, stepping into territories ruled by those who had always terrified him. The predators turned their gaze upon him—sharp, mocking, curious. Yet Orin did not flee. He looked back, and though his body trembled, his eyes did not.
For the first time, he chose not to be devoured. He chose to hunt.
***
Orin learned best by watching. His eyes were his tutors, the streets his grim school. Sometimes he drifted alone, other times he banded with children as hollow-eyed as himself, their bonds lasting only until hunger split them apart. He watched which of those ragged souls thrived, if such a word could be used. The ones who seemed almost fed, who wore boots instead of rags, who vanished into shadows with criminals and reappeared later with bellies not empty.
They had allied themselves with wolves.
The gangs of thieves and killers used them as lures—urchins with wide eyes who tugged on sleeves, whispered lies, led victims into dead ends where blades glimmered. The children were fed, clothed, given corners to sleep in. It was not kindness. It was utility. Yet compared to starvation, utility looked like mercy.
For a long while Orin only watched, envy gnawing at him as fiercely as hunger. He told himself he was different, that to serve wolves was to become one of them, that he could survive on his own. Yet every winter night and every hollow morning eroded his pride. Envy became longing, longing became decision.
One evening, as the sky bled red beyond the rooftops, Orin chose.
He approached a gang he had studied—six older boys and men who haunted the market quarter, known for cutting purses and throats with equal precision. He stepped into their alley with shoulders squared though his heart hammered. They turned to him like vultures scenting blood.
"What does the rat want?" sneered one, his teeth black with rot.
Orin lifted his chin. "To prove I'm useful."
Laughter filled the alley. Cruel, jeering, expectant of fear. Orin forced himself not to flinch. He explained, quickly, what he could do. He was fast. He could slip through cracks too narrow for grown men. He could climb walls like a spider, twist his body in ways that looked impossible. He could vanish where no one else could follow.
The leader, a scar-faced youth with eyes like smoldering coals, narrowed his gaze. "Show me."
That night Orin proved himself. He wriggled beneath a tavern crawlspace and lifted bolts so the gang could slip inside. He climbed to a second-story window and dropped a purse-laden merchant's satchel into waiting hands. He darted through crowds, lured a drunk into an alley, and vanished just as knives closed in.
When he returned, chest heaving, scar-face tossed him half a loaf. "You're in. You earn, you eat. You fail, you starve."
Orin bit into the bread with trembling hands. Saltless, hard, stale—it tasted sweeter than honey.
Life with the gang was not joy. It was commission. Every lure, every mark delivered to them bought him food, scraps of clothing, sometimes the right to sleep near their fire instead of in the rain. The more victims he brought, the more he received. Begging had never given him such returns. Survival became a cruel transaction, yet one he could not refuse.
Orin grew skilled at deception. His eyes filled with practiced innocence, his voice soft as silk when he asked travelers for help. His limbs bent him into gutters and crawlspaces others could not reach. He became indispensable, and with indispensability came a sliver of safety. For a time, he believed he had found a place.
Then came the fall.
It happened during a chase across the rooftops. A mark had bolted when Orin's signal was poorly timed. Orin ran, fleet and desperate, leaping gaps between crumbling buildings. His foot caught on a loose tile. The world spun. Pain exploded in his leg as he landed on stone.
He tried to rise. Agony lanced through him, white-hot. His leg was broken.
From that night forward, he was no longer useful.
The gang fed him scraps for a time, grumbling that he was a mouth without profit. His peers, those who once shared food and fire with him, turned cold. When he asked, they looked away. Their eyes said what their lips did not: You are broken. You are nothing.
Orin dragged himself through days of humiliation, limping on a crude splint. His usefulness was gone, and the gang that had sheltered him had no patience for weakness. He expected to be cast aside. He did not expect the decision that came instead.
One night, as rain lashed the alley, scar-face and the others stood over him.
"You eat what you don't earn," the leader said, voice flat. "That makes you a thief from us."
Orin's chest tightened. He saw the knives in their hands.
"No—" His voice cracked. "I'll heal. I'll—"
The leader shook his head. "We don't feed cripples. Better you die quick."
They closed in. Orin's breath tore in and out. Fear clawed at him, but beneath it came the bitter taste of betrayal. He had lured, lied, stolen for them. He had thought himself one of them. Yet here, in the end, he was nothing more than prey again.
Knives rose.
And then the miracle came.
It was not magic, though it felt as if it were.
A man stepped into the alley as if he had always belonged to the shadows. Tall, draped in dark leather that gleamed wet with rain, his face half-hidden beneath a hood. His eyes caught the dim torchlight—cold, calculating, merciless.
"Hand the boy to me," the man said, his voice a blade honed thin.
The gang barked laughter.
"Mind your own," scar-face growled. "This is our rat."
The stranger did not move. "I will not ask again."
Knives turned toward him. Their laughter deepened.
And then he struck.
What followed was not a fight. It was slaughter.
The assassin moved with a silence that was louder than any scream. His dagger flashed once, twice, three times—each stroke precise as calligraphy. One boy clutched his throat as blood spilled between his fingers. Another collapsed with a blade buried in his ribs before he had even gasped.
The rain seemed to follow his rhythm, each drop punctuating death. He twisted, spun, cut throats, severed tendons, shattered spines with strikes so swift they blurred. Six men, killers hardened by the alleys, fell like sheep before wolves. One tried to run. A flick of the assassin's wrist sent a knife whistling through the dark, embedding itself at the base of the boy's skull.
Scar-face lasted longer. He screamed, charged, slashed wildly. The assassin caught his wrist, twisted until bone cracked, and drove a blade upward beneath his jaw. The scream cut off in a wet gurgle.
It was over in heartbeats. The alley stank of iron and rain. Six corpses lay sprawled, limbs bent at wrong angles, eyes staring glassy into nothing.
The assassin wiped his blade clean on scar-face's cloak. Then he turned to Orin.
For a moment, Orin thought the man would kill him too. That this was simply another predator, one more shadow come to end his story. His breath shuddered as the man crouched.
"You live," the assassin said, as if passing judgment. He lifted Orin as if the boy weighed nothing. "And from this night forward, you live by my will."
The boy clung to him, trembling, rain washing the grime from his face. He did not know who this man was, nor why he had spared him. Yet in the pit of his heart, Orin knew this was not mercy. This was possession.
Still, it was life.
And life was enough.
***
The forest swallowed sound. Its canopy hung thick and oppressive, dripping with mist, while its floor stretched black with roots and rot. Orin Kaelen stood with a knife in his hand and mud already cold against his toes. The air carried the stink of fear—his own, and that of the other children clustered around him. They numbered near thirty, boys and girls scraped raw by hunger, their backs straightened not by courage but by desperation.
The men who had brought them here said only one thing before vanishing into the trees: Survive the course. Or don't.
A horn blared once, deep and cruel. The children flinched. And then the world itself turned hostile.
Orin did not move at first. He crouched low, watching the others scatter as if a wolf pack had been unleashed. Some bolted into the brush, their panic carrying them blind. Others crept forward with knives trembling in their hands. Orin remained still, scanning, his ears open. Every instinct screamed that the forest itself was a weapon.
A cry split the stillness.
He turned his head in time to see a boy vanish into the earth. The ground had given way beneath his sprint, collapsing into a pit. Jagged stakes lined the bottom, each one slick with fresh blood before the body had even stopped twitching. The boy gasped once, then was still.
Gasps rippled among the survivors. The first death was not a battle, not a fight—just careless feet meeting cruel design.
Orin swallowed against the tightness in his throat. So it begins.
He shifted his weight forward, careful, his eyes darting from ground to trees to shadows. Behind him, a girl kept pace. Sera—he knew her name from whispered exchanges in the holding cells. She was wiry, her hair cropped short, her gaze unflinching. She had shared bread with him once. Now she shared his silence.
Branches shifted above. Orin's head snapped upward. A rope groaned. Instinct screamed. He shoved Sera aside and dove as a spiked log swung down from the canopy. It slammed into the earth where they had been, soil erupting in a spray of dirt and splinters.
Sera's breath hitched. "You saw it?"
"I heard it," Orin said, forcing calm into his voice. "Listen more than you look."
They crept onward. Orin's body remembered his rule: Always three exits. He traced them in his mind at every turn—left into thorns, right across a streambed, straight into deeper shadow. Escape routes were lifelines, even when the escape led only into new dangers.
Another scream tore the air. A boy climbed a tree, perhaps to escape the mud. A hiss followed. Arrows whistled from hidden notches, striking him through chest and throat. He dangled from the branches like some grotesque fruit, his eyes wide in disbelief even as life drained away.
Sera's grip tightened on Orin's sleeve. "They want us dead."
"They want to see who's worth keeping," Orin murmured, though the words tasted bitter.
The trial was no test of skill alone. It was a culling of the weak, a spectacle for eyes they could not see. Orin felt the weight of those eyes even through the canopy. The assassins were watching.
They pressed deeper. Shadows seemed to move with them. A boy stepped too quickly, triggering a snare that whipped his body into the air. He screamed as the rope tightened, then another mechanism sprang—blades flashing from the canopy to slice him apart before he even had time to struggle. Blood rained through the leaves. The forest drank greedily.
Children scattered. Panic frayed what little bonds existed. Trust snapped under the weight of survival.
Orin clenched his jaw, moving with deliberate precision. Every step was measured, every breath steady. Fear clawed at him, yet he forced it into the shape of focus. His body bent where roots tangled low, slid where thorns tore at skin, twisted in ways that should have broken bone. His contortionist's grace was not an oddity here—it was salvation.
Hours bled into one another. The air thickened with iron and smoke. Orin lost count of the bodies, but each cry carved itself into his memory. The forest became a graveyard, and he one of its reluctant gravediggers.
By dusk, fewer than half remained.
The trees opened suddenly onto a ravine, its depths black with shadow. Ropes spanned the gap, crude bridges swaying in the wind. The children hesitated, staring into the abyss.
A boy named Kale, broad-shouldered and arrogant, spat into the ravine. "Cowards. Watch." He stepped onto the rope, balancing with arms outstretched. For a moment, he moved smoothly, confidence carrying him. Then, halfway across, the ropes shuddered. Snapped.
Kale plummeted into the dark. His scream echoed until it broke against stone. Silence followed.
Sera's lips trembled. "We can't—"
"We have to," Orin cut her off. His leg ached, memory whispering of the rooftop fall that once broke it. He ignored the pain. Hunger and betrayal had taught him one truth: hesitation killed quicker than knives.
He slung his body low, wrapping arms and legs tight. Hand over hand, he crawled, the rope swaying. The abyss yawned beneath him. His muscles burned. Twice the rope jerked, as if cut. Twice he twisted, bending his body flat until the tremor passed. He moved with the stubborn patience of a spider weaving web, until at last his hands grasped stone. He dragged himself up, chest heaving, sweat stinging his eyes.
Sera followed. She nearly slipped. Her scream echoed against the abyss, but Orin lunged, seizing her wrist, hauling her upward with desperate strength. She collapsed against him, breath ragged.
"Why?" she whispered.
He met her gaze. "Because you're not useless. Not yet."
They moved on.
Night fell like a closing fist. Torches flared ahead, illuminating a new horror: a wooden maze, walls spiked and high, corridors narrow. Orin smelled blood before they even entered.
The maze devoured them.
Traps waited at every turn—swinging blades that hissed like serpents, darts that shot from unseen holes, pits lined with sharpened wood. The air grew thicker with every step, filled with the screams of those who faltered.
At one corner, Sera shoved Orin aside. A dart buried itself in her shoulder. She hissed, but kept moving, knife white-knuckled. At another, Orin bent flat against the wall, his contorted body scraping stone as a scythe swung past. His ribs ached, yet his flesh remained whole.
The children turned on each other. Panic made rivals of allies. A boy named Ilen tried to shove Orin into a pit, his eyes wild with terror. Orin twisted, used the boy's momentum, and sent him tumbling instead. His scream ended with a sickening crunch.
Orin's chest burned. His hands shook. Yet his eyes stayed cold. Live, or die.
By the time the maze narrowed to its heart, fewer than ten remained. Their faces were pale masks of blood and ash. Each step forward felt stolen.
The gate loomed ahead, iron and heavy. Torches lined its frame. Beyond it, shadows moved—the assassins who watched, their faces unreadable.
"Open it!" Sera gasped.
Together, the survivors heaved. The gate groaned upward, inch by inch. Behind them, a mechanism clicked. A wall of spikes slid forward, grinding with merciless speed.
"Faster!" Orin roared. He shoved, muscles screaming. The gate rose just high enough. One by one the children scrambled through. Orin shoved Sera first, then dropped flat and rolled beneath as the spikes closed in.
The iron slammed shut behind him.
Silence followed.
Seven of them lay sprawled on cold earth, their chests heaving. Out of thirty, seven.
No one cheered. No one smiled. They sat in silence, staring at the ground, listening to the ghosts of screams still echoing in their ears.
Sera's hand found his. Her fingers were cold.
"We lived," she whispered.
Orin stared at the iron gate, at the darkness beyond where the dead lay. His chest felt heavy. "We survived," he murmured. "That's not the same."
Above them, the assassins watched. Silent. Measuring.
And Orin knew—this was only the beginning.
***
The silence did not last.
A second horn blared through the night, deeper than the first, and the ground beneath their hands trembled as though the earth itself resented their survival. Orin Kaelen rose, his legs unsteady, his breath still ragged from the final push through the maze. Around him, the other children stirred—seven in total, all marked by blood and exhaustion. Sera leaned against the wall, her shoulder wound leaking down her arm, her lips pale. Beside her crouched a boy named Thalen, narrow-faced, eyes darting like a cornered fox. Two older girls clung to each other, sisters perhaps, their resemblance sharp in the torchlight. A heavyset boy, Merek, wiped mud from his brow, his chest heaving like a bellows. And finally, a small figure hardly older than nine—Lira—stood barefoot, eyes wide but dry. She had not made a sound through the whole ordeal.
Seven souls from thirty.
The assassins above did not speak. They raised their torches, and a gate creaked open on the far side of the yard. Beyond lay another passage, narrow and black.
The children exchanged wary glances.
"They mean for us to go on," Thalen whispered, voice cracked.
"Of course they do," Orin replied. His voice carried no anger, only the cold flatness of truth. "This wasn't the end."
He led the way.
The passage descended into stone. The air grew colder, thick with the stench of damp and rust. Their footsteps echoed, seven fragile beats in a tunnel meant to swallow them whole. When it opened at last, they stood before a cavern lit by dim lanterns. Iron contraptions loomed within—grinding gears, swinging chains, floors that shifted like jaws. The air vibrated with menace.
Another trial.
Without warning, the ground beneath Thalen shifted. He yelped, throwing himself backward as spikes shot upward from the floor. One grazed his thigh, tearing fabric and skin. He stumbled, gasping, his face drained of color.
"They want us to keep moving," Sera muttered.
"They want us to die," Merek spat. Yet even as he spoke, he moved forward, testing the floor with each step.
The cavern unfolded like a nightmare. Platforms tipped without warning, dropping children toward pits. Blades swung on pendulums, slow arcs that forced them to time every dash. Chains rattled with each movement, disorienting them, making silence impossible.
Orin's body became his salvation. He bent where others could not, folding flat against walls as blades whistled past, twisting between bars that would have trapped broader frames. Once, when a floor panel gave way, he caught the lip with his hands, contorting his shoulders to squeeze through a gap barely wide enough, dragging himself upward with raw strength.
The others were not so lucky.
One of the sisters slipped on a tilting platform. She screamed as she fell, her hand clutching her sibling's. For a moment, they dangled together, but the weight was too much. The older one shook her head once, eyes wet, and let go. She plummeted into the dark. The surviving sister wailed, a sound that echoed through the cavern until it broke into silence.
Merek tried to force a path through a tangle of chains, his bulk slowing him. A mechanism triggered. Spikes shot from the ceiling, piercing his back. He screamed, thrashing, until the chains wrapped him tight. His cries grew ragged, then stopped.
Five remained.
Sera's wound worsened. Blood stained her tunic, her steps faltered. Orin stayed near, watching, calculating. She still fought to live, and that mattered.
The smallest, Lira, moved like a shadow. She slipped beneath traps that caught the taller ones, her silence uncanny. Once, she tugged Orin's sleeve, pointing to a wire he had nearly stepped upon. He nodded, gratitude unspoken, and stepped over.
They reached the far side of the cavern, where a narrow bridge spanned a chasm glowing faintly red. The air smelled of sulfur, the depths alive with heat. The bridge was made of rotting wood and iron nails, swaying with every breath of wind.
"Of course," Thalen muttered, despair choking him. "Of course it's this."
The surviving sister went first, trembling. She made it halfway before a plank snapped. She screamed, clinging to the ropes, but her strength was not enough. The wood tore free. She vanished into the glow below, her scream stretching until it was swallowed by fire.
Four remained.
Orin stepped forward. His leg ached, memory gnawing at him, yet he forced the weakness aside. He moved low, weight spread, his contorted body weaving across the planks. Twice the wood cracked beneath him. Twice he shifted his balance, pressing flat against the ropes until he crossed.
Sera followed, stumbling, but Orin seized her arm and pulled her up when she faltered.
Thalen came next, his face streaked with tears. He moved too quickly, panic guiding him. The bridge swayed. He slipped, one hand clinging desperately to a rope. His eyes locked with Orin's across the chasm, wide, pleading.
Orin's fingers twitched. He thought of the rooftop, the broken leg, the betrayal of the gang who had nearly killed him. He thought of how trust meant death.
And yet—he reached.
His hand closed on Thalen's wrist, hauling him upward with a grunt. Thalen collapsed onto the far side, gasping, alive but hollow.
Only Lira remained. The small girl crossed with eerie calm, her steps sure despite her size. When she reached them, she did not smile, did not speak. She only looked up at Orin, eyes unreadable, and nodded once.
Four survivors.
They pressed onward, into a final corridor lit by torches that hissed in their brackets. At its end lay a chamber wide as a hall. The floor was bare stone, the walls lined with assassins cloaked in black. Their eyes glittered, cold and merciless.
No traps here. No blades, no spikes. Only silence.
The assassins studied them, saying nothing. The four children stood in the center, their breaths loud in the emptiness. Orin's heart hammered. He waited for the next cruelty.
At last, one assassin stepped forward. His hood cast his face in shadow, but his voice carried like steel.
"You are alive." His gaze swept over them, lingering on each in turn. "That is all that matters."
Behind him, another assassin raised a horn. Its note rang long, echoing through the chamber, sealing the trial.
No cheer rose. No relief filled their chests.
Sera clutched her wound, her eyes dark with exhaustion. Thalen sobbed quietly, his shoulders shaking. Lira stood silent, her gaze heavy with something older than her years.
Orin stared at the stone beneath his feet, every scream of the fallen echoing in his mind. He saw the boy impaled on stakes, the sisters torn apart, Merek crushed by chains, the countless faceless children whose lives had ended in blood and silence.
His jaw tightened. He was alive, yes. Yet survival felt less like victory and more like theft—stealing breath from those who could not claim their own.
He lifted his head. The assassins' eyes burned into him, measuring, judging. He understood then: this was only the beginning. More trials waited, more deaths demanded. The path ahead promised nothing but blood.
And yet, in the hollow of his chest, a flame flickered. Weak, trembling, yet alive. The flame of one who had been prey, and who refused to be prey again.