"Wait!"
My voice scattered into the wind, swallowed by the empty road ahead.
Matt didn't slow down. He never did.
"Flynn, you're slow!" he shouted back, laughing as if dragging me across half the outskirts of New Taiping was a game.
Heat crept up my neck.
I pushed myself harder, lungs burning, boots scraping against loose stone. He walked like we weren't leaving the safety of the city. Like nothing could touch him.
Right.
I should explain.
My name is Lazarine Flynn. I'm sixteen. Son of a carpenter and a fish seller.
And the idiot sprinting ahead of me was my best friend.
That morning, Matt had shown up at my house before sunrise, eyes bright, breathing fast.
"I found something," he'd said. "You need to see it."
Not inside the city.
Outside.
That should have been enough to make me refuse.
New Taiping is safest at its center. The wealthy live there — high stone buildings, polished streets, guards stationed day and night. The farther you move toward the edges, the thinner the law becomes.
People like us live near the edges.
My father builds furniture for men who won't remember his name. My mother sells fish at the market. I help her most days. Life isn't easy, but it's stable.
Stable is enough.
Matt finally slowed when we reached a dirt path leading beyond the last cluster of houses.
"This place?" I asked. "We used to play here."
"Exactly," he said. "No one comes anymore."
He looked excited. Too excited.
Earlier that morning, he'd told me where he found it.
"At the church," he'd said.
That alone surprised me. Matt didn't pray unless exams were near.
He said he'd gone early. Said he saw a canon speaking with a cloaked man behind the chapel. Said the man wore a heavy golden ring carved with strange symbols.
"And it looked expensive," Matt had added.
He'd stolen it.
I'd stared at him.
"You stole from a canon?"
"I borrowed it," he corrected quickly. "I'll return it. I just wanted to show you."
Now, outside the city walls, he pulled a gray handkerchief from his pocket and unfolded it slowly.
The ring lay at its center.
Gold. Dull with age. Carved with symbols I couldn't recognize.
The moment I saw it, something inside me tightened.
It didn't shine like treasure.
It felt… old.
"You really stole this," I said quietly.
"I said I'll return it," Matt replied. "You worry too much."
"I don't like it."
He rolled his eyes.
"I risked my neck for this, Flynn."
Before I could stop him, he picked it up and slid it onto his left ring finger.
I almost laughed.
"Planning to get married?"
He blinked, then laughed too. "Wrong finger, idiot."
Then he froze.
The laughter died.
His face drained of color.
"Flynn…" His voice shook. "It hurts."
He grabbed his hand.
Blisters formed instantly around the ring. The skin blackened, then split, as if something inside him was burning outward.
"Take it off!" I grabbed his wrist.
His skin was scorching.
Not like fire.
Worse.
This heat felt alive.
I forced the ring off his finger and threw it into the dirt.
Matt collapsed, gasping.
The ring lay still.
Cold.
I stared at it.
It hadn't burned me when I touched it.
Why?
Matt rolled onto his side, trembling. "I thought… I thought I was going to die."
"I told you," I whispered, though my voice shook.
He looked terrified.
"I'm sorry."
I crouched to wrap the ring back in the cloth—
—and something whispered inside my head.
Put it on.
Soft. Calm. Almost gentle.
I stiffened.
Matt was speaking, but his voice sounded distant.
Put it on.
If it burned him…
Why didn't it burn me?
Throw it away.
My hand didn't move.
The whisper grew quieter.
More patient.
I don't know why I did it.
Maybe to silence the voice.
Maybe because I needed to understand.
I picked up the ring and slid it onto my finger.
It adjusted instantly.
Perfectly.
Warmth spread through my body — slow, steady, comforting. The noise in my head disappeared.
No pain.
No burning.
Just… rightness.
As if it had always belonged there.
Matt stared at me, eyes wide. "You're not screaming."
"I'm fine."
He swallowed. "It didn't hurt you?"
"No."
Silence settled between us.
He looked at the ring like it was a curse.
"I can't touch that thing again," he said. "You hold it."
I removed it and wrapped it carefully in the handkerchief.
"I'll return it," I said.
But something told me that wasn't true.
We walked back without speaking.
The city felt different.
Heavier.
At my door, I hesitated before stepping inside.
Mother and Father were eating.
"Where did you go?" Mother asked.
I stiffened. She always knew when something was wrong.
"I went out with Matt."
She sighed. "Tell me next time. Taiping isn't safe."
Father didn't speak. He rarely did after work.
I went to my room.
I slept on a mat. Only Father owned a bamboo bed. Beds cost money.
Rats had chewed the corner of my papers again.
I lay down without eating.
The ring rested beside me, wrapped in cloth.
I didn't remember closing my eyes.
---
Voices woke me.
Low. Uneasy.
Crying.
I sat up.
Morning light filled the room.
My parents weren't inside.
The front door was open.
I stepped outside.
Granny Fei stood in the street, tears running down her cheeks.
People were gathering near Matt's house.
My chest tightened.
"Gran… what happened?"
She looked at me.
And in her eyes, I already knew.
"It's Matt," she said.
I ran.
The world felt slow, stretched thin.
A body lay in the street.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Curly hair.
Bruised. Torn. Blood staining the dirt beneath him.
Too much blood.
His skin was pale.
I stopped a few steps away.
My mind refused to accept it.
Yesterday he was laughing.
Yesterday he was alive.
I promised him.
"I'll protect you."
My throat closed.
Matt lay still.
And for the first time in my life—
I understood what powerless truly meant.