The night Galahad was beaten and left in the street was the last time he tried to return to the Aldine estate.
For a long time, he remained lying on the wet stone road as the rain washed over him, his body aching from the blows of the guards while the last pieces of hope slowly drained from his chest.
When the storm finally ended, he forced himself to stand.
His legs trembled as he walked away from the noble district.
He never looked back.
Life on the streets did not become easier.
If anything, it became worse.
Galahad quickly learned that surviving in the capital was far more difficult than simply begging for scraps. The small pieces of food that stall owners occasionally gave him were never enough, and dozens of other homeless children were competing for the same mercy.
Some days, he received nothing at all.
Those were the days when hunger felt like a burning pain in his stomach that never truly went away.
At first, he tried to remain polite when asking for food, but the city showed little kindness to children without families. Most people ignored him completely, while others chased him away as if he were nothing more than a stray animal.
Eventually, Galahad stopped asking.
Instead, he learned to survive.
He searched through discarded crates behind markets, stealing whatever scraps he could find before other children arrived. When merchants left their stalls unattended for even a moment, he would quickly grab small pieces of bread or fruit and disappear into the crowd before anyone noticed.
It was dangerous.
More than once, he was caught.
Those times usually ended with angry merchants kicking him away or striking him with sticks to drive him from their shops.
But hunger was worse than the pain.
So he continued.
Years slowly passed as the streets shaped him into something harder.
By the time he reached the age of ten, Galahad had stopped looking like the small noble child he once was. His hair had grown longer and rougher, his clothes were nothing more than patched scraps, and thin scars covered his arms and legs from countless fights and beatings.
The streets were not kind to the weak.
Other homeless children often fought over food, and gangs of older boys controlled certain parts of the city. If Galahad wanted to survive, he had to fight for every scrap he found.
His missing arm made those fights far more difficult.
At first, he lost constantly.
But losing also meant learning.
He began watching how others fought, paying attention to their movements and copying what worked. He learned how to dodge attacks instead of blocking them and how to strike quickly before his opponent could react.
Over time, the boy who once struggled to walk became surprisingly quick.
His body adapted to balancing with one arm, and his movements became sharper than most people expected.
Still, the streets never allowed him to forget his weakness.
Every scar on his body carried a lesson.
Never trust anyone.
Never show weakness.
And never expect kindness.
When Galahad reached the age of twelve, he finally found a better way to survive.
Instead of begging or stealing, he began taking small jobs from merchants who needed quick labor. Some paid him a few copper coins to carry crates, clean stalls, or run messages across the market district.
The work was exhausting, but it allowed him to earn just enough money to buy cheap meals instead of relying entirely on scraps.
For the first time in years, he was able to eat regularly.
Even so, life remained brutal.
Many merchants refused to hire him once they noticed his missing arm, claiming he would slow their work or cause problems. Others paid him far less than they promised, knowing a homeless boy had no way to argue with them.
Sometimes other workers attacked him after dark to steal the coins he had earned that day.
Galahad fought back whenever he could.
Sometimes he won.
Other times, he was beaten badly enough that he could barely stand the next morning.
But every fight made him stronger.
By the age of fifteen, Galahad had grown taller and leaner, his body hardened by years of constant struggle. The boy who once cried in the rain had become someone else entirely.
His movements were sharp and controlled, his instincts tuned to the dangers of the streets.
People began avoiding him.
Not because he was strong.
But because the look in his eyes had changed.
There was no fear left in them.
Only quiet determination.
Even then, he continued living the same way he always had.
Working odd jobs.
Fighting when necessary.
Sleeping in alleyways or abandoned buildings when the nights grew cold.
It was not a life anyone would choose.
But it was the only life he knew.
By the time Galahad reached seventeen, the capital no longer felt like an endless maze of unfamiliar streets.
It had become his hunting ground.
He knew which merchants paid fairly and which ones cheated their workers. He knew which alleyways were safe to sleep in and which districts were controlled by dangerous gangs.
He had learned every rule the streets demanded.
And he had survived them all.
The boy once known as Galahad Aldine had long since disappeared.
What remained was something harder.
Something shaped by hunger, pain, and years of relentless struggle.
And though Galahad himself did not yet realize it, those brutal years had forged the foundation for the warrior he would one day become.