41. Chapter 41
H unger gnawed at the boy. He stood at the edge of the still pond, legs trembling beneath the weight of nothing. His fishing pole lay forgotten on a rock beside him. He didn’t remember placing it there. Didn’t remember sitting. Only knew that he was waiting.
Always waiting.
The world tilted sideways, a haze of heat and dizziness pressing down on him. His stomach had long stopped growling. Now it only ached. When had he last eaten? He remembered a piece of bread. A kind woman. Yesterday, or maybe the day before. Time had become a blur. Days and nights smeared together.
The pond lay before him, lapping lazily against the banks. Once, long ago, in a life that smelled of pipe smoke and leather maps, his father had taken him here to fish. They used to haul in enough for dinner and to sell at the market.
The sun loomed overhead, hot and unforgiving, like a punishment for daring to still exist. To still live. His lips were split, dry as parchment, a smear of blood marking his chin where he’d picked the cracked skin too hard.
With a low, rasping exhale, he collapsed to the ground, the sand and grass soft beneath his skeletal fingers. His legs stretched before him as if they didn’t belong to a boy anymore. Knees jutted at wrong angles. His ribs pressed against the fabric of his shirt like knives trying to break free.
He was dying.
Starvation didn’t scream. It whispered. It stole the world inch by inch.
There was a soft rustle, the flap of wings.
He turned his head just enough to see dark eyes watching. A vulture stood a few feet away, its feathers ragged, its gaze merciless. It let out a rough caw and did not blink.
Another joined.
Then another.
He didn’t have the strength to cry, not even for his father. He used to dream of following in his footsteps, tracing forgotten trails, mapping the world with a bold hand and a fierce smile.
But the plague had taken father, and now the vultures waited to take him.
The sun inched higher. More shadows circled above.
Waiting.
Watching.
The boy closed his eyes, feeling the heat of it all press against his skull. His thoughts were sluggish, heavy, curling at the edges.
Everything has to eat, he thought vaguely. Even death.
And then, a shadow fell over him.
He opened his eyes with effort, his vision swimming. A figure stood above him, backlit by light, cloaked in fabric blacker than night. Something glinted in their hand. A blade?
“Eat.”.
The boy blinked, unmoving.
The stranger crouched beside him, pressing bread to his cracked lips.
The scent hit him first, a combination of yeast, sugar, survival. But he couldn’t remember how to chew. His jaw felt locked, his tongue useless.
A canteen followed, tipped to his mouth. Warm water rushed in. He swallowed, then gagged from the shock of it, but still drank until the canteen was drawn away.
“Take your time. ”
The boy gasped as the stranger sat beside him in the sand. The scent that clung to him was wrong, metallic, burnt, sulfurous. Like the air before a storm.
Like something unholy.
“I have a job for you. A very special task. One that requires subtlety.”
The boy turned his head slowly, eyelids heavy as stones. “I’m… clumsy,” he croaked.
“No, boy. You’re desperate, and desperation makes the best kind of blade.”
The stranger stood then, brushing sand from the hem of his cloak. The boy let his eyes follow the motion. And that’s when he saw hair, wild and silver, sticking up in all directions like lightning caught mid-strike.
“Do you accept?”
The boy only nodded.