CHAPTER 79
Ash hung low over the alleyways of Darveth's outer slums, carried by smoke from chimneys and the eternal bonfires of the waste heaps.
Children coughed in the cold, barefoot and soot-streaked.
In the corner of a broken fence, half-hidden behind a ragged cloth, sat a girl with tangled midnight hair and eyes too old for her age.
She pressed her knees to her chest, her thin clothes torn at the edges. A new bruise was blooming along her jaw-faint but tender. She had learned to bite back the tears years ago. Crying never made anything stop.
A pair of boys passed by. She heard their whispers.
Their voices blurred, but the sting of their tone clung like smoke. Velthira buried her head in her arms, lips trembling, trying to disappear.
The world hated her before she even spoke.
She didn't blame it anymore.
Later that evening, after her mother slammed the door and her father returned reeking of rotgut, Velthira crept out-quiet as always. She went to the back alleys where no one would look for her. That's when she saw him.
A man stood beneath a ruined archway, cloaked in deep silver, face shadowed by the folds of his hood. He wasn't a slum-dweller. His presence... felt different. Almost wrong or maybe too right.
Her name on his tongue made her flinch. "W-Who... how do you know my name?"
She narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"
Velthira stared. Her fists clenched at her sides.
She froze. Her breath caught in her throat.
'A future?'
Something inside her ached to say yes. Anything to leave this place. The bruises. The names. The hollow cold.
But then-
The sound of a bottle shattering.
Velthira staggered back, panic swelling in her chest.
The man's eyes did not judge her.
He paused, gaze piercing.
Velthira turned and ran-bare feet scraping against the broken cobblestones, heart thundering, breath ragged. She didn't look back.
That night, she crept into the corner of the house. Her father was passed out cold. Her mother snored softly from the other room. No beatings tonight.
Velthira curled under the splintered table, whispering to the shadows.
But part of her... part of her wasn't.
Part of her had already said yes.
............
A stinging pain exploded across her cheek before her eyelids could even flutter open.
*SLAP!*
Velthira gasped, her eyes wide in shock, blinking rapidly as the fog of sleep shattered.
Her mother's shrill voice pierced the morning silence like shattered glass. The woman held up a beige gown, now slightly stained at the hem-mud from last night's storm. Velthira, still disoriented and curled in the corner of their one-room shack, trembled as she tried to sit up.
A deeper voice interrupted. "Why are you so loud?! I can't sleep properly!"
Her father appeared, shirt half-buttoned, face heavy with alcohol and irritation.
She stormed off, muttering curses under her breath.
Her father's tired eyes scanned the small space before landing on her.
She collapsed. Blackness swallowed everything.
.
.
She didn't know how long she'd been lying there. Time blurred. But eventually, her eyes opened again to a grumbling stomach and a blinding pain at the back of her skull.
No food. No water. No one.
She waited for the thoughts that maybe they would leave something. Even scraps. But nothing came.
By the third day, her body screamed in agony. Every limb was heavy, her belly aching with sharp emptiness. Her lips were dry. Her head pulsed with every step she took.
She wandered the streets of Darveth's outer district, where beggars lined the walls and guards didn't bother to look twice. Her eyes scanned corners, food stalls, garbage heaps-anywhere a crumb could be found.
And then... she bumped into someone.
Velthira gasped, stumbling back, heart racing. "F-Forgive me!" she cried out immediately, bowing her head low.
She didn't dare to look up.
But the man-an older gentleman in a long, charcoal-gray coat embroidered with gold-didn't shout. He didn't scowl. Instead, he slowly bent down, knees creaking, until he was eye-level with her.
Velthira froze, her fingers trembling.
She hesitated.
'Strangers were dangerous.' That's what she'd always been told. Yet... her stomach growled again, louder this time. Her vision blurred slightly.
He saw the flicker of hesitation in her eyes.
Velthira clenched her fists. She didn't want to trust anyone. But she hadn't eaten in three days. Her head ached. Her bones felt like lead.
Slowly, almost fearfully, she nodded.
The man stood and extended a gloved hand. "There's a small shop just around the corner. Come."
Velthira followed behind him like a shadow, small and silent, glancing back every now and then-as if afraid the world would pull her back into the darkness she came from.
And for the first time in her life, someone opened a door for her.
The shop was warm, filled with the soft clinking of porcelain cups and the scent of baked bread and roasted meat. The old man sat across from her, his posture refined yet relaxed, one hand resting gently on his cane as he watched the little girl devour her meal like she hadn't eaten in weeks.
Velthira's cheeks were puffed as she munched noisily, rice sticking to the corners of her lips, soup dripping a little from her chin. She didn't care. It was warm, flavorful-real. Not the moldy leftovers or spoiled scraps she scavenged behind taverns. This was a meal.
The old man let out a quiet chuckle, eyes crinkling at the corners.
'Adorable,' he thought. But the thought was tinged with something heavier, something pained.
He noticed the bruises on her thin arms when she reached for more bread.
Purple and green blotches peeked beneath her ragged sleeves.
A scrape on her neck. A split at her lower lip that looked more torn than bitten.
Her frame was too small, too frail for a seven-year-old.
Her fingers trembled when they weren't holding food.
Still, she never once asked for help. Never whined. Just ate like the world might take it away.
He leaned in slightly. "Where are you residing, child?"
Velthira paused, her chewing slowed. She swallowed hard and looked at him-not with fear, but with caution. Her lips parted slightly, but no words came out.
She didn't answer.
The old man noticed. And he smiled, not in disappointment, but in quiet approval.
'Wise enough to hesitate. To guard her truth. Smart little one.'
He folded his hands over his cane. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
Velthira tilted her head. "You're not mad?"
That struck something in her chest. Her lips quivered slightly, but she bit the inside of her cheek.
He watched her carefully.
Velthira blinked at him. "Did she have parents too?"
Her eyes widened slightly. "...How did you know?"
He didn't answer. He simply lifted a delicate handkerchief and passed it to her. "You're stronger than you know."
She stared at the cloth, then slowly took it. Her little fingers clutched it tight.
The old man glanced out the window, where snow had begun to fall in faint, thin specks.
He turned back to her. "If you were given the chance... to leave that place... would you take it?"
Velthira's fingers gripped her spoon tighter.
The old man leaned forward, gaze gentle but firm. "Then I will keep them away. I'll make sure no one lays a hand on you ever again."
Her breath caught. "Why?"
'Is he perhaps much stronger than my father or mother?'
The man stood slowly, cane tapping against the polished wooden floor.
He bowed slightly, hand over his chest.