Chapter 9
Scarfed faces blurred past Ellaryn as she made her way through the market, returning from the tavern.
The sun had long since dipped below the city walls, leaving the streets illuminated only by the weak glow of the moon, the iridescent souls beaming from the towers’ watchful eye, and the intermittent fires and cinders that never truly died.
The alcohol weighed her limbs, making her boots feel heavier with every step, but she kept her posture rigid, spine straight and shoulders squared.
Even drunk, Ellaryn refused to look anything less than untouchable.
The motion of her steps was deliberate, unfaltering; they moved without conscious effort and only when her eyes met the worn sign of Magnus’s shop did she realise where they had taken her.
The city was big, and out of all the buildings, streets, and houses, her ash-coated boots took her there. The teal paint peeled at the edges, sending cracks like veins up the wall, and dark marks blemished parts of it; a signature of the ever-burning city.
A screech above her sent her eyes upward.
Scornszar was stretching his wings, blackening the moon’s glare for heartbeats at a time as he soared over Cinders.
Sparks rained like hot metal with every whoosh of his wings and littered the streets, feeding the flames.
She pulled her scarf a little tighter before forcing her eyes back on the jewellers.
Every step towards it felt like wading through thick mud.
Each stride a battle between her mind and nervous system; one screamed leave it alone, while curiosity ruled the other.
And suddenly she knew why her feet had led her there—what if the reason for Magnus’ newfound hope lurked somewhere in the depths of his livelihood, amid the rusted metals and dulled gemstones?
Her fingertips crested the wooden door; it was already cracked at the hinges, splintered, most probably from a guard’s boot and with one subtle push, it creaked open, dust and broken glass catching on the concrete floor.
A shard by the window caught her eye, glinting like a target. A hundred white embers reflected off its pane. She deliberately crushed it with her boot.
It appeared the dwellers got here before Ellaryn did.
The shelves, once tidy and cradling polished jewels, were now a mess of wood and scarce gems. No doubt the looters benefited greatly from Magnus’ sentence.
Though most of the stones were carefully crafted from glass, they were still treasured in Cinders.
She crouched down, her leather trousers squeaking as she eyed up a crystal, blowing the dust that caked it and watching it shimmer in the moon-broken glare. She saw herself staring back in the fractures, each one pulling tight in her chest.
“You’ve got some nerve coming here,” a sharp voice called to her as they rounded the corner.
Ellaryn stood and calmly met the accuser’s eyes. A woman, hands shaking around the broken stick of a broom, stared at her from behind the till. Her eyes were red, as if she had been crying for days, ash coating her tan face and black hair slick to the sheen on her brow.
Magnus’ wife—Maude.
“That’s no way to talk to a paying customer,” Ellaryn responded with a smirk, toying with a coin in her gloved hand.
“Your coin is not welcome here, Ruin.” Maude glared, eyes narrowing, knuckles whitening around the broom.
“Really?” she exaggerated looking around, noting the damage. “I think you could use the money.”
“Get out of here!” The woman gripped the broom tighter.
“Is that supposed to intimidate me?” Ellaryn asked, eyebrow raised at her weapon of choice, taking a sure step forward.
“Leave.” Her lips trembled as she retreated a shaky step until her back was flush against the wall.
“Let me give you some advice.”
Ellaryn swung her sword quickly, so quickly that the woman didn’t have time to react. The whoosh sound came first, and then the clatter of the stick hitting the floor. Shock plastered Maude’s face as she trembled, eyeing up the broken broom and taking a few heavy steps backwards.
“Don’t fight steel with wood,” Ellaryn smirked, tucking her sword back into place before averting her eyes from the dweller and continuing her search around the store, gaze drifting over the mess, trying to make sense of… well, anything.
Maude stepped closer; a crack of glass alerted Ellaryn of her presence and sent her eyes rolling as she glanced over her shoulder.
“I can’t work out whether you’re really brave or really stupid,” Ellaryn stated, head tilting slightly.
“Can’t I be both?” Maude’s voice trembled, but she kept her head high, now holding an embellished dagger she had pulled from the chaos. One that was clearly performative; an edge, she was sure, had never been used. Even the way she carried it—untrained, clumsy.
Ellaryn admired her fight but also pitied it. There was no room for resistance in Cinders.
“Put that down before you hurt yourself,” she ordered.
“I said get out,” Maude said. It wasn’t an order, more like a plea. Still, she ignored Ellaryn’s warning and took a hesitant step.
“You do know I’m immortal, don’t you?” Ellaryn mused, the flicker of fear in the woman’s eyes almost comical to her.
“You can still bleed,” she sneered, the skirting of her dress whispering against the floor.
“True,” Ellaryn replied, unsheathing a dagger from her thigh. “But you would have to cut me first.”
She twirled the blade with practised ease and Maude visibly shuddered.
“P-Please. Haven’t you done enough?” The dagger shook as she spoke. “You’ve already taken him from me.”
Ellaryn paused, taking in the sadness etched on her features before she said. “Magnus made his bed when he spoke ill of the throne, and unless you want to join him, I would think very carefully of your next step.”
Her dagger lowered a smidge, but her eyes stayed narrowed on Ellaryn’s.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Can’t a girl buy some jewellery in Cinders?” She held her hand up to the skylight, admiring a ring she had found and placed on her finger.
“You’re no girl.”
“I was the last time I checked,” Ellaryn said, eyes drifting down her frame, before she closed in on Maude, dagger twirling between her fingers. “Now I’m looking for a piece, maybe a new necklace.”
Maude’s fingers were shaking so violently she barely had a grip on the knife she carried.
In one fluid motion, Ellaryn had her wrists, twisting the blade out of her hand until it clattered onto the floor.
Maude stilled, eyes widening in terror as she barely realised what had happened.
Disarmed in a heartbeat. Her breaths were the only sound she dared make.
Ellaryn smirked, her dagger still gliding between her fingers. “I was thinking something right here.”
She grazed the tip of the knife across the base of Maude’s neck, over the lump that had formed in her throat. It wasn’t sharp enough to cut. Just scare.
“You’re a monster.” She choked—barely—and Ellaryn just smirked again.
“Here’s what’s going to happen.” She applied more pressure to the blade on her throat, just enough to see her wince. “You’re going to leave. Do whatever the hell it was you were doing before I came in here. And I’m going to look around until I am satisfied, understood?”
Her eyes were unfaltering as she glared down at her prey, waiting, just waiting for a sign she agreed.
Maude’s frame seemed to diminish a little beneath her. A deer fully aware of the wolf’s bared teeth on its neck. Finally, she let out a defeated breath and nodded.
“Not entirely stupid then,” Ellaryn muttered to herself as she slowly returned the dagger into the holster on her thigh.
Slow enough to make Maude sweat. When the cold silver left her skin, she waited for a moment, unsure if Ruin had really let her go.
Then, when she finally knew she wasn’t about to be slain, she scurried away as if her life depended on it. Maybe it did.
Rustling sounded beneath her boots, and Ellaryn’s gaze dropped, intrigued.
Discarded pages littered the floor, peeking through rubble, half-burned as if someone were trying to get rid of the evidence.
Ellaryn picked it up, fingers tracing over the charred edges. Her eyebrows furrowed. She found herself picking them all up before she even knew why, and when one page appeared more intact than the others, her interest piqued.
They appeared to be some kind of instruction manual.
Schematics for a new design. From the sketches, it looked like a ring of sorts.
Not unlikely for a man in Magnus’ trade.
But it was the gem that was the most interesting part.
It looked like any other. No different from the admired pieces of refined rock that scattered the floor, catching on the light as it fought its way through the dust-covered panes.
But there was something that shifted it well and truly beyond the line of just jewellery and into contraband territory.
Small engravings were etched into its surface and around the band.
She knew from the style of the carvings that this was some sort of sorcery.
Symbols that only made sense to a Potential.
She heard her breath hitch in the quiet of the room.
“What was he doing with something like this?” she whispered to herself, knowing that any sorcery in Cinder’s was a death wish served on an ivory platter.
Her thoughts were disturbed when the door creaked open, and a cloaked figure came into view.
She couldn’t see his whole face in the shadow of his hood, but the way he froze for a moment told her he was up to something.
Like he’d just been caught in the act. Something that resembled guilt, or panic, or mischief streaked across his features.
This wasn’t an unusual reaction. No. But the way he smirked before he bolted out the door was…
almost as if he were inviting her to chase him, like he wanted to be caught—not to mention the fabric of his clothes—he was adorned differently from the dwellers that grew up under ash.
They seemed foreign, as if they weren’t sold in Cinders.
The unfamiliarity alone made her pulse quicken.
Ellaryn didn’t think, didn’t contemplate—she just scooped up the papers and moved.
A cold thought crept through her mind.
The revolution. Newfound hope.
What if it had stirred because someone had broken in to Cinders—a place where even the ash dreamed of escape.
The thought had never even crossed her mind. Not once.
She didn’t think anyone would be stupid enough to want to break in.
Could this be the source of the King’s so-called paranoia?
The walls surrounding Cinders were thick, oppressive, and seemingly impenetrable. If there were a way through, surely the idea would be to escape prison, not welcome it.
Who would dare?
Who would be foolish—no, idiotic enough to try?
She spun out the door, scanning the dark streets, heart hammering, searching for the fleeting stranger.
But he was gone. It was as if the darkness swallowed him whole.
Had she imagined the whole thing?
Then a noise echoed off the narrow streets. Ellaryn’s head snapped instantly, and then her boots followed.
She found herself down a narrow alley, cramped and lined with the carcasses of half-burned houses and piles of refuse.
Few citizens lived here. It was one of the streets that had never been rebuilt.
Here, the shadows curled along the walls like reaching fingers, urging her forward.
Her boots crunched over lifeless bodies—too many victims of the Blight. Bones lay dried and abandoned, left to decompose in a forgotten corner of the city.
The smell of rot and smoke clawed at her senses. She swallowed hard and forced herself onward, pulling her scarf tighter over her face to shield her nose from the stench.
Her mind refused to dwell on the dead. Over the years, she had learned to block it out.
Maybe she had become desensitised.
Or maybe it was because she envied them.
Every instinct within her screamed that whoever this man was, if he was real, he was important—and dangerous.
Then she saw it—a ripple of fabric, catching the moon’s glow at the far end of the alley. That had to be him—the stranger.
Her pulse spiked. Every sense snapped into focus—the scrape of her boots against the uneven cobblestones, the faint smell of smoke lingering from the abandoned buildings, the way the shadows seemed to cling tighter to the corners of the alley.
Whoever they were, they were moving fast, slipping between alleyways like a creature avoiding the light.
“Stop!” She shouted, and the cloaked person turned briefly in acknowledgement, the same smirk on his face illuminated by firelight, then kept running.
He was real.
The cloak swayed as he turned down another corner, and Ellaryn eased her pace. She knew Cinders better than the back of her hand. This alley ended in a sheer stone wall, smooth as glass and impossible to climb. Dead Man’s Alley.
He was cornered.
She unsheathed her sword and waited hesitantly before the turning, catching her breath and gathering her thoughts. She didn’t really have a plan.
What would she do if he really were an outsider?
He may be the first solid sign of hope she’d known in decades. She couldn’t capture him. But what would the King do if he found out?
No.
When he found out—because he always did.
And if he realised that Ellaryn had known about him…
She couldn’t bear to think about it. She knew it would be bad, worse than bad, yet the small, reckless spark of intrigue inside her refused to die.
A shudder rippled through her as bile rose, burning the back of her throat, but she pressed on, her knuckles whitening around the handle of her sword as she turned the corner.
A man leaned against a large, forgotten crate at the end of the alley, arms crossed as though this dead-end trap belonged to him.
His eyes caught hers—blue as the sky once was before the city was taken.
No bluer, like sapphire crystals glinting in the light.
And his skin… it was untouched, almost luminous, unscarred by the cindered lands.
As if he had never known the pleasure—or the curse—of Cinders falling ash.
He pulled down his hood, revealing a face carved in gentle lines and a full head of buttery-blonde hair that caught what little light the alley offered.
Ellaryn’s gaze traced his features. He was tall—very tall—and lean. Not so thin that he looked weak, but definitely on the slimmer side.
She searched his face for recognition but found none.
She had never seen him before. Not in this city. Not anywhere.
Which meant only one thing—he was an outsider.
He was hope.
“Who are you?” She asked, her sword not as raised as it should have been.
“So… you must be Ruin.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Oh, how your reputation precedes you.”