Chapter 1
Elira
The rubbish bin lid clanged as it hit the damp alley floor—a sharp sound that sliced through the early morning fog like a warning bell.
“Shit,” I muttered, ducking low beside the crumbling wall of the old bakery, my heart hammering. The last thing I needed was to draw the attention of the Shades.
I peeked toward the mouth of the alley. Two sentinels paused as they passed, their shapes stalling, peering into the gloom of my hiding place. In the early morning, their heavy, horned masks looked stark against the darkness.
I held my breath and sank deeper into the darkness, willing the shadows to close around me and hide me from view.
After a moment, one of them shrugged and moved on.
I exhaled slowly. That was too close.
The frigid slime of the concrete seeped through my threadbare canvas pants, soaking the fabric until it clung cold and sticky to my skin. A spider skittered through the knot of my black curls. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing it to move away, counting each heartbeat in silence.
Rookie mistake. I cursed myself again.
But gods, I was hungry.
I’d slipped out from the ruins just before dawn while Finn was still asleep. His leg had been hurting him again. He’d tried to hide it but I had watched him twisting in silence all night. I was getting worried now. He didn’t look well.
I had to help him.
Food came first. I’d tried the dock markets and the back of Mac’s Deli, but the sentinels were out there too—buying supplies for the King, no less—and had chased me off before I got close.
In a lucky twist of fate, when I had ducked in this alley, I’d caught a whiff of day-old bread in the bin beside me.
One breath and my stomach had roared in complaint.
Loud enough that if old Lady Greymore had been home, she’d have stormed out swinging her broom like last time.
A rat darted past with a scrap of crust in its tiny claws. My stomach twisted.
Please, don’t let it all be spoiled.
I waited another minute, tense, half-expecting the back door to burst open. But no one came. I pinched my nose and tried not to gag at the rank scent of rotted produce wafting from the next bin over.
Before slipping in, I’d seen a couple of sentinels buying pastries. I prayed they hadn’t seen me. I’d managed to lift a coin purse from the shorter one—the one with the dull eyes and too-big boots—but it had held only a few silvers. Barely enough for a single sandwich.
And Finn was so hungry. With his leg shot to hell, he couldn’t run, couldn’t even stand some days. He hadn’t left our hideout in over a week. So, I was the one out scrounging.
Always.
Varrowmere’s sky hadn’t seen sunlight in years, and the thick, unending dusk suited me.
The shadows cloaked my wiry frame, made me a ghost. I was twenty-two years old and I knew I looked half that—half-starved and street-worn.
If I hadn’t learned how to melt into the dark, I’d have been in a cell or a grave by now.
I waited in the dark, breathing slow and steady, counting heartbeats until I was sure no one lingered nearby. Only then did I rise—slow and silent.
There it was.
A full loaf, slightly scorched on the bottom, sitting atop the trash like a gift from the Gods. Treasure.
I snatched it up quick, like a striking snake, and clutched it to my chest. Warmth still clung to the crust. My mouth watered at the smell—yeast and char and survival—but I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.
Finn comes first.
I tucked the loaf into the deep pocket of the old denim jacket I’d rescued from the tip, then zipped it tight against the chill. The cold never left Varrowmere. The city crouched under its own shadow, and the air was always damp, always mean.
Towering buildings loomed over me like fortress walls, their windows shuttered tight against our suffering. Concrete and steel watched over the poisoned heart of the outer slums, silent and indifferent. Unfeeling gods in the shape of skyscrapers.
Once, I’d seen a woman die in Malar Square—they had left her bleeding in the street for what felt like days. Her blood pooled like ink beneath her broken body, and no one came. Not until the sentinels got sick of the stench.
The towers have warmth inside, I’d heard. Heating. Air conditioning. Food that waited patiently in cupboards, untouched, unwanted.
I pulled my jacket tighter. Out here, everything had to be earned. Even a scrap of bread.
**
The walk back to the ruins was long and unforgiving. The streets buzzed with uneasy energy—busier than usual.
We’d heard whispers of the celebration for months now. The King’s birthday.
Another excuse for excess. For gilded masks and overflowing goblets while the rest of us fought rats for crumbs.
Whenever the King decided to throw a party, the streets were "cleaned"—neatly, efficiently, without mercy. Anyone sleeping in a doorway, tucked into a cardboard box, or too slow to disappear was cleared away.
Permanently.
Most of us street rats knew better than to be seen on days like this. We became ghosts, melting into shadows, praying not to be noticed.
One wrong turn, one unlucky glance… and we wouldn’t be coming back.
I slipped from shadow to shadow, careful to keep to the cracks between the light.
In the half-dark of Varrowmere’s narrow alleys, the blood-red tunics of the sentinels stood out like open wounds.
They roamed in packs of three or four, boots heavy on the cobblestones, laughter loud and cruel.
They swaggered with pure arrogance through the streets like kings, full-bellied and confident—untouched by hunger, by fear, by the cold that clung to the rest of us like mould.
Too many times to count now, I had watched helplessly as they dragged out street rats and vagrants, some of them no more than children just trying to stay alive. Those well enough were rounded up and sent to the cells.
Those too weak to walk were killed on sight.
Each one of them was bred or bulked for the role—larger than the average citizen, because they were fed well and trained hard. They were enforcers of the King’s peace, or whatever twisted version of it he believed in. But even they weren’t the real danger.
Not even close.
The ones you had to watch for were the Shades.
Silent. Precise. Magic-born.
Where the sentinels were blunt instruments, the Shades were scalpels. They moved without sound, without pity, their eyes always too sharp, as if they could see through lies, through skin—right down to the bone.
Shades had powers—telekinesis, pyromancy, shifter forms. A select few could kill with a single thought.
They didn’t speak much. Didn’t need to.
One nod from a Shade, and you vanished.
No trial. No questions.
You became just another body in the gutter.
Magic was outlawed by decree of the king—punishable by imprisonment, torture, or death.
Except, of course, for his Shades.
Their powers were sanctioned, sharpened, and leashed to the throne like prized hunting dogs.
But for the rest of us, even whispering about magic was a gamble with your life.
You didn’t talk about abilities, not even in a whisper, not even in your sleep.
One slip, one accidental show of power, and you earned yourself a one-way trip to the dungeons beneath the palace.
Down there, I heard they didn’t just break bones. They broke minds.
If you were lucky, they’d kill you. If you weren’t, they’d turn you into something else entirely—another blade for the king to wield.
Another Shade.
Lucky for us, they were few and far between, though it didn’t stop the king for actively seeking them out. He who holds the Shades holds the power. We all knew that.
But the reason I, in particular, avoided their attention was a little more selfish.
My shadows.
I knew my ability to melt into the shadows wasn’t normal. Not really. Sometimes, the darkness clung to my skin like smoke—like black fire licking along my arms, flickering in ways no light ever should. It had always felt alive.
It was one more reason to keep out of sight.
The city twisted behind me as I took the back alleys, familiar as my own heartbeat. I knew these streets better than most people. I knew where the cracks in the walls would let you slip through. I knew which gutters echoed too loudly when you stepped wrong. And I knew how to disappear.
I made it back to the ruins without incident.
They had once been a school—a primary, I think.
You could still see the ghosts of what it was in the crumbling murals, the bits of torn paper drawings fluttering on the walls, and the occasional broken crayon underfoot.
The laughter that had once filled this place felt like a memory long since drowned.
Finn and I had chosen it as our base because it was close to the woods. If things went south, it meant a clean escape.
That had saved us before.
Finn sat slumped against the crumbling wall, his arms wrapped around his injured leg.
The sentinels had shattered his kneecap during a raid on the old warehouses a few weeks ago, because he ‘looked at them wrong’.
The bones were not mending, they were crooked, twisted by time and pain.
He was in agony, not that he would ever let it show.
His head lifted as I stepped into the ruins, and despite the pain etched into every line of his face, his expression lit up like a sunrise.
A scruff of rusty red curled along his jaw, catching faint light like copper thread.
His face was leaner than it used to be—too lean—but his hair somehow still defied the gloom, wild and untamed.
And his eyes—those soft, steady brown eyes—always warmed when they landed on me.
He was my anchor in this sinking world. My best friend. Maybe the only good thing I still had.
“You’re back!” he breathed, trying to sit up straighter, bracing to rise. His bony body was now brittle and so, so thin.
He was so weak. Maybe dying.
Don’t think about that!
I held up a hand, stopping him gently. “Don’t. Stay. I brought you something.”