Ryen's world had changed. The day his mother bit her tongue and let her blood spill rather than be taken, something inside him hardened. The loan sharks, once feared, were now outcasts. The village turned on them—not out of righteousness, but out of self-preservation. The moment the people realized that their silence had led to something so gruesome, they exiled the men who had tormented his family.
It was justice. But it was too late.
Justice didn't bring back the dead. It didn't feed the living.
Ryen was twelve. Too young to own land, too old to be anyone's responsibility. No one wanted to take him in. He was a reminder of their failure, and people didn't like to live with guilt.
They helped him, but only just enough.
They never gave him money. Only food, and only because they had to. Sometimes it was a loaf of bread thrown at his feet, sometimes a bowl of soup left outside a doorstep. No words, no warmth—just enough to keep him alive.
He never said thank you.
Not because he wasn't grateful, but because he understood the balance of things. They didn't give out of kindness. They gave because they knew they had let it happen.
So he took.
That was how the world worked, wasn't it? Give and take.
---
Ryen spent his days in silence, drifting between places where he wouldn't be chased off. The bakery, the well, the quiet corners of the village where people ignored him out of discomfort. He listened. He observed. And he learned.
People walked differently around him now. There was hesitation in their steps when they saw him. They spoke to him with measured words, voices lighter, more careful.
He noticed.
And he remembered.
He had always been aware of people. Their habits, their thoughts, the things they tried to hide. But now, it was different. Before, he understood them and chose kindness. Now, he still understood—but kindness had lost its meaning.
It wasn't that he wanted revenge. Revenge required anger, and he felt nothing.
Nothing but a quiet, empty hunger.
Not for food. Not for warmth.
But for something else entirely.
He just didn't know what it was yet.