The Slums of Korvale, War Nation
Rain bled from the sky in sheets, turning the dirt alleys of Korvale into black rivers of grime. No one really cared though. The slums were always wet from rain, from blood, from the sweat of people just busy moving around, trying not to stay still for too long.
I crouched under the ruined archway of an abandoned smithy, my back pressed to the soot-stained stone, arms wrapped around my younger sister. She was shivering, her tattered boots showing her shivering toes tucked beneath her, a blanket too thin for the cold draped over her shoulders. My breath came in quiet gasps. My ribs ached.
She had tried stealing some bread from a baker. He caught up to us halfway through the alley, and I took the beating before he could lay a hand on her.
"Do you think she's watching?" she whispered. Her voice trembled.
I looked up to the darkened sky. "Always."
Our mother had died three days ago.
A few days before that, we'd managed to get our hands on an old trinket in the trash pile near the scrap vendor, a cracked deep purple orb with dull markings etched along its surface. We didn't know what it was, but something about it hummed when my sister touched it.
"Do you feel that?" I asked, watching it flicker faintly in her hand.
She nodded. "It feels like it's… breathing."
"It has to be worth something," I said. "Not just more junk."
So we wrapped it in an old cloth and went from stall to stall across the market, our boots soaked from broken cobblestone puddles, our eyes searching for anyone who might see what we saw.
The first vendor, a jeweler with half a beard and a cracked lens squinted at it and shook his head. "Dead stone. No pulse. Not worth a half-penny."
The second, a toothless woman selling rusted charms, waved us off before we even spoke.
The third vendor laughed. "Kids these days think anything that glows is holy. Go home."
But we didn't go home. We knew it was something. I saw how the orb glimmered when my sister held it, how it thrummed like a whisper just beneath the skin.
That's when we spotted a narrow stall tucked beneath a sagging canvas, incense curling from intricately carved brass pots. The man sitting behind it was old, his eyes cloudy, his robes tinged with gold. He wasn't from Korvale. The symbols stitched along his sleeves were from the religious lands.
He didn't speak right away but just gestured for us to approach. My sister stepped forward and unwrapped the orb, placing it carefully into his palm.
The moment she did, the orb lit with a soft, pulsing glow. The man's eyes, though milky, narrowed slightly.
He looked between us. Then he reached into a small box and pressed two copper coins into my sister's hand.
Real coins.
We ran back to the baker, holding those coins like treasure, and used them to buy half a loaf and a pinch of cinnamon, planning to surprise our mother.
She cried when we showed her. Told us we had done something right, something kind for our family. She used the last of our stale flour to make a thin dough and tucked the spice into the folds so it would hit the tongue sweet and warm. Said it tasted like what tomorrow might feel like. Her eyes glistened like they never had. That was such a fun day for our little family.
That night, as we ate, a man in white robes with golden stitching passed by. He didn't just pass by by chance, he stopped and smiled at us.
"One of the merchants bought a shiny-looking orb from you, god-blessed kids, and pointed me here!" he said.
The man in white said he wanted to test us, claimed it was out of kindness. Said he sometimes scouted children with potential. We were hesitant, of course. People didn't do things for free in the slums. But he smiled and sounded gentle. He knelt to our level and told us it might mean a way out.
I went first. Nothing happened. Just a dull shimmer in the orb, then nothing at all. He didn't seem disappointed, just nodded slowly.
Then my sister stepped forward, at first nothing happened. The silence that took the barely lit room had enveloped us all.
But then she lit up like she'd swallowed a star. It was faint, but unmistakable in the dark that circled us, her skin warm with a golden undertone, the orb glowing in her hand, and that small cut on her knuckle vanishing right before our eyes.
That's when he smiled, not kindly this time, but like he'd found something he'd been looking for.
He looked at our mother and asked her to walk with him for a bit.
The man in white knew something, but I couldn't tell what.
That night, our mother came home soaked to the bone, shaking, but with fire in her eyes. She leaned in close, breathless, and whispered something about our magic test before trailing off to cook the single egg in her palm.
We had gone to bed full that night, or as full as a slum meal could make us. The cinnamon dough, crust of bread between us, and that one egg she'd cooked, feeling like a gold coin's worth of food, humming our lullaby as we chewed. Mother kissed our foreheads, tucking us in, and said tomorrow might just be the day we'd be seen. Given a job. Maybe even chosen by someone outside the slums. I didn't pay much attention; it had seemed she was talking more to herself than to us.
I fell asleep to her voice, dreaming of warm things and glowing hands.
When I woke, everything was cold.
There hadn't been a scream. No struggle to rattle me awake. I just opened my eyes and saw her there, lying in a pool of herself, eyes glazed over, just watching me, throat slit so perfectly it didn't look real. Like someone had painted a red ribbon across her neck.
A scream of pure terror erupted from my throat as I noticed her hand resting on my cheek. Falling backwards, my mind racing as to what happened, what to do, who could do it.
Nobody in the slums got stabbed that clean unless someone paid for it.
And someone had paid.
I tried to get help. I ran barefoot to the guard post, screaming until my voice cracked. Told them someone had murdered my mother, that she was still warm, that they had needed to find them before they ran too far. But they just looked at me like I was a dog that had wandered too close.
"Slum scum kill each other every day," one of them muttered. Another laughed. "Scram, boy."
So I went back. No one came. No one even tried, it felt as if every building I passed was trying to shutter their windows before I could see them.
We had to bury her in the rain that night.
The earth was wet and shallow and full of roots, and my fingers bled trying to dig deep enough. My sister didn't cry. She just stood by the edge of the mound and hummed that lullaby under her breath, over and over again. Like if she kept singing, maybe our mother would hear it and come back.
She never did.
It was the next morning, after the baker beat us for the bread we tried to take. My sister and I were still hiding beneath the archway when he returned, the man in white robes with gold-stitch trim, dry somehow despite the rain.
He held out a roll of paper, its seal fresh, his voice wrapped in mock sympathy. "I'm here for the girl. The mother has passed. There is no guardian. The Church has a place for her. A purpose."
I stared at him, the blood from my bruised lip crusted dry. "Why her?" I asked, the question falling from my mouth before I could stop it. "Why not both of us? Why now?"
The man tilted his head, his expression unreadable. "The Church does not explain its callings to those not chosen."
"But she's just a kid," I snapped. "We both are."
"And yet only one of you carries the spark," he said, almost gently. "She has been touched by the light. That is no small thing."
I stepped forward. "You don't even know her. You don't know what she's been through."
His smile remained, yet a sliver of annoyance crept its way up. "I know enough. And I know the faith sees value where others see burden."
His eyes barely even met mine. Like I was a stone he had to step over to reach something sacred.
My hands curled into fists. "You don't get to just-"
"It's not a matter of want," he interrupted. "It's a duty. Divine will."
"I don't give a shit what it is, you're not taking her!"
I threw myself at him, at the guards, at anyone who stood in front of me. But the moment I lunged, fists out and trembling, a blow struck my ribs, then another to my legs. One of them hit me across the face with a plated gauntlet. The laughter echoed around me from the two guards who accompanied the man. I was nothing but a nuisance. Nothing but noise interrupting a holy act.
"Don't you dare go against our faith," one of the guards sneered. "You think your grief matters more than the will of the divine?"
Another stepped forward and struck me again for good measure. "You should be grateful we don't drag you in chains for heresy. Now shut up and lie there."
The two grabbed my sister by each arm. She screamed, kicked, and reached for me with desperate hands. Her fingers grazed mine for only a second.
"Thorne!" she screamed. "Thorne, don't let them-!"
The carriage doors slammed shut before she could finish. The clatter of wheels on stone drowned out the last of her voice.
I was left curled on the street, my face pressed against the cold, wet stone, eyes stinging, breath broken in half.
I didn't even know the man's name.