Date: The Early Morning of the 8th Day of the Month of Blossoms.
Location: The Merchant District, Capital City.
The bridge was a line drawn in the mud.
On one side lay the Slums—a sprawling, tangled gut of the city that smelled of rot, unwashed bodies, and despair. On the other side lay the Merchant District.
Veer stood at the edge of the bridge. The rain had stopped, leaving the world slick and shiny. He pulled his black cloak tighter around his shoulders. He felt heavy. Not just from the iron rod tucked into his belt, but from the memory of Aanya's burning skin.
She has maybe one day, his mind whispered. Maybe less.
He stepped onto the bridge.
Crossing into the Merchant District was like stepping into a different country. The mud disappeared. Beneath his worn boots, the ground became solid cobblestone, smooth and neatly fitted together.
The smell changed instantly. The air here didn't choke you. It smelled of rain-washed stone, damp gardens, and faintly of cedar wood smoke from expensive chimneys.
It was quiet. In the Slums, the night was full of screams, coughing, and dogs fighting. Here, the silence was heavy and expensive. The tall houses stood like sleeping giants, their windows dark, their secrets locked away behind heavy oak doors.
Veer stuck to the shadows. He moved low, crouching near the walls. He felt small. He felt dirty. In this clean, orderly world, he was a stain. He was a rat scurrying across a wedding cake.
If a guard sees me, Veer thought, they won't ask questions. They will just shoot.
But he kept moving. He forced his legs to be fast and his breath to be quiet. He wasn't stealing for greed tonight. He was stealing for a life.
He found the shop. The Silver Mortar.
It was a handsome building, two stories tall, made of gray brick with ivy growing up the sides. A sign shaped like a pestle hung above the door, creaking slightly in the wind.
Veer crouched behind a rain barrel across the street, studying the building.
The front door was heavy oak, reinforced with iron bands. A lock the size of a fist held it shut. Picking that would take ten minutes. He didn't have ten minutes.
He looked at the front yard. A small iron fence surrounded a patch of perfect green grass.
And there, sleeping near the porch, was the obstacle.
A dog. Not a stray mutt from the alleys, but a Mastiff. It was massive, with a head the size of a shovel and muscles that rippled under its tawny fur. It was sleeping, its heavy breathing creating small puffs of steam in the cold air.
One wrong step, Veer thought, and that beast tears my throat out.
He couldn't go through the front.
He looked up. On the second floor, there was a window. It had a small ledge. And running up the side of the building, hidden by the ivy, was a drainpipe.
Veer took a deep breath. He wiped his sweaty palms on his cloak.
He moved.
He darted across the street like a shadow. He didn't make a sound on the cobblestones. He reached the side of the building, away from the dog.
He grabbed the drainpipe. It was cold, wet iron.
He began to climb.
It was hard work. The pipe was slippery from the rain. His boots struggled to find a grip on the wet bricks. His muscles burned. The bandage on his ribs—from a fight two weeks ago—ached with every pull.
For Aanya, he told himself. Climb.
He reached the second floor. His fingers hooked onto the window ledge. He pulled himself up, his legs dangling forty feet above the stone street.
He peeked through the glass. It was dark inside.
He took out his knife. He slid the thin blade between the window sash and the frame. He felt for the latch.
Click.
The latch lifted.
Veer pushed the window up. It slid open silently, the hinges well-oiled. Rich people could afford oil that didn't squeak.
He slipped inside and closed the window behind him.
The smell hit him first.
It was an overwhelming scent of dried herbs—peppermint, lavender, sage, and things he couldn't name. Mixed with it was the smell of beeswax and rubbing alcohol. It smelled clean. It smelled like science and magic.
Veer was in a storage room. Shelves lined the walls, floor to ceiling, packed with jars and boxes.
He stepped carefully. The floor was made of polished wood.
He needed the main shop floor.
He crept out of the room and found a staircase leading down. He went down the stairs, placing his feet on the edges of the steps where the wood was strongest and less likely to creak.
The main shop was below. Moonlight filtered in through the front display windows, illuminating rows of glass cabinets.
Veer's heart hammered against his ribs. Don't look at the gold, he told himself. Don't look at the expensive soaps. Find the blue bottle.
He scanned the shelves behind the counter.
Brown bottles. Green bottles. Clear jars with weird roots floating in them.
Then, he saw it.
On a high shelf, locked behind a glass door, sat a row of small, hexagonal bottles. The liquid inside was a deep, electric blue. Even in the moonlight, it seemed to glow with an inner light.
The Golden Salve. The Blue Vial.
Veer approached the cabinet. It had a small keyhole.
He didn't have the key. And breaking the glass would be too loud. The dog outside would hear it.
He took out two thin metal picks from his belt. He knelt in front of the cabinet. His hands were sweating.
Come on, he thought. Focus.
He inserted the picks. He felt the tumblers inside the lock.
Click. Click.
The lock was intricate. It was designed to keep out people like him.
Upstairs, the house was silent. Outside, the dog slept. But inside Veer's head, a clock was ticking. Every second he wasted was a second the fire in Aanya's blood burned hotter.
Click.
The lock turned.
Veer let out a breath. He opened the glass door.
He reached in. His fingers closed around the cold glass of one blue vial.
It was small. It fit in his palm. It felt heavy with promise. This was life. This was the difference between Aanya waking up and Aanya dying in the dirt.
He slipped the vial into his padded inner pocket.
He had it. He had won.
He stood up to leave. He turned toward the stairs.
And then, he made a mistake.
He was tired. He was rushing. He put his heel down too hard on the center of a floorboard near the counter.
CREAAAAAAK.
The sound was agonizingly loud. It echoed through the silent shop like a gunshot.
Veer froze. He stopped breathing.
Outside, the heavy breathing of the Mastiff stopped.
Then—a low, rumbling growl.
Then—WOOF! WOOF! WOOF!
The barking was thunderous. The dog threw itself against the front door. Thud! Thud!
Veer's eyes went wide.
Upstairs, directly above him, a bed creaked.
Thump. Thump. Footsteps on the floor above. Heavy ones.
"Who's there?!" a voice shouted from upstairs. It was a man's voice, deep and angry.
A light flickered on in the hallway upstairs. A lantern.
Veer looked at the front door. The dog was there.
He looked at the stairs. The guard was coming down.
He was trapped.
The footsteps on the stairs got louder. The beam of a lantern cut through the darkness, swinging wildly down the staircase.
"I have a crossbow!" the guard yelled. "Come out!"
Veer touched his chest. He felt the small, hard shape of the blue bottle.
He had the cure. But now, he had to survive long enough to deliver it.
He looked around desperately. There was no way out but the way he came in. But the guard was blocking the stairs.
Veer gripped his iron rod. He wasn't a fighter, but tonight, he was a cornered rat. And cornered rats bite.