The wood still remembered.
Kael Renford knelt in the mud seventy yards from the execution platform, a whetstone moving across a training sword he would never use in battle. The blade was dull. The stone was worn. His hands moved by memory while his eyes stayed fixed on the platform where his father had burned.
Three years ago. Same hour. Same rain.
He had watched from this exact spot—hidden in the ruins of a collapsed granary, thirteen years old, fingers dug into rotting wood until they bled. His father had stood on that platform with chains on his wrists and fire at his feet. He hadn't screamed. He had looked out at the crowd, searching, searching—
And found Kael.
Their eyes met for one second. One breath. His father had smiled. A small thing, barely there, but real.
Then the fire took him.
Kael's whetstone scraped across the blade. The sound was the only thing keeping him from screaming now.
"You're going to wear through the metal."
He didn't look up. His voice came flat. "Metal's fine."
Footsteps in the mud. A figure stepped out of the rain like she owned it—dark coat, darker eyes, smile that meant trouble. Imperial spymaster. Age twenty-two. Danger level: maximum.
"That's a training sword," Seraphine Blackwood observed. "You've been sharpening it for twenty minutes. Either you're planning to shank someone with a practice blade, or your mind is elsewhere."
Kael set the sword down. The platform stood behind her, rain-slicked and empty. He forced himself to look at her face instead. "What do you want?"
"Straight to business. I like that." She crouched beside him, close enough that he caught her scent—smoke and lavender. Up close, he noticed things he'd missed before. The way her coat was tailored for movement, not fashion. The knife hidden in her left sleeve. The shadows under her eyes that said she didn't sleep much either.
"There's a man in the east barracks," she said quietly. "Name's Corvin. Heard him mention a fire. Three years ago. Said it was 'unfortunate the boy got away.'"
Kael's hand tightened on the whetstone.
"Didn't think you'd know anything about that," Seraphine continued, voice light as morning fog. "But I thought you should know Corvin's asking questions about survivors. And survivors usually end up back on that platform."
She nodded toward the execution site. Rain pooled where the pyre had been. Kael imagined he could still see scorch marks beneath the water.
He forced his lungs to work. Forced his voice steady. "Why tell me?"
"Because I don't like men who burn other men and call it justice." She studied him with those dark eyes, reading something he couldn't hide. "And because you interest me, soldier. Most recruits here want rank, money, women. You want something else. Something that makes you very, very quiet."
Kael said nothing.
Seraphine stood. Her coat shed water like oilskin. "Corvin's in Barracks 4, third bunk from the left. He sleeps heavy after drinking. If someone wanted to ask him questions, dawn would be a bad time. Too many witnesses."
She walked away without looking back. Her boots left prints in the mud that filled with water and vanished.
Kael watched her go. His heart hammered against his ribs. His hands stayed steady through sheer force of will.
Three years of hiding. Three years of being no one. Three years of eating slop in the recruit barracks and taking orders from men who would have cheered at his father's execution.
And now a spymaster knew his name. An enemy was asking questions. And the thing in his chest—the sleeping fire that had woken the night his father died—stirred for the first time in months.
Hungry.
The voice wasn't his own. It came from somewhere deeper, somewhere the fire lived.
Hungry. Feed me.
Kael pressed a hand to his sternum. Beneath skin and bone and three years of buried grief, something pulsed. Warm. Waiting.
He'd never told anyone about it. Never tested it. Never let it out. Because the last time he'd felt it move—that night, watching the flames—something had happened. Something he still didn't understand.
The fire on the platform had burned for hours. But his father's body had been gone by morning. No ash. No bone. Nothing.
They'd called it a miracle. The priests said the gods claimed him. Kael knew better.
His father hadn't burned. He'd vanished. And the thing in Kael's chest had been warm for the first time.
He picked up the training sword. Corvin. East barracks. Questions about survivors.
Maybe it was time to stop hiding.
---
The rain stopped sometime before dawn.
Kael moved through the barracks district like a shadow—something he'd learned in three years of being invisible. Keep your head down. Don't meet eyes. Walk like you belong somewhere else.
Barracks 4 was a long stone building with rows of bunks and the sour smell of unwashed men. Kael found the third bunk from the left. A man slept face-up, mouth open, reeking of cheap wine. The dagger on his bedside table caught lantern light. Coins scattered beside it.
Paid. Recently.
Kael stood in the shadows and watched him breathe.
Kill him now. The voice again, but not the Core this time. His own rage, whispering. One cut. Problem solved. No more questions.
But killing a sleeping man wasn't justice. It was murder. And if Kael had learned anything from watching his father burn, it was that murder and justice looked exactly the same from a distance.
He reached out and tapped Corvin's cheek.
The man woke screaming. Kael's hand clamped over his mouth before the second syllable.
"Shh." His voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm. "We're going to talk. You're going to be quiet. Understand?"
Corvin nodded frantically, eyes white with fear.
Kael removed his hand slowly. "Three years ago. A fire. A family. You mentioned it to someone recently. Tell me everything."
Corvin's eyes darted toward the dagger. Kael picked it up, examined the blade—cheap steel, badly maintained—and set it on the opposite side of the room.
"I don't—I don't know what you're—"
"You know." Kael's voice didn't change. Didn't rise. Didn't threaten. It just was. "Start talking, or I start breaking things. Your choice."
It took eleven minutes to get the truth. Corvin talked between gasps and stammers, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cold. He hadn't been at the execution. He'd heard about it from a merchant who'd heard from a soldier who'd heard from someone else. A chain of whispers leading nowhere.
But one detail made Kael's blood freeze.
"They said the boy survived. Someone's been looking for him. Paying good coin for information." Corvin swallowed hard. "Didn't ask why. Didn't want to know. Just—just passed along what I heard."
"Who was asking?"
"Didn't get a name. Just a description. Young, quiet, doesn't talk about his past." Corvin's eyes searched Kael's face, seeing him clearly for the first time. "That's you, isn't it? You're the—"
Kael stood. He had what he needed.
"Wait." Corvin's voice cracked. "You're not going to kill me?"
Kael looked at him. A nobody. A whisper-seller. A man who traded in rumors because he had nothing else.
"I'm not my father's enemies," Kael said.
He left through the window.
---
The rooftop overlooking the city was empty. Kael sat on the wet tiles and stared at nothing.
Dawn painted the sky in shades of gray and pale gold. The city woke below him—merchants opening shutters, bakers lighting ovens, soldiers changing shifts. Normal life. The kind of life he'd never have.
Someone was looking for him. Not the empire—someone else. Someone with coin and questions and a description that fit too well.
Let them come. The Core's voice was stronger now, feeding on his fear and anger. Let them come. We're ready.
"Shut up," Kael said quietly.
Footsteps on the roof.
He didn't turn. Didn't reach for a weapon. He knew those footsteps now.
"You talk to yourself often?" Seraphine sat beside him, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. She'd changed clothes—still dark, still practical, but dry now. "Or is today special?"
"Go away."
"Mm. No." She pulled something from her coat—bread, wrapped in cloth, still warm. "You missed dinner. Rin was worried. She made me promise to find you."
Kael stared at the bread. Rin. The street rat he'd pulled out of a riot three months ago. Skinny, loud, impossibly stubborn. She'd followed him around ever since, convinced he needed someone to annoy him.
"You don't take orders from a street rat."
"I don't. But she's hard to refuse." Seraphine pressed the bread into his hands. Their fingers touched. Her skin was warm. "Eat. Then tell me what you found."
He ate. The bread was good—fresh, with a hint of honey. He hated how much he appreciated it. Hated that anyone knew him well enough to bring him food. Hated that it made him feel less alone.
"Corvin's useless," he said finally. "Didn't see the person asking questions. Just passed along rumors for coin."
Seraphine nodded like she'd expected this. "Then we find another way. Someone's paying for information. That means they want something. People who want things make mistakes."
"You sound like you've done this before."
"I have." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I do it every day. It's my job."
Kael looked at her. Really looked. The spymaster who knew his name. Who'd fed him information. Who sat on a wet rooftop at dawn sharing bread with a recruit who should be nothing to her.
"Why?" he asked.
"Why what?"
"Why help me? You don't know me. You don't owe me anything. Every time someone in this city offers help, it comes with a price tag." He set down the bread. "What's yours?"
Seraphine was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was different. Softer.
"My father died on that platform too. Different year. Different crime. Same fire." She met his eyes. "I watched from the same ruins you did. I was fifteen."
Kael couldn't breathe.
"I didn't know it was you until last week," she continued. "Saw you sharpening that sword. The way you looked at the platform. I know that look. I've worn it every day for seven years."
She stood. Offered him her hand.
"So no price, Kael Renford. Just one survivor recognizing another. Now come. I have files. You have a face no one remembers. We'll find out who's asking questions about you."
Kael looked at her hand. Then at her face. The shadows under her eyes. The set of her jaw. The grief she carried like he carried his.
He took her hand.
Her grip was strong. Warm.
The Core stirred in his chest—not hunger this time, but something else. Something that felt almost like hope.
Kael crushed it down. Hope was dangerous. Hope got people killed.
But he didn't let go of her hand.
Not yet.