Chapter II | Ashen Markets

Kaelen moved like a shadow through the waking streets. Rowan, shivering and mud-stained, tried to mimic him but stumbled too often. Still, the boy kept up, eyes darting between the shuttered windows and the curling smoke of morning fires.

A baker left a tray unattended too long by his back door. Kaelen’s hand was already there, swift and quiet. Three coarse rolls disappeared into his satchel, his face unreadable. He didn’t call it stealing. He didn’t call it anything at all.

The butcher’s dog was the greater risk. It barked until Kaelen crouched low and tossed a scrap of bone he’d lifted earlier. By the time the dog was gnawing happily, Kaelen was gone with a chipped wooden bowl, small but serviceable. He found a pump well in the corner of a square, filled it, and handed it to Rowan.

Rowan obeyed, water running down his chin. He coughed, wiped his mouth, then clutched the bowl as though it were silver.

Kaelen didn’t smile.

They passed into another quarter at midday. Here the streets widened, lined with stalls and awnings. Unlike the reeking southern districts, this place breathed order. The stone was swept, gutters flowed clear, and merchants barked prices with chests full of confidence. The bread here was whiter, the cloth brighter, the faces fuller.

Rowan stopped dead.

Kaelen’s eyes narrowed. He watched the stalls, the men counting coins, the well-fed guards patrolling without haste. Prosperity here was real, but it stank of something unseen.

They found a refuge above a tannery loft - no guards prowled, and the stench below kept intruders away. Kaelen settled his back against the wall, dug a needle from his kit, and began to stitch the shallow tear in his thigh. He worked in silence, sweat tracing his brow, until Rowan finally broke.

Kaelen didn’t look up.

Rowan did. At the markets, he lingered near a fishmonger. The man was eager to talk, eager to boast.

The fishmonger’s smile stiffened. He lowered his voice.

Rowan returned pale.

Kaelen flexed his leg, finished with the stitches. His face was stone.

Rowan frowned.

Kaelen set the needle aside, finally meeting his eyes.

The boy blinked.

Kaelen:

Rowan fell silent, unease creeping in. From the window, he watched the stalls flourish below. Every smile seemed rehearsed, every laugh a fraction too sharp. It was thriving, yes - but like a garden grown atop a grave.

Kaelen leaned back, closing his eyes at last.

The loft creaked when Kaelen shifted, testing the stitches in his thigh. They held. Good enough. He closed his satchel, motioned for Rowan to gather his things.

Rowan swallowed another mouthful of bread, still staring out the slit of a window.

Kaelen didn’t answer.

Down below, the marketplace shifted. A sudden hush rippled outward, unnatural, like wind across a wheatfield. Merchants dropped their voices. Hands pulled children close. Laughter died mid-breath.

Through the parting crowd walked three men. Not armored, not uniformed, but unmistakable. Their boots were polished, their coats long, trimmed in subtle embroidery that spoke of wealth without flaunting it. Each bore a black leather glove - only on the right hand.

The Brothers’ enforcers.

They did not shout. They did not need to. One merchant tried to shrink behind his stall, but an enforcer’s gloved hand brushed the counter, pausing there. The merchant sagged like a man awaiting a blow. A coin purse changed hands. The enforcer smiled thinly, patted the man’s shoulder, and moved on.

No threats. No blades drawn. Just quiet, suffocating certainty.

Rowan’s fists trembled.

Kaelen’s hand clamped his shoulder. Hard.

The boy looked up at him, eyes wide, but the warning in Kaelen’s face left no room for protest. They crouched there in silence as the enforcers passed below, boots tapping in eerie unison. When the men disappeared into the far alley, the market slowly exhaled. Voices returned, laughter forced itself back into the air, brittle as glass.

Rowan whispered,

Kaelen let go of his shoulder, leaned back, and picked at the frayed strap of his pack.

The boy swallowed, his anger burning hot but trapped.

Kaelen stood, slinging the pack across his back.

And just like that, they slipped out the rear of the tannery, down quiet lanes, careful not to brush too close to the Brothers’ shadow.

The prosperity of Ashen Markets lingered in Rowan’s thoughts as they walked. He had seen fat loaves, clean wells, children with round cheeks - a vision of what life could be. Yet he had also seen men bow their heads to a gloved hand without protest.

For the first time, Rowan understood what Kaelen meant when he spoke of greed, not hunger, breaking men.

They found a loft above an abandoned mill on the northern edge of the quarter. The stone walls still held, though the roof sagged in places, and rats skittered when Kaelen pushed open the warped door. He inspected the space with practiced eyes, ran his hand along the walls, kicked at the straw, then finally nodded.

Rowan slumped against the wall, still clutching the satchel of bread as though someone might wrench it away. His thoughts hadn’t left the market. The gloved hands. The silence. The bowed heads.

Kaelen eased down onto a makeshift bed of sacking and bundled cloth. His body betrayed him - shoulders heavy, wounds pulling, the day etched into every movement. When Rowan opened his mouth to speak, Kaelen lifted a hand, palm flat.

Nothing more. Kaelen closed his eyes, and though his breathing did not soften at once, his body had already surrendered to the pull of exhaustion.

Rowan sat awake.

The market replayed in his mind in a thousand fragments: the merchant’s face collapsing as the purse left his hand, the forced smiles, the hush that fell when the gloved men appeared. He thought of the children with round faces, running through stalls with sticky fruit in their hands - and of how those same children would grow to bow as quickly as their fathers.

He stared at Kaelen, sleeping in the shadows. The man’s chest rose and fell, steady despite the stitched gashes. Rowan wanted to believe in that steadiness. But the words gnawed at him:

Wasn’t it?

Rowan’s fists clenched. His mind raced ahead of him, imagining: What if he followed the Brothers’ men through the alleys? What if he listened to what they whispered behind closed doors? What if someone shouted when the crowd stayed silent?

The boy rose slowly, careful not to stir the floorboards. He looked once more at Kaelen - his guardian, his teacher, his anchor. And yet… Kaelen had chosen silence tonight. Rowan’s heart thudded in his chest. He could not.

With bare feet he slipped to the door, pausing only to steal a last glance back at the sleeping figure in the gloom. The scarred man did not stir.

Rowan swallowed, pushed into the night, and vanished down the alleyways of Ashen Markets.

Rowan padded through the alleys, the city at night a different creature. By daylight it hummed with the clatter of trade, the chatter of merchants, the clang of tools. By night it whispered, every sound deliberate, every shadow watching.

He passed taverns where muffled laughter spilled into the street, then twisted deeper where lanterns did not burn. His pulse hammered, but curiosity urged him on, an invisible tether dragging him where sense would not.

That’s when he heard it: a groan, muffled, carrying from behind a half-collapsed stable.

Rowan froze. He should have turned back. But instead, he crept forward, pressing himself against the rotting wood. Through the gaps he saw them.

Three men in dark coats - not armored soldiers, but the kind who belonged to no law save their own. One leaned against a beam, smoking, while another kept watch by the entrance. The third was busy with what lay on the ground.

Rowan’s stomach knotted.

It was a man. Bound at the wrists, mouth gagged, his face beaten swollen. His clothes, once rich, marked him as someone important - but not important enough to be spared. The man on the ground tried to speak through the gag, his voice desperate, but the thug above him pressed a boot on his chest.

The smoking one chuckled, exhaling a curl of grey.

The one at the door muttered:

Rowan’s nails dug into the wood. He wanted to run, but his body betrayed him, eyes fixed on the scene. He couldn’t stop looking.

The thug pulled a small hatchet from his belt. The bound man’s muffled cries rose to a high, panicked keening.

Rowan staggered back, bile rising in his throat. His heel struck a loose stone, sending it skittering into the dirt.

The smoking man’s head turned.

Rowan bolted.

Through the alleys, lungs burning, heart slamming against his ribs. He didn’t know where he was going, only that the footsteps behind him began and then… stopped. He dared a glance back - nothing. No one followed.

He kept running until the mill loomed again, its crooked silhouette a lifeline in the darkness. He slipped inside, chest heaving, and collapsed against the wall beside Kaelen’s still form.

The man hadn’t stirred.

Rowan pulled his knees to his chest, trembling, his mind replaying the gagged man’s eyes, the pleading, the sound of the hatchet unsheathed. He pressed his palms over his ears as though it would erase it.

Kaelen stirred only once, muttering in his sleep, then rolled to his side. Rowan said nothing. Not a word.

By dawn, when Kaelen woke and sat up with a wince, Rowan was already staring out the slats of the boarded window, pale and silent. He turned only when Kaelen asked, voice rough but steady,

Rowan swallowed. He nodded.

And neither spoke of the night.