Page 25 of The First Scar
The loft. It was the only card we had left. Our sanctuary above the Cinder Market—the one place in this city that had never been found, never been compromised. We had supplies cached there. Coin. A change of clothes that didn't reek of sewer water and desperation. If we could just reach it, we could regroup. Plan. Figure out our next move before the whole realm closed its teeth around us.
Two blocks east. Then north through the tanner's alley. I could walk it blind, dead, or both—which was starting to feel less like a figure of speech.
On our left, a door splintered, followed by boots and shouting. The Enforcers were sweeping the quarter, building by building, and the net was tightening. I heard someone's scream cut short, a child's wail, the dull thud of bodies hitting stone.
I didn't look. Couldn't afford to.
"Keep going," I breathed, and we slipped deeper into the city's rotting veins.
We were one street from the Cinder Market when reality stuttered.
A merchant stood at his cart, haggling with a customer over the price of dried figs. Then—
His face rippled. Skin sagged, spotted, creased with decades in the span of a breath. His hair went white, then fell. His spine curved. His hands—gods, his hands—gnarled into claws, joints swelling, trembling with palsy. Eighty years poured into him like water into a split vessel.
The customer screamed.
And then it reversed.
The years peeled back—skin firming, hair darkening, spine straightening—until he stood there again, middle-aged and bewildered, blinking at his own palms like he'd forgotten whatthey were. Three seconds. Maybe less. A whole lifetime lived and unlived in the time it took to exhale.
He didn't seem to know it had happened. But the customer was still screaming, backing away, knocking over a crate of onions. And the merchant just stood there, confused, asking what was wrong, why was she looking at him like that—
The crowd that had gathered didn't look at him for long.
They looked atme.
No—not me. The poster. Crimson and damning, plastered on the wall not ten feet from where the glitch had struck. My face. My bounty.The Rupture.
"It's her," someone hissed. "The King was right—"
"She's doing this—"
"The Veil's tearing because ofher—"
Serenya's nails bit into my arm.Move. Now.
But I couldn't. Because the crowd wasn't looking at the poster anymore. They were looking at a female near the fountain—dark hair, pale cloak, similar build. She'd frozen mid-step, a basket of bread clutched to her breast, her face a mask of dawning horror as she realized what they saw when they looked at her.
What theywantedto see.
"That's her! The dual-marked—"
"Grab her!"
"Don't let her run—"
The first rock hit her shoulder. She stumbled. The bread scattered across the cobblestones, and she threw up her arms to protect her face, but they were already on her—hands grabbing, and fists swinging. A mob that had finally found someone who couldn't fight back.
She screamed. It sounded like my name.
"Amaria,don't—" Serenya's voice, harsh with warning.
But I was already running.
I don't remember deciding. One moment I was in the shadows, the next I was in the square, my hood ripped back, my voice tearing out of me like a beast feral and half-mad: "I'm here! I'M HERE, you bastards—"
The mob turned. The girl crumpled, forgotten, blood streaming from her split lip.
