Broken ribs take a long time to heal. But only a week had passed before Ren grew tired of waiting and began his search for paying work.

The only problem was…

“Sorry kid.” The blacksmith was big and carved of iron—a walking cliche. His beard was wild, dotted with salt and ash. “Ever since those factories started pumping smoke and flooding the market with cheap steel and iron, the trade has gotten more competitive. Even more so with the border conflict mounting—the Republic is backing the mass production of weapons for the military. Nearly all our commissions are custom works these days, so we can’t afford to take apprentices who aren’t already skilled. Some might take you if you have the coin to make it worthwhile, though.”

This wasn’t the first time he’d heard this. Nobody wanted an unskilled apprentice.

Tits of Arnor! Ren tried out a new curse he’d heard from Garam. He was pretty sure Arnor was one of the seven fire gods popular in the spice lands. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it yet.

“You know kid.” The blacksmith’s rumbling voice roused him from his thoughts. “You could probably check out the factories along the river. Heard it doesn’t pay great, but it’s something.”

Ren slouched and nodded, thanking the man for his time and wisdom.

***

The river district to the north was split in two. The west side, by the mouth of the river, and pushing up against Lake Katari, was almost as dirty as the impoverished alleys to the south. Soot fell from the black pillars that rose into the sky out of giant chimneys, painting the world in shades of grey.

Ren noted with some disgust that the water downriver of the factories was a different color than it was to the east, in the merchant quarter.

The people here were hard edged, too. Another similarity with the maze of Katarn that he’d called home for all those months. Their clothes were rough and coarse and grimy, but it was mostly black grease, soot, and sweat, rather than the mud, sewage, and blood that stained those he’d been living amongst.

Ren dodged around the hulking workers, who didn’t seem to see him even when they bumped him and sent him falling to the ground.

“You want to cut in line, then you’re gonna have to fight me for it!” A man with an ear that looked like moldy cheese was yelling at another man who didn’t look threatened in the slightest.

The second man raised an eyebrow over his shoulder at Cheese-Ear. “Step off, or you won’t be able to work even if you make it to the front of the line.” His tone was calm, but the volume matched that of the other man.

“Why you-” The first man wound up his fist.

The second man swiveled and his own fist snapped out like a rat from a burning building, landing like a hammer on the other man’s cheek.

Cheese-Ear staggered back and roared, spitting blood and a tooth. Then he charged again as the crowd of workers formed a circle around them.

Ren needed to go. He absolutely needed to be anywhere but here.

Factory work was off the table.

***

Ren decided to busy himself with washing dishes when he got back. He wasn’t supposed to work till later, but he needed something to do to clear his mind.

If he was banging the dishes a little extra, it definitely wasn’t because he was frustrated.

“Ren, someone is here to see you.” Norn poked her head into the back. “Take care of it quickly. This isn’t your parlor.”

He gritted his teeth. Norn had done a lot for him, but did she always have to talk to him like this? Was it so hard to say ‘you have a visitor’ without the commentary?

He finished with the bowl he was working on and put it on the rack, dried his hands, and left the kitchen. He wouldn’t let himself hope that it was Sitara.

Norn nodded to a clean shaven man dressed in a cheap court-styled robe. He looked like a wannabe solicitor—save the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder. He definitely didn’t look like someone who belonged at Garam’s.

“Are you Ren, formerly of the Karami family?” He had a voice even snootier than his looks.

Ren grimaced at the reminder of his ‘nameless’ status. But he nodded.

“Yes. I’m Ren.” He was still frustrated and it leaked into his voice and the glare he planted on the man.

The man, for his part, didn’t bat an eye. He pulled out a scroll and read, “You are hereby summoned to the medical clinic at the temple of light on Durian Street. This message is being delivered on behalf of sir Irah Windsong.” He rolled up the scroll when he was done.

Did he really have to read from a scroll just to say that?

More importantly, uncle Irah was back in town! It’d been years since he’d left on his last trip. Maybe he would be able to help.

Ren smiled. Things were going to be okay.

***

Ren practically skipped toward the temple. Durian Street was on the border of the merchant quarter to the east, just a block North of the river.

He met up with the river a few blocks East of the industrial district. Here people were cleaner, their robes brighter, their mustaches sharper and pointier, and the odd beard was carefully trimmed. Some even wore silver-embroidered kaftans. The buildings were painted and popped out like a tapestry.

Stolen novel; please report.

Unseasonable heat beat down, cutting into the steady trend of cold wind and frequent rain that had been inching the city toward winter.

Ren reached the bridge and crossed over water that glimmered under the open sky like thousands of flowing shards of glass.

The North side of Katarn was reserved mostly for aristocrats, government officials, foreign delegates, powerful cultivators, and the extremely wealthy. The buildings were the beautiful kind of ancient; arched and domed and carved with murals. Where the older buildings to the south were boxy and made the baked bricks, so common in the Ardus River Valley, look like a crude thing, these structures demonstrated how an artist could bring out the beauty of any material. It was a showcase of the true essence of the brown stone bricks. Door frames and seals were lined with glinting bronze. No paint was needed to dress up something so glorious.

Even before his loss of status, Ren had never been comfortable on this side of the river. The people who belonged up here were more beautiful, more elegant, more capable. In his best clothes he’d still felt like a pauper. That was before he’d actually become one, of course.

But now, that churning in his gut was gone. If the denizens of Katarn’s elite gave him sidelong glances, he didn’t notice.

He rounded the corner of a public bathhouse and stopped short.

The temple of light stood before him. He’d never been here, but he could recognize it by the twelve pointed star atop its dome. What he hadn’t expected were the white tents surrounding it, signifying that it was a house of returning souls—a refuge for the dying. What was Uncle doing here?

Ren started feeling the judgment of passersby. They pressed in on him and his shoulders buckled forward under the weight. He didn’t belong here.

The nameless boy, receiver of Garam’s charity, sheathed in a borrowed shirt, and bearing the the stink of the gutter on his soul, pushed himself forward. Step by step. Focused on keeping his breathing even.

Uncle Irah was probably here helping others. That had to be it. Ren nodded to himself, but his steps didn’t get any easier.

A priestess of the light stood by the door to one of the tents.

“Who are you here to see, dear?” Her voice was warm and soft and kind, a summer breeze, a morning birdsong, not at all like the brutal heat of the sun overhead.

“I-” Ren bit his lip. “I’m here to see Irah Windsong.”

She pulled out a sheet of paper from her pocket and scanned it before glancing back up with a knowing look. “Follow me, dear.”

Uncle Irah was in one of the cots. His face was pale and black veins crawled across it. One of his eyes was milky. The usually perfect mustache he had always sported was overgrown and his chin was speckled with growth.

Ren approached until his Uncle’s good eye focused on him and lit up.

“Ren, my boy!” The sick man’s voice was raspy and lacked its characteristic musicality.

Ren threw his arms around the man, trying not to think about how different he felt, how bony and weak.

“So good to see you, my boy,” Irah said, feebly patting his back.

“What happened to you, uncle?” Ren didn’t let go. He just kept squeezing.

“That’s a little tight, kiddo,” Irah coughed out, “how about you pull up a stool and we can chat.”

Ren noticed blood on the man’s lips as he pulled away.

A nearby priest had overheard Irah and set a stool down for Ren.

He sat, not taking his eyes off his uncle, or the way his cheeks sunk in, or how he winced with each breath.

“I don’t have long, kiddo. Truth be told, if I hadn’t heard what had happened to your family, I’d be dead already.” Each word was bought with pain that twisted the man’s face.

“Uncle, you’re obviously too sick. Take some time to rest and I’ll come back.”

“No!” Irah’s face lit with passion that faded as soon as it flared. “I’ve saved up my strength to talk to you today. It’s now or never.”

“What do you mean? You’re a cultivator. You can’t die.”

Irah barked out a bitter laugh, spraying out a mist of blood as he did. “You know, they call cultivators who have come as far as I have ‘immortals’. But we bleed. And we can certainly die kiddo.

“We were beset by a great beast as our ship neared the shores of the Republic of Ardus. It snapped the vessel like you’d split open a pistachio. I tried to fight it off. To save the crew. But my blows couldn’t bring it down. Couldn’t stop it.

“Soon after the battle had begun I’d already lost my sword, and I was struggling to breathe past a gash it had left in my side. I called the power of the wind and managed to drive the beast off, even taking two of its tentacles, but it was too late.”

Uncle Irah closed his eyes and caught his breath. It was ragged from the effort of speech and his good eye was red and moist from the weight of the memory.

“When I awoke, I’d washed up on the shore along with fragments of my ship and… and the bodies of my crew… The treasure was gone, sunk.

“It wasn’t until I tried to move that I noticed the poison eating at both my spirit and my body. I almost returned to the Great River right there on the beach with my friends. It felt fitting. But something tugged at me, I knew there was something left for me to do. The River didn’t want me yet.

“The kindness of strangers carried me across the republic, and it was only when I arrived in Katarn that I heard of your family’s plight and realized the full tragedy of losing all my wealth. I’m so sorry I can’t help you more kiddo.

“What your parents did for me the day we met, even though we were strangers, I’ll never forget it. I can’t buy their freedom, nor the medicine your father will surely need again some day. I can’t even say goodbye to them properly. But I can give you one thing.”

He gestured weakly to a narrow case beside his cot with a short stack of papers resting atop it. Ren took the case and examined the papers, noting that the first page was a letter for him. It was written in his Uncle’s style, but the script was shaky and jagged. His fingers tingled where they touched the papers and a warmth spread throughout his body, reaching into his heart.

“That, Ren, is all I have to offer you. It is my legacy. I’m sorry there isn’t more. I’m sorry I don’t have more time.” He coughed again, but this time it was more violent. It was the kind of sound that told you something was broken that could never be fixed. His whole body seemed to deflate.

Ren’s face was streaked with tears which flowed freely as he took his Uncle’s shriveled hand in his own.

“Please don’t go,” he begged, “I need you uncle. Please, please don’t leave me.”

A final spark returned to that eye that had always carried so much mischief. “I’m so glad-” his voice was coming out in short rasps of air “- I got to - to see you - I - love you - kiddo-”

His labored breathing slowed, and stopped.

Then the life left him. But the playful glimmer in his eye remained, along with the hint of a grin on his blood speckled lips.

Ren stayed there crying until gentle hands guided him out of the tent. The sun had already set, and all that was left of day was a faint purple glow at the edge of the sky.

He didn’t have the heart—or the light—to read what his uncle had written to him on his deathbed.

His feet carried him as he drifted aimlessly through the lanterned streets of Katarn. They finally stopped moving and he looked up. He was back on Lake Street. Back on the block that had burned. His feet had taken him home. Only it wasn’t home anymore.

He wanted to see his family more than anything right now, and his feet obliged, depositing him in front of the Osirus clan’s great doors.

A carriage house beside the main building, windows still flickering with light.

In there.

Ren’s hand paused before rapping on the rough wooden door to the carriage house.

It cracked open.