Based on Teti’s explanation, there were a few gangs in town. The poverty and famine gave rise to crime, but the effects of the celestial war along with the scarcity of food meant that even the gangs were mostly focused on scavenging for scraps and petty racketeering. The guards sent by the newly built temples were enough to maintain a semblance of order, but not nearly so to uproot the gangs, so they only put a token effort at the latter.

The only gang that could afford to threaten Teti with the orphanage is the Scorpions, since it lay in ‘their’ territory. Any other gang trying to pull off the racketeering stunt would get into conflict with the Scorpions and be unable to follow through on their threats without driving them out.

“But that’s the thing, Khonsu. We don’t have to be the ones driving the Scorpions out of here. Why, the neighboring gangs can do it for us! We just need to give them a little… motivation.” Teti said with a wicked grin.

Khonsu saw where this was going and held his face in his hands.

“Which ones are you going to sic on the Scorpions, and what kind of ‘motivation’ do you have in mind?”

“We, Khonsu, not me. And don’t worry, I’ve got a guaranteed method…”

***

Teti watched from the roof of a building as a gang member walked down the street. He was wearing a green armband with the drawing of a scarab of questionable quality on it, marking him as a member of the Scarabs.

Teti slowly picked up a brick from the rubble before checking the rest of the street.

“No one’s here. Good.”

The man was close to passing her building as he walked with a careless gait, confident of his own safety.

“Not yet. Almost there…” Teti whispered, unable to hide the nervousness in her voice.

She waited patiently until the man in question was in position, and the hands holding the brick were trembling lightly.

“Now!”

She moved at her own whispered command, dropping the brick over the man’s head.

The brick crashed straight over the man’s head, shattering from the impact and dropping him to the ground.

Teti looked left and right to see if anyone had spotted her or the gangster.

“The coast is clear.” She sighed, before heading back down.

As she got to the man’s body, she winced. His head had caved in, with gore and brain matter splattered on the street and the shattered brick. Teti grunted as she flipped the man over and pulled out a yellow armband of her own. This one had a scorpion drawn on it. Teti searched the man’s body for a knife, before finding a shiv and taking it out. She put the armband over the body’s chest and stabbed the shiv through, leaving a clear challenge before fleeing the area.

“Now to meet up with Khonsu and see how his part went…”

***

“Hey, pretty boy. How’d it go?”

The two had agreed to meet in a ruin of a building rather than at the orphanage just in case someone had been tailing them.

“Call me that again and I am throwing you face-first in the Nyle. And it went well, but I feel like shit.”

Teti snickered as Khonsu sat down against a wall. Khonsu was to demand a ridiculous sum of money from a shop in the Crocogators’ territory, and to smash up the shop when they couldn’t. He insisted on not damaging their merchandise, but destroying things that wouldn’t hurt the business like the doors or the displays, not that Teti understood his reservations.

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She argued that people only paid money these days for food, medicine, and protection rackets, and the first two are always quickly sold out, so whatever the store was selling wouldn’t have earned them much anyway. Nonetheless, Khonsu insisted on his conditions, so Teti acquiesced in the end.

He ended up targeting a gambling den, which didn’t have many customers or any guards during the day.

“Let’s hope this provokes the gangs before the week’s over…” Teti shrugged.

***

The memories faded before I found myself back at the garden with Hurun.

“Woah. That was intense.”

Hurun nodded sadly.

“Those were difficult times, where untold numbers of people needed help and the few that could provide it were overwhelmed.”

Huh.

“I am guessing that I was ‘Teti’ in my past life? And that I was an orphan?”

Again, the god nodded.

“That, you were. No one knew who your parents were, and the orphanage that you had spent your infancy in said you were rescued from a collapsed building. You had no last name and no known kin, so you were named and raised by the orphanage’s staff.”

“Wait, if there were people who took care of me, then where were they in that vision?”

“That’s where the other child in your vision comes in. During your stay at the orphanage, the staff had said that they found a child who was afflicted with a status condition called [Eternal Hunger]. During the war and shortly after it had ended, the cult of Setoth had been sowing chaos in the name of their patron. The details of what happened were unclear, but it was clearly the Evil God of Chaos’s followers who had afflicted the boy. I imagine that they thought that forcing caretakers to handle the ill was going to cause more damage than directly killing them. If that was the case, then they were right.”

The god clenched his fist tightly.

“The cult chose to prey on vulnerable children, since they made for more chaos than targeting adults. Apis was one of their victims by the time the orphanage had taken him in. When they discovered his affliction, they offered to grant the boy a quick and painless death, since no one had discovered a way of curing the affliction.”

“Wait, what?! They offered to kill him?!” I asked in shock.

The god nodded grimly.

“Death can be a form of mercy as opposed to prolonging suffering. Still, it was an extreme measure, and they had more children to take care of than food, shelter, and caretakers to provide for them. It was a dark time, and it forced ugly dilemmas upon those who faced it, so try not to hold it against them.”

I wasn’t sure how much I agreed, but I let the god continue.

“They did not force the decision upon the boy, but he accepted it regardless. He was a kind and gentle child, and he agreed for the sake of the other children. He had made peace with his death. You, on the other hand, couldn’t accept it, so you took him and ran away from the city that was to grow into Hebnopet into a nearby town, which was where the memory I showed you began. You had lost trust in the orphanage and believed that with enough food, Apis would be fine.”

…It seems I was a fool, even back then. I had dragged the poor boy without understanding anything just because I couldn’t put a handle on my emotions.

Seeing my expression, the god hurried to console me.

“You were a child back then, Kiara. You acted with good intentions to the best of your knowledge and effort. That had gotten through to Apis, which granted him comfort. The food you brought him was also more than what the orphanage handed out to the two of you.”

I laughed darkly.

“And how do you know all of this?”

For the umpteenth time, the god gave a tired sigh.

“The story doesn’t end there, Kiara. You’ll find out more as we go.”

I nodded and gestured for him to continue.

The god began weaving his magic once more, and I found myself in another of Teti’s memories.

***

“Damn. We’ve kicked up a hornet’s nest.” Khonsu said.

“Oh, the gangs were furious. Word around the street was that the Scorpions are getting cocky and picked a fight with both the Crocogators and the Scarabs at the same time. Regardless of what they actually think, they have to take the fight to the Scorpions, or the other gangs will jump on them like a pack of hyenas. Perceived weakness and actual weakness are one and the same here.” Teti snickered.

Khonsu sighed.

“Well, you’re probably right. Still, I am worried about innocent people getting caught up in the crossfire.”

Teti just waved him off.

“The people here are golden gooses for the gangs. You can’t get money from the dead – not more than once, anyway. They’ll be safe. More importantly,” Teti said, leaning in to face Khonsu, “we should go and make sure the three pricks who started this whole mess with me die when the fighting begins. If they survive and join one of the other gangs, we might be in trouble all over again.”

Khonsu closed his eyes and steeled himself.

“I agree, but that’s easier said than done. We’ll need to locate them, find an opportunity to kill them all, and actually overpower them.”

Teti gave the boy a wicked smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“Well, you can leave that to me. I don’t forgive or forget, and those bastards won’t even have a moment to regret attacking and extorting me. This, I promise you, Khonsu.”

The venom in the girl’s voice froze the boy.

“…Abyss take me, that’s scary. Remind me not to be your enemy.”

Teti said nothing in response.