The month had been kind.

  In the fields behind the cottage, the farm was no longer a patch of dirt and dreams. Green shoots had broken the surface, arranged in the straight rows Reben had set with string. Adimia worked the hoe with a fervour as if fighting the soil rather than cultivating it. Bacha's experiments - a fertilizer mix involving crushed beetle shells and spicy water that had nearly gassed them all out in the kitchen three days ago - had surprisingly resulted in a patch doubling in size overnight.

  "I wonder how it works..." Reben sat, watching the crops. "Why do they like eating soil?"

  "It's like how you like cheese even though it tastes really bad." Bacha said.

  "Cheese is great; you're the weird one." He retorted.

  Paley shifted the weight of the leather satchel on his hip. It was heavy - a dense mass of silver and gold that thumped against his leg with every step. Inside lay the culmination of four weeks of relentless hunting and the boys' first harvest sales. It was enough for the school fees and they'd set aside a little extra to go shopping for uniforms.

  "You checking it again?" Teerom asked with a grin as they walked down the path toward Gouon.

  "Just making sure it's tied properly," Paley lied, his hand hovering protectively over the bag.

  "Relax, Paley." Teerom threw an arm around his shoulders, squeezing tight. The morning sun caught the side of Teerom's face. "We're walking in, putting this money on the desk, and signing everyone up. Simple stuff, man. Besides, you're a Quimnia. No one's gonna steal from you."

  "They don't know that. They also shouldn't know that."

  "True. True." Teerom raised his hands in surrender.

  They reached the gates. The new guards now accustomed to the sight of the ethereal-looking boy and Teerom waved them through.

  The city was alive with mid-morning commerce. Carts rattled over cobblestones, merchants cried out the prices of fish and silk, the air was thick with the scent of baking bread and horse manure, and laundry lines sagged between leaning buildings, dripping yesterday’s wash onto the heads of the crowd below. Paley tried to focus on the destination: Redhill School. It was on the other side of the district. Just a twenty-minute walk. Just twenty minutes until their future was secured.

  Then he saw them.

  It was a texture in the air rather than a colour; a smear of darkness. Three men were standing near the mouth of an alleyway by the baker. To anyone else, they were unremarkable, dressed in rough-spun tunics and leather jerkins, looking like caravan hands. But to Paley, they were wreathed in a suffocating, tar-like smoke.

  He faltered, his step breaking rhythm.

  He had seen this before. Over the last month, he had seen people like this before. A merchant who kicked a stray dog had a faint black mist clinging to him. A purse thief Paley had spotted had a similarly dark aura. But this... this was different. This darkness was thick and cloying. He could even taste it. Pure rot.

  "Paley?" Teerom stopped, looking back. "What's wrong?"

  Paley didn't answer. His eyes were locked on those men. They weren't doing anything evil. They were just talking, laughing at something one of them had whispered. But the aura had not lied so far.

  Something deep within him told him to follow them.

  "Paley, you good, man? We're going to be late." Teerom said, checking the position of the sun. "Mistress Olea said noon."

  Paley looked at Teerom. He looked at the heavy bag at his hip. He could leave it with Teerom, but what if someone stole it? Teerom was strong, but didn't seem a fighter. He loved heroes but Paley was sure he could never bring himself to hurt anyone else, even in self defence. Paley hesitated.

  "It's nothing," Paley said, forcing his feet to move. He turned his back on the dark-infested men. "Just thought I saw someone I knew."

  "You don't know anyone from here, though."

  "Someone that knows me. The wanted Paley."

  "Ah. Better to be careful, then."

  They kept walking.

  But with every step away from the alley, a heaviness increased upon his heart.

  'You're walking away.'

  "So, I was thinking," Teerom chatted, "If Reben and Jurie like math so much, maybe we can get them abacuses. I saw a cheap one at the corner store on Fillman..."

  Paley nodded mechanically. "That sounds good."

  'They are going to hurt someone.'

  They turned a corner. The darkness of the men was now blocked by buildings, but Paley could still feel it, a magnetic pull on his conscience. He clutched the money bag tighter, his knuckles turning whiter than his already pale skin.

  'Maybe the guards will stop them,' he reasoned desperately. 'Maybe they're just bad guys doing nothing today. I'm not someone that can judge others. I don't have to save everyone.' Paley thought of his family. They were all that should have mattered. He couldn't risk their wellbeing just to be a hero. He wasn't a hero at all. Not like Aneros. He couldn't bear that risk of being a hero.

  They reached Redhill School. It was large, humble building of red brick, surrounded by an iron fence that looked more decorative than protective. Children were playing in the yard after their summer classes. It was a picture of the life Paley wanted to buy for his family desperately.

  Teerom stopped at the gate, taking a deep breath. "Alright. Here we go. Do you want to-"

  Teerom turned, but Paley was already backing away.

  "Paley?"

  "I forgot something," Paley said with a tight voice.

  "What? We have the money and the papers-"

  "I have to."

  "Paley, wait! What are you doing?"

  "You handle everything here, Teerom. Just, please!"

  Paley turned and sprinted. He didn't wait for a response. He ran back the way they came, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The bag of money slapped heavily against his thigh, but he'd completely forgotten about it and hadn't heard Teerom ask for it.

  The guilt was physical, a hand around his throat squeezing tighter with every second he had wasted walking away. The hesitation was still fresh and intense: 'What if it's too late? What if I don't find them? What if I'm just wasting my breath?'

  But he couldn't stop running.

  He reached the baker. The ally was empty.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  "No," Paley hissed. He spun around, scanning the crowd. The feeling of the darkness was fading, dissipating into the general noise of the city. 'What if they've changed their minds?' a thought that he ignored and ran into the next street. Nothing. He checked the tavern. Nothing.

  Panic set in. He had let them go. He had chosen safety, and now, somewhere, that darkness was taking root.

  He needed higher ground.

  He ducked into a narrow gap between two warehouses. He checked left, right. Clear. He reached up and used Water Magic to wash off the white from his hair and the powder that changed his facial features. He then sprayed water painfully into his eyes to force the purple out of them. He'd returned to the black-haired, crimson-eyed boy that the city wanted punished.

  He crouched and pushed. The wind answered him with a violent upward thrust. He shot into the sky, clearing the rooftops in a heartbeat. Flight. Something he had been working on obsessively to ensure he can chase monsters reliably without the environment getting in his way. Like it had when he chased after the Fulguron.

  Below, in a small courtyard, a Hijian girl looked up from her washing line. She saw a blur of black and a flash of red ascending into the clouds. She dropped her basket, pointing, shouting for her mother but by the time she looked up the sky was empty.

  Paley hovered around, high enough to appear a bird - the people below were ants but he knew he could identify those men no matter the distance. He did not know why he felt no fear of this immense height; he was too focused, narrowing his eyes, scanning the world below as the wind whipped his tunic. He looked for the rotting darkness.

  Outside the northern walls, where the road turned toward the coast of the giant lake north of Gouon that separated it from Greater Lusitra. Two large, covered carriages had pulled off the main path into a grove of dead trees. The three men he had seen were there, meeting with a group of others.

  From this height, they looked like ants. But the darkness blowing off them was like a blazing flame now.

  Paley watched as they exchanged something, possibly money. Then, the transfer began. Figures were dragged from the back of the wagons. They were chained, stumbling, bags over their heads.

  Paley's stomach turned over. He saw one of the men - a large brute with a shaved head - grab one of the women by the arm. She stumbled. He laughed, his hand groping her chest before he shoved her toward the new transport.

  Rage, cold, flooded Paley's veins. 'I don't even know them... why am I... feeling this?' He thought. But there was no distinction in reality. He'd seen evil. And his heart screamed with fury, fuelled by the invasive thought of: 'what if it was Jurie? or Bacha, or Rauba? Or Mother?'

  He didn't dive. He didn't know how to control his Flight spell to descend quickly. So, he fell. He dropped like a stone, letting gravity take him. At the very last moment he caught himself with a blast of Air Magic. Then, he switched to Illusion Magic to turn invisible, sprinting toward the carriages.

  He made it at the very last second just as the driver cracked the whip. The carriage lurched forward. Paley climbed up onto the roof and lay flat, his fingers digging into the wood to hold on.

  He realized then, with a sick lurch of his stomach, that the heavy weight was still on his hip and he hadn't given the money to Teerom. He was clinging to the top of a slaver's cart, carrying the future of his family in a leather satchel.

  I'm an idiot, he thought, squeezing his eyes shut. I'm a fucking idiot.

  But he didn't jump off. He couldn't.

  The journey took thirty minutes. They moved north, away from the trade routes, down a path that was little more than ruts in the hard-packed dirt. The landscape changed, the lush fields and forests surrounding Gouon giving way to scrubland and sand.

  The air grew salty with the smell of the sea.

  The carriages stopped. Paley heard waves of water. He crept to the edge of the roof and peered over. They were at the giant lake that fed into the small sea separating them from Greater Lusitra. A long wooden pier extended into the dark water, where a flat-bottomed barge was waiting.

  "Get 'em out! Move it!" a voice bellowed.

  Paley dropped down from the roof, landing softly in the sand behind the rear wheel. He pressed himself against the wood, the illusion still shimmering around him, though holding it for this long while maintaining his balance had cost him. He sensed his mana reserves. About 15 coins. Enough to take down a Tier I comfortably. He was stronger, but he still felt small.

  The slavers began unloading the cargo. They ripped the bags off the captives' heads.

  They were all dark-skinned. The "Daemnegs" Adimia had spoken of with such fear and hatred. It now occured to Paley: if dark-skinned people were demon summoners, how come Teerom was a Dark Conjurer too? But his questions were kerbed when he saw not demons, but a weeping old man, a teenage girl shaking so hard her chains rattled, a dead-eyed pregnant woman who barely moved. He saw fear, despair, pain.

  "Check the manifest," the leader shouted. "I paid for twelve. There's eleven here."

  "One died on the way up," the brute said, spitting into the sand. "Starved to death."

  "That comes out of your cut, Grish."

  The brute, Grish, scowled. He grabbed the woman he had groped earlier - a tall woman with skin like polished obsidian. She pulled back, spitting at him.

  Grish smiled, something that made Paley's skin crawl.

  "Feisty," Grish muttered. "I like that. Put the others on the boat. I'm gonna take this one to the shed for a private inspection before we ship her."

  "Make it quick," the leader grunted. "Tide's turning."

  Grish dragged the woman toward a dilapidated fishing shack near the treeline. She screamed, digging her heels into the sand, but he was twice her size. He hauled her effortlessly without the need for Strength Magic, kicking the door open and throwing her into the darkness.

  Paley stood frozen. The other captives were being herded onto the boat. The other slavers were distracted.

  He looked at the shed then at the black men and women being processed like animals.

  A memory slammed into him. It hit with immense invisible force, bypassing his mental walls.

  Warmth. Strong arms holding him. A deep, rumbling laugh that vibrated against his cheek.

  A face. Dark skin. Kind eyes that crinkled at the corners. A smile that felt like the sun.

  "Don't look back, Quimor." the man said. "Run and don't look back. You deserve to be loved. Never let them tell you otherwise."

  Then, a flash of steel. The smile froze. The head slid from the neck, tumbling onto and slipping on the ice. Red. So much red.

  "NO!"

  Paley gasped, stumbling back. The horror of the memory shattered his concentration. The illusion broke.

  One moment, there was nothing but air. The next, a twelve-year-old boy with pitch-black hair and blood-red eyes stood revealed next to the carriage wheel, clutching a leather bag to his hip, his chest heaving with panic.

  "Oi!" The shout came from the boat.

  Paley snapped his head up. Three slavers on the pier were staring right at him. The leader, a man with a scarred nose, narrowed his eyes.

  "What the hell?" The leader jumped down from the pier, his hand going to the hilt of a curved sword. "Where did ya come from, kid?"

  Paley backed up until his back hit the wood of the carriage. His mind was a chaotic storm of the past and present. The dead man's face from his past. The muffled screams of the woman in the shed. The money at his hip.

  The leader stopped a few feet away, looking Paley up and down. "Oh, hey. Yer that kid that's wanted for theft. What? Ya want in or something? Hahahaha!" He guffawed, an ugly sound.

  He relaxed his grip on his sword.

  "Ya lost? Why aren't ya sayin' nothin'?" the leader sneered. "Or ya spyin'?"

  Paley did not speak.

  The man stepped closer, looming over Paley. He didn't seem afraid. Why would he be. Slavery of the Daemnegs was not illegal, just not spoken of in polite society. It was a business, a dirty one but business nonetheless.

  The man reached into his pouch and pulled out a gold coin. He held it up, the metal glinting in the sun.

  "Tell ya what," the slaver said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. He put a heavy hand on Paley's shoulder, squeezing hard. "Ya didn't see nothing. Ya take this, ya run home to mama, and ya buy yourself some candy or some shit. Yeah?"

  He tried to press the coin into Paley's hand. Paley looked at the gold coin. Then he looked down at the heavy bag of silver at his hip. The money his family had worked so hard for.

  Then he looked at the gold coin in his palm. So easily earned off of the suffering of others. Is this was evil could earn? It made him sick.

  This man thought coins could buy souls.

  From the shed, the muffled screams tore through the air followed by the sound of tearing fabric and a heavy thud.

  The women on the boat huddled together, sobbing quietly.

  Something inside Paley went quiet. The panic vanished. The shaking stopped. The memory of the smiling man didn't fade. It stopped hurting. It crystallized. It became a mandate.

  A different memory crept up. Be strong...

  "Hey," the slaver called, annoyed by the silence. "I'm talking to you, brat. Take the-"

  Paley looked up.

  The man flinched. The boy's eyes had changed. No longer the eyes of a confused and seemingly lost child, they were glazed over, flat, cold, reflecting nothing but pure, unrestrained violence.

  He didn't shout. He almost seemed to not move at all.

  Mana surged, and a blade of earth was in the air. A trickle onto the grass.

  Paley had slashed upward. A single, fluid motion. The blade of earth had caught the man under the jaw and tore through the soft tissue of the throat, severing the artery in a spray of hot, bright crimson.

  The slaver's eyes went wide. He made a wet, gurgling sound, his hands flying to his neck, trying to hold the life inside a vessel that was already doomed. The gold coin dropped, landing silently in the blood-soaked sand.

  He collapsed to his knees, then fell face forward.

  Paley stood over him. The blood splattered across his face was warm. He swallowed hard, fighting a disgusting urge to drink it, then turned his cold gaze toward the shed, toward the boat, toward the men who were now freezing in shock, realizing their leader had just been murdered by a child.