The world was mud, and Filip was misery. He lay on his side, face pressed into a thick patch of it causing every agonized breath to suck up grit. Unfortunately even that discomfort paled in comparison to his hand. The place where his fingers had once been stared at Filip, open bloody wounds. The ring finger had been cut free entirely, the middle one reduced to a ragged stump of broken bone and torn skin.

He wasn't sure how long he had been lying there. Time did not exist for him there, only pain, and the half fevered recollections of this past few hours. Burned at the forefront was the jailer’s face as he held the knife, and the way the knife had slipped through his finger. Other memories twisted in his mind and he shivered as he felt the rope around his neck and the jarring snap that had set him tumbling to the ground. What had there been after that? His memories fuzzed, a strange gap. He had fallen, and then what? His eyes shifted imperceptibly and he breathed another muddy breath. He had been moved, he could see that much - discarded with the other corpses. Now he supposed he would die, oblivious to the guards, one more dead hero to the crows.

Filip could see through the haze of his pain, the guards had moved back now. They had abandoned the breach in the Governor’s mansion wall and it stood unguarded. Filip could hear them. They were gathered further back, closer to the main palace steps where the lanterns glowed with a warm, mocking light. They had given up on the wall. They had given up on the Garden District, a place they clearly wanted no part of after the sun went down. They were waiting for the morning, or perhaps they were just waiting for the screaming to finally stop.

Filip blinked, his eyelashes matted and heavy with dried blood. He saw movement now. At first he feared the dead were moving, rising even as he rotted forgotten. But as the blood cleared from his eyes, he saw they were merely the scum of Marchand come to feed. The shadowy scavengers of the Garden District

They came slowly, creeping through the breach, more animal than human. Their eyes darting toward the distant guards even as their fingers dug and pulled at clothes and boots. Was it bravery that drew them on? Or just the hunger of men who saw a hundred corpses for the goods they wore, for the opportunities they presented. Filip wondered then if any had come to find loved ones, or if they were only there for the coins and blood crusted jewels. Filip knew there would be no one searching for him, and he felt a deep longing welling within him that could never again be sated. He did not want to die like this.

A few yards away a man lay groaning. He was one of the prisoners who hadn't been lucky enough to have his rope snap. He had been cut down, and the blade that cut the rope had not stopped there. He lay bloody and clinging to life in a way that seemed altogether cruel. Filip watched as a member of the Governor’s Guard, a man wearing the very armor Filip had spent his life dreaming of, walked over to the groaning man.

Filip recognized the armor. It was the heavy, polished plate of the elite guard, the kind of icon of honor he had once imagined for himself. The man wearing it was tall, his helmet tucked under one arm. He looked down at the dying prisoner. Instead of offering water or a quick end, the guard let out a short laugh. He kicked the man in the side, a dull thud that made the prisoner cough up a spray of dark red.

"Still kicking, are you?" the guard said. He chortled at his own pun and lashed out again with his foot.

He stooped down after the second blow. He didn't bother looking at the man’s face. He only looked at his belt. With a quick tug, he ripped away a small leather pouch. He reached to the man’s finger then and took hold of a small silver ring. With a sharp grin the guard yanked the ring free, snapping the finger back sharply. The man on the ground let out a wet sounding gurgle, but did not scream.

"You're damn cruel Garen," another guard called out from the shadows near the inner gate. This second guard didn't move toward the looting. He just stood there, his spear resting against his shoulder. "Give it a rest. Let the man die in peace."

Garen, the looter, didn't even look up. He was busy checking the prisoner’s boots. "He’s got no use for silver where he’s going. Besides, Hoff aint paying enough for the amount of work we’re putting up with. I’m done pulling doubles. What I see here is a chance to take what’s owed me. Nothing wrong with a little justice in the world."

A third guard, older and with a thick grey beard, walked over. "Stop it, you idiot. If Lord Hoff looks out the window and sees you acting like one of the damn city rats he’ll have your head in a noose next. You’re supposed to be a soldier, not a common thief."

Garen ignored him. He stood up, jingling the coins in one hand as he examined the ring in his other hand. "Hoff is too busy licking the Inquisitor’s boots to care about what happens out here in the mud. He never said we couldn't browse the wares. It’s only right that we get somethin for our toils. Besides, it lets the peasants see that we do what we want, and there aint nothing they can do to stop us."

The older guard merely shrugged and turned away. He didn't try to stop Garen again. Just walked back to his post, boots crunching on the ground stone below. In the that moment Filip felt a chasm open within his chest. Which was worse? Indifference or cruelty? He should have felt anger, but instead Filip felt nothing but the burning of his hand and his own self pity.

Filip felt a sob catch in his throat, but it came out as a wet splutter. He closed his eyes and let his head roll back into the mud. His illusions were gone. The heroes of the myths, his childish fantasies, they didn't exist in Marchand. They couldnt exist in Marchand. In this city there were only predators and prey, and he had spent his whole life wanting to be a predator.

A cold hand touched his chest.

Filip flinched at the touch and his eyes swam open to reveal a face inches from his own. It was a child. A boy, perhaps ten years old, with matted brown hair and dirty rags for clothes.

The boy was reaching into Filip’s coat. His small fingers were searching for the few coins Filip had saved from his time in the Night Watch.

Filip tried to move, his good hand twitching in the mud. The child froze, his eyes never leaving Filip’s face. He hadn't expected a corpse to wake up. The boy shifted out of Filip’s reach, sitting back and watching. They stared at each other a long moment. There was something there in the small face that reminded Filip of his younger brothers. A face braver than his years. He did not run, only watched to see if Filip would die, or perhaps to help. Filip saw a small flask then and he felt the dryness then, the desperate need for water not filled with bloody mud.

"Water..." Filip tried to speak, but his voice came out a low whimper. "Please... water."

The boy didn't move. He looked at Filip’s mangled hand, then at the blood soaking through his tunic. He didn't look mean; he just looked empty. He reached into his own pocket and pulled out the small purse he had taken from Filip’s coat. He looked at it, then at Filip, and then tucked it away. He did not reach for the flask.

Filip tried to reach out then, to seize the flask, a weak, pathetic gesture that barely cleared the ground. The boy flinched back, and Filip felt a burning anger then. He would not have left another to die without a drink.

"Git… get out of here,” Filip growled.

The effort was too much. Filip’s head fell back. He felt something than, a give where his head had struck. Filip didn't want to look because he knew what he would find. He could feel the coldness of a corpse beneath his head, and he wanted to cry, he wanted to scream. But he did neither, instead letting the exhaustion take him.

His mind began to drift, slipping away from the courtyard and the smell of death. He was back home. Not his small room in Marchand that was too small and too cramped, but back on the farm. His parents farm. He could smell it then, all the odors that he had hated growing up. The sheep and goats, and he realized he had missed them. He could hear one of his younger brothers, Leo, screaming as he chased the chickens near the barn. He could see his older sister, Miri, sitting on the porch sharpening a set of heavy shears.

"Filip, come inside before the dew settles," his mother called out. Her voice was warm, and Filip’s heart broke then. He was crying, and then he was in her arms, sobbing relentlessly. He knew that he was being unmanly, that heroes never cried, but in that instant he didnt care. He clung to his mother then as only a child could.

He heard his father, a deep familiar cough, and Filip wiped his eyes and turned from his mother. There he was, sitting by the hearth in exactly the same he had on the day Filip left. The man looked older than Filip remembered, but the smile was the same and Filip dried his eyes as his father slowly stood and crossed towards him.

"Don't forget who you are, boy," his father whispered as he took Filip into a hug. "The city will try to change you, but you’re strong. You dont let them change you, you hear me?"

The words were similar to the ones he had heard when he had left for Marchand. Filip had not listened then, he had wanted the silver. He had wanted a title. He had wanted to marry high and live in a house where the floors were made of marble instead of dirt, and be the hero he had always known that he would become.

What would they think of him now? The thought swam unwelcome before his pleasant visions, and he felt the familiar pull of reality as he moved into consciousness. Here he was, lying among the dead, his fingers cut off, his spirit broken. He wondered then what had become of his parents. No letters had made it to the farm, and no news had come back. He wondered if his father was still coughing. He wondered if they even remembered the boy who had walked away with his head full of stories.

Filip wondered if he remembered that boy.

A cold drop of water hit his forehead. Then another.

Filip opened his eyes. The pickpocket was gone and the courtyard was silent, except for the distant murmur of the guards. He didn't check his pocket, he knew that his money was gone. He felt a strange lack of anger. He hoped the boy would use it to become a better man than he.

The money didn't matter to Filip then. You couldn't buy your way out of the grave.

He looked toward the trees. The images of the day’s horrors came back, the hanging, the screaming, the way Lord Hoff had watched it all with that bored, cruel expression. But then he remembered the other man. The fat man who had stared down the guards and yanked him free from the edge of death.

Filip looked at the trees again. They were empty. No more men were swinging from the branches. The piles of dead hadn't grown. The man who spoke of God had stopped the killing, at least for a while. He had stood in the path of a storm and told it to stop, and for some reason, it had.

If an old man with a few words could stop Hoff’s killing, why was Filip lying here waiting to die?

The rain began to fall in earnest now, a steady, cold drizzle that washed the mud from Filip’s face. It felt like a sign. It felt like the world was trying to wake him up. He wasn't dead yet. The entity with the black eyes hadn't killed him. The jailer hadn't killed him. The rope hadn't killed him.

"I was saved," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I was saved for a reason."

He didn't know what the reason was. He didn't feel like a hero. He felt like a coward who had finally seen the truth. But the truth was better than the dream. The dream had led him to this courtyard. The truth might lead him out.

Filip gritted his teeth and rolled onto his stomach. The pain in his hand flared into a white-hot scream, and the wound in his chest pulled open. He could feel the warm trickle of fresh blood running down his chest, mixing with the cold rainwater. He didn't care.

He pushed himself up. His arms shook, his muscles aching. He collapsed once, his face hitting the mud, but he pushed again. He got to his knees. The world spun. The lanterns of the Governor’s mansion looked like dizzying fireflies dancing in the dark.

He looked toward the breach. The guards were still huddled near the inner gates, trying to stay dry under the stone overhangs. They weren't looking at the dead. They weren't looking at the wall.

Filip stood up. His legs were weak, and he had to rest against a heap of the dead. He didn't look down. He didn't want to see whose corpse he was using for support. He just focused on the darkness beyond the breach.

He took a step. Then another. He held his mangled hand against his chest, cradling it tight against the pain. His good hand pressed against the hole in his tunic, trying to keep his insides where they belonged.

The pain kept him lucid. With each lurching step it stabbed through him, a reminder that he was not dead yet. He moved past the broken stones of the wall. He moved away from the light of the palace and its cruel heroes.

He stepped into the mud of the Garden District. Darkness flooded in around him and the narrow alleys filled with the smell of waste and rot. There were no torches here. There were only shadows.

Filip didn't know where he was going. He didn't have a plan. He just knew enough to keep moving, keep walking. Where he went didn't matter as long as it wasn't here.

He staggered through another alley, his boots sinking deep in filth. He passed a doorway where a woman sat, eyes vacant and clutching something to her chest. She looked up at him, but did not see him. Not truly, she looked through him, a ghost left behind by the dead in the Governor’s courtyard. Dried tear streaks ran through the grime of her face. She did not offer help, and Filip did not ask it of her.

He kept going, walking through a city of lost souls. He was no longer the boy from the farm who wanted to be a Lord. He was Filip, the man who had survived death.

As the rain grew heavier it soaked through his clothes. Despite the cold, Filip felt a sense of acceptance. The silver was gone. The daydreams were gone. But his heart was still beating. The sight of the old man pushing back against Lord Hoff’s dogs kept returning, and with each retelling in his mind he found new strength.

He walked on, and at last the darkness swallowed him whole, and Filip found he wasn't afraid of it. He was part of it. And in the darkness, even the smallest light can be seen for miles. He just had to stay alive long enough to find the spark.