Vishil kicked lazily at a bird that had the nerve to land near his left foot, causing the creature to clatter against the loose shingles of the rooftop. It fluttered away with a startled squawk, but didn't go far, settling on a nearby chimney to watch him. Vishil ignored it, his focus returning to the half-moldy loaf clutched in his fingers. He’d stolen it from his grandmother’s hidden stash, a loose floorboard beneath her sleeping mat that she’d stupidly thought he didn't know about. Briefly, he wondered where the old woman had even found it. Grain was scarce, and bread that wasn't mostly sawdust was rarer still in the Garden District, a place that Vishil unfortunately called home. He didn't dwell on the thought for long; he was unlikely to get the information from her, not with her current mood.

Breta had been cross for weeks, a simmering, silent resentment that sat in their shared shack like stagnant water. Vishil wasn't entirely sure why she had become so miserable and angry, but he thought it might have something to do with her body's agonizing decline. Her usual nimbleness, born of countless years of experience picking pockets in the crowded markets had begun to fail her. He could see the age lines deepening, cutting across her face now, and her grey hair falling out in sickly dry clumps. The change in her eyes had been the starkest change, they had receded, turning into dark pits like a corpse left to rot.

He just couldn't understand her mood. To Vishil, looking like a walking corpse was an asset, not a curse. He would kill someone to look like that. If he had her sunken cheeks and that skeletal frame, he wouldn't be confined to the soot-choked gutters of the Garden District. He could lounge around the marble steps of the district’s inner gates or beg in the richer areas of the city where the merchant lords felt just enough guilt to toss a coin to a dying boy. But Breta was stubborn. She couldn't see the benefit of her own decay. Vishil, however, saw everything. He had spied the small sacks of handouts, shriveled apples, pork crusts, and glittering coins that she had been hiding around their hut. She was hoarding, preparing for a winter, or maybe a famine. Either way Vishil felt no guilt in taking his cut.

He looked down at his own skin, a sickly, translucent grey that stretched tight over prominent bones. His clothing was nothing more than a collection of worn scraps held together by dried mud and desperation. He grunted in envy. People didn't see him; to the elite of Marchand, he was just another piece of gutter trash, a shadow amongst shadows. While Breta was also gutter trash, it was different for her. She had always been lucky and had obtained a reputation in the underground that he had yet to earn. Truth be told, he suspected she had chosen this life of scrap and shadow, while he was still waiting for his opportunity to prove he deserved better.

Vishil sourly tore a chunk from the moldy bread. The taste was bitter and musty, but he sucked it down, barely swallowing before his stomach cramped in a familiar ache. Life was unfair, a lesson Marchand taught its children before they could even walk. But if nothing else, he still had the strength of youth. If Breta ever caught him stealing her food, he had no reservations about landing a few blows to teach her a lesson, after all, Survival was the only law that mattered in the slums.

Someone below in the streets coughed wetly. The sound was thick, a ragged noise that floated up to Vishil’s ears like music. It was the sound of the city, the sound of the wet lung that claimed so many in the damp. But more, it was the sound of opportunity. He couldn't tell who had coughed, but that wouldn't take long. He leaned his head over the roof ledge, peering down into the darkened street.

The dawn was just beginning to break, a deep orange light rising over the jagged walls of the Governor’s mansion. It illuminated the misery of Marchand with a slow, cruel hand. The night had been a bad one, perhaps the worst in living memory. The Governor’s enforcers, led by that dog Lord Hoff, had been at work almost all the previous evening. They had been snatching anyone with a pulse, young men from the taverns, old women from the bakeries, even children who lingered too long in the alleys. There had been no discretion, no trial. Just the heavy thud of boots and the clank of shackles. Vishil wasn't an idiot; he had stayed hidden on the rooftops until the screaming from the Governor’s gardens and courtyards had subsided. Briefly he wondered if they had caught Breta, but he quickly lost interest in the thought and turned back to the city.

The air was thick now with a new scent. It wasn't just the usual soot and coal smoke. It was the heavy, cloying smell of burnt flesh.

From his vantage point, Vishil could see the smoke rising in thick, black ribbons from the Governor’s grounds. The guards had piled up most of the corpses, the supposed traitors and refugees alike, into massive pyres. They were burning them now. Vishil watched the embers dance in the distance, a pyre of torture eating the hungry Marchand citizenry and the Northern animals in a single, indiscriminate flame.

He didn't think it was right, what they had done, mixing them like that. Even in death, there should be a hierarchy. He wouldn't have wished that even on Breta, to be burned in a heap with those subhuman Northerners. The refugees were a mistake of nature, a blight that had crawled out of the mountains to steal the lifeblood of the Empire. They deserved nothing but ridicule and hate. Vishil had seen the pamphlets going around for years, depicting caricatures of Northerners with pointed teeth and cloven hooves. Breta had even been a distributor at one point, passing the secret missives around the city right under the oblivious noses of the Governor’s guard and the Night Watch.

The years of hatred and misery had festered in the Garden District, a wound that never quite healed. But then Lord Brock had stepped in. Brock was the only one who understood. He had pointed those frustrations toward the true offenders: the Governor who had let the dirty Northerners in, and the trickle of refugees who had brought their filth and their foreign gods to Marchand’s doorstep.

Vishil remembered the last time he had heard Lord Brock speak. He had ventured into the heart of the Garden District, standing atop a grain wagon, his voice booming over the sound of the mills. He had told them the truth then, about the Northerners taking their jobs, their houses, their families, and their food. He had painted a picture of a city being devoured from within. What’s worse, he had told them about the Northerners true nature, the dark magic they wielded to destroy the loyal citizens of Marchand. Vishil had no idea their roots had gone so deep, but it only made sense. Someone had to be responsible for his misery. It couldn't just be the way the world was; it had to be a conspiracy.

The smell of burnt flesh intensified, bringing his mind back to the present. He pushed the thought of the vile Northerners from his mind once again. If he was being honest, the stench of the pyres was helping conceal the sour, fermented taste of the bread. It provided a savory backdrop that tricked his starving brain into thinking he was eating something better than mold.

Vishil finished the loaf and threw the remaining crumbs to the bird. It hopped down, wolfing the pieces down hungrily. Vishil watched it for a moment, then turned his gaze toward the center of the city. The Governor’s palace was a hive of activity. Even from here, he could see the glint of sunlight on the spears of the elite guard.

They were going to have a hanging that morning.

The rumors had spread through the slums faster than a fever. Lord Brock, the hero of the commoners, had been arrested. They said he had confessed to the massacre. They said he was a traitor. Vishil’s blood boiled at the thought. Lord Brock was the only man to ever do something good for the slums of this city. He was the one who had given them a name for their pain.

Vishil knew most of his friends had already gone toward the mansion. He could see the massive crowd of commoners, thousands of them, pooling around the outer gates. They were peering down into the Governor’s courtyard from any vantage point they could find: rooftops, balconies, the tops of silos. They stayed back just far enough to avoid getting stabbed by the Governor’s guards, but they were there. They were watching.

The murder of all those Northerners in the courtyard... in Vishil’s mind, that had been a good thing. It was a cleansing. He had a mind to find a Northerner himself, one of the ones who had hidden in the cellars, and lay into him with a heavy pipe. But that time had not come. For now, the city waited, holding a collective breath to see what would happen next.

Was Lord Brock guilty? Vishil hoped so. The idea that his hero had finally acted and not just talked gave him chills. If Brock had really orchestrated the massacre of the foreigners, it meant he had finally taken a stand against their spreading disease. He wasn't the only one who felt that way. Most of the good ones in the slums knew what had to be done. They’d been going to enough of Brock's speeches; they knew how to read between the lines. How often had Lord Brock told the crowds to stay vigilant? To stay ready for the coming change?

Now, Brock would never give them the final go-ahead. But maybe he wouldn't need to. Maybe he would serve the city better through his death than he ever could have in life.

Vishil felt a cold, sharp fury building in his chest, a sensation more filling than the bread. From a nearby rooftop, he heard the sharp bark of an argument start. Then another broke out in the alleyway below. The tension was a physical thing, a sharpened blade stretched across the throat of Marchand.

He looked down into the street at the sound of heavy, marching footsteps. He expected to see the Governor’s guards in their polished plate, or perhaps the bumbling drunks of the Night Watch. Instead, he saw old Merril.

Merril was a tanner, a man whose hands were permanently cracked and stained a deep brown from the vats. He was walking down the center of the street toward the Governor’s grounds. In his hand, he gripped an old rusted sword, a family heirloom from some forgotten border skirmish. His face was grim and determined.

The coughing man from earlier, a neighbor named Hobb, lurched out of a doorway. He stopped coughing for a moment, wiped a string of bloody phlegm from his lip, and called out something to Merril. Merril didn't stop, but he nodded, and Hobb fell into a shaky, limping step beside him, clutching a heavy wood axe.

Vishil felt a thrill run through him, a jolt of pure adrenaline. He stood up on the roof, his heart racing not from fear, but from anticipation. He ran down the slope of the rooftops, jumping from one ledge to the next keeping pace with old Merril.

He reached the street level just as Merril and Hobb passed his alley and he stepped behind them. In his hand, Vishil clutched a shiv he’d fashioned from a sharpened file. The scent of bloody change was in the air now, overpowering the smell of the pyres.

By the time they reached the main thoroughfare that led to the palace gates, there were dozens of them. Commoners, men and women with stained faces and angry eyes, were emerging from every crack and crevice of the slums. They marched in brooding silence at first, but then he heard it. The chants..

They came low at first, a few voices, discordant, isolated. Then the stomping of feet, and the hundreds of feet merged into thousands, all striking the cobblestones in angry thunder. Marchand was tired, of the violence, of the abuse, and the people were hungry for change.

As they turned the corner toward the Governor’s courtyard, Vishil looked back and felt the swelling of pride within him. The city had turned out, and now there were thousands of voices, rising in a cacophony of frustration. He heard the clatter of metal, shields made from pot lids, weapons forged from scythes and hammers.

They pushed in toward the mansion walls, a great tide of the forgotten. They weren't violent yet, but they were standing vigil. They were waiting to bear witness to Lord Brock’s hanging. Vishil gripped his shiv tighter, his knuckles white. He could see the gallows being tested on the ramparts, the rope swaying in the morning breeze.

The Governor thought he was ending a rebellion by hanging its voice. But as Vishil looked at the faces around him, the rage, the desperation, he knew the bastard was wrong. They were waiting for the drop. And they were waiting to do what must be done after.

The sun finally cleared the horizon, hitting the banners of the mansion with a blinding, mocking light that illuminated the corruption there. Vishil squinted, his heart beating fast now. The air was cold, but he felt the heat spreading through his limbs. It was almost time.

He stood near Merril, his small frame lost in the mass of angry bodies. He didn't feel like gutter trash anymore. He felt like part of an avenging warrior that had only now woken up. He looked up at the high walls, at the guards who were now looking down with uncertainty.

"For Brock," someone whispered in the crowd.

"For Marchand.”

Vishil didn't say anything. He just watched the rope. He watched the shadows of the elite guards moving behind the battlements. He could smell the sweat of the men around him mixing with the lingering ash from the pyres.

Dawn had come to Marchand, but it wasn't only a new day. It was the beginning of a reckoning. Vishil adjusted his grip on the shiv, his eyes fixed on the silhouette of the gallows. He was ready. They were all ready.

The crowd pushed forward a few inches, a collective movement that made the guards at the gate level their pikes. A low growl rippled through the thousands of protesters, a sound of menace.. Vishil felt the pressure of the bodies behind him, pushing him toward the line of steel. He wasn't afraid though.

He looked at Merril’s rusted sword, at the jagged edge of the metal, and then at his own shiv. They weren't pretty weapons, but they would kill just as well as the Governor's steel.

The morning air shifted, carrying the sound of a heavy door opening somewhere deep within the mansion. The crowd went deathly silent. Every eye turned toward the platform. A figure in black, the executioner, appeared, flanked by armored men.

Vishil held his breath.. The story of Marchand was about to be written in blood, and Vishil, the boy who stole moldy bread from his grandmother would be at the forefront.

He didn't look back at the Garden District. He didn't think about the bird or the rooftop. He only thought about the weight of the shiv in his hand and the glorious violence that was about to come alive in Marchand. The city of grain was about to become a city of ash, and as the first guard stepped forward to read the charges, Vishil smiled. It was a jagged, hungry expression, the look of a predator who had finally found its teeth.