I traveled and met all sorts of creatures—humans, and creatures that were only human-shaped. Some had the face of humanity but mouths that spoke in parables, eyes too old for their faces. Others flashed teeth when they smiled, or moved in ways the body shouldn't. Elves, dwarves, shapeshifters—this world is full of creatures that remind you that humans are small, breakable, and horribly, horribly alone.
I survived them all. Sometimes with fists, sometimes with lies. I learned early on: fight only when you must, speak only when you must, and trust no one who does not bleed as you do. I'd thrown punches and been beaten, set traps and walked into a few. I've stolen more than I could ever hope to repay, and lost more than I wish to remember. I adapted. I survived.
But one thing I never did—not once—was use magic.
Not since then.
Not since the fire, and all the things that happened after.
Maybe it was fear. Maybe guilt. Maybe some deep, nagging superstition that if I used it once more, I'd lose my grip—or worse, I'd remember too much.
And one day, with the sun fading and my legs taking me farther than I intended, I discovered a city.
It wasn't on any of the maps I possessed—or that is, on the bits of maps I'd brought along, most charred to ash or rain-washed and pen-less. A city big enough to be important, with high walls, towers with guardsmen peering out, flags billowing in the wind like flags meant something. I didn't know its name. Still don't. It felt like safety, and that was all.
No one asked who I was at the gate. I didn't look like anyone worth questioning.
Inside, the city was smoke and stone. Noise. People. The kind of place where people disappear even in the daytime, lost in a thousand alleys and a hundred secrets. I disappeared there, too. Just another body drifting through the cracks. Sleeping in doorways. Brawling over scraps. Selling stolen merchandise for bread too stale to eat.
I was alone—but not unusual. The streets were full of people like me. Lost, forgotten, discarded. You'd think that would make us feel less alone. It didn't.
Then came the day everything changed—again.
He was a general, or roughly one. Concealing behind the gray and possessing a sharp jaw and cold eyes. Walking through the lower district like a wolf among curs, selecting from the filth those that appeared desperate enough to accept whatever.
When I saw him looking at me, I knew that I'd been recognized. Not for greatness.
Not for honor.
Simply to exploit.
He offered himself to me in the military.
No contract. No pay. Just food, a bed, and a uniform stitched together with tangled string and dried blood. And I took it.
Not because I believed their cause was just—whatever it was. I didn't even want to know what we were fighting. Kingdoms, clans, monsters? It made no difference. Someone's always dying somewhere, and someone else paying for it.
I reminded myself the general must have seen something in me—strength, wit, potential. But that was a bedtime promise I made myself, just so I could lie down and rest.
The actual truth was simpler.
They were drafting the forgotten. The beggars. The worthless. Anyone the city could spare. We were not meant to be soldiers. We were meat. A wall of flesh to impede the enemy so the real fighters could form their lines. A living shield, sent out in the first wave to let others win the day.
They did not even teach us how to properly hold a sword.
Some called it an honor.
Most of us just called it what it was: a death sentence wrapped up in a uniform.
But I still took it.
Because a cold blanket in a leaky tent still sounded more appealing than freezing to death on the stone. Because soup—no matter how watery soup—was more desirable than pilfered crumbs. Because when you're drowning, you'll hold onto even a blade if it'll keep you afloat.
That was how far down I'd fallen.
That's how easy one can lose oneself when one has nothing to lose.