Start Act 1: From the Ashes
With power boredom will follow. With boredom comes sin. Does this not make sinners the most powerful of them all?
—
The sky over Wester's sat that same flat colourless grey most mornings this month, never quite rain and never quite clear. Cole, a gaunt young man with hair half black from birth and half from soot, curled on a mat too thin to be called a cushion, sleeping off the hunger that's been gnawing at him since yesterday's one meal.
Knock knock knock
He wakes with a start, catching that same grey light through that unpatched hole. Should fix it today. Should've fixed it a month ago.
"And just when I thought I could get away with a nap—this asshole better have a damn good excuse."
He crosses the room in a few steps, past the crooked shelf that holds nothing but an empty clay pot and a rusted kettle, floorboards creaking under bare feet. He cracks his knuckles before he swings the door open. Outside stands an even more skinny, frail boy, patched trousers two sizes too big and cinched at the waist with what looks like old rope, more interested with his sweaty palms than the man now filling the doorway.
"Stickbug you should worry less about twiddling your thumbs and more about you're waking me up this early."
At that, the boy—Stickbug, his real name long since stopped mattering—jumps back suddenly remembering there are worse things than sweaty palms to worry about right now.
"Oh, yes, well, Cole, um—the boss, you know how he is. It's collection day. Just like the rest of us, he wants to eat, and he asked me to, um… politely remind you that you still owe him his tax."
Cole only scoffs.
"Is that porky asshole still pretending that he's protecting the wretches here? From what, overeating? Be serious, Stick, he weighs like ten of you."
Cole isn't a man to bow to authority, and he carries the scars to prove it—the royal guards are more ruthless than any starving thug could hope to be.
"It's about time someone put that fat bastard in his place. Go on, scurry back and tell him he can eat from my waste bucket if he's so desperate."
He shuts the door before boy before he could get another word out.
"Cole! Please, Cole, you know what he'll do, right…? Cole…"
—
Sigh.
'Life's almost bearable when those pigs and flies aren't in my ear. Maybe I should start closing the door earlier.'
'Now I'd better get moving before Stick gets too far ahead—don't want to lose him.'
Cole stretches, crossing to the corner that might generously be called his bedroom, though it's really just the mat and a cracked washbasin nobody's bothered fixing. He spots his jacket—probably the nicest thing he owns—slung over the one chair in the house, its leg patched with a strip of scavenged iron, and scoops it up, brushing off the dust before he grabs his secret weapon. Tucked away under one of the loose floorboards is a piece of bread of untold age covered entirely in mold and fuzz—so far gone that if he hadn't hidden it there himself, he'd never guess what it used to be. Nearly throwing up what little was in his stomach, he reluctantly grabs it with a piece of loose cloth.
'He'll be quite happy to find his food supply covered in spores.'
Then he returns to the door cracking it open just enough to check whether Stickbug's gone yet. Confirming the boy is already trudging down the street, Cole slips out and follows. Wester's whole stretch amounts to a handful of crooked dirt roads, wood plank houses leaning shoulder to shoulder like they're the only thing holding each other upright, more than half the roofs patched with whatever's on hand.
Even during the day, the roads crawl with shady types; the new king's raised taxes have pushed plenty into lives of crime, and out here, killing and stealing have become about as common as breathing. Word is the capital, Loxoda, doesn't look anything like this—paved streets, roofs that don't leak, guards who patrol for the crown's sake and not just its coin. Cole's never seen it himself. Doubts he ever will.
Blending easily with the other lowlifes ducking in and out of alleys, wearing torn clothes in dull, mismatched colours doing more to keep the cold off than to keep anyone looking decent, Cole keeps his distance from Stickbug. Someone as small as the boy has to keep his head on a swivel just to avoid getting mugged every twenty feet. Even so, there are a few close calls where Cole has to duck into cover, earning more than a couple ugly stares from passersby.
Eventually Stickbug reaches a door set into a building nicer than its neighbours—no holes in the walls, the wood still fairly new. It wouldn't pass for anything but a wreck in the capital, but out here it's close to the best Wester has to offer.
After a few steadying breaths, Stickbug raps out a rehearsed pattern on the door. It opens a moment later, and a burly man hauls him inside by the shoulder, dwarfing the boy entirely. watching it, Cole shudders—he'd stood in that same doorway once, under that hand, not so long ago.
'Damn that bastard. He should've killed me while he could still fit my head in his palm because now...'
He clenches his fist, forcing his nerves still and drags his focus back to the task at hand.
'I'll get him his food, just like he asked. Might turn out a little rotten, though.'
—
"You know, Bug two, with how puny you are, I figured people might find you more pitiful. Turns out I was mistaken."
Slap!
"Not only did you not collect my taxes, you thought it'd be smart to come back here empty-handed."
Slap!!
"At least the other one had the brains to run when he had his chance."
'I'm sorry, Stick. You'll have to hold on a little longer while I get things ready for my big return.'
Cole turns from where he was standing, by the window, moving instead toward the back of the house, where Franky—though most of the town just calls him Pig—keeps his food stores.
'He'll get a nice home-cooked meal, right after I finish paying back every beating he's owed.'
He doesn't make it far before another sound stops him cold.
"I think I've let little bugs stay in this house too long. First the cockroach, now you. Time I found someone who can do their job without needing the lesson beaten into them."
Heavy footsteps cross the floor inside, then stop at the sound of a drawer sliding open. Franky lets out a long, satisfied breath as he reaches in.
"Been a while since I brought this one out. You should feel honoured—only the very worst assholes in town earn it."
Through the window, Cole can just make out Stickbug scrambling backward across the floor, paralyzed, as the giant man turns toward him, knife in hand.
"Wait—wait, boss, please, I swear I can still be useful, I—"
"You can be quiet and make this easy."
Franky crosses the room in two strides, hauls the boy up by the collar with one hand, and brings the blade to his throat with the other.
—
The moment the drawer creaks open, Cole is somewhere else. Ten years gone, standing in that exact room with three other boys, all of them orphans stupid enough to think this house looked worth robbing. They found out fast why no one else tried.
Franky had caught them mid-theft, after one of the boys knocked a bowl to the floor, stunned by the sight of more food than any of them had ever seen at once. He'd lined them up like cattle, close enough to the door that anyone outside could hear. That time, he'd opened the drawer for a different reason. He drew the knife out slow, turning it over in his broad hand.
"You boys know why I kept you around."
No one answered.
"Eating's fun for a while. Then you run out. And I hate running out—so I keep myself stocked. Trouble is, going out and getting it myself just works up my appetite. So instead, I'll do this."
He tossed the knife down in front of them.
"Which one of you wants to be my pet."
—
The memory breaks apart the second Cole registers where he still is—out back, food storage in sight, Stick's life running out somewhere he can't reach in time. There's no going around. No plan left worth following.
He doubles back around the side of the house at a dead sprint, tossing the cloth wrapped bread, blood roaring loud enough to drown out thought. Sparks spit from his palms with every stride.
'What—'
There's no time to finish the thought, no time to even glance down and confirm what his own hands are doing. The sparks gather into a small, furious ember by the time he reaches the front. He doesn't slow down for the door he's spent ten years too afraid to walk through again. He kicks it clean off its hinges.
"You shouldn't have chosen your pet from a pack of hungry wolves."
Franky drops Stickbug without ceremony, and the boy scrambles for the gap, throwing one wide eyed glance back at Cole before he's gone. Franky doesn't chase him. His attention's already elsewhere.
"More like a pup. Should've stayed gone once you got out, Bug one. But if it's a fight you're after, I can promise you a quick death instead."
He turns the knife on Cole, already moving, swinging low for the shoulder.
'Shit! He's fast for something that size.'
Cole barely gets under it in time—and Franky, who clearly isn't used to anyone dodging him, overcommits on the follow through. The opening is there for half a second. Cole takes it, throwing everything he has into a fist wreathed in flame, close enough to feel his own jacket cuff start to singe.
It doesn't land where he means it to.
Franky's free hand closes around Cole's wrist before the punch reaches his face, stopping it dead. For a moment, something almost like surprise crosses his features.
"Careful now. Wouldn't want you catching the whole house on fire before I've had a chance to ask you something."
His grip tightens.
"How's a nobody like you walking around with the Gift?"
Cole doesn't answer. He's too busy trying to pull his hand free, without success.
"Not talking. Fine. Let's cool you down first, then we'll see if that loosens your tongue."
Franky hauls him back and throws him—straight through the window. Cole hits the street in a spray of glass, the impact driving the air from his lungs before he's even registered leaving the house. Around him, the street goes still for a moment: a few bystanders glance over, clock the bleeding man on the ground and the much larger one now climbing out after him, knife still in hand—and decide, wisely, that they have somewhere else to be. Within seconds the street is empty but for the two of them.
Cole rolls over and spits a mouthful of blood into the dirt.
'Damn it, was he always this strong?'
He doesn't get much time to himself before the Pig is already upon him.
"It's a good thing I took this outside. Don't have any bugs left to wipe the floor with anymore."
Franky punctuates the line with a kick to Cole's chest, bouncing him off the dirt and sending another mouthful of blood spilling out.
Franky walks over, unhurried.
"I'd love to banter more, but I'd really rather know whose ass you kissed to get the Gift, and why I've been stuck without it my whole life!"
He lifts Cole's face out of the dirt by the neck.
Cough, cough.
"I don't know what this 'Gift' is but if I had to guess maybe smarts are the requirement," Cole manages, before another coughing fit cuts him off. "Clearly, you're sorely lacking in that department."
Franky doesn't let it last. He tightens his grip around Cole's throat and stands, leaving Cole's feet dangling off the ground and a pained expression across his face.
"You think this is a game I'm playing with you?! If smarts are the requirement, I'd say you're a little short yourself. Let's see how long you want to keep this act up."
He slams Cole back into the dirt, still holding him down, and raises the knife.
"For your first wrong answer, I'll give you one tally. How high can you count, smartass?"
He drives the blade into Cole's chest, carving a deep divot below the collarbone, staining his prized jacket.
Between the sharp pain, coughs, and fighting to catch his breath, Cole manages to get the word out.
"Very."