Chapter 1

  The sun hammered the market in broad, relentless strokes, flattening shadows and turning every scrap of metal into a hot mirror. Stalls bloomed with colour, bruised gumberries stacked beside the red blood fruits, bolts of cloth flapping like bright flags, jars of spice glowing red and purple. Traders shouted over one another like competing birds, voices hoarse from hours of haggling each trying to carve a small kingdom out of noise.

  At the furthest end of the market, a man sat chained to an iron post, his head hanging down, a placard hangs from his neck. No one looked at him, everyone had to force their eyes from him. No one dared approach him. The Shoven didn't need to shout to be heard.

  Orange and teal banners hang above the street, torn and singed around the edges, a worn white symbol gleams through a dirty reddish brown Shoven insignia, whether it was blood or paint no one from the past remembers. A scar on the history of the town no one wants to acknowledge.

  Heat rose in visible waves from the cobbles, bending the air until the far end of the street looked like it was melting. The smell was a thick stew of dust, sweat, and frying oil, onions burning on cheap griddles, sweet rot from overripe fruit, and the sour tang of animals penned too long in the sun.

  A man barrelled through the throng, shoulders chiselled against the press of bodies, cloak flapping. He pushed a hand across a merchant’s cart and shouted above the clamour. “Move it, people!

  A woman near the spice stall froze as she looked to him, her eyes flicked to the satchel at his waist. She turned away, as if pretending not to know him, this might keep her safe.

  Heads swivelled. Conversation died like a flame put to a handkerchief. From the far end of the street came the heavy, metallic thunk of armour, and a guttural snarl.

  Two Shoven cut into the market like thrown blades, lizard-backed, broad-shouldered sentinels in dented helmets and loose ill fitting layered breast plates that rattled as they ran. Their scales caught the light in dull, oily flashes, green-brown and scarred, the colour of old swamp water. Each step landed heavy and certain, the kind of weight that made people remember why they stepped aside.

  One of them raised a clawed hand and pointed straight down the street. “There he is, Tyron.” the creature snarled. “Drop the book and you may yet live.”

  There was a scurry in the market, a ripple of fear moving faster moving faster than the guards themselves. Baskets over turned, gumberries rolling like loose coins. A child is dragged by the collar, a pot clanged to the ground and split open, stew bleeding across the cobbles. Some fled without thinking. Others simply stepped aside, eyes lowered, making themselves small and invisible, practised at survival.

  Tyron, for that was the man’s name, wove through the crowd with the easy instinct of someone who had learned to disappear long before today. He knew the way of blending into a market, the tilt of a basket to hide a face, a sudden cough to draw eyes elsewhere, the gentle shove that felt like an accident instead of intent. To him, a crowd wasn't chaos. It was his armour.

  He shoved a ladder down as he passed, then fumbled in his leather satchel for a small glass orb. Grey mist swirled within it. He flung it to the stones beneath him and it shattered with a soft, harmless pop, the kind of sound that promised nothing and delivered trouble. Smoke uncoiled at once, thick and acrid, clawing upward in grey plumes. For a brief heart beat, the mist curled up towards him, instead of away from him, brushing his skin like something alive before snapping outwards again. It tasted bitter on the tongue, burned at the eyes, and swallowed the alley in seconds, turning the world into a narrow, choking tunnel.

  The orbs he possesses are kept hidden, for these are illegal without a permit, which have not been released for decades, the only way to get them now is from the Dalan trading company. Tyron keeps them hidden in a flour bag ready to use at a moments notice.

  “That’ll slow them,” he muttered, one hand on the mortar to steady himself, and one hand wiping his brow of dust and sweat. His breath slowing slightly.

  But sound had a way of finding its way through smoke. A voice, deep, flat, and urgent, cut the haze. “Quick! He’s gone down the alleyway. We can’t lose him, he has the book. Call for back up.”

  Tyron’s heart dropped. He had the book. He clenches at the book, if the stories were true, this wasn't just stolen knowledge. It was proof of battles the Shoven claimed never happened. Names erased from public stone, monuments crumbled history that never existed. A history written before banners burned. Wrapped in heavy-leather a bound volume with filagreed gold edging, Sharen work, unmistakable. Owning it was a crime. Opening it could be worse. Beneath his cloak, the leather grew warm. Not from the sun. From him.

  A bell rings out over the town not a tuneful tone, a solid hollow drone from that of the Shoven, people flinch every time a strike is made against it, this is not a joyful tone, this is a tone off attack and unease, often heard at night keeping the people of Valaris awake into the night.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  As the bell rang, heads turned toward him, he knew that bell was for him, alerting all Shoven in the area, he knew he didn't have long before the cavalry came.

  Tyron pushed off the wall and sprinted again, cutting down another lane.

  A low hum rose ahead, a vibration through the soles of his boots. Uncertainty ringing through every bone in his body. Dust rose in the distance, forming a creeping cloud, and their approach was announced by the hard glint of metal: Guard bikes, fast and brutal in their precision.

  “Great,” he breathed. “Now they’ve got Guard bikes.” Behind them, more shadows in the dust, maybe this was more, or just a mirage in the heat rising from the cobbles.

  Tyron stopped and faced them. There was no point in running forever. He reached into his bag and came up with another orb, this one spinning with red and orange like captured flame. He raised it, measuring the distance of the oncoming line, and the lead Shoven’s jaw curled in a sneer. “There he is. Get ready to dismount.”

  The bikes thunder towards him, brutal and rudimentary in design. Chains wrapped around the tyres rusted and covered in fine red dust there to increase grip over the worn down cobbles. Engines growling burning refinery fuel shipped in from Shaln, Shaheros moon. Exhaust pipes thick with soot from years of poor maintenance and continuous use. There were not built for comfort, they were built for pursuit.

  Tyron looks behind him to check the other two guards that were chasing him, but they had seemed to have left the guard bikes to deal with it themselves. He hurled the orb to the cobbles. Glass shattered; a sheet of fire rose, ripping across the road in a living wall. Heat slammed into the Shoven riders. Tyron saw the front wheel of one bike catch flame and the rider wrench the handlebars. Brakes screamed. A bike fishtailed and toppled; another slithered into a pile of cracked crates stamped with Dalan dock trade seals. The crates toppled over covering the bike and the rider.

  Tyron didn’t wait. He snatched a knife from his belt, vaulted over a fallen wheel, and came down between two sprawled riders. The blade flashed, quick, precise, and then he stopped. The two Shoven lay still on the ground bleeding out, grime and dust in the folds of their armour. For one breathless second he simply watched them, chest rising and falling. The smell of burning metal and flesh filling the air, as the smoke fills the small street.

  “Yeah. Nice try, guys. Better luck next time.” His voice carried a touch of smugness that felt out of place in the heat. His hand trembled once before he forced it still.

  One of the Shoven reached out to Tyron, claw scraping gently over cobbles, he tries to breathe but all that can be heard is a gurgle, he tries to say something. But Tyron pulled away before he could understand. To Tyron this felt heavy, he didn't quite know how to react.

  He flipped the knife, caught it by the spine with fingers he’d trained to be deft, and slid it back into the bag. Then he moved away from the wreck with the practised casualness of someone who had to make a habit of near-death without inviting the next one.

  A few houses down, he slipped through a doorway into his home. He pauses in the shadow of the doorway, waiting to hear if the streets fell silent, making sure no one tracked him after. If they followed him inside, they wouldn't stop at the door. The room inside smelled of broth and warm bread, the kind of simple, honest smell that made the day outside feel far away. Candlelight threw soft pools of gold and amber over the table and chair, turning the battered little kitchen into something almost peaceful. A woman stood at the counter, stirring a pot. Her hair was pulled in a careless knot; there were laugh lines at the corners of her eyes even when worry pulled her mouth. Tyron paused on the threshold, hands already thinking of the book beneath his cloak. He hadn't opened it since he had taken it, afraid that knowing to much would make turning back impossible now.

  The woman’s head turned. “Tyron? Is that you?” Her voice carried concern more than reproach.

  Caught, he stopped. “Yes, mum. I’m home. Uhh. What’s for dinner?” He tried for casual, and the question was a poor shield.

  She looked him up and down as she crossed the room. Her gaze snagged on his forearm, then her eyes dropped lower, toward the satchel. She went very still. “Oh.” The single syllable bloomed into a gasp. “What has happened this time?”

  “What have you done, Tyron?” she asked, and this time with a heavy tone of fear in her voice.

  Tyron’s smile was small and forced. He shrugged, trying to make himself smaller, easier to dismiss. “Nothing. Fell over.”

  She stepped closer, and now the worry in her face sharpened. Her fingers found the damp cloth at the basin and snatched at his wrist. “On what, a Shoven guard’s sword again? I have told you” Her voice broke midway, turning fierce and then soft in a single breath. “I can’t lose you. I just can’t.”

  He looked away at the wooden floor, feeling, for a moment, like a child again instead of someone who could scald steel from his hands. “We’ll break it,” he said quietly. “We’ll break their hold. They can’t keep us forever.”

  The woman, Sarah, he knew, though he hadn’t heard her say her name in years beyond their own small kitchen, gave a short, weary laugh that did not reach her eyes. She squeezed his wrist and then shook her head. “You worry me silly,” she said. “But tomorrow you’ll be eighteen. Be my son for one day more. Don’t give the Shoven a reason to throw you in a dungeon.”

  She studied the cut on his arm. It was deeper than he’d thought, dark crimson bleeding through the grime. “That’s deep. Come on, let’s get it washed and I’ll finish dinner,” she ordered, the tiny command steadying both of them.

  Tyron let her steer him to the basin. Outside, through a curtained window, the market buzzed on as if nothing had changed. But the book lay under his bed, its gilt edges promising trouble, and somewhere in the town the Shoven were licking their wounds and sharpening their anger.

  He closed his eyes as water ran over his skin and listened to the sound of his mother moving in the kitchen, the scrape of a spoon against a pot, the soft murmur of a voice trying to make the world ordinary. He kept his hands still, and for the space of one breath, he let himself be only a son.

  Beneath the bed, the book shifted.

  The leather creaked

  Tomorrow, everything would change, whether he wanted it to or not.

  to or not.

  Thanks for reading!

  Every time someone spends a few minutes in the world of Shahero, it honestly means more than I can properly put into words. Seeing people follow the journey of Tyron, Samantha, Lazarus, Freya, Cid, and Zara makes all the hours of writing worth it.

  If you enjoyed the chapter, feel free to leave a comment or follow the story. I read every comment, and it genuinely helps the story reach more readers here on Royal Road.

  A few people have also asked how they can support the project as I work toward eventually publishing the book. If that’s something you’d like to help with, there’s a support link below that goes toward editing and preparing the story for print.

  No pressure at all though—reading the story is already huge support.

  Question for readers:What moment in this chapter stood out to you the most?

  See you in the next chapter.

  — Matthew Cooke-Sumner