They set out as the sky paled, the first gray ribbons of dawn spreading overhead. The driver clicked the

  cart forward. Algar walked on foot, off to the side, head bowed.

  No one mentioned the night.

  The woman whispered to the children, though he couldn’t make out the words. They passed knots of

  refugees—babies in arms, bundles slung over shoulders, sometimes bodies carried in silence. The road

  was trampled and damp with tears, blood, and sweat. The world had changed.

  When they neared a hill, the walls of Starburn rose above the treetops—scarred, smoke-blackened.

  It was nothing like the proud capital from his father’s stories or the tavern yarns. Long before they

  reached the gate, a line awaited them. Dozens—no, hundreds—stood mute. Carts and bundles crowded

  together; faces were burned, hollow. Infants were swaddled in rags. Dogs howled with hunger.

  Soldiers at the gate searched everyone. They took names and places of origin, pawed through loads with

  practiced indifference.

  Algar said nothing. He stood in line with the rest, but his thoughts were elsewhere. The morning chill no

  longer reached his skin. The blood on the axe had long since dried. He’d ditched the weapon in the

  brush—he didn’t want to invite suspicion. It cost him dearly, but he had no choice.

  He was filthy anyway, reeking of smoke and blood.

  The woman with the children kept quiet. The bandaged man still stared at the ground. The old man

  muttered to himself, sense bleeding into nonsense and back again, his mind wandering the depths of

  loss.

  When their turn came, Algar gave his name without hesitation.

  “Algar of Boren. Son of Aloys.”

  The soldier glanced at him, indifferent, took up a charcoal-marked tablet, scratched something down,

  and nodded. Just one more among many.

  “There’s a resettlement camp by the North Gate,” the soldier said. “You can go there, or report to the

  barracks. They need people.”

  Algar nodded but didn’t answer. He moved on between the stone walls.

  Inside, a different silence ruled—heavy, smothered, as if the city itself were holding its breath. Crowds

  drifted, sluggish and aimless. Guards kept order, but their voices lacked force. Smoke slid from rooftops.

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  The streets were gray, fouler than the cobbles beneath them.

  It smelled worse than the countryside: burned stone, sewage, hopelessness.

  Algar walked beside the refugees, but no longer belonged to them. He didn’t look at the children. He

  didn’t search for the woman he’d traveled with. He didn’t look back for the old man.

  He passed a bakery, its door barred with three bolts. Farther on stood a shrine to Ekomi, its stained glass

  shattered. He’d seen the goddess’s priestesses in his village—blue-robed, always ready to help. They

  spoke often of mercy and forgiveness. He wondered if he might find one here.

  When he was a child, one had given him an apple baked in pastry. He would have given much for

  something like that now.

  He stopped once, at a hand-painted poster tacked to a post. The Starburn crest showed a tower pierced

  by a sword. Beneath it, a slogan scrawled too carelessly to read.

  He didn’t linger.

  For the moment, he was alone.

  He slipped into a side alley, leaving the crowd and the shared road behind. No one called after him.

  The lane climbed the hill. He ignored doomsayers and beggars—his world had already ended, and many

  of them still had more than he did. At last, the barracks came into view. Its stone walls stood sharp and

  ordered against the rest of the city.

  He’d left everything he knew behind.

  This was his new home.

  Everyone who had ever mattered to him was gone. If he died in some alley of this tomb of a city, no one

  would notice.

  In the yard, a mass of recruits drilled under a senior officer’s eye. Algar paused. The rhythm of boots and

  blades felt almost soothing.

  A man stood at the gate, holding a plain spear. He wore a scuffed breastplate. Forty springs,

  maybe—graying hair, a voice tired but not unkind.

  “New?” he asked.

  “Yes.” Algar lifted his head. “I want to enlist.”

  The guard nodded toward a door. “You want to eat, don’t you? Whose blood is that?” He pointed at

  Algar’s shirt, now more red than white.

  “A deer’s,” Algar said, meeting his gaze.

  He hadn’t lied. He’d only left things out.

  “So be it. Upstairs. Third door on the left. Master of arms’ll sign you in and assign a bunk.”

  Inside smelled of dust, sweat, and iron. Bare walls. Algar followed a narrow corridor into a low room

  where a man in a tunic and leather overvest sat behind a table.

  “Name?”

  “Algar of Boren.”

  “Age?”

  “Sixteen springs.”

  The master of arms made a few quick notes and asked nothing more. Perhaps he didn’t want to know.

  Perhaps he’d seen too much already. Or perhaps he simply didn’t care.

  “Room seven. Order, regulations, curfew after dark. Here, orders outrank Tynos Himself. Remember

  that, and you might live a while longer.”

  He nodded curtly—then looked at Algar again, really looked.

  “Wash and burn those rags. This is an army, not a beggars’ mob.”

  Algar nodded. He knew they could turn him away. Then he’d have nothing.

  Room seven was bare and rectangular, wooden bunks lining the walls. A tall, narrow window admitted a

  smear of daylight through grime. Dust drifted in the air.

  He sat on a bunk without removing his boots and stared at the floor.

  For the first time in days, no one wanted anything from him. No shouting. No running. Only the distant

  cadence of training in the yard, the occasional footstep, a stray voice.

  He found a washtub. The water was cold and filthy, but it would do. He found worn trousers and a

  shirt—washed clean despite the frayed seams. He pulled them on. Tight, but serviceable.

  He lay down, curled on his side, his head resting on his arm.

  Only then did he realize how exhausted he was.