After we return, Eira grabs the bucket of dirty clothes from the corner, probably the reason she was here in the first place, and departs. She's already spent the whole afternoon with me watching the executions, certainly nothing she'd consider pleasant.
Once she's gone, I ask Silas, "What's her job?"
He smiles, "Seamstress. And she runs a bit of laundry on the side."
I nod. "She looks ... so elegant."
"Indeed. She used to prepare dresses for the court and the nobility. But after the insurrection, she fell out of favour and hid in the slums."
That makes sense. If he knows her from then ... I glance at him but I don't ask. He wouldn't tell me. I can feel it.
"Are you alright?" he asks me. "Did something happen during the executions?"
My throat tightens. The image of blue mist flashes in my mind. I feel it crawling over my skin, choking my chest.
I just shake my head, unable to make a sound.
Silas sighs softly. He probably knows that I'm lying. "Come outside," he says.
I follow him.
Outside, he lowers himself into a battered wooden chair. It creaks like it wants to collapse. "Now," he says, "let's begin training."
I stare at him, not understanding. "Training?"
"You saw him today, didn't you? The False Prophet."
I freeze. Then nod. "Why do you call him the False Prophet?"
"He's powerful, no doubt. But he's no prophet. He spins nonsense and sells it as prophecy."
He pauses, studying me with those old, weary eyes.
"You hate him." It's not a question. "You want him dead."
I nod again, my hand instinctively fiddling with the locket under my shirt.
"Good," Silas says, his voice flat. "Hate is a weapon. Not a good one, but weapon nonetheless. But right now you are weak. You can barely hold a dagger. If you want to survive long enough for it to matter, you need to get strong."
He reaches under his chair and throws something toward me. It falls into the mud with a wet thud.
"Was it necessary to throw it into the mud?" I ask. Trying to give him my most threatening glare.
He only chuckles. "You are in slums now. You should get used to it."
I look at the mud, disgusted. And claw for it, fishing out a wooden sword, a muddy wooden sword.
I weigh it, mud oozing between my fingers. It seeps under my nails, cold and sticky, clinging to my skin.
"Try to swing it," he says, still chuckling.
For some reason he finds it amusing, getting me dirty and making a fool of myself.
"Won't someone see me?" I ask.
"You saw how hard it is to get here. Just swing already. I want to see what I'm working here with."
He starts pestering me. Sometimes he even stands up, tugging at my arms, pushing my shoulders into different positions. My clothes are drenched in sweat and my breath grows ragged.
Meanwhile, Silas seems like he is enjoying himself. Sitting on his chair leisurely, even lighting a pipe.
My grip slips. The wooden sword nearly flies from my hand. Heat floods my cheeks, not anger, not shame, but something tangled between the two.
I can't even swing a stick right. How am I supposed to kill him?
A laugh echoes behind me. I turn and see Killar walking into the alley. "A real natural," he mutters without pausing, then he disappears inside.
I can still feel Killar's eyes on me, even though he is gone. Unnerving.
"I guess that is enough for today." Probably noticing that I've grown tired. "We will continue tomorrow," he says.
He taps his pipe and enters the house.
I drop the sword under the chair, mud dripping from my fingertips. My muscles ache and my lungs burn.
But beneath that, something else stirs. Compared to yesterday, I feel ... alive.
I fall asleep that night with mud dried under my nails and the weight of the wooden sword still imprinted in my palms.
It will be months before I realise that this was the day everything began to shift, the first step towards becoming someone more confident.
Someone more dangerous.