The night pressed against Alloy Street like a weight, but Balik's breathing had finally steadied. The cold metal stair beneath him felt real again. The rust-smell of the district swirled around him, sharp and sour.
His mind, however, wasn't done with him.
The memories he'd seen—the orphanage, the woman who had trained him, the talkative girl who had been his first light—they didn't settle. They turned, pulled, dragged at something deeper.
A name.
A scarred man.
A door.
The moment he'd truly stepped into hell.
The world around him dimmed again, not disappearing this time, but blurring at the edges. The sound of a distant cart wheel, the drip of water, the whisper of wind through dented gutters—they all grew softer, like someone slowly lowering the volume.
Balik shut his eyes.
The darkness took him back.
He remembered the sound of Varun's steps before he remembered his face.
Firm, measured, no hesitation. The kind of steps that never turned back.
The boy—eight now, taller but still thin, still too quiet—walked three paces behind the man with the scarred cheek. The orphanage door closed behind them with a hollow thud, and the world outside stretched wider than he'd ever seen it.
He'd been outside before, of course. The caretaker sometimes sent him to carry laundry buckets or scrape ice off the steps. But never this far. Never down roads that sloped into deeper parts of the city, where buildings leaned over the narrow streets like tired giants and pipes rattled overhead.
The air here was heavier. It carried the stink of oil, sweat, and metal, undercut by the faint tang of something burnt.
"Stay close," Varun said without turning, coat swaying slightly with each step. "If you fall behind, you're not worth the trouble."
Balik didn't answer. He watched the man's back, the rigid line of his spine, the way his gloved hands opened and closed once as if he was thinking of something unpleasant and quickly filing it away. The scar on his cheek caught the weak streetlight whenever he passed under one of the crooked lamps, a pale white line on brown skin.
They turned into a narrower alley, then another, deeper and deeper until the noise of the city faded into a muffled hum.
Ahead, a wide metal gate waited at the end of a dead-end lane. Its surface was dented and scratched, layered with years of chipped gray paint. A small rusted sign above it swayed slightly in the wind, meaningless to the boy. To him, the only important thing was the feeling.
The air here felt sharp.
Alive.
Dangerous.
Varun rapped three times on the gate in a specific rhythm. A small hatch slid open, just at adult eye level, and a pair of narrowed eyes peered out.
"It's me," Varun said.
The hatch closed. Heavy bolts slid back. The gate groaned as it opened inward.
Inside, the world narrowed and expanded at the same time.
The courtyard was not large, but it felt like a nest built out of iron and intention. Tall warehouse walls surrounded it on all sides, their surfaces lined with pipes, hooks, and metal platforms. Lamps hung from wires overhead, casting cone-shaped pools of light that fell onto patches of bare stone.
Boys and girls moved between those patches, some older, some only a little older than him. Training. Fighting. Running. Their footsteps beat a steady rhythm in the humming air.
Some carried wooden practice knives. Others held weighted sticks. A few crawled along narrow beams bolted high to the walls, balancing with arms outstretched, faces set in concentration.
Balik took it all in without a word.
Every sound. Every spacing. Every blind corner.
A hand clamped onto his shoulder.
He looked up.
A tall boy, maybe six years older, brown skin, red-brown hair hacked shorter on the sides like someone had attacked it with a dull knife, stared down at him with a grin that was both friendly and dangerous.
"So this is the quiet ghost you've been raising, Varun?" he drawled.
His eyes were bright amber, sharp and alive, like embers found under cooled ash.
"Ishan," Varun said without warmth, "this is your new shadow. He'll be watching and learning from your unit when he's not being trained separately."
"Shadow, huh?" Ishan's grin widened. He ruffled the boy's black hair roughly. "Has he got a name?"
"Names are earned," Varun replied mildly. "For now, he answers when called. That's enough."
The boy did not flinch at the ruffling. His mudmali eyes met Ishan's for a second—steady, measuring, unafraid.
Ishan whistled softly.
"Already dead-eyed at eight," he said. "Nice."
"She makes better use of her eyes than you do your mouth," another voice said, cool and flat, from the side.
Balik turned.
A girl stood in the shadow of a support pillar, half-wrap of cloth hanging loosely from her shoulder. She had light brown hair tied back with a strip of faded red fabric, not a single strand out of place despite the sweat at her hairline. Her skin was pale compared to the others, but not fragile—more like stone smoothed by weather and time.
Her eyes were the thing that held him.
Dark earth-brown. Too still. Too sharp.
Mira.
She pushed off the pillar and walked toward them, steps almost as silent as his had become at the orphanage. Her gaze never left his face, taking him in the way a craftsman inspects a new tool for flaws.
"He doesn't look like much," she said quietly. Her voice didn't have the warmth Ishan's did. It felt… precise. As if every word was chosen and weighed.
"He's not meant to look like much," Varun replied. "He's meant to see and not be seen. You two will help test what the orphanage has done with him."
Mira's lips curved. It wasn't really a smile. More an acknowledgement of something interesting. "We'll see what breaks," she murmured.
"Come on." Ishan swung an arm casually around the boy's shoulders. To anyone else, it might have felt like a friendly gesture. To him, it felt like being claimed. "I'll show you where rats like us sleep."
He led him toward a side door, Mira beside them, Varun already turning away to shout a command at a pair of older trainees sparring with dull knives.
The sleeping quarters were a long, low room lined with thin mattresses on wooden pallets. The air smelled of old cloth, sweat, and a hint of oil—someone had been cleaning weapons in here recently. Light filtered in from a high, barred window. A single lamp burned near the door.
"Pick one," Ishan said, waving his free hand. "Any without a name carved into it. If there is a name, and they're alive, they'll stab you in your sleep if you take it."
Balik's gaze flicked down the line. Many beds had scratches in the wood beneath the mattress—marks, initials, symbols. The second from the end on the left did not.
He nodded toward it.
"That one."
"Smart," Mira said softly. "Less noise from people coming and going."
He glanced at her, unsure if it was praise or observation.
He set down the small cloth bundle the orphanage caretaker had shoved into his arms at the last second—a spare shirt, a cup, nothing more—and sat on the edge of the chosen bed. The mattress dipped under his slight weight.
"Don't unpack," Ishan said, flopping down on the bed opposite and stretching out like a lazy cat. "They might decide you're useless and throw you out in a week. Or throw you somewhere worse."
"Where is worse?" the boy asked.
Mira sat cross-legged at the foot of Ishan's bed, back straight. "Down," she said simply. "Cellars. No light. No training. Just waiting."
"For what?" he asked.
"Whether you rot or grow teeth in the dark," she answered, watching his face.
He held her gaze.
Ishan laughed lightly. "She says creepy things," he told the boy. "Don't mind her."
Mira shifted her attention to Ishan. "He doesn't mind," she said. "He listens."
She was right.
Balik listened.
To the way the floor creaked when someone crossed it. To how many breaths he could hear in the room. To the faint clink of metal from somewhere beyond the far wall. To the rhythm of Varun's steps if he passed outside.
To the way Ishan's voice carried warmth but no real hesitation when he talked about punishment, about pain, about "jobs."
To the way Mira's eyes sharpened slightly whenever someone winced.
Later, when the lamps outside burned brighter and the courtyard filled with shouts, Varun called for them again.
"Up," Ishan said, pushing off from the bed. "Time to find out if you're trash or not."
They took him back outside.
Now he saw the place for what it was.
The courtyard was a circle of worn stone and packed dirt, lines painted in pale chalk dividing it into sections. Against one wall stood a row of wooden dummies, their surfaces scarred from years of strikes. Ropes hung from beams above, some knotted for climbing. A narrow balance beam was raised between two supports, not too high—but high enough that a fall would hurt.
Children his age ran laps around the edge, faces red, breaths harsh. Older ones sparred under the eye of a scarred instructor, wooden blades cracking against blocks and parries.
"Tier Two," Ishan said, nodding toward the sparring trainees. "That's us."
He jerked his chin at the runners. "Tier One."
His eyes dropped to Balik. "You… are below that."
"Tier Zero," Mira supplied. "Tools we haven't decided how to shape yet."
Varun strode into the middle of the courtyard, the murmur draining away. His presence washed over them like a cold wave. All attention turned his way, even if backs remained straight and eyes didn't openly lift.
"Today," he said, voice carrying easily without shouting, "we see if a quiet orphanage rat can join your ranks without wasting my money."
A few older kids chuckled under their breath. Balik heard the exact texture of each laugh—mocking, amused, curious.
Varun turned to him. "You know how to walk without sound, boy?"
"Yes," he answered simply.
"Show them."
He did.
He stepped forward, feeling for the firmness of the ground, placing his feet with the effortless precision drilled into him over endless orphanage nights. Heel barely touched down. Weight rolled silently from the pads of his toes. He crossed half the courtyard, turned, and came back, his movements barely rasping against the stone.
There were no loud footsteps. No echo.
A low whistle slipped from someone's lips.
"Good," Varun said, and there was approval there—not warm, but solid. Like marking a box on a list. "You will improve that."
He pointed toward the balance beam.
"Up."
The beam was only as high as an adult's waist, but from a child's eye level it felt like walking above a cliff. The wood was worn smooth, the edges familiar with the soft skin of palms and the hard crack of falling knees.
He climbed up without speaking, steadying himself with a hand. The beam wobbled for a moment. His body adjusted. He drew a slow breath and walked.
Not fast. Not dramatic.
Step, find balance. Step, adjust weight. Remember where your center is. Feel the flex of the wood beneath you.
He'd done worse, on narrower planks in the orphanage hallway with the caretaker's impatience burning at his back. His arms stayed down at his sides. His gaze fixed ahead.
Halfway across, someone below deliberately kicked the side of the support.
The beam shuddered.
A smaller boy near the end yelped and slipped. He fell hard, hitting the ground with a sharp cry, clutching his elbow.
Balik's knee bent, ankle twisting slightly as he compensated. His body tilted, but his foot slotted back into place on instinct. He didn't fall.
"Oops," someone laughed.
Mira.
She stood near the base, one foot lightly resting against the support she'd clearly nudged. Her head was tilted, eyes bright with a strange, intent focus, watching the boy on the ground as he whimpered.
"Get up," she told him mildly. "Or stay there until someone decides if you're in the way."
The hurt boy's eyes filled with tears. He scrambled to his feet, biting his lip.
Ishan didn't look surprised. "She does that sometimes," he said to Balik from below, almost conversationally. "Keeps people sharp."
Balik's eyes flicked down for just a second.
Mira was looking up at him now, not the fallen boy. There was the smallest curve to her lips, as if she was curious whether he'd fall too.
He didn't.
He finished the beam and jumped down.
A faint nod from Varun.
"Good," he said again. "You had enough training not to embarrass me. Now we harden what you've been given."
He pointed at a line chalked on the ground. "Run. All of you. Courtyard edges. If you stop before I say so, you'll eat standing. If you don't, you'll eat at all."
No one argued.
They ran.
Balik ran until his lungs burned. His thin legs pumped, sandals slapping the ground in a rhythm that matched a dozen others. Sweat slicked his back. The metallic taste of effort burned his tongue.
Ishan ran easily, occasionally glancing back to throw him a grin or a brief shout. "Short steps, little ghost. Save energy!"
Mira ran with measured calm, each step the same length, each breath the same pace. She didn't look at anyone. Didn't seem bothered. Didn't seem particularly proud either.
Varun watched.
Time stopped being a number and became a feeling. The feeling of your body screaming and your mind deciding what that meant.
He remembered the caretaker's punishments.
He remembered the talkative girl's dimpled smile as she told him to run if he could.
So he ran.
Even when his legs shook. Even when his vision tunneled. Even when the instinct to stop, to rest, to collapse, clawed at his chest.
Something inside him hardened a little more.
When Varun finally raised a hand, they slowed to a halt. Some bent over, hands on knees, gasping. Others, older, just rolled their shoulders.
Balik straightened as much as he could, controlling his breath, steadying it. Never let them see weakness first—he had learned that in the orphanage.
Varun's eyes flicked over them, calculating.
"Pain," he said quietly, "is a tool. It tells you where you're weak. It tells you what needs to be cut away. The sooner you stop fearing it, the sooner you become useful."
He looked directly at Balik.
"You don't fear it much already. That's good. We'll see if that's because you're strong… or because you're empty."
Empty.
The word lodged in his chest.
That night, the room felt smaller.
Balik lay on his mattress, facing the wall. The wood under him creaked with every slight shift. Around him, the breathing of other trainees rose and fell—some soft, some ragged, some thick with muffled sobs.
His muscles ached. His feet throbbed. The raw line of a rope-burn on his palm pulsed with his heartbeat—one of the drills had involved climbing and hanging until your arms screamed.
He had not fallen.
But something inside him was… tired. Not the kind tired that sleep could fix. A deeper exhaustion, from being watched, measured, weighed.
This is worse than the orphanage, he thought.
At least there, the cruelty had been wrapped in thin excuses. Here, it wore its own name.
He shut his eyes.
This is necessary, a cool thought said. Balik's growing voice. To survive, you adapt. You learn what they want and give it.
But is that all you are? another voice whispered—Tejas, faint and distant, still muffled under years of hollow obedience. A thing for them to sharpen?
He didn't answer.
A shuffle of cloth near his feet made him open his eyes.
Mira sat there, cross-legged in the dim, facing him. The lamplight from the corridor outside painted one half of her face bright and left the other in soft shadow, as if she was carved out of two elements at once.
Her hair was unbound now, falling over her shoulders in straight brown strands. Even at rest, not a single one seemed out of order.
"How long have you been awake?" she asked quietly.
"Don't know," he answered.
"Liar," she said, but without heat. "You know. You just don't want to give me anything."
He said nothing.
She studied him like she had in the courtyard, and in that scrutiny there was something—curiosity, yes. But also that strange, glinting edge, like someone pressing a thumb against the sharp part of a knife just to feel it.
"You didn't fall," she observed.
"No."
"You didn't cry."
"No."
"You didn't ask why we do any of this."
He turned his head slightly on the thin pillow, meeting her gaze.
"Would it change anything?" he asked.
Her lips twitched. "No," she said. "That's why I said you're interesting."
She lowered her voice, leaning in just enough that her braid brushed the sheet.
"Everyone cries at first," she murmured. "They beg. They bargain. They ask, 'Why me?' You didn't. Not with your mouth, anyway."
She tapped lightly at his forehead with two fingers.
"But in here, you scream. I can see it. It's like watching something crack from the inside."
There was a gleam in her eyes now that disturbed him more than any raised voice could have.
"You like that?" he asked.
Her head tilted.
"I like truth," she answered after a moment. "Pain strips away lies. When people hurt, they show what's under their masks. It's… honest." Her smile, small and almost gentle, didn't reach her eyes. "You're quiet, but not empty. I want to see what you become when they push too far."
"That sounds," he said slowly, "like you want me to break."
"I want to see if you break," she corrected. "And how. There's a difference."
On the opposite bed, Ishan snorted in his sleep, one arm flung over his face. "Orders… yeah… we'll do it…" he mumbled.
Balik looked at him.
"He doesn't care," Mira said, following his gaze. "If Varun tells him to burn a house, he'll ask what angle. If Varun tells him to kneel, he kneels. If Varun tells him to jump, he asks how high on the way down."
Her eyes returned to Balik's face.
"You're not like him," she said. "You think too much. That makes you dangerous. Or dead. I want to see which."
He swallowed.
"And you?" he asked softly. "What are you?"
Her smile widened, just a fraction. "I stopped asking 'why' a long time ago," she said. "Now I ask 'how far.'"
She leaned back, bracing her hands on the floor.
"Don't trust anyone here," she added, almost absently. "Not me. Not him. Not Varun. Not the ones who pretend to be kind. Not the ones who don't bother."
"Then why are you talking to me?" he asked.
Her gaze flicked back, sharp.
"Because," she said, "fear is loud. Yours is quiet. Quiet fear is beautiful."
He didn't know what to say to that.
So he didn't say anything.
She watched him for another few seconds, as if expecting more. When he gave her nothing, she nodded, more satisfied than offended.
"Sleep," she said. "Tomorrow, it gets worse."
She rose with the same silent control she showed in training and padded back to her bed, her small form barely stirring the shadows.
Balik lay still, eyes on the ceiling.
His mind replayed the day—the cold gate, Varun's measuring gaze, Ishan's easy grin, Mira's small cruel experiments, the drills, the pain.
The orphanage, he realized, had taught him how to endure.
This place would teach him how to hurt.
He felt something inside him shift again, not shatter this time, but solidify. A quiet decision under all the noise.
Survive first, Balik thought. Ask questions later.
In that moment, a new layer settled over his heart, thin but firm.
Tejas protested faintly in a corner of his mind, but his voice was too soft.
For now.
On Alloy Street, under the moon, the older Balik opened his eyes again, the echo of that choice heavy on his tongue.
He had thought, back then, that the worst thing that could happen was that they would break him.
He hadn't yet understood:
They wouldn't just break him.
They would sharpen him—and point him at the world.