In the Quiet of the Night
Ronan released a slow breath and, with reluctance that felt foreign to him, moved in the opposite direction.
Then, softly, gently leaned in with his head resting against Zephyr's shoulder.
For a second, Zephyr felt stunned by the rare display of vulnerability. Then he relaxed and tilted his head to rest on Ronan's shoulder.
Outside, it might as well have been a cold and desolate world, another night drawing itself around them like a cocoon; only the sound of two hearts beating in sync along with the rhythm of their breath, joined in an ode as if it were never meant to be divided.
"You know," Ronan murmured, barely above a whisper, "I don't let people get close to me."
Zephyr said nothing. He waited.
"Never have." Ronan chuckled again, softly, disdainfully. "Easier that way. No attachments. No weight holding me down. That was the way I survived."
Zephyr swallowed; the dry lump in his throat hurt.
"And then you happened."
Ronan's fingers curled gently against the fabric of Zephyr's sleeve, perhaps grounding himself in the moment.
"You walked into my life, all light and warmth, and suddenly-" he exhaled, shaking his head against Zephyr's shoulder, "suddenly, I didn't know how to live without it."
Zephyr's breath caught, but he did not move, did not dare to break the fragile moment.
"It frightened me," Ronan uttered. "Still does."
His voice deepened, becoming almost hoarse.
"Because if I lost this, if I lost you, I don't know if I would find my way back."
Zephyr closed his eyes for a second, absorbing the impact of those words.
And then, cautiously, he reached out.
His fingers brushed against Ronan's; such a soft touch—for the first moment, uncertain. But as Ronan did not withdraw, Zephyr allowed his hand to rest upon Ronan's, feeling their warmth intertwining.
"You won't lose me," Zephyr said softly.
Ronan did not answer right away; the way his fingers tightened slightly under Zephyr's grip spoke enough.
A silence had stretched between them, heavy with the unspoken rather than uncomfortable.
And after a moment:
"Do you trust me?" Ronan asked softly.
Zephyr turned his head slightly, their faces closer on account of it, close enough that he could feel the warmth of Ronan's breath.
"I do."
It sounded simple, but the weight behind it was anything but.
"Why?" Ronan's voice came almost indistinctly, like a whisper, as though he was uncertain he was worthy of an answer.
Zephyr parted his lips, his heart colliding against his ribs.
"Because," he murmured, "no matter what you've done, no matter how many times you try to push me away, I see you."
He squeezed Ronan's hand gently.
"And I know the kind of man you are."
Ronan let out a shaky breath.
"What if I messed up?"
Zephyr smiled softly, knowingly.
"Then I'll be here to remind you who you are."
For long minutes, neither of them spoke. They just sat there pressed against one another, the weight of their pasts and the uncertainty of the future they would forge held between them like a fragile thread.
But, in that moment, in the quiet warmth of the night:
They were not alone.
Not anymore.
The Man Who Stole My Name
Ronan didn't want to let the moment pass too quickly.
The warmth of Zephyr beside him, his steady breathing was a grounding comfort. He knew once he spoke, once he told the tale of dark shadows of his past, this peaceful moment will be lost.
And so, he sat watching the smouldering ember of the fire slowly turn to ash, it's very dim light only illuminating the darkness for what he thought was minutes, but in fact was hours.
At last, he drew one deep breath and began.
"I do not remember where I was born," said Ronan, barely above a whisper. "I do not remember if I had a family or what kind of life I lived back then."
Zephyr did not stir, waiting.
"The first thing I do remember is sitting in front of a gambler."
His jaw clamped down. His fingers felt like clenching into fists.
" His name was Lukas."
Zephyr felt the heavy weight in Ronan's tone, in the bitterness with which each word was laced.
"He was not an evil man. At least, not in the beginning. There was some warmth about him, an easy smile that made one want to trust him. And I did. That was my first mistake."
Zephyr swallowed. "What did he do?"
Ronan let out a long breath.
"He said I had gambled with him."
Zephyr frowned. "Gambled what?"
He turned to Zephyr, meeting his sharp silver eyes.
Zephyr frowned. "What do you mean? What did you lose?"
Ronan turned his gaze slightly, fixing his eyes on Zephyr.
" I had wagered something far greater than coin, Zephyr. Lukas claimed that I had bet my past."
A chill ran up Zephyr's spine.
"My name. My history. Everything that made me who I was before that moment—it was gone."
Zephyr frowned. "That... that can't be possible."
"Yet," Ronan drawled darkly, " here I am. A man with no past, no memory, nothing except what Lukas told me."
A long silence developed between them.
" Out of pity, or so he claimed, he gave me a new name."
"Ronan.As if I should be grateful" he said mockingly
The name Zephyr had gotten so used to. A name given not by birth, but by a gambler's mercy.
"I should have questioned him. I should have fought for answers. But I was lost, Zephyr. Without memories, I had no purpose. No direction."
Zephyr said softly, "And hence you followed him."
Ronan gave an empty nod. " Yes. Lukas said he would take me to someone who could help me find my way."
And off he had gone like a desperate fool.
The Master of Shadows
Lukas led him through the inevitable underground - nightmare created by the city where streets darkened, alleys grew narrower and air strangled its own profundity with an intangible presentiment.
Then when they penetrated further, the city appeared less and less like a place fit for people's habitation, but rather, like one groaning with corpses of lost souls, a labyrinth of shadow in which names had no power.
Lukas took him to a place without a name. No signs present at its entrance. No maps sketched its existence. Engulfed in the dark folds of the city, buried very deep in stone and secrecy.
"What sort of place is this?" Ronan had inquired, a little uneasily, as a tremor crept into his voice.
Lukas had smiled, a smile that was all worn and tired. "Somewhere where you can belong," he said.
But even before that, Ronan felt it. A whisper in the back of his mind. A warning he didn't yet understand.
And that's where he met Marcus.
Ronan's hands fashioned clenched fists as he said the name.
"He wasn't a normal man," he murmured distantly.
"He had something... there was something wrong about him. Like, when he looked at you, you would feel like he already knew who you were. Or worse-what you would become. Like you were just a piece in a game he had already won."
Zephyr would not move, but Ronan felt the way his body tensed beside him.
"Marcus was running some sort of... secretive operation. I have no idea what it's even called. A guild? A cult? A training ground for the lost?" Ronan brought his hands through his hair in frustration barely disguised in his tone.
"Whatever it was, no sense made. To me, anyway. It made sense just to him."
Boys like him gather there, and yet dozens of them, all expressing the same hollow looks and void stares.
Desperate. Lost. Trying to hold on to anything that looked like purpose.
" We lived in the cellars," Ronan continued in a whisper, his voice lower now, heavier.
"Row after row of rusted bunk beds, placed so close together that we could barely move, like soldiers awaiting war."
" Except there was no war. Just training. Over and over, until our bodies ached and our minds stopped questioning it."
Zephyr's gut twisted. "They made you into a thief."
Ronan expelled a bitter laugh. "They were turning me into something. I just didn't know what."
He paused. "I wasn't given an assignment yet. But I could feel it, Zephyr. That place wasn't just wrong-it was cursed. It sank into your skin, into your bones. It changed people."
Something was about to happen to him. He could feel it.
And then—one night, everything changed.
Ronan had been asleep, his body sore from another day of rough training, when a hand grip on his shoulder.
He woke with a start, blinking in dim cellar light.
Lukas knelt next to his bed. But the face, ordinarily so unreadable, so carefully carved, was different now.
For the first time, Lukas looked afraid.
"Boy!" whispered Lukas, almost painfully. "You need to run."
Ronan blinked, caught in between before and after, waking and sleeping. "What?"
"Run." Lukas's fingers gripped his shoulder. "Now. As far as you can. "
Panic contorted in Ronan's gut. He sat up, heart racing. "Why? What's happening? "
Lukas shook his head. "Don't ask. Just go."
"Lukas-"
"Don't look back," Lukas said, tightening his grip. His voice had turned desperate. "Even if you hear me scream."
Zephyr held his breath.
"Then he shoved me toward a secret passage. A door hidden behind one of the cellar walls. I didn't even know it existed. But he did."
A way out. A way away from Marcus.
"And I ran."
Into the black slits of the tunnels. Into that voraciously damp, narrow passage, twisted beneath the city like a tributary.
Until the tunnel turned into streets, with a cold, wet night slap on the face.
And then he heard it
The sound that he still couldn't forget.
The screams.
Blood-curdling. Agonizing.
Lukas was screaming.
Ronan's legs almost gave away underneath him. His body was crying to go back, to stop it, and help -
But the order banged in his head.
"Don't turn back."
So, he clenched his fists, his nails digging into his palms, and ran.
Run through the streets and keep running until the city is far behind-in a world standing still-but surrounded by the cold, endless night around him.
"I didn't stop until I reached the outskirts of Veyris," Ronan murmured hollowly.
Then he dropped to the ground, gasping for breath, shaking hands.
Marcus was behind him.
Lukas was gone.
And Ronan had nothing there was for him.
Nothing but the name given to him by a gambler.
The Beggar's Wisdom
Ronan had been wandering the outskirts of Veyris for days.
Cold. Hungry. Alone.
He had left behind the city, but its nightmares still clung to him. Every inch of his body throbbed; his belly was twirled in hunger, while his mind buzzed with questions that found no answer. He had nothing—no home, no past, no future.
And then, he met her.
"She was a beggar," he said of her.
His voice softened. "An old woman who had nothing but still gave away whatever little she could."
Zephyr listened; his heart tightened.
"She must-never have thought twice before making up her mind to rescue me," Ronan said, eyes cast down.
"I was probably slumped over like a dead man beside the road. She was just going to pass, like so many others, shrugging it off."
But no, she hadn't.
Instead, she kneeled next to him and put a piece of bread through his quaking hands.
"Eat," she said, her voice roughened with age but sure. "Before the crows do it for you."
He had been too weary to offer a rebuttal.
"She shared her food with me. Let me sit beside her fire at night. She had nothing, yet she made space for me in her world."
Zephyr's throat tightened. "She raised you."
Ronan slowly nodded. " For the first time in weeks, I didn't have to fight just to exist. We had almost nothing, but for a little while, it was enough."
Not a home. Not a family.
Close.
"I gave her back what little I could."
" Scraps from my pockets, stolen trinkets from passersby. It wasn't much, but it kept us warm. Kept us fed. For a few weeks, it was… peaceful."
Then things changed one night.
He had just settled real nice beside the fire while listening contently to the woman's low hum. Just then her hand darted out from somewhere and laid an utterly unyielding grip on Ronan's wrist.
Ronan stiffened.
Her grip was strong, her fingers aching like brittle iron upon his skin.
"You must leave," she whispered.
An urgent whisper, ice trickling down his spine.
Ronan frowned. "What? Why?"
The fire glimmered and flickered, throwing ghastly shapes on her face.
She was not herself.
The weariness was gone, replaced by a kith and kin sharpness, one laced with dread.
"Watching," she used that hushed tone of hers.
Zephyr's breath hitched.
"Who?" Ronan asked, fighting anxious knots in his stomach. "Who is watching?"
She didn't answer. Instead, from the folds of her tattered cloak, she took something small and thrust it into his palm: one coin, worn thin with age, a very single coin.
"To the Hollow Coin," she said, struggling against the grief clinging to her voice, "Find the Seer. They will tell you the truth."
Ronan swallowed. "What truth?"
The old woman locked her pale eyes upon him, filled now with an enigma he couldn't name.
"The truth about yourself."
That sent a tingling sensation crawling up his spine.
And then—just like that—she pushed him away.
As if she had never known him. As if he had never sat beside her fire, never shared his stolen food.
"Go, boy," she muttered, her back turned on him. "Before it's too late."
Ronan hesitated.
To ask? To stay?
But the air felt different now.
Tense. Waiting.
Now he turned around and ran, leaving.
He didn't know what the Hollow Coin was. He didn't know who the Seer would be.
But something told him-this was only the beginning.
The Hunter's Shadow
Ronan's only destination was now the Hollow Coin.
The beggar's voice floated in Ronan's mind, a warning.
"Do not attract attention."
Once, he had resisted that feeling.
No more petty thieving. No gambling dens. No insane risks. He traversed the streets of Veyris like a shade, snatching just enough to keep him alive. Never staying too long, never leaving behind any scent.
But then came Zephyr.
A crack of warmth into his otherwise freeze-stiff world.
For the first time in many years, the weight on Ronan's chest eased with Zephyr. A distraction now—almost like the first bit of light through the shadows.
For a fleeting second, he dared to think—maybe things were changing.
Maybe he actually got away.
Until-he saw him.
Marcus.
The world leapt.
Across the tavern, seated across a polished table, he looked immaculate as ever. One of the most expensive suits, hands positioned so casually, the face in a mask of neutrality.
Not staring into the crowd.
He was staring at Ronan.
A cold shudder ran down Ronan's spine.
Breath ceased.
Run, screamed the mind.
And run he did.
Ronan turned on his heels and bolted right out of the tavern, almost knocking some patrons aside with his stampede through the haze.
Streets of Veyris were all blurred as he zipped past carts and merchants and choking bystanders. His heart was drumming in his chest, sharp breath ragged.
Faster! Faster!
He turned a corner; his feet skidded on loose cobblestones.
And froze.
Marcus was there.
Waiting.
Ronan hadn't heard him approach; hadn't felt anything.
He had just—materialized.
Slowly, a smile that was all too familiar spread across Marcus' lips.
"Much grown."
Silk voice, the same spellbinding calm from years ago.
"I almost didn't recognize you."
Ronan clenching his fists, pulse roaring beneath his skin.
"What do you want?" he spat.
Marcus tilted his head, dark eyes gleaming with amusement.
"I have been looking for you."
A breath caught in Ronan's throat.
He took a step back. One slow, deliberate step.
"Well," he said, "now you've found me."
A chuckle escaped Marcus—a sound Ronan hadn't heard in years but one that had set ice coursing down his spine.
"I indeed have."
He turned and walked away—leaving no threats, no demands, not once trying to drag him back.
Just a smirk that spoke the words, "I know I have won this."
There is no way to describe Ronan's state; he felt frozen. Cold, heavy dread coiling around his gut.
Marcus had found him.
And worse, he let him go.