Untitled Episodechapter 5
639 Words
Chapter 5: The Rat’s Bargain
The smell hit me first—a mix of wet fur, burnt grease, and cheap incense. We had reached the "Gut," the deepest slum of the capital where the sunlight never touched the floor.
Yan’s weight was a crushing anchor on my shoulder. Every time he stumbled, I felt a sharp, electric jolt in my chest—the chain pulling his life into mine.
"Drop me," Yan hissed, his teeth gritted so hard I thought they’d snap. He tried to shove me away, but his arm just flopped uselessly against my chest. "You’re... enjoying this. Seeing me like this."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My lungs were burning, and my vision was swimming with red dots. I dragged him into a narrow alleyway squeezed between two leaning wooden shacks. I slammed him back against a wall of rotting timber.
"Shut. Up." I breathed the words into his face.
I reached into my silk robes, which were now black with sewer filth, and pulled out a jagged piece of the silver tureen I’d kept. I didn't look at him. I looked at the mouth of the alley.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sound of iron-toed boots on cobblestones. Too steady for a drunk. Too heavy for a thief.
"Wei An," Yan whispered, his silver eyes narrowing as he saw the silver shard in my hand. He tried to reach for the shadow-qi in his palm, but only a few pathetic sparks flickered before dying out. He looked at his hand as if it belonged to a stranger, his expression twisting into a mask of pure, raw agony.
I grabbed his shaking hand and forced it down. "Don't. You’ll just signal them."
A shadow stretched across the alley entrance. A man stepped into view, wearing a mask made of a hollowed-out boar’s head. He carried a heavy crossbow, the bolt tipped with a glowing purple liquid.
"The Waste Prince and the Hound," the man boared-voice rasped. "The High Council is offering enough gold for your heads to buy this whole district. They said you were dangerous, but you look like two rats drowning in a bucket."
Yan let out a low, guttural snarl, trying to stand. His knees buckled immediately. I caught him, my fingers digging into his bruised ribs. He flinched, a sharp intake of breath revealing just how much pain he was in.
"I’ll kill him," Yan choked out, staring at the bounty hunter. "I’ll rip his—"
"You can't even stand, 'Hero,'" I snapped.
I stepped in front of Yan. I didn't have magic. I didn't have a crossbow. I had a piece of broken silver and the instincts of a man who spent his life cleaning up corporate crimes.
I didn't charge. I dropped the silver shard.
The bounty hunter laughed, raising his crossbow. "Giving up? Smart boy."
"Look at the ground," I said, my voice cold and flat.
The man frowned, glancing down. He was standing on a wooden grate—the entrance to a grease trap for the nearby cookhouse. I’d spotted the structural rot the second we entered the alley.
I didn't use a spell. I kicked a loose support beam next to my foot.
The wood groaned. The grate gave way with a sickening
crack
. The hunter screamed as he plummeted into the vat of boiling, rancid fat below. The sound of his struggle was wet and brief.
I didn't look down. I turned to Yan. He was staring at me, his face pale, his silver eyes reflecting the dim light of the alley. There was no respect in his gaze—only a new, deeper kind of fear.
"You didn't even blink," Yan whispered. He looked at the hole in the ground, then back at my face. "You killed him like you were sweeping a floor."
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