Chapter Text
Sylus never thought that he would be a father. Not that he was complaining.
In the South End, kids ended up on the docks for all sorts of reasons. Some because their parents died of illness and the sea was the only place they could sleep without being shooed away by shopkeepers, some because they had nowhere else to go, and the docks—crowded, chaotic, and full of people too busy to ask questions—offered freedom. Peace. Some were born there, raised among the sailors and merchants, learning to fend for themselves with quick hands and quicker feet. Others arrived later, running from something or someone, seeking refuge in the anonymity of the shifting tides.
On the docks, survival was a game of risk and reward. A stolen fish here, a lifted coin purse there—small victories that kept empty stomachs from aching too much. The docks had their own rules, unwritten but well understood: keep your head down, watch out for the wrong kind of attention, and never, ever owe anyone more than you could pay. The sea was both a refuge and a danger, offering passage to somewhere new or swallowing those who miscalculated their chances.
In the South End, you survived by being clever, by being quick, and—when necessary—by being ruthless.
Sylus knew of life on the docks of the South End all too well.
In the North End of the N109 Zone, where guards were stricter and laws were actually enforced, orphaned children stuck to the rooftops and the winding alleyways between grand estates. They moved like ghosts through the city, slipping between shadows and scaling ivy-covered walls with practiced ease. The rooftops offered safety, a place above the watchful eyes of patrols and the grasping hands of those who sought to exploit them. The alleyways, though treacherous, provided escape routes and hiding spots, their twisting paths known only to those who had spent a lifetime navigating them.
In the North End, survival was an art. One of silence, swiftness, and knowing when to disappear.
When Sylus left the Coliseum, he didn't have the luxury of going back to what he knew. He couldn't risk going back to the docks, being recognized, and being turned in.
So, he went North.
Sylus sought refuge in the Forest, carving out a life for himself among the towering trees. It was quiet, untamed, and far removed from the rest of society. He was safe there. He was unseen.
In the solitude of the woods, Sylus could finally find peace.
...
It lasted all of twenty minutes.
After eating his first hot meal in years, Sylus left his newfound sanctuary. Finally free to do what he pleased, it was less than half a day into his new life when he went to the docks to check out the damage that he knew had been done.
Before Sylus was taken from the docks, he knew that times were changing in the South End.
Restrictions had always been relaxed in the Shopping District, seeming to encourage the Black Market Trade. Prohibited potions were cheap, and stolen goods were plentiful. Such was life in the South. A lawless land of debt and promiscuity.
But, Sylus wasn't blind. Before he was stolen by the Count to be his enslaved champion, he had noticed the increased presence of guards in the South, the increased number of raids. In the 109, children lost their hands for stealing, their tongues for lying, and their lives for loyalty. Some grew up to be merchants, most became criminals. None broke the cycle of poverty.
Sylus was 12 when he accepted the Count's deal to get him off the streets in exchange for somewhere dry to sleep, and he was 22 when he re-entered the world.
And he had a duty to protect the younger generation.
Halfway from his new hideout to the docks, it occurred to Sylus that he didn't know what he was going to do. He couldn't house the children, nor could he employ them. The only money he had was from a coin purse gifted to him by a kind nurse who had tended to him in the Coliseum all those months ago.
Within the purse held ten gold sovereigns. More money than most people saw in their lifetime. With it, Sylus could buy a hundred houses each supplied with a hundred servants. But the money wasn't his to spend.
...
But he could buy a few nails with it.
Sylus intended to find you again. To give you back the money you had given him. To show you that he was strong to make his own life for himself. Maybe even a life for the two of you...
Sylus shook the thoughts from his head and he set about his work.
It took Sylus about three hours to build enough roofs.
Going back to his old stomping grounds, Sylus noted where the South End orphans would be hiding during the day, and where they would be sleeping during the night. The ground under his feet was still wet with brine, and the walls were still sticky with fish oil. The air was still thick with rot, and the shadows were still dark with danger.
Sylus set to work.
Busying his hands to distract himself from the consequences of leaving the Coliseum, and busying his mind to distract from the consequences of what he had endured, Sylus used the nails he purchased to secure tin to wood. The little roofs he crafted would serve to protect those in need against the rain, showers, and the prying eyes of the threatening and harmful in the South End. Some roofs were high up, but most were down low, tucked away in alleys and forgotten corners where the watchful could find shelter but the cruel would not bother to look.
Sylus moved under the cover of his cloak. A large, clean material you had brought for him to use as a blanket, but he had never touched until now. He had told himself that killers didn't deserve soft things.
Two months later, as he used the techniques found in one of the many books you had given him, Sylus began shuttling food into the South End: a barrel of potatoes here, a bushel of apples there, all grown from the soil of the Forest he had come to love. Sylus would leave them out in the open for any to take; he knew that it wasn't just orphans who struggled to feed themselves here. He spared what he was able, and he brought what he could. He read your guides, learned how to keep chickens, and exchanged their eggs for seeds. He started planting. He started cultivating.
For a man convinced that he was only good for killing, he was steadily proving himself capable of nurturing life instead.
And one day, a little girl followed him home.
It wasn't uncommon for Sylus to find children following him as he did his work in the South End.
In the beginning, the older kids were too scared to take what he had left, fearing that they were poisoned in some way. That the fruit would put them to sleep, or that the bread would steal their breath. A few others—the younger children—were too trusting. Still holding within them the belief that all human beings had hearts full of kindess and love. So, the older ones watched as the younger ones indulged, placing bets on which would die and scoffing because they knew that nothing good came without a price.
...
But nothing ever came. The fruit, although ugly, was edible. The bread, though oddly salted, was fine.
No tricks seemed to be about.
So, they stalked him.
None ever approached Sylus as he moved about the South End, either too shy or too busy trying to figure out what he was doing. The children had been beaten for less. They had learned not to ask questions on the docks.
The girl who had followed Sylus home was all but five. She knew how to braid her hair, and she knew that a tin can had three uses: holding water, storing food, and making noises to scare away rats.
She also liked the softness of Sylus' cloak.
Her father—when he was alive—had worn one just like it. They had come from the mountains of Delmora a month ago in search for a cure for the mother’s ailment. The girl couldn't tell you the names of her parents nor how they had come to be separated. Only that her own name was Fenna, she had an older brother named Rowan (who she hadn't seen for quite some time), and that her father wore a black cloak.
Sylus noticed her following him as he crossed from the docks into the Waste District.
As Sylus made his bed under the stars for the night, strategically leaving the door of his hut open so that the little girl would find herself inside and hopefully eat a bowl of hot stew before falling asleep on the strategically placed furs on the ground, he pretended not to notice the small footsteps hesitating at the threshold, nor the way the steam from the stew curled invitingly in the cool night air. In the morning, the girl silently followed him back to the docks. She told the others stories of a warm bed and a never-ending bowl of soup. That night, Sylus had four little shadows following him home.
Within the week, he had twenty-two.
It would take two months for Sylus to build the ‘open house’ as they called it. A large house with four walls and forty-four hay-stuffed mattresses. Sylus had made the children their own place to stay should they choose to steal away from the dirt and pollution of the dense, oily docks.
Knowing the hardships of locked spaces, Sylus kept the inside of the house open and made makeshift rooms for the children out of cloth and curtains.
Soon, he would show those who cared to learn how to garden, grow crops, and how to fish.
It would take him longer to build relationships with the children, but they would come.
Now, out in the woods in the North-East of the N109, if one somehow managed to cross the protection sigils and the cross-me-not spells, one would find a cabin once densely filled with little boys and girls. Now, only six remained. They were all well-fed, well-read, and well-cared for by Sylus.
Over the ten years that he had been out there, some of his kids had grown up and moved on, carving out their own paths in the world. Some had stayed nearby, claiming their own section of land to start their lives, and finding comfort in the life Sylus had built for them. And some had been lost to the hardships of the world—fading into the city’s shadows, swept away by misfortune, or simply vanishing without a trace. Sylus mourned them all, but he never stopped building, never stopped offering shelter to the next child who found their way to his doorstep.
In the North-West end, your school had started with a stolen apple.