Chương 2: Becoming Golden

'Relic' A relic is a divine instrument brought unto the world through trades and barters with the Seven Curator Gods. All are graded—from Common to Uncommon, Rare, Exquisite, Masterwork, Epic, Legendary, and Mythic—and all will attune to the wielder upon physical contact, allowing their abilities to manifest when mana is poured into them. Place a relic upon the arm of a fool and you will witness accidents. Place it upon the arm of a king, and you will witness history.

—Opening excerpt of 'Observations on Relics and the Divine', Written by Naghari the Sage Whether they were rich or poor, people always said the Vodyanaya Thread Street smelled like a wet sock someone forgot in a dye vat. The smell was always the first thing Orland noticed. Wet wool, boiled pigment, and cheap soap—people here were used to the smell, but for a slumborn like him, it was simply too clean. He'd find himself sick to the stomach if he stayed here too long.

Of the many textile shops along the street, he hid himself between a stack of wool crates besides Marzanna's Cloth and Dye, waiting for the customers inside to leave. A big lady complained about the price of blue wool, and her husband argued that the dye had ruined his sleeves in the wash. He leaned his ear against the wall of the shop and listened to all of it. Waiting was a gutter's skill, but so was listening.

Walls in Rusalka were thin enough to eavesdrop through if one had the patience, and he considered himself an expert in entering buildings only when he was sure he'd be the only person inside. Best not to attract unwanted attention, that was. When the bell over the front door finally rang and the last two customers clomped out, he slipped out and squeezed through the front door before it could close.

Lower district textile shop as it may 'only' be, the inside of Marzanna's Cloth and Dye was a noble's wardrobe compared to the slums. Bolts of fabrics lined the walls in colors that made his eyes squint, while shirts of all sizes hung from racks and coats were draped neatly over wooden shoulders. It was pretty clear he didn't belong here. That hadn't ever stopped him from slipping in when he needed to.

"... Boy?" Good thing Baba Marza never complained much about his smell. Everyone else in town called the old lady standing behind the counter Madame Marzanna, but to Orland, she'd always been Baba Marza, with grey hair braided tight down her back and a pair of brass spectacles balanced on the tip of her nose. Her fingers were permanently stained with faint purple dye because she was always working on some new stitching behind the counter—even now—but she looked up the moment he entered.

Her eyes scanned him from head to toe. Mud. Blood. Bruises stinging with salt. He suddenly felt a little self-conscious of just how dirty he was. Maybe he should've at least taken a dip in the river outside of town before coming here.

"Oh, by the saints and all twelve winter devils," she muttered.

"What happened to you now?" Orland didn't answer. Instead, he shuffled across the shop and dropped onto the cushion beside one of the clothing racks.

"Sit there," she said firmly, letting go of the fabric she was stitching and walking away from the counter.

"Don't drip blood everywhere like a slaughterhouse pig. I'll fetch the bandages." As she disappeared through the curtain behind the counter, Orland leaned back against the wall and exhaled slowly.

Ever since the Old Rusalka Orphanage burned down in the Great Fire seven years ago and all the kids were kicked out onto the streets—him included, at eight years old—he'd bounced from place to place, doing all sorts of live-in odd jobs before inevitably getting kicked out for being too small, or too uncharismatic, or being unable to read. At the age of ten, he found hunting beasts to be the one job he could do properly.

His small size was a boon for ambushes, he didn't have to talk to anyone, and he didn't have to be able to read. It was a freelance job as well, which meant he only needed a wooden shed to live out of and didn't have to pay rent to any landlord. Even still, most middlequarter folk wanted nothing to do with him, or any slumfolk for that matter.

That was the funny thing about Rusalka: two thousand people living in relative wealth in this miserable salt town, and almost all of them looked at him like he was something that had to be scraped off their boot—except Baba Marza. Whenever his clothes tore climbing trees or fighting beasts, she'd hand him old garments nobody else wanted. She'd shove fresh bread into his hands and say it was stale anyway. Sometimes she'd even buy magic beast parts from him when he couldn't find a butcher willing to take them.

He knew for a fact there was nothing she could do with the parts, but she still bought them anyways. Baba Marza was the only person in Rusalka he didn't hate. After a while, footsteps returned from the back room, and the old lady came over carrying bandages and a small jar of ointment.

"Hold still," she ordered. Cold ointment touched the cut near his temple, and Orland winced despite himself.

"What beast got you good this time, boy?"

"Just mud," he grunted.

"Yes. Because mud punches back in Rusalka." Bandages wrapped around his shoulder next. Her fingers pressed along the bruise carefully.

"There. But you're filthy too, the winter's going to crust the dirt on your skin. A merchant's boy from Copperbell threw out a coat this morning, so I'll fetch you some decent clothes—""Baba?"

"Yes?"

"I wanna trade." He reached into his rags, and the coin pouch he looted from the Hero's corpse came out heavy in his hand. Three gold coins was all he had. Three gold coins was what he held out to her.

"I want the best clothes and shoes in your shop, please." Baba Marza stared at him for a long moment.

"And how'd a boy like you get this kind of money?"

"Sold beast parts."

"To who?"

"Beat-Faced Krasny."

"Krasny's been out with his wife since the winter's spring to apprentice in Zlatino. Try again."

"... Do you also sell gold hair dye?" Her eyes lingered on him very carefully, but she never made it a habit of asking too many questions, and she didn't take on the habit now.

"Of course," she said, smiling faintly.

"Textile shops always have dye. What kind of clothes do you want, anyways? Something like what the merchants wear up on Nitmint Avenue?" Orland looked around the shop again. Velvet coats, fine linen shirts, and leather boots polished until they shone… the thought of wearing any of those made him feel stuffy already. They were too fancy for him. He'd look like a pig wearing a prince's crown.

"You pick, Baba. Whatever makes me look like… a traveler?" She studied him for another moment before nodding.

"Very well. Wait here." The curtain behind the counter rustled once again as Baba Marza disappeared into the back of the shop. Orland stayed seated, his eyes wandering past the racks of clothes and fabrics and landing on the shelves behind the curtain. Books. Several dozen of them sat in neat rows with spines painted bright and colorful. Orland had seen them used before.

Whenever merchants came shopping with their whiny little brats, Baba Marza would shove the books into the kids' hands so they'd stop messing around with the fabrics. Picture books, mostly. He was pretty sure he didn't need to know how to read to actually read them. He glanced back towards the curtain, swallowing a nervous gulp. Still no sign of Baba Marza. The rustling back there suggested she was digging deep through trunks and garment chests, so… I've got time. Sorry, Baba Marza.

He slipped off the cushion and approached the counter quietly. One quick hop carried him onto the wooden ledge, and he stood on his tiptoes to pluck out the book with the most ornate spine. He'd seen a few kids read this particular book before, but he'd only caught glimpses of it from outside the window, never close-up. Stealing one more glance at the curtain, he hurried back to his cushion and plopped down, opening his book gently.

Not many slumborn knew how to read or write, but Baba Marza had shown him a few things over the years—how to recognize shop names and pick out useful words on signboards—so while he couldn't even read the title, he could pick out two words: 'Dragon' and 'Slayer'. Perfect. Reading the book was slow work, though the story in pictures was simple enough that even he could understand it: once upon a time, there was a kingdom plagued by a terrible dragon.

It burned villages, ate swathes of men, and stole cattle from the fields. One day, a wandering hunter arrived at the castle and offered to kill the dragon in exchange for a reward, and the rest of the picture book showed his over-simplistic journey to track down and defeat the dragon. He'd seen the story many times before, so he wasn't interested in the plot. He was more interested, instead, in the little dialogue bubbles between the wandering hunter and the people he met along the way.

"Good day, Your… Majes…ty…" he muttered slowly, finger tracing the syllables one by one.

"Good day, Your Ma-jes-ty. You called for a great slayer?" If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. The sentence came out awkward, but he repeated it anyway, committing the sound and tone of it to memory.

"Good day, Your Majesty. You called for a great slayer?" He tried the line once more, lowering his voice.

"Good day, Your Majesty. You called for a great slayer?" Better. A grin crept across his face as he flipped to the next few pages, intent on memorizing every line the hunter said so he could recite them when the time came—but outside the shop, snickers and laughter suddenly cracked through the air. Orland froze mid-turn of the page. The sound didn't belong to drunks wobbling home from the Solny Market, and it didn't sound like the usual alley rats either. He had a bad feeling about this.

Baba Marza hadn't come back yet, so he shut the book carefully and tucked it under his arm as he slid off the cushion. Moving to the back door, he pushed out into the alley and looked around. Nobody on the left. However, a cluster of boys stood close to the wall on the right. Their coats were clean, their shoes were new, and their blond hair was combed and oiled. Orland recognized them instantly even if he couldn't put every surname to every face.

They were the sons of the richest salt and spice merchants in Rusalka. Ruslan was the largest and oldest boy in the group, while Borimir and Voron flanked him. The two other boys Orland didn't recognize, but he was sure they were Ruslan's errand boys. All of them were holding bits of charcoal and broken chalk, and Orland felt heat climb up his neck as he saw the caricature they were putting on Baba Marza's wall: a hunched old woman with exaggerated crooked fingers and huge stained hands.

His grip tightened around his book.

"Drop the chalk," he said. The boys didn't hear him at first. Voron laughed at something Ruslan added to the drawing with a flourish, then Borimir snickered and wiped charcoal dust on his sleeve. It wasn't until Orland slammed a fist against the brick wall that Ruslan finally turned his head, saw Orland, and curled his mouth." Bratya, look," Ruslan snickered.

"If it isn't the mudrat." The others looked over, and their laughter shifted as it found a new target. Ruslan's gaze ran over Orland's rags. He noticed the book tucked under Orland's arm, too, and his sneer widened.

"Can't get a job, so now you're begging for scraps from the stained-finger hag who lives here? If you ask nicely, maybe I'll ask papa to—""Drop the chalk," Orland said again.

"And wipe that shitty drawing off with your face while you're at it." Ruslan took a step closer, lazy and confident.

"Or what?" he drawled.

"What you gonna do if we don't?" Orland stared at the larger boy. Disrespect for him, he was used to. No matter how much injury or insult was hurled at him, he knew to take it with his head low and not fight back. Fighting back was an easy way to get tossed into the salt cells by the townsguard, and there weren't any rats down there for him to eat. He knew more than a few slumborn boys who'd gone in and never came back out.

That was why he hadn't even tried to fight back against the shop owner who'd beaten him with a stick. Whether he won or lost, he'd be spending the night in the abyss. But disrespect for Baba Marza, he couldn't stand. Anyone but her. So he bent down, put his book against the wall in a safe location, and watched as the boys squirmed a little at his deliberateness. They were watching his every movement carefully.

Time must be running slower in their eyes, and he knew that sensation, because he felt it every time he risked his life hunting magic beasts—so he knew the boys were seeing, but they weren't ready. He picked up a trash can lid and slammed it into the side of the closest boy's head. Metal cracked against skull, and the boy's eyes went wide as he crumpled sideways, knees folding. While the rest of the boys fell silent, Orland bared his teeth, holding his lid up like a shield.

With what he was about to do with the Hero's name today, his life would change. He'd never see the inside of a salt cell, so why not do something reckless for once? He'd always wanted to beat the shit out of a salt merchant's son.

"I'm already warmed up!" he snarled.

"Come on then!" Borimir took an involuntary step back. Voron's mouth opened, shocked, and then he tried to laugh as if it was still a game, but Orland charged and slammed the lid into another boy's gut with enough force to make him double over. Orland followed through immediately, grabbing the back of the boy's head and shoving it into the ground. He kicked the boy once in the ribs for good measure, but as he lifted his boot again, a fist caught him in the face. Pain flashed white.

His nose cracked and his head snapped sideways. He staggered, and in that moment of imbalance, the rest of them surged forward. Hands grabbed his arms and someone hooked an elbow around his neck. He snapped and swung his lid wide, catching Voron in the shoulder with a sharp crack, but the others filled in for Voron as the boy staggered back, howling in pain. Orland strained and snarled, trying to bite, elbow, and kick at them, but they held him like a dog being pinned for slaughter.

Ruslan walked forward slowly, savoring his struggle. Before Orland could spit in his face, he drove a punch into Orland's gut. Air exploded from his lungs. His stomach folded, and nausea surged up hard and hot. Ruslan laughed.

"Is this all you've got?" he asked. Then he punched him again, right in the same spot, and Orland's vision speckled at the edges.

"You do know we have relic bracelets, right? Our might and resilience are twice yours, and the bracelets weaken impact damage all across our body. That's 'cause our papas didn't raise their sons to lose to mudrats!" Orland spat in his face. While Ruslan flinched back, one of the boys immediately yanked his hair back, forcing his face up so he had to look at Ruslan.

"Maybe I'll tell papa," Ruslan growled.

"Maybe I'll tell him the rat attacked me behind the hag's shop. Maybe he'll tell the guard captain, and maybe you'll be found floating down the salt river by morning." Orland's heart hammered, but not with fear. Rage. The boys threw him down, and as he rolled onto his stomach, choking on the taste of blood and dirt, boots started kicking. A heel in his thigh. A toe in his ribs. Then his face scraped along the dirt as the boys laughed. He groaned and clenched his jaw until his teeth ached.

He tried to crawl up, but a kick caught him in the hip and sent him sliding. Pain blurred most of his thoughts—but not the only one that actually mattered. He only challenged them because he had a secret weapon they didn't know he had. Fuck them. Show them what they get if they disrespect Baba Marza. While they kept kicking him, his hand moved under his cloak. Didn't take him long for his fingers to find cold metal.

He yanked out the golden gauntlet he'd pulled off the Hero's corpse, and for one stupid, glorious moment, his only thought was simple: put it on, grit his teeth, and punch their faces in until they stopped making noise. You're a relic, aren't you? He gritted his teeth. Show me what you got! But the moment the gauntlet slid over his right hand, energy flared through his arm like someone was pouring it into his veins. He'd been cut and slashed before by magic beasts, and he'd felt energy before. This was different.

This power gathered and pulled, rushing into his chest and then back to the gauntlet like it was a living, breathing thing. He gasped, sucking in a breath through his teeth. What is… Another boot swung toward his ribs again. Instinct took over. He swiped his gauntleted hand back—not even really trying to punch, only trying to shove the leg away so he could breathe—and shouts suddenly erupted behind him.

The kicks and stomps stopped coming for a good few seconds, and he took that time to scramble onto his knees, then onto his feet, finally whirling back around with his arms raised for a rematch. However, the boys weren't standing anymore. All of them were on the ground. Orland blinked. Lumps of uneven earth had risen at their feet, just high enough to trip all of them over and knock them off their feet. One boy was sprawled over, clutching his broken ankle and howling. Borimir lay on his side, eyes wide and dazed.

A few others were holding their knees from the bad fall, but Ruslan— blood ran from the back of his head where he'd cracked it against the ground, and his face was pale with shock.

"What relic is that?" Ruslan hissed.

"That… that thing!" Orland frowned, eyes dropping to his gauntlet. Fuck if he knew what relic it was. He didn't even know what he'd really done, but Ruslan's fear won out over his pride. The older boy scrambled to his feet, wobbling, and the other boys followed him like frightened geese. They didn't even bother checking on the boy Orland had first cracked with the lid. They just grabbed at each other and stumbled back and out of the alley.

"You'll pay for this," Ruslan spat, pointing at him shakily.

"You'll pay! I swear on salt and ash!" Then they ran, vanishing from the alley and out onto the brighter streets. Orland watched them go, chest heaving, and spat onto the ground again.

"Don't you ever come back!" he shouted.

"You hear me?" Behind him, the back door creaked open. Baba Marza stepped out into the alley with a small satchel in her hands, her brows furrowed.

"What's wrong?" she asked softly.

"I heard noise out here." Orland moved fast, sliding his gauntleted hand under his cloak and wiping blood off his nose with the other.

"Nothing," he said, too quickly. Baba Marza's eyes narrowed as she took in his face. Fresh blood at his lip. His nose swollen and new bruises blooming under the old ones.

"Nothing, the boy says," she repeated, scowling.

"Mud punched you again?" Orland wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shrugged.

"I dealt with it," he said. He tried to sound casual, but his voice came out rough.

"What about my… the… the things I asked for?" Baba Marza hesitated, then held the satchel out. The leather looked worn, but he could just tell it was sturdy enough for travel. He accepted it with one hand and opened it, peering inside. Clothes, shoes, and a bottle of fizzling golden dye. It hurt just to smile, but he couldn't help himself as he slung the satchel over his shoulder.

"What's going on, boy?" Baba Marza asked gently, though her gaze remained sharp.

"What do you need these things for?" Orland looked at her. He imagined saying it plainly: 'I killed the Hero by accident, and now I'm going to steal his life'. The words died before they could even think about reaching his tongue. He couldn't say that to her. He couldn't put that weight in Baba Marza's hands, not when she'd been the only person in town who ever offered him anything without spitting first. So he only shook his head and forced a crooked smile.

"Just… a little trickery," he said. More noise drifted in from the main street, and his head snapped toward the alley mouth. He crept forward and peeked out. Ruslan and his lackeys stood under a street lamp, glaring back into the alley while speaking to a patrol of townsguard. For their part, the guards' eyes were already angling towards Orland like they'd smelled troubled—no doubt they knew who Ruslan was, so it didn't matter who the boy was pointing his finger at. He had to run.

"Thank you, Baba," he said quickly, picking up his picture book as he did. Then he noticed she noticed, and he paused to hold the book up.

"Can I borrow this for a few days too? I promise I'll return it." Baba Marza frowned.

"Of course you can, but what are you—" He could tell she wanted a better answer, but he didn't have the time. He bolted, slipping through narrow cuts between buildings, darting down Guttercross Passage, then cutting into Brinehook Alley. Guards shouted behind him, but he knew these alleys the way other boys knew prayers. He vaulted a low fence, slid through a gap between barrels, and flattened himself behind a shed until the boots thundered past.

When he ran again, he headed towards the eastern gate, because that was the gate the Hero would've arrived at if he'd made it here.

"... Good day, Your Majesty. You called for a great slayer?" As he sprinted, bruises aching, he kept repeating the line he'd practiced. After all, if he was going to borrow the Hero's name and walk into a town that worshipped his crest, then just looking the part wasn't going to be enough. He had to act like the Hero, in and out.