The town did nothing to improve his mood; even in the short time since he’d been here last, the poverty had worsened. The homeless huddled on almost every street; humans, every single one of them. Who knew what position they’d been in a few months ago, where they’d been working, where they’d been living? And now here they were, kicked out and penniless, ripe for the picking when the Astraea next passed through. Keeran threw his hands in his pockets and bowled on, his scowl deepening with every street he passed. The sooner he found Beserkir, the better.
In some ways, it was a good thing that Aelia had fobbed him off. He was running dangerously low on money, and he doubted she would approve of his means of attaining it. The Peregrinians provided the cover he needed to visit most of Demuto withoutarousing too much suspicion, but travelling with them did not pay well enough, not even close. Fortunately, he could be pretty light-fingered when he needed to be.
Just as he was entering the merchant’s quadrant, he saw a human, a young woman, with her scrawny arms wrapped around two hollow-cheeked children, tucked in the corner of the square. Their age was hard to gauge past the dirt on their faces, but it didn’t really matter; their dull eyes told him they’d experienced far worse than most adults had.
As he passed, three young artemians approached the destitute family of humans. They were all predator-born, and in fine clothes undoubtedly paid for out of parents' pockets. An alarm bell rang in Keeran’s ears, and he slunk into the shade by a nearby water fountain, sipping water from his cupped palms as he watched them.
One of the young men jumped towards the woman with a flying kick, swinging his leg to send her cup flying, a meagre scattering of coins rolling across the road. Her eyes followed the precious money, but she didn’t move to retrieve it, only clutched her children tighter.
Keeran kept to the shadows, his expression darkening as another of the men picked up one of the coins. He held it out to her whilst his friends laughed behind him, the noise grating on Keeran like metal on stone. The woman, wisely dubious, made no move to take it, but the man held it closer, waving it in front of her until she finally reached out to take it with delicate fingers. One of the children began to cry, burying its face into its mother’s threadbare clothes. Keeran was at risk of grinding his teeth to dust at this point, but still he kept his distance, even when the man predictably whipped the coin away from her, eliciting a chorus of laughter from his companions. What Keeran hadn’t expected however, was the force with which the manthrew the coin at her, launching it at her face with malevolent delight.
Blood trickled from the resulting cut on her forehead, and Keeran’s blood roared in his ears. As the men sauntered off, leaving the woman scrabbling to collect the coins, Keeran ignored the little warning voice in the back of his head to leave well alone, to keep his head down. No, that voice was lost to the snarling of the creature in the corner of his mind that spurred him towards violence. A red mist settled over him, thoroughly clouding his better judgement, and he loosened the leash he kept it on, sinking into the savage brutality he fought day and night.
The men weren’t hard to follow. So absorbed in themselves, they didn’t notice as death itself began to hunt them, the brown in his eyes all but disappearing as he stalked them through the town. They made the mistake of entering an alley, heading towards the courtyard it opened onto.
Keeran didn’t reach for the fire magic that hummed eagerly in the back of his mind, nor did he unsheathe his dagger; no, he wanted to feel their skin break against his, wanted to feel the pain of bone crunching beneath his fist.
The men turned as soon as he entered the alleyway, dropping into a defensive position like the good little predators they were. No flight response here, these cocky little fuckers were all fight.
“Whatever you’re planning, I wouldn’t recommend it,” one of them cautioned as Keeran stalked towards them, exuding menace with every step he took. “We’re all armed and know how to use them.”
Keeran cocked his head and smiled, a vicious thing that had the confidence leaching from their faces.
“Good,” he growled, more monster than man.
The three men pulled their blades free, and Keeran waited for them to spread out into an attack formation. He sodesperately wanted a challenge, so desperately wanted to get some of the frustration of the last few days out of his system.
They attacked as one, their thin steels whipping through the air. Keeran sidestepped around the one closest to the wall, moving behind him too fast for him to register. He snapped his neck with one rough twist of his hands. He used the still twitching body to block the blade of his comrade, locking it between its ribs and tugging the weapon free from the shocked man’s hands. Disarmed and panicking, it was easy for Keeran to block his clumsy blows before spinning to break the elbow of the third man as he extended his sword arm.
Keeran grinned as he jabbed up into the broken limb with one fist, causing him to drop the hilt just in time for Keeran’s other hand to swipe it from the air. He wasted no time in plunging it straight into the eye of the second man, before turning to slam the third man’s head into the wall with enough force that even his own mother would struggle to recognise him.
It was all over in a matter of seconds, the bodies hitting the ground one after the other in quick succession. Keeran stood there panting, more from the effort of trying to wrestle his inner beast back into its cage than the physical exertion.
When he left the alley a few minutes later, he left it three coin purses heavier.
The womanstill sat where he’d left her, the coins collected and the cup now safely empty. Her eyes bulged as he crossed to her, her neck craning back to take all of him in. The same child started crying again.
He dropped to a crouch, hating that she looked more frightened of him than she had been of the three men. Hating that she was right to be.
“Here.” He dropped a coin purse in front of her, everything the men had carried, bar what he needed to get Aelia and himself to Beserkir.
The woman’s nostrils flared as she tore her eyes from him to glance at the purse, flicking them immediately back to him.
“What do you want?” Her fingers were white where they clung to the clothes on her children’s scrawny backs.
“I want you to get out of here. The Astraea will never leave towns like this alone. You stand a better chance heading to the smallest village you can find— the more remote, the better. Leave today, if possible. You never know when the Astraea will be back.”
He didn’t give her a chance to answer; he rose and turned to leave.
“Wait,” she called. He obeyed. “We will do as you say, but please, tell me why? This is a fortune to give to a stranger.”
She was well spoken, clearly one of the many victims of the Astraean induced unemployment. Keeran wondered what she had been, how far she’d had to fall, but really, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she had fallen.
“Because real fear nourishes the worst in us, and your children have already known too much of it. Save them from it before it’s too late.”
This time when he made to leave, she didn’t call him back.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
