Smooth river stone. Gray with a white stripe. Lira gave it to me. Said it was for luck. She didn't make it past the first winter outside. Froze to death in an alley two cities over.
Strip of red fabric. From the flag they flew when someone died here. Collected one every time. Forty-three total before I stopped counting.
I trace each piece. Run my thumb over edges and surfaces. Remember.
Crowds screaming for violence, for spectacle. They bet on us. Traded us. Owned us.
We weren't people. We were property that bled.
Korvak used to say we were already dead. That free men died the day they were sold, and what fought there was just meat learning to move. But at night, locked in the holding cells, he'd talk about a coast he remembered. Fishing boats. His daughter's laugh.
Dead men don't remember daughters.
We planned for months. Lira stole keys. Korvak mapped guard rotations. I broke the lock on the night of the winter festival when half the guards were drunk.
Eleven of us ran that night.
Only three made it past the city walls before the hunters caught our scent.
Now I stand here alone. The last one breathing. The last one left to carry all their names like stones in my pockets, dragging me down with every step I take toward something that feels almost like freedom but tastes like survivor's guilt.
The guilt sits different now than it used to. Less sharp. More like weight I've learned to carry. But it's always there, whispering that good things get taken away. That safety's temporary. That the second you let yourself want something, someone notices and uses it against you.
Maris. She's a good thing, and that makes her a target. The knowledge sits cold in my torso, heavy as iron.
The kitten in my hands is another good thing. Small. Fragile. Warm as a prayer. Its purr vibrates against my palms, trusting in a way I don't deserve.
This apartment with its creaking floors. This town where the bakery owner remembers my order now, where café customersnod instead of flinching when I walk past. All of it, every single scrap of normal I've clawed together, all good things.
Which means they're all weapons waiting to be used. Soft targets. Leverage.
I close the tin with its handful of coins and medals that don't belong to me. The metal edge bites into my thumb. I shove the whole thing back into the drawer, deeper this time, like burying evidence. Like that'll make it safer.
My phone buzzes against the counter. The vibration sounds too loud in the quiet apartment, rattling my nerves. I don't recognize the number on the screen.
Check the town forum.
That's all it says. No signature. No context. Nothing that tells me who sent it or what I'm supposed to find there. Just those three words, stark and waiting.
My stomach tightens. Nothing good ever comes from anonymous warnings.
I pull up the website on my phone. My fingers feel too big for the screen, clumsy and slow, tusks casting shadows across the glass as I fumble with the browser. The page loads with agonizing slowness, each second stretching thin.
The latest post sits pinned at the very top of the forum.
My chest goes cold.
ILLEGAL SQUATTER EXPOSED: "Hero" Orc Has No Right to Property
My stomach drops.
The post's long. Detailed. Claims I forged residency documents. That the deed transfer was fraudulent. That I've been unlawfully occupying the property and the rightful owner, Vance Development, is pursuing legal action.
There are screenshots. Official-looking documents with seals and signatures. A photo of me outside the rowhouse, date-stamped three weeks ago with "ILLEGAL OCCUPANT" stamped across it in red.
Every word is fabricated. Every line, every seal, every signature. But the lie wears truth like a tailored suit, and from where the forum sits, it looks immaculate. Unassailable. Real enough to ruin me.
The comment section bleeds open beneath the post.
