The Stolen Star

The mark on Pellera's forehead was beautiful in a way that made you want to scream. It was a perfect, crimson rose leaf, etched into her young skin as if by a master engraver. But with every day the red deepened, Pellera drifted further away.

They called it the Touch of Rose. It was a romantic name for a slow execution.

First, the legs stop responding. Then the voice fades to a whisper, then to nothing. Finally, the ability to swallow, to eat, to look at the world with anything other than glassy, unseeing eyes. Pellera was twelve. Now she was a statue made of failing flesh, lying in the damp corner of our attic in the slums of Predymesh.

I am Nex Orlong. I was an honest man once. I had the calloused hands of a mason and a back that never bent under a fair day's work. But honesty doesn't buy Alilberry.

"A single drop, Master Orlong," the apothecary had said, his eyes avoiding mine. "One drop to wake the nerves. One drop to wash the rose from her brow. But the Guild controls the supply. Five hundred gold coins. Not a copper less."

Five hundred. I might as well have asked for the moon.

So, I stopped building. I started taking.

I traded my hammer for a rusted shim and my pride for the shadows. I spent my nights stalking the gilded districts, a ghost in the periphery of the rich. I stole bread, I stole silver spoons, I stole anything that could be melted or bartered. But the Alilberry fund grew with the speed of a dying glacier.

Tonight, the rain was different. It felt like needles. I stood in the shadow of a gargoyle, watching the iron gates of the Kosnak Estate. The spires of the mansion pierced the smog, glowing with an arrogance that made my teeth ache.

The gates groaned open. A man stepped out.

He wasn't a noble, but he wasn't a peasant. He was dressed in a suit of navy blue wool, tailored with a precision that suggested he moved in circles where a misplaced comma could cost a life. He looked tired. He looked like a man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

He stopped to adjust his collar, and for a heartbeat, I saw it. Tucked into his inner pocket was a notebook.

It was navy blue, bound in leather so fine I could smell the quality from ten yards away. On the cover, a single silver star caught the flickering light of the gas lamps. It looked heavy. It looked full of the kind of secrets that men pay very well to keep. Or to lose.

He began to walk toward the carriage line, his boots clicking on the wet cobblestones.

I didn't think. If I thought, I would remember the man I used to be. I just moved.

The strike was quick. A bump, a sleight of hand I’d practiced until my fingers bled, and a silent retreat back into the darkness of the alleyway. The man didn't even turn around. He just kept walking, his mind clearly miles away.

I ducked behind a stack of crates, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. I pulled the notebook from my coat.

The leather was soft as skin. The silver star seemed to pulse in the dark. I opened the first page, hoping for a name, an address, a reason to demand a ransom that would save my daughter.

Instead, I saw a map. A map of Thornus, but with lines that shouldn't be there. And a list of names. Wulf Kosnak. Aester Cloudwear. Dr. Brann Corshield.

And at the very bottom, in a hand that was steady but hurried: The rot starts at the head, but the heart is still beating.

I heard the sound of heavy boots. Not the man. Guards.

"He went this way!" a voice boomed from the gates. "The Diplomat’s journal! Find it, or Kosnak will have all our heads!"

I looked at the notebook, then at the direction of my home, where Pellera lay waiting for a miracle I couldn't afford.

I wasn't just holding leather and paper. I was holding the fuse to a powder keg. And the match was already lit.