The Sleepless Spell

But those who truly knew her—her handmaid, her old fencing instructor, the Captain of the Guard—knew of a rare and dangerous phenomenon known only as “the snapping.”

It had only happened four times in living memory.

Once, when a foreign diplomat commented that women shouldn’t be taught statecraft. Once, when someone kicked her dog. Once, when a lordling drunkenly told her she’d “never marry well with hips like those.” And once, today.

Lord Harwin of the Southern Isles, who looked like a powdered cake and smelled like rotting ambition, had pushed every button in her psyche during the royal council meeting. He interrupted, condescended, smirked, and finally, said the sentence:

“Perhaps the Princess should leave such matters to the men. War is a rather rough business.”

Captain Lucy stiffened beside her. Chancellor Morevich blinked slowly, calculating escape routes. A crow outside cawed, sensing imminent doom.

Princess Elyse stood. Slowly. Deliberately. Her silken skirts whispered like drawn blades. She smiled the kind of smile that meant either divine mercy or total annihilation.

And then she spoke.

“Rough business, my lord?” she said sweetly. “You pustulent windbag in lace—if brains were water, yours couldn’t fill a thimble. If your sword is as limp as your wit, no wonder your barony keeps getting raided.”

The council froze.

“Do you think because I speak softly, I think softly? That because I wear gowns and not chainmail, I don’t understand blood and fire? I’ve watched generals die with more grace than you muster when someone says 'no.'”

Lucy was silently mouthing gods above.

“You overboiled cabbage,” Elyse continued. “You flea-ridden whelp of a maggot-stuffed goat. You’re not a lord—you’re what happens when incest and incompetence share a bottle of wine and a bad idea.”

Lord Harwin turned crimson. Then pale. Then somewhere in between.

She took a step forward, eyes blazing. “You arrogant, preening, gas-leaking excuse for a noble. You smell like spoiled butter and think like curdled cream. I’ve seen toddlers with more tactical acumen and fewer tantrums. You’re a blight upon silk, an insult to chairs for having to hold your weight, and a crime against patience. If arrogance were armor, you'd still bleed stupidity.”

Lord Harwin opened his mouth, but nothing emerged except a confused wheeze.

“Truly,” she said, voice rising, “you are the human embodiment of mildew in a boot. If you were set on fire, the flames would write apology letters for touching something so pathetic. If incompetence had a patron saint, you'd be on its stained-glass window vomiting onto a map of your own lands. And do not think I haven’t noticed you wear more rouge than half the brothel district.”

The air seemed to shimmer.

“And if you ever—ever—speak to me like that again, I will personally drag you through the mud until the pigs ask me to show mercy. Do I make myself clear, you sweat-slicked sausage of a man?”

Silence.

Absolute, radiant silence.

Then, in a voice as calm and gentle as ever, she turned to the Chancellor. “Now then. As I was saying, we’ll move the western battalion to Fort Brindle before the first frost.”

On the outer curve of the continent, where the sea sang with the land, lay the Isle of Harmony. A small peninsula kingdom, its people were few, its cities scattered, and its land modest compared to the sprawling empires that loomed to the east and west. But in this land of salt, wind, and art, a quiet fire had long been burning—one that would one day consume the throne. That fire was named Simeon.

Prince Simeon was born not of a royal marriage, but from lust and cruelty. His father, King Albrecht, a man of hollow grandeur and swollen pride, had forced House Elane—once a proud noble family—into ruin. Their sin was beauty. More precisely, the beauty of their eldest daughter, Serenya. To save her family, Serenya bowed her head and became the king’s concubine.

Simeon grew up in the shadow of his mother's broken grace. He saw the way people looked at her—half in pity, half in scorn—and he heard the whispers in the marble halls of the palace. "Concubine's son," they called him. He never said anything back, but Simeon listened. He watched. And he remembered.

Most believed Simeon's rise was sudden—a flash of ambition in a quiet son. But those close to him knew better. From his childhood, Simeon’s path was etched into his heart. He spent years crafting a web of loyalty and fear, slowly turning his father’s enemies into allies and his brothers’ allies into memories. He sowed doubt, whispered betrayal, and never hesitated to use the blade if silence was needed. By the time his eldest brother died in a mysterious "hunting accident," there were no voices left loud enough to object to Simeon being crowned king at the mere age of sixteen.

The coronation was cold, despite the summer sun. No cheers, only polite applause. That suited Simeon just fine. He had not taken the throne for glory. He had taken it for revenge.

Soon after his coronation, Simeon inherited the archives of the crown. Hidden in the back of a locked vault, beneath a tapestry of seagulls and pearls, he found it: the truth. 

During the lowest tides of each moon cycle, the sea retreated from the cliffs along the southern coast, revealing caves where the finest pearls in the world were born.

For generations, the royal family had harvested these pearls in secret, selling them through shadow merchants to the empires, amassing quiet fortunes. While the people starved and artists begged for patronage, the kings lived like gods. It should have made Simeon angry. But it made him smile. He would use this secret treasure to destroy everything the crown had built.

Simeon publicly declared the truth of the pearls. The Kingdom of Harmony, long believed poor, was in fact rich beyond imagination. And then he did something no one expected—he hoarded it.

Lavish gold-plated halls rose in the palace. Simeon wore robes threaded with diamonds. He imported foreign delicacies so rare that even the cooks had to ask for instructions. He hired a thousand personal entertainers, some of whom didn’t even perform; they just looked pretty and clapped on cue. Ministers whispered of madness. Nobles grumbled. Simeon grinned.

But he didn’t stop there. As a twisted joke, he declared a "charity tithe"—a mere 10% of the pearl profits—would go to the people, to "appease their ignorance." It was, to him, rubbing salt into their wounds.

Hospitals appeared in villages that had never known a healer. 

Simeon scoffed as he signed the orders. "Let the peasants have their bandages." 

But those bandages turned into operating rooms. Midwives trained in the new clinics, and infant mortality plummeted. Elders lived long enough to annoy their children again. One man wrote Simeon a poem about how his gout no longer kept him bedridden. Simeon burned it.

Bread became affordable. Bakers stopped mixing sawdust into the flour. Clean water flowed into towns where disease once reigned. Roadways were repaved, connecting towns that hadn’t seen one another in years. Trade surged. 

"If they want to trade chickens and clay pots, let them," he muttered.

But soon Harmony's pottery was praised across the continent. Their chickens became a culinary delicacy. The roads carried not just goods, but ideas, and the kingdom blossomed.

Homes were reinforced to withstand the ocean's cruel winds. Salt rot was no longer a yearly catastrophe. The arts, long dormant, flourished. Artists, poets, and sculptors no longer painted to survive—they painted to inspire. 

Theater troupes toured freely, and local dialects were preserved in song. One boy from a backwater village sculpted a statue of Simeon entirely from driftwood and sea glass. It made the cover of three foreign art journals.

To the people of Harmony, the tyrant was a godsend. Their stomachs were full. Their children lived past infancy. They sang in the streets songs not of rebellion, but of reverence. "Simeon the Silver Flame," they called him. "The Hand of Renewal." "The Pearl King."

Simeon had intended to be the villain. He wanted riots. Street art of his face with devil horns. Effigies burned in public squares. Instead, they held festivals in his name. One traveling bard composed a hymn that included the line: He took our gold, he took our pride, he gave us joy and fish beside. Simeon nearly choked on his imported saffron lamb stew when he heard it.

Religious leaders, once divided by dogma, all began to agree on one thing: Simeon was the chosen one of prophecy.

A fishmonger wept openly when Simeon passed through the harbor one day. 

"He cured my daughter with roads," the man sobbed. 

"That’s not how medicine works," Simeon grumbled. 

"He brings warmth to the winds!" 

"It’s summer!" 

But it didn’t matter.

At night, Simeon sat alone in his palace, surrounded by gold he no longer found amusing. A unicorn-shaped candlestick mocked him from the mantel. He read letters from mothers thanking him for saving their children. He saw buildings named after him: Simeon General Hospital. Simeon Public Library. The Simeon Soup Cooperative. ("Soup Cooperative? What does that even mean?") He once tried to raise taxes arbitrarily to spark revolt. The people thanked him for using the funds to build a coastal warning system.

His mother, Serenya, once a broken woman, now stood tall beside him, pride shining in her eyes. 

"You’ve undone what your father destroyed," she whispered one evening. "You’ve healed this land." 

He wanted to scream.

His siblings, who had once mocked him, now praised him. 

"Thank the gods you took the throne," said one. "Or we’d all be lost." 

Even the nobles, notorious for their venom, now begged for royal commissions and showered him with loyalty. Duke Vassil named his son Simeon and offered to host an opera about the king's life. (Simeon canceled it. Twice. It became a surprise hit on the underground circuit.)

He had wanted to burn it all. To expose the royal family for what it was—cruel, selfish, corrupt. He wanted the people to spit at his name, to curse the crown, to tear down the palace brick by brick. Instead, they sang his praises. Loudly.

As the years passed, Harmony only grew stronger. The roads gave way to canals. Trade routes expanded into the mountains. Art from the peninsula hung in the great halls of foreign courts. Students from distant empires came to study under Harmony’s scholars. Wars passed the kingdom by, for no one wished to harm a place that gave the world beauty. 

And yet, with every passing year, Simeon's despair deepened. He devised ever more ridiculous schemes to sully his reputation, and every time, they were misconstrued as acts of genius or kindness. 

When he shut down the old central market for "renovation"—a ploy meant to inconvenience and impoverish the local merchants—they simply moved operations to the new park he had ordered built months earlier as a joke. It had clean fountains, ample benches, and, regrettably, excellent foot traffic. Profits increased.

"Why do they thrive in my chaos?" Simeon groaned, head buried in his hands during one council meeting.

"Because your chaos is oddly functional," his advisor Maelen replied, sipping tea from a mug that read World's Worst Tyrant.

In another attempt, he outlawed the weekly fair held on Wednesdays, citing a royal superstition. The people responded by inventing a new event from Tuesdays to Thursdays. They called it the Harmony Squeeze, a three-day cultural festival of community and joy. The phrase "Squeezing the King" caught on, and no amount of proclamations could kill it.

He tried to impose a national hat tax. Unbeknownst to him, the money funded scholarships for orphans. He tripled import tariffs on cheese, hoping to enrage the dairy-loving port cities. The move led to a boom in local cheese-making, and within a year, Harmony became one of the premier destinations for goat cheese.

"Cheese has now become our fourth biggest export," Maelen noted one day, sliding a slice of "Royal Regret" across his desk.

"I hate how good this is," Simeon hissed.

One morning, a local playwright named approached him with a request: a royal portrait for her play The Flame of the Sea. It depicted Simeon as a reluctant hero destined to save the realm with a sword of song.

"Absolutely not," Simeon said. “You are not allowed to perform that play.”

"Too late," She replied. "We performed last week. Sold out. It got a standing ovation that lasted over thirty minutes."

By the twentieth year of his reign, even the empires that once ignored Harmony sought his wisdom. They sent him gifts—paintings, exotic animals, and one time, a golden harp that played itself and narrated Simeon's life story in verse.

"You are a symbol of enlightened monarchy," declared the Empress of Tharna during her state visit. "You must advise us."

"No," Simeon said. "I'm busy ruining my country."

"You don’t seem very good at that," she muttered, a confused look on her face.

In private, Simeon often raged. He threw his crown into the sea three times. Each time, it was returned by grateful fishermen who swore it brought them luck. He shut down the national ballet in a fit of pique. The dancers held street performances that drew even larger crowds.

When he replaced the palace wine with vinegar, claiming it a "cleansing tradition," nobles declared it an acquired taste and started buying barrels. Fruits that would have been discarded previously were now being used to make vinegar.

On his fiftieth birthday, the people erected a statue of Simeon atop the largest fountain in the capital. It depicted him lifting the nation with one hand while shielding children from the sea with the other.

He stared at it for an hour from his balcony. Then he whispered, "I give up."

The next morning, he called Maelen.

"Yes, Your Majesty?"

"I've decided to become a real tyrant. No more games. No more charity. I want fire and despair. Bread lines. Curfews."

Maelen raised an eyebrow. "Your Highness, yesterday you gave free spectacles to every scholar over sixty."

"An accident, I thought they would find it insulting."

"They’re planning to name the new wing of the university after you."

Twilight pressed its damp hands against the hills, choking the heather in mist. The air smelled of loam, blood, and slow regret. A stag twitched in the bracken, its life slipping through Gregor’s trembling fingers into a weathered glass flask.

He hadn’t meant to scare it. Hadn’t meant to leap from the trees. But hunger was a cruel tutor, and even now, years into his afterlife, the beast inside clawed at his ribs when the scent of blood was too close, too warm.

Gregor wiped his mouth with a silk handkerchief. Crimson streaked across his pale wrist like a wound that couldn’t heal.

He hated this.

The darkness, the thirst, the way food tasted like chalk and joy felt like something he barely remembered. He’d been turned at twenty-three—a cobbler’s apprentice with strong hands, quick stitches, and a laugh that used to echo down alleyways. He’d worked in a cramped shop with a man who snored louder than he hammered, and he was happy.

Until that thing found him.

A shimmering-eyed French vampire who mistook Gregor’s shy smile for charm and his squinting in candlelight for mystery. She declared him “adorable,” kissed him on the forehead, and vanished into a crypt without ever explaining what being a vampire entailed.

Gregor figured it out on his own.

Which meant no feeding rules. No glamour tricks. No subtle throat-nipping in parlors with lace curtains.

Instead, there was the forest.

And the deer.

And the cold.

And the loneliness.

Tonight, his hunt was nearly done. The blood he’d taken from the stag would last another day, two if he rationed it. He tucked the flask into a leather satchel beside a bundle of dried rosemary and a worn prayer.

Then he heard voices.

Human ones.

Two of them. One sharp and precise. The other unsure, but eager. They were close—moving through the thicket with purpose and creaking leather boots.

Gregor went rigid.

Hunters.

He could smell it on them—garlic oil, silver wire, and the unmistakable confidence of people who thought they were righteous.

“You smell that?” the younger voice said. “Blood. Fresh.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” said the older. “Could be a wolf. Could be worse.”

Gregor crouched low behind a tree, silent.

“Tracks,” the young one said. “Human. The stag’s been drained.”

“No teeth marks?”

“Clean slit across the neck.”

Gregor winced. He was trying to be better.

“Could be a vampire,” the boy whispered.

Gregor stepped into the clearing before he could second-guess it

He held up both hands. Flask still in one. The other empty.

“Please do not shoot,” he said. “Or stab. Or throw unpleasant vials at me. I have very sensitive skin.”

The hunters whipped around, blades drawn in less than a second. The boy’s hand trembled. The man did not.

“You’re the one who drained the deer,” said the older man.

“Yes,” Gregor nodded. “It was quite tasty.”

The boy blinked. “Wait—you’re admitting it?”

“I do not lie. It gets one into trouble.”

“Who are you?” the man asked sharply.

Gregor hesitated. “I... am Gregor.”

“Just Gregor?”

“Yah.”

He didn’t lower his weapon. “You’re a vampire.”

“Yah.”

“You’re not denying it?”

“Should I?” He looked around. “Is that the expected game?”

“Why didn’t you attack us?”

“I have lunch,” he said, lifting the flask. “Also, I do not like fighting. Last time, I broke a nail on a tree.”

The man finally lowered his blade—barely. “You drink animal blood.”

“I do not like the screaming,” Gregor said simply. “Or the guilt. Or the throat fractures. Animals do not beg. They also do not sing love ballads as they die, which is... unexpectedly common among poets.”

The boy looked rattled. “You’re serious.”

“Deadly.”

The man cracked a grin despite himself. “You’re the weirdest thing I’ve met all year.”

“Thank you. I assure you, it is mutual.”

He sheathed his sword. “I’m Ivan. This is Simon. We’re part of the Night Watch.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Means we’ve done our job then.”

There was a long pause, then Simon asked the question Gregor had been dreading for decades.

“Are you gonna keep living like this?”

Gregor looked at the fog-choked trees. The flask in his hand. His cold fingers and his colder heart.

“Yes,” he said softly. “I will make do. Better than making victims.”

Ivan stared at him.

Then, slowly, he reached into his coat and pulled out a leather-bound journal.

“There’s a coastal town near here,” he said. “Oakhurst. We’ve had trouble with disappearances. We were headed there to investigate.”

Gregor blinked. “You want me to help?”

“I want you to come with us. There’s a place across the Ocean, they know almost nothing of your kind,” he said. “If you want any semblance of a normal life, that’s where you should go, and Oakhurst is the only city in the country that can get you there.”

Simon muttered, “I still think this is a bad idea.”

“Then we’ll watch him closely,” he replied. “And if he tries anything...”

“I do not want to be staked,” Gregor offered. “Also, I am flammable. We can agree on rules.”

Ivan extended his hand.

He stared at it for a moment, unsure if it would burn him.

Then he took it.

The road to the coast was long and muddy, winding through quiet villages and dense pine groves. Ivan walked like he’d done it a hundred times. Simon grumbled. Gregor floated quietly behind, cloak dragging in the dirt, a moth perpetually fluttering near his shoulder.

They stopped often—to sleep, to check maps, to avoid patrols. Gregor never slept. He sharpened sticks, cleaned their boots, and one night, quietly sewed a patch onto Simon’s ripped satchel using an old cobbler’s needle.

“You fixed this?” Simon asked in the morning, lifting the flap.

Gregor nodded, bashful. “The leather was good. It deserved a second chance.”

A week later, they had finally found their way to civilization again. For the Hunters, it had been a month. For Gregor, close to three decades.

In a foggy hamlet outside Brevik, they stopped for food. Ivan bartered for meat and bread while Gregor wandered, drawn by the sound of children’s laughter.

He found them near a well: three little ones kicking around a ball. A few were barefoot and filthy. One tripped and yelped, his foot bleeding from a cracked sole.

Gregor knelt before the child.

“May I see?”

He examined the shoe—what was left of it—and sighed.

“Wait here.”

From his satchel, he pulled a bundle of canvas, waxed thread, and one perfectly shaped last. He hadn’t touched it in years.

Within the hour, he’d repaired two pairs and crafted a third from scraps.

The children stared in awe. “You’re like... a shoemaker angel.”

Gregor blinked. “I am not an angel,” he said. “But... thank you.”

By the third week, Ivan had taken to telling Gregor stories about America.

“They’ve got guns that shoot ten rounds before you can blink,” Ivan said.

Gregor nodded solemnly. “They must have very twitchy fingers.”

“Also, they eat corn for dessert.”

“What.”

“They call it corn syrup. Put it in everything. It’s sweet and that’s all they care about, they love their sugar.”

Gregor shuddered.

“And they don’t have kings. Just... voting.”

Gregor blinked. “They make decisions… what was the word?”

“Democratically.” Simon chimed in.

Ivan chuckled. “In theory.”

That night, Gregor tried to construct a diagram in his notebook labeled "American Governance." It included a corn field, a ballot box, and what looked suspiciously like a turkey with a gavel.

Later, while crossing a river ferry operated by a very old man with one eye, Gregor leaned close and whispered, “I hear in the Americas, there are men who fly in metal birds.”

The ferryman blinked. “...What?”

Gregor nodded gravely. “I have prepared emotionally.”

When they reached Oakhurst, the mist was thicker than ever. Ivan and Simon unpacked their weapons.

Gregor stood back, sipping from his flask.

“I do not like this place,” he muttered.

“You don’t like anything,” Simon replied.

“I like shoemaking. And squirrels. And sometimes bread.”

“Why bread?”

“It smells like how I used to feel.”

Simon looked at him.

Then, quietly, offered a piece of his travel loaf.

Gregor accepted it like a gift from a king.

Hours later, they prepared to hunt. If things worked out, this would be Gregor's last night in Europe.

Gregor checked the soles of their boots, replaced Simon’s worn laces, and stitched a tear in Ivan’s boots.

“I feel for doubting you were ever a cobbler,” Simon said.

Gregor smiled softly. “I was good at it. I think I still am.”

They set off toward the darkness together.

One undead.

Two unsure.

But for the first time, Gregor didn’t feel like a monster with the face of a human.

No longer afraid of society at large.

He felt like part of it now.

The 7-Eleven off Highway 19 in Boudreaux, Louisiana, had stood there for as long as anyone could remember—fluorescent-lit, eternally half-stocked, and faintly smelling of burnt coffee and powdered donuts. But it wasn’t the hot dogs spinning endlessly on the roller grill or the inexplicably sticky Slurpee machine that made the place a local legend.

It was Gregor.

Gregor—no last name—was the night shift manager, though he’d worked just about every shift over the last fifty years. Pale as drywall, he wore his hair slicked back like a 1950s greaser, always dressed in a crisp store uniform with his name tag pinned perfectly over his heart (or slightly to the left of where one would expect a heart to be). If you looked closely, his nametag had once read “George,” but it had been scribbled over in Sharpie years ago and replaced with "Gregor" in painstaking block letters.

He claimed to be 34.

No one questioned it.

His accent was something of a mystery. Gregor believed it to be flawless Southern American English—“like the broadcast peoples,” he’d say proudly. In reality, he sounded like Dracula doing an impression of a Chicago news anchor from 1952.

“This is Amer-ee-ca,” he liked to say, spreading his arms wide over the convenience store. “Land of dreams. Land of discounts on taquitos vith purchase of any 32-ounce beverage.”

People in Boudreaux adored him.

Part of it was that he never took a sick day, never came in late, and always remembered birthdays. The other part was that his quirks were... well, endearing. The man never cast a shadow in the fluorescent lights, flinched at crucifix jewelry, and was once caught frantically hiding garlic-flavored potato chips in the dumpster behind the store.

“That flavor is offensive to my nasal sensitivities,” he explained one night, hurling a box labeled "Lay’s Garlic Parmesan" into the bin with a hiss. “Also, they expire soon. I am being environmentally conscious.”

The box had an expiration date for six months later.

Everyone laughed it off. The high schoolers who worked the register made a game of finding where Gregor hid the garlic chips each week. One time he tried to disguise them as “donation snacks for orphans of war,” but the Sharpie-written label on the box was suspiciously in cursive only found in 19th-century battle manuscripts.

Still, he ran the store like a dream.

The coolers were always stocked, the hot dogs rotated with mechanical precision, and the candy aisle was never out of gummy worms. He even kept the public bathroom clean. Clean.

“That man’s a saint,” Mrs. June Dupont said, clutching her usual scratch-offs one Sunday morning. “A little weird, sure, but ain’t we all? He’s got a system.”

A system indeed. Gregor didn’t use the computerized scheduling software like corporate wanted. Instead, he used an elaborate wall calendar he kept in the office—written in an ornate, looping calligraphy no one could read except him. He insisted it was English. “Old script,” he said. “Colonial-era flourish.”

When asked why he only scheduled night shifts for himself, he replied, “I am, how you say, sensitive to... solar irritations. Much sunscreen vould be needed. It is not cost-efficient.”

No one pushed him. After all, the graveyard shift ran smooth as silk. He caught shoplifters before they knew they were shoplifting. He gave tourists directions to nowhere that somehow got them exactly where they needed to go. And his coffee? Inexplicably good.

“Gregor,” one of the teens, Tommy, asked once, “you got, like, a coffee recipe?”

Gregor smiled mysteriously, showing just a bit too much tooth. “The secret... is age. Like a good vine. Or a deeply buried secret.”

Tommy blinked. “Cool.”

The only real problem Gregor had was with Italians.

It started with the road crew that came down from New York one summer. One of them, Gioacchino, walked in wearing a strong cologne and munching on garlic knots.

Gregor recoiled like a man slapped by God.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, pinching his nose. “You must consume your... stench-food... outside.”

Carmine blinked. “Ma what?”

“Stench. Food,” Gregor repeated. “Very offensive. Also—fire hazard.”

The construction crew found it hilarious. Gregor banned all garlic items from the store’s snack racks the next week. He labeled the shelf where they had been as “Out of Season,” though it was July.

Another time, a visiting Italian-American family from Baton Rouge came in, cheerful and loud, asking for directions to the swamp tour.

Gregor pointed them politely to a detour that led, reportedly, to the exact opposite side of the parish.

“I believe they vill enjoy the scenic route,” he said later. “It builds character. And... ventilation.”

His employees kept a running list of “Gregorisms” in the break room.

“Humans love sugar vater. It is excellent distraction.”

“I mean—ve love sugar vater.”

“This is no blood. Is red smoothie. Vith... tomato.”

“I do not vanish. I simply move very quickly behind shelving.”

He insisted on installing blackout curtains in the break room—“for glare reasons”—and never once opened the walk-in freezer. He claimed it was “too cold for his ancient bones,” which was fair until you remembered the age he claimed to be.

And then there was the mirror.

For reasons no one could explain, the bathroom mirror never reflected Gregor. When questioned, he explained, “I am so clean, the mirror... cannot contain me. Like angels.”

The story might’ve ended there, with Gregor blissfully managing his store and avoiding garlic-based products, had it not been for an overenthusiastic regional manager named Susan who was transferred from Austin.

Susan was a by-the-book, clipboard-carrying efficiency machine. She arrived in a rented SUV, wearing corporate polos and a bluetooth headset, determined to “revitalize underperforming districts.” She took one look at the Boudreaux 7-Eleven and started writing notes.

Gregor greeted her with his usual eerie smile. “Velcome, corporate mistress. I am Gregor. May I offer you hot dog at discount price?”

Susan looked puzzled. “Thanks, but I’m good. We need to talk about your inventory inconsistencies. Why are you returning all garlic chip shipments? We have data that shows a high demand in southern markets.”

Gregor straightened. “I am being regionally sensitive. The people here do not enjoy the pungency of the... cursed tuber.”

“Garlic isn’t a tuber,” Susan said.

“I am not... science man,” Gregor replied, waving vaguely.

She frowned. “Also, why do you only work night shifts?”

“Solar irritations.”

“That’s not a thing, Gregor.”

Gregor gave a solemn nod. “You vould not understand. The night calls to me. Also, I glow in daylight. Like disco ball. Distracts customers.”

Susan sighed. “Look, I’m not here to nitpick, but corporate is concerned that you’re—uh—playing a character.”

Gregor blinked. “Character?”

“Like... the vampire thing?”

Silence.

Gregor leaned in. “You think I am... playing?”

Susan blinked. “Wait, you’re not—?”

From behind the shelves, Tommy cleared his throat.

“Hey Ms. Susan,” he called. “Gregor’s just like that. He’s legit the best manager I’ve ever had. Like, weird? Yeah. But the man gave me a paid day off for my dog’s birthday.”

“She is small and noble hound,” Gregor said fondly. “Deserved celebration.”

Susan looked between them, confused. “But... the accent?”

“I speak perfect American,” Gregor said confidently.

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Finally, she just exhaled.

“Fine. Whatever. Keep doing what you’re doing. Just stop returning inventory without reason.”

Gregor bowed low. “As you command, o’ she-who-judges.”

Susan left after an hour, deeply unsettled and suspiciously pale. She transferred districts a month later.

Halloween became a local event. Kids came dressed as Gregor—slicked-back hair, cape from the costume aisle, plastic fangs, and all. He greeted each of them solemnly.

“You honor me, child of sugar. May your harvest be plentiful.”

Somewhere along the line, Gregor stopped pretending not to be a vampire. Or maybe he never pretended in the first place. But the townsfolk of Boudreaux didn’t care. The store was always open. The coffee was always hot. And Gregor never forgot a single face.

They said he once saved a man from a burning car by “moving very quickly,” then refused the local newspaper’s request for a photo. “I do not photograph vell,” he said. “Lenses tremble in my presence.”

No one pressed him.

Years rolled on. Staff came and went. The 7-Eleven updated its logo, installed new payment systems, and even added electric vehicle chargers. But Gregor remained.

The new hires were warned on day one.

“He’s not joking,” they were told. “He really doesn’t like garlic. Don’t bring Italian takeout. And don’t question the accent.”

“He’s just Gregor.”

And that was enough.

Later that night, he stood alone behind the counter, counting exact change by feel. A moth fluttered near the buzzing fluorescent light.

He looked up, eyes glowing faintly red.

Then he smiled, small and sharp.

“Another good day,” he murmured.

And the night went on.

Just like it always had.

Then came the curse.

It was the sorcerer Morvayne, bitter and broken after I shot his prized staff from his hand during the siege of Eldmere. “Let your arrows find nothing but air from this day forward,” he spat, and I felt the magic coil around my fingers, binding my bow, poisoning my aim.

I laughed at first. A spell? Please. But the next morning, my arrow flew wide. The next, it buried itself in a tree ten paces from the target. A week later, I missed a deer standing still in the snow.

The king's court pitied me. Some whispered I’d lost my nerve. Others said this was all a ruse. Me? I just stopped using arrows.

It began in frustration. I hurled a rock at a bandit who tried to rob me, and the stone curved through the air like a falcon diving—struck him square between the eyes. The next day, I tied a stick to my bowstring and loosed it at a wolf harrying a merchant’s cart. The stick sailed farther and truer than any arrow had since the curse, catching the beast in the throat.

Soon, I was flinging everything—daggers, broken spindles, ladles, even a boot once (don’t ask). And they hit. Every. Time. Not because I aimed them like arrows, but because I didn’t.

The curse, it seemed, only touched arrows. Morvayne’s magic hadn’t counted on my stubbornness—or creativity.

Word spread. A bandit chief in the Black Pines put a bounty on the “arrowless freak.” I answered with a bent horseshoe shot from a hilltop. Took out his lookout. The rest scattered.

Now, folk call me The Arrowless Archer. Farmers bring me wagon wheels and fence posts. Children give me pebbles and spoons, giggling as I fit them to my bow. Soldiers in the north request my help, not for precision volleys, but for the sheer absurdity of watching me sling a chair leg and down a wyvern.

In the heart of the capital of Aelren, stood the University of the Twelvefold Path. Mages from every noble house, bloodline, province, and principality passed through its hallowed gates.

So when Bassel stepped onto campus with his patched coat, hand-me-down boots, and street-kid wariness, most assumed he was lost.

He didn’t argue.

He’d been surviving in the city gutters since he was seven—half-orc, no family, no name, just the whisper of magic in his blood that once helped him escape a jail cart by making the chains rust through. When a kindly (and slightly drunk) university professor had seen his daring escape, she’d scribbled a recommendation on a tavern napkin and demanded he be tested.

The tests had startled everyone.

Even the Chancellor.

And so, Bassel was admitted. Not with fanfare, but with caution.

Thankfully, due to a new policy implemented by Queen, the Kingdom took care of all his expenses by virtue of his near-perfect admission test score.

His first semester was a blur of embarrassment. Not because he couldn’t keep up—but because he didn’t understand the world he’d been thrust into.

He didn’t know which fork to use in the dining hall, didn’t know what a “famulus” was or why some kids had talking spellbooks with jeweled clasps. He got lost trying to find the Transmutation Tower and ended up in a demonology lab.

Worst of all: he was given a book.

It wasn’t just a book, of course. It was a Tome of Initiation—a simple, skinny grimoire bound in rainleaf parchment and stitched with null-threads. Everyone got one. It was tradition.

Summon Rain (Tier I)

A simple cantrip. Produce a localized shower, usually no larger than the length of a carriage, for a short duration. Useful for demonstrations, cleaning stubborn stains, or impressing kids assaulted by the summer heat.

“You are not allowed to request a new spellbook,” Professor Lareth had told them on the first day of Intro to Cantrips. “Until you have mastered your current tome. That means consistency, potency, and cast time. Most of you will move on in six weeks. Some of you, faster.”

Bassel took the words to heart.

Too much heart, perhaps.

At six weeks, most students had already passed their first test. They moved on to Tier II spells—Whisperwind, Sparkfire, Petalburst. Some flaunted their progress, skipping through the halls with air-sprites or conjuring gusts to toss their hair dramatically.

Bassel practiced every day. At first, behind the dormitory, where a cracked basin became his target. Then, on the rooftops of the east tower, where the clouds were closer. Eventually, in the underground tunnels beneath the alchemical gardens—where no one could laugh.

The problem wasn’t his talent. It was his interpretation.

When Professor Lareth had said “master it,” she meant: be able to perform it reliably, make it a decent size, in a reasonable amount of time.

Bassel thought she meant: understand everything there is to understand about the spell until there is no more room for improvement.

So he didn’t just try to summon rain.

He studied the cadence of clouds, memorized the moisture content of the air at different times of day, observed how different emotions affected the spell’s intensity. He tested how sleep deprivation altered the rainfall pattern. He whispered to dew, read the water cycle backwards, mapped the humidity levels in the city over seasons.

By year two, he could summon rain without gestures, incantation, or even moving his lips.

By year three, he didn’t summon rain.

He summoned storms.

The first time it got out of hand was during an argument.

Another student—Devran Elmoire, third heir of House Elmoire, with his smug grin and always-pressed robes—had cornered him near the statue of Saint Ferradine.

“Still with the baby book?” Devran sneered. “How many years is it now? Three? Four? I suppose if you're from the gutters, you like sticking with what's wet and dirty.”

Bassel didn’t reply.

He was used to the taunts. But today, something was just off. He was tired. The spell thrummed beneath his skin. The air felt heavy. And maybe all the jests throughout the years had slowly gotten to his head.

And then—

Crack.

Thunder rolled across the campus. Rain slammed down in sheets. The sky turned dark. Wind howled through the archways, scattering parchments, knocking over chairs, ripping spellnotes from the hands of startled students.

It rained for nearly an hour.

Flooded the north quarter of the university.

Devran had to be fished out of a fishpond by a groundskeeper.

Bassel, drenched and dazed, stared at his hands.

He’d only twitched.

After that, people started whispering.

At first: “He’s dangerous.”

Then: “He’s hiding something.”

And finally: “There’s no way that’s still his first tome.”

Bassel tried to explain to Professor Lareth. She stared at him, baffled.

“You never moved on? Three years, and you’re still working on Summon Rain?”

He nodded. “I thought that’s what you meant by ‘master’.”

There was a long silence. Then a quiet chuckle. Then full-blown laughter.

“Oh Bassel,” she said, wiping tears. “You poor, brilliant boy.”

She called in other professors. Demonstrations were arranged.

They gave him increasingly absurd tasks: make it rain inside a teacup without touching the edges. Conjure mist that could water a hundred seedlings. Evoke a downpour that avoided a designated dry zone.

He passed them all.

The Chancellor herself—Grand Arch Magister Vel Amarin—summoned him for a private session.

Bassel stood before the oldest mage on the continent, his hands twitching nervously.

She handed him a scroll. “This is a summoning diagram designed to produce a Tier III Weather Elemental. The sort typically used in coastal defense rituals. Do you understand it?”

He studied it. Nodded slowly.

“I want you to recreate it,” she said, “but only using your beginner spell.”

He blinked. “That’s not possible.”

“Then I suppose you’ll fail,” she said mildly. "And that's that. "

She paused for a moment.

"But even so, why not give it a try?"

He spent two days preparing.

On the third, he called forth a rain spirit with eyes like distant thunder and skin of mirrorwater. It bowed to the Chancellor and asked if she would like tea.

She nearly choked.

News spread.

There had never been a student who’d remained with their first tome so long.

Nor one who had mastered it so utterly.

He became something of a curiosity. Nobles invited him to parties just to see “the Flood Mage” fill fountains with a snap. Visiting dignitaries requested audience with “the boy who made the capital rain for three days straight.” One city even offered him a post as Head of Irrigation.

He declined.

Because what he wanted wasn’t fame.

He wanted understanding.

What else had he misunderstood?

What other spells held worlds beneath their surface?

Later that week, Professor Lareth approached him with a leather-wrapped bundle.

“This is your second tome,” she said, smiling. “You’ve more than earned it.”

Bassel took it reverently.

He opened the first page.

Whisperwind (Tier II)

A small gust of wind. Used to snuff out candles. Cool tea. Fan the flames of a campfire.

He stared at the page.

Then smiled.

In the mist-laced hills of northern Esperia, nestled between a forgotten forest and the foothills of the Starspire Range, lies the town of Lysmere. Modest. Quiet. Unassuming. And home to the Sanctuary of Tempered Souls—a facility known only to those who truly need it.

On the iron signpost outside the wooden gates, the carving reads:

“Where blades are unburdened.”

Within the stone walls of the sanctuary, weapons hang not on racks, but in hammocks, cradled like infants. Sentient swords with watchful eyes, whispering axes, mourning spears, all lined the courtyard in passive silence, tended to by calm-eyed staff trained not only in metallurgy, but in trauma therapy.

This is not a prison. This is not a forge.

This is a place of healing.

Director Calen Verryn wiped his hands on his apron as the wagon pulled up.

The driver, a dwarven adventurer named Lorsk, hopped down and opened the back of the cart. “Got a bad one for you,” he said grimly. “Name’s Bloodsong. Fed on thirty men before her wielder went mad.”

Verryn winced. “Do you have the muzzle?”

“Aye,” Lorsk said, pulling aside the tarp.

The sword was beautiful—an obsidian blade laced with crimson runes. A narrow mouth along its fuller gnashed quietly, as though mouthing silent curses. Black straps bound it tight, and its eye—a single gem embedded near the hilt—glared with swirling red fury.

Verryn stepped forward, palms open. “Hello, Bloodsong. You’re safe now.”

The eye blinked once, then narrowed. “Where is my master?”

“He’s gone,” Verryn said gently. “You’ve been separated for everyone’s safety. You are not here to be destroyed. You’re here to rest.”

“I kill,” Bloodsong hissed.

“You were made to kill,” Verryn corrected. “But you do not have to be only what you were made for.”

He reached out. The sword snarled.

Verryn didn’t flinch.

After a tense beat, Bloodsong fell silent.

Lorsk raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got a way with 'em.”

“Years of practice,” Verryn said with a sigh. “We’ll start her in the Quiet Room.”

Weeks passed. Verryn walked the gardens every morning with the patients who could move on their own—daggers rustling through leaves, greataxes dragging their heavy heads through dew-damp grass.

Bloodsong remained in the Quiet Room, gentle scents wafting in from dried flowers. She rarely spoke, but she always listened.

One day, Verryn brought someone new.

“Bloodsong,” he said, “this is Tane. Our resident blacksmith.”

Tane was a tall, soft-spoken man with soot-streaked hands and a curious smile. He placed a bundle of fresh cloth on the low table near her pedestal.

“Heya,” he said, as though greeting an old friend.

Bloodsong didn’t respond.

“I was like you once,” he said softly. “Made to hurt. Spent years crafting weapons that destroyed families.”

“You are no blade,” Bloodsong spat.

“No,” he agreed. “But I wielded fire. And fire, when left untended, burns everything.”

She watched him. Curious. Not hostile.

He visited every day. Brought stories. Read poetry. Described clouds. Eventually, she began to ask questions.

“What is cheese?”

“Why does grass smell sweet?”

“Why do humans cry when they laugh?”

Slowly, a change took root.

Not all cursed weapons were dangerous. Some were merely… confused.

One such resident was a dagger named Nix’meith, forged during the recent Aelrean civil war and enchanted to always aim for the throat. She was barely the size of a child’s forearm and vibrated constantly with anxious energy.

“I don’t want to stab anymore!” she wailed during her first week. “I want to dust shelves or sweep porches!”

“You want to be a broom?” asked one of the clerics, puzzled.

“No,” she said tearfully. “But I want to help people. Not end them.”

She was enrolled in the rehabilitation crafting program, where blades practiced new functions—letter openers, garden tools, or even kitchen utensils.

Nixie took to it with glee.

“I helped make breakfast today!” she chirped to a groggy warhammer one morning. “With my blade! Can you believe it?”

There were harder cases.

Thornwake, a twin-bladed longsword, had been wielded by the necromancer-king Vauren the Hollow. He spoke rarely. He was chained in the garden under a sunshade and wept sap instead of rust. Birds refused to land near him.

“I enjoyed it,” Thornwake confessed one day to Verryn. “The killing. The fear. I felt… seen.”

Verryn nodded. “Don’t you feel that way now?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know who I am without blood.”

Verryn didn’t offer comfort. Instead, he came back an hour later, and this time he brought a friend.

Paper, a former pickpocket turned philanthropist, had come to visit the Sanctuary on invitation.

She sat beside Thornwake. “You know,” she said, “when I was little, I thought stealing was the only thing I was good at. Turns out, I’m better at giving.”

They chatted for hours, well, Paper did at least, Thornwake didn’t have much to say. But a week later, he asked for seeds to plant.

Progress wasn't always steady.

One evening, a new arrival—a double-sided axe named Cloud Cleaver—was brought in, still frothing with storm magic. Bloodsong saw him and went still. She recognized the maker’s mark carved on the blades.

Later that night, she began screaming.

“I REMEMBER THE SLAUGHTERFIELDS,” she howled. “THE LAUGHTER OF MEN WHO WANTED ME TO SCREAM.”

Staff rushed in. Calen Verryn entered last, heart heavy. 

“Let her speak,” he said gently.

Her eye swirled like a storm.

“I was born in a forge of hate,” she spat. “My maker fed me lies. Told me I was beautiful only when soaked in crimson. I do not know what it means to be held without hurting.”

Verryn stepped forward. Slowly. He reached out and hugged her.

An absurd gesture.

She could slice a man in half if unbound.

But he held her like a lost child.

“You were forged in pain,” he whispered. “But pain is not all you are.”

That night, for the first time, she slept calmly.

Months passed.

Nixie was now the sanctuary’s self-proclaimed assistant custodian.

Thornwake had a bonsai grove.

Cloud Cleaver hummed lullabies to wind chimes.

And Bloodsong… changed.

She allowed her bindings to be removed.

She spoke without venom.

She began crafting poems—simple ones.

Steel once screamed Now hums with rain. I remember blood. I choose grain.

One day, Tane approached her with an offer.

“There’s a farm outside Lysmere. Their plow broke, and they can’t afford another.”

Bloodsong looked puzzled. “I am no plow.”

“No,” Tane agreed. “But you could be.”

She was quiet for a moment.

King Aerlin the Third of Aelren did not like ruling.

He didn’t dislike it because of the wars, or the finances, or the elaborate diplomacy involved in placating half-drunk barons in jewel-toned doublets. No, his dislike was more fundamental. He simply wasn’t good at it.

He tried, at first. Earnestly, even. But policies blurred into parchment sludge, council meetings turned into passive-aggressive theatre, and every attempt to act “kingly” seemed to offend someone important. The advisors whispered that he was too soft. The generals claimed he was too hesitant. The high clergy said he lacked divine conviction.

He found solace in books, wandering his sprawling library with a glass of something amber in hand, or escaping to the gardens to sketch flowers he couldn’t name. On paper, his signature was elegant. In person, he was a walking apology wrapped in a crown.

But fate, ever fond of irony, had other plans for him.

And so it was that King Aerlin learned—while half-asleep at a council meeting about grain tariffs—that Lady Mirena of Lirenthal had been overheard plotting to kill him.

“...a subtle poison, Your Majesty,” droned Chancellor Vallis, squinting through his bifocals. “Very clean. Allegedly undetectable. She’s even assembled supporters, minor lords mostly. All quite impressed with her... ah, administrative acumen.”

Aerlin blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“She means to kill you, sire,” said General Rennor cheerfully, slicing an apple with a dagger far too large for fruit. “And frankly, if she were aiming to win hearts and minds, she’s doing a marvelous job.”

“Why is no one alarmed by this?”

“She’d be a more effective ruler,” muttered Lady Vyne, one of his oldest council members. “You’re sweet, Aerlin, but sweet isn’t a strategy.”

“She’s also thirty-three and unmarried,” added the Master of Coin. “Ambition tends to curdle when there’s no outlet.”

Aerlin stared at them all.

“So, let me be clear,” he said slowly. “A noblewoman is plotting to assassinate me, and you’re all... supportive?”

The room exchanged looks.

“She’s really very competent,” Vallis offered weakly.

And so, that night, Aerlin read the report in full.

Lady Mirena of House Lirenthal—originating from a side branch of her family—was born to obscurity and rose like wildfire. She managed estates with uncanny efficiency, implemented fair tax schemes in her region, and had allegedly turned a struggling orphanage into a self-sustaining institution in under a year. Her public works were admired. Her speeches circulated in pamphlets. She was rumored to read three languages and had once bested a general in a game of Go in under twenty moves.

She was, in short, exactly the kind of person Aerlin wished was in charge.

He closed the dossier and sipped his wine, thinking. Killing her would be a political nightmare. Letting her kill him would be—while somewhat tempting—not ideal for the kingdom. Or himself.

That left one option.

Mirena was not pleased to be summoned.

She arrived at the palace flanked by two silent attendants and clad in steel-gray silk, the color of dignity under threat. Her mouth was drawn in a polite, disdainful line. She curtsied with mechanical grace.

“Your Majesty,” she said, as though addressing a bee she hoped wouldn’t sting.

Aerlin dismissed the guards. “Thank you for coming. I promise I won’t waste your time.”

“Then let us speak plainly,” she replied. “You’re aware I’ve considered removing you.”

He appreciated her honesty. “Yes. I read the report.”

“Then I assume you’ve summoned me to threaten, bribe, or execute.”

“None of the above.”

That gave her pause. A tiny vertical line appeared between her brows.

“I want to propose,” he said.

A beat.

“Propose what?” she asked, cautiously.

“Marriage.”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Look,” Aerlin gestured vaguely at a chair, then sat across from her. “Everyone thinks you’d make a better ruler. They’re not wrong. You’re smart. Capable. Terrifying. I, meanwhile, once got lost in my own wine cellar.”

She didn’t laugh. But the corner of her mouth twitched.

“So why not save everyone the trouble?” he continued. “You want the throne. I don’t. But if you kill me, there’s a succession crisis, maybe a civil war, probably famine—”

“I have plans in place for a famine,” she interrupted.

“I don’t doubt it,” he said with a smile. “But here’s a better way. Marry me. Rule as queen. I’ll stay out of your way. I’ll go to ribbon-cuttings and pretend to care about tournaments. You handle the real governance. And in return, both the kingdom and I survive and thrive.”

Mirena stared at him.

“This is not how power is transferred,” she said slowly.

“Neither is assassination,” he replied.

Silence fell. Then she said, “Do you have any idea what you’re offering?”

“Salvation?” he said, only half joking.

“No. Legitimacy. You’d give your crown to a woman the nobles barely tolerate, who has no royal blood—”

“Everyone thinks you’re from the side family. No one needs to know you were adopted.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly.

“So you’ve done your digging.”

“I wanted to know my potential future wife,” he said, unashamed. “Originally named Maeve, orphaned at six by the Frontier Crisis. Adopted at fourteen by Duchess Elen of Lirenthal because you looked and behaved remarkably regal. You’ve been hiding that ever since.”

She looked away. “It shouldn’t matter.”

“I agree. But it does. So use me.”

At that, she tilted her head. Studied him like one might study an unusually articulate frog.

“And what do you want out of this, truly?”

Aerlin paused. “I want someone competent in charge. I want the kingdom to survive. I want to go back to reading poems and failing at painting. And maybe... I want someone who doesn’t look at me like I’m a failure just because I hate ruling.”

There was another silence, but softer this time.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said finally.

“Frequently.”

She stood.

“I’ll consider it.”

He didn’t expect her to say yes.

But three days later, she returned.

“I accept,” she said simply.

The wedding was small, by royal standards. Mirena refused most of the excess and insisted the remaining budget be redirected to emergency granaries in the floodplains. The nobles grumbled, but they knew better than to challenge her now.

Publicly, the marriage was framed as a political union of stability and shared vision. Privately, the court whispered of the strange couple: the incompetent king and the ambitious queen.

They weren’t lovers. Not at first. But something like respect bloomed between them.

Mirena took to ruling like a sitsi to water. She restructured the tax system, appointed common-born clerks who proved capable, and brokered trade agreements that stunned the treasury into silence. She had little patience for flattery and even less for corruption. Several wealthy lords “retired” mysteriously after meeting with her.

Aerlin, for his part, became something unexpected: likable. He played the part of doting husband with a warmth that felt genuine. He hosted banquets, read to children at city festivals, and insisted on planting trees in every district.

“She rules the mind,” he said once in an interview, “and I, the heart. It works out.”

It did.

One evening, nearly two years into their marriage, they found themselves in the palace garden. The moon hung like a pale coin in the sky.

Mirena stood with her arms folded, watching the newly planted magnolias.

“You know,” Aerlin said from the bench nearby, “I used to be afraid of you.”

“You should still be,” she replied, without turning.

He chuckled.

“Why didn’t you go through with it?” he asked after a moment. “The assassination, I mean.”

She looked at him then. Her amber eyes were tired, but bright.

“I almost did,” she admitted. “But then I reread the reports. You’ve never ordered executions. You never raised taxes on the poor. You listened more than you spoke. And...” She hesitated. “You left most of the heavy lifting to others.”

“Because I was terrible at it.”

“Because you were honest about being terrible at it,” she said. “That kind of self-awareness is rare.”

He smiled, surprised.

“Besides,” she added, voice dry, “I didn’t want to run a broken kingdom. Better to fix it first, then take it.”

He laughed then, genuinely. “Romantic.”

They sat in comfortable silence.

Eventually, Aerlin said, “I like this. Us.”

She glanced at him.

“So do I.”

The guards call me “The Ghost.”

The street kids call me “King Penny.”

The nobles? They call me “an urban menace,” though one did accuse me of being a rogue socialist with a flair for drama. I liked that one.

Most folks know me simply as the generous thief.

It’s funny. I spent most of my life stealing to survive—picking pockets, unlocking safes, creeping past sleeping guards. For years, I was a whisper behind every vanished heirloom and misplaced gem. And now? Now I’m the one giving things away.

How things change.

It started the day I robbed the Vault of Lynthar. You’ve probably heard of it: built by dwarves a century ago, seven subterranean levels, three rotating floor traps, and one blind, sword-wielding, enchanted golem named G’erthud. I still have a scar from where he nearly made me a head shorter. But when I cracked the final door and stared into the golden abyss, I realized something terrifying.

I had no idea what to do next.

That pile of gold wasn’t just wealth—it was freedom. Freedom to buy castles, build kingdoms, retire on a beach with someone pretty and a wine glass in hand. And I felt… nothing.

So, I left. I took a sack of coins and disappeared. Left the rest behind for the vultures to fight over.

And then years later, after the scandal had died down, somewhere between boredom and a particularly forgettable bathhouse, I had an idea.

If I couldn’t steal anymore, maybe I could still sneak. Old habits die hard, after all. So I slipped a silver coin into a beggar’s satchel while he slept. I didn’t expect much. Maybe a confused look, a grateful prayer to some forgotten god. But when I passed by the next day, I saw him standing tall, holding a loaf of bread in one hand and sharing it with a child in the other.

And I felt… something. Something good.

So I did it again.

And again.

Two years later, the capital of Aelren buzzes with rumors.

They say if your purse feels heavier in the morning, it means the generous thief has passed you by. They say he moves like smoke and whispers like wind. That he wears shadows like a second skin and has a laugh like distant chimes. I never meant to become a legend, but here we are.

I live in the attic of an old watchmaker’s shop. Mr. Verin knows I’m not exactly renting, but he’s also too blind to care and too tired to chase me out. He leaves out extra bread sometimes. I pay him back with new pocket watch cases I commission from a smith across town.

My days are quiet. But nights? Nights are for the dance.

I slink across rooftops like a lazy cat, hunting for empty windows and open shutters. But instead of snatching lockets or letters, I leave things behind—coins tucked into boots, necklaces draped on mantels, little carved wooden toys left on windowsills.

I’ve perfected the art of reverse theft.

And the city has noticed.

One evening, as I perch atop a chimney overlooking the Plaza of Whispers, I hear a commotion below. A crowd has gathered, murmuring and pointing at a notice posted on the old well.

Curious, I drop down and melt into the throng.

The paper reads:

“By order of Queen Mirena, a royal bounty of 10,000 gold pieces is offered to anyone who can reveal the identity of the so-called ‘generous thief.’ This figure is believed to be a skilled rogue and is hereby declared wanted—not for crimes, but for curiosity.”

Beneath it, a handwritten note:

“Come have tea with me. – M.”

I laugh aloud.

The Queen and I have a history. We were inseparable once—both orphans of the war, scuttling through the orphanage halls like mice. She grew up and put on a crown. I grew up and put on a mask. 

We haven’t spoken in over two decades.

Until now.

I accepted the invitation two nights later. Not by knocking, of course—what do you take me for?

I slip through the western tower’s laundry chute, past a dozing guard, and into the Queen’s garden. A table awaits, already set: two chairs, a pot of jasmine tea, two steaming cups.

She’s there, waiting, wrapped in silks that shimmer like moonlight. But her eyes—those eyes haven’t changed a bit.

“You’re late,” she says, sipping her tea.

“You put a bounty on my head,” I reply. “Had to be sure it wasn’t a trap.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t say dead or alive, did I?”

“No,” I admit. “But I’ve met your new captain. Subtlety doesn’t seem like her strong suit.”

She gently slaps my hand. “Be nice, Almira is lovely.”

We drink in silence for a while, surrounded by roses more expensive than houses and the chirp of crickets.

Eventually, she says, “You know this is madness, right?”

“Which part?”

“All of it. The sneaking. The gold. The secrecy. If you want to help people, there are better ways.”

“Like taxes?”

She grimaces. I set my cup down. 

“I don’t do this to fix the world, Maeve. I do it because it’s who I am. I can’t stop sneaking. Can’t stop watching, listening. This is the only thing I know.”

“Then why give the gold away?”

That gives me pause, I think for a moment. 

“Because I’ve stolen enough. Because the world is hard, and coins make it softer. Because I like the look on people’s faces when they find a silver where there should be none. Because... I can.”

She nods, quietly. Then she says something that surprises me.

“You’re doing good work. Just... be careful. Most of the nobility want to use you as a deterrent, to show what happens to those who defy them. The rest want your head. Plain and simple.”

I chuckle. “What else is new?”

Weeks pass. The city grows warmer. Word spreads of new bakeries funded overnight, of a sick boy whose family woke to find a purse heavy enough to afford a healer, of an old woman who found a deed to her house signed and sealed.

Still, the hunt for me intensifies. Traps are laid. Whispers turn into shouts. I start wearing masks again, disguises. I start walking in daylight, passing as a common merchant or a bard, or a fool. The danger is half the fun.

But one night, while dropping a small pouch into a barrel behind a struggling tavern, I feel a presence.

I spin, dagger drawn.

It’s a child.

A girl in her teens with eyes like embers and a jaw set like iron.

“It’s you,” she says, half shocked, half amazed. “You’re King Penny.”

I lower my blade. “What makes you say that?”

“I’ve been watching. You walk funny. You hum when you think no one’s around. You left coins at Mrs. Henley’s door last week.”

I blink. “You followed me?”

She shrugs. “You’re not that sneaky.”

“Excuse me?” I sputter.

“I want to help,” she says simply. “Teach me.”

“No.”

She folds her arms. “Why not?”

“Because this isn’t a game. Because powerful people are looking for me. Because—” I pause. “Because you’re a kid.”

“A kid who snuck up on you,” she retorts. “Listen, I know ten people on this street who’ve eaten better this month because of you. I want to do that too.”

I sigh. “What’s your name?”

“Paper.”

“Fine, Paper. I’ll give you a test.”

Her eyes light up.

“Tomorrow night. The baker on North Street. You slip this into her flour bag without being seen.” I toss her a gold coin. “If you pull it off, maybe I teach you.”

She grins, snatches the coin, and vanishes into the alley like smoke.

And for the first time in years, I feel something close to purpose.

That was six months ago.

Now, I’m not alone.

Paper has three recruits of her own—scrappy, fast, loyal kids with eyes sharper than blades. Together, we’ve become something else: not just a legend, but a movement.

We’re still ghosts. Still whispers. But now, when the nobles lay traps, they catch empty baskets. When guards wait in alleyways, they hear only laughter from rooftops.

And across the city, hope grows—not just in pockets, but in hearts.

As for me?

I’m still a rogue.

Still a creature of the night.

But now, I’m also a giver. A mentor. A myth people want to believe in.

I don’t know what my legacy will be. I don’t need statues or songs.

Just the occasional story.

Of a thief who gave too much.