The apothecary was quiet, save for the rhythmic scrunch-scrunch of Lira grinding moonpetal roots in her mortar. Cole watched her, the fierce concentration in her young brow so like hers. His calloused thumb brushed the cracked edges of the photograph hidden beneath his workbench—a relic from a dead world. Malrie smiled back at him, frozen in summer sunlight, her arm slung around his shoulders, both of them squinting against the glare.
She'd have loved you, he thought, the ghost of a smile touching his lips. Would've filled this shack with her damn laughter...
The memory hit like shrapnel—sudden, brutal.
---
He'd returned from the war smelling of mud and gangrene, a fake copper star pinned to his tunic—the nation's "gratitude." They'd called him a hero while spitting at his shadow. He didn't care. He had Malrie.
The door to her cottage hung splintered. The air inside was thick with the coppery stench of butcheared meat—a smell he knew too well. He found her on the floorboards, drenched in blood, one arm outstretched, fingers curled like broken bird wings toward the loose floorboard near the hearth. Her eyes, wide and empty, reflected the last thing she'd seen: terror.
No. Not empty. Pleading. "Save her."
He tore up the floorboard with bare, bleeding hands. Below, in the dust and spiderwebs, lay a child. Two years old? One? Time blurred. She was curled tight as a walnut, fists knotted in the skirts of a rag doll, tear tracks carving paths through grime on her cheeks. Unconscious. Or dead?
His breath stopped. Then—a tiny, shuddering gasp. Alive.
Lira.
He gathered her, this tiny, trembling echo of Malrie's fierce smile, her wild curls. Joy cracked through the rage—a single shaft of light in a collapsing mine. Then guilt swallowed it whole. He'd been off playing soldier while real monsters came for his sister. Monsters who hunted Seers.
---
The Obsidian Serpents found him weeks later, drowning in cheap gin and visions of Malrie's blood. They spoke of justice. Of ending the Devourer's cult. Of protecting those with "the gift" from being hunted like Malrie. Their words were a lifeline thrown into his private hell. He took it.
For years, he wore their serpent tattoo like a second skin. He learned their secrets, brewed their poisons, silenced their enemies. It felt righteous. Clean. Until the bodies piled up—not just cultists, but bystanders. Dissenters. A shopkeeper who saw too much. A child who cried too loudly near a drop point. The Serpents' eyes grew colder, their orders sharper. "Necessary sacrifices," they said. "The greater good."
The day they ordered him to slaughter a Seer child—"too unstable, too dangerous"—he looked into the boy's feverish eyes and saw Malrie. Saw Lira.
He vanished that night. Took his mortar, his pestle, and the silent, wide-eyed girl who called him "Uncle," and buried himself in the stink of Dockmarket. He built walls of dried herbs and bitter tonics. Swore an oath on Malrie's grave: Lira would never know the serpent's kiss. Never taste the poison of vengeance. He'd carry that weight alone.
He'd suffered enough for both.
---
Lira's voice shattered the memory. "Uncle? The tincture's turning purple. Is that… right?"
Cole blinked. The photograph was back in its hiding place. The scent of blood was just dried wolfsbane. Lira held up the mortar, concern pinching her brow.
"Purple's perfect, girl," he rasped, clearing the gravel from his throat. "Means it's strong. Means it'll work."
He turned away, busying himself with jars of adder's tongue. Outside, the canal fog pressed against the window like a mourner. Somewhere out there, the Serpents still coiled. The Devourer still hungered. And Jay Boron—that haunted, volatile Seer—was stumbling straight toward his door with a serpent at his heels.
Cole's hand tightened around a jar. He'd left that life to protect Lira. But the past had claws. And it was scratching at his door.
---