The Beggar Who Devoured Heaven

Chapter 3: The Full Stomach Problem

Two nights ago, the guard at the door had been easy to fool.

"I saw nothing," Ren Kai had said, holding the door open a crack. "I only walk past that alley."

The guard had looked at his thin arms, his torn shirt, and the empty room behind him. Then he had snorted and left. No one suspects a beggar of owning anything worth taking.

Now the coin lay cool against Ren Kai's chest, like an ordinary piece of metal. The black mouth over his heart was hidden under a sack coat he had pulled from a rubbish pile outside the Arena. In his left hand, he held one hundred silver coins in a red purse.

Left, said Old Crow.

"This is left."

Your other left.

Ren Kai turned. A line of servants pushed past, carrying empty wine jars. No one looked at him twice. He pressed the purse against his stomach and tried not to run.

The voice had given itself a name on the way out of the Arena. Call me Old Crow, it had said. I was the best thief in the nine provinces. Crows steal shiny things, and I stole a great many.

You walk like a thief who has never stolen anything, said Old Crow.

"That is an insult."

It is advice. Real thieves look relaxed. You look like a boy with a secret.

"I do have a secret."

Then look relaxed about it.

Ren Kai tried. A passing guard frowned at him. He frowned back.

Not like that either, said Old Crow, with a long sigh.

At the servants' gate, the guards were too busy arguing about the afternoon bets to care about one more servant. Ren Kai walked out into the street and took his first full breath in an hour.

He was alive. He had one hundred silver. His core was broken, yet somehow he felt stronger than he ever had in his life.

"What am I?" he whispered, once the street was empty.

Hungry, said Old Crow.

"That is not an answer."

It is the only true one I have. I will explain it properly, boy. But first you have a sister who needs medicine, and a stomach that is about to start screaming. Go.

The medicine shop at the end of the Gutters sold its cure in small blue jars. Ren Kai had stared at them through the window a hundred times. Today he walked in, set the purse on the counter, and said, "Four jars, please."

The shopkeeper counted the silver twice. He looked at Ren Kai. He counted it a third time.

"Where did you get this?"

"I won it."

"How?"

"By standing up."

The shopkeeper did not smile. But he gave Ren Kai four blue jars, a paper bag of herbs, and a few silver coins in change. He did not ask another question. Ren Kai tucked them inside his coat. In Azure City, people believed almost anything about a boy who carried that much silver.

At the door, Ren Kai's stomach let out a long, loud growl.

Old Crow laughed. There it is. Feed it, boy. But not too much.

"Why not?"

Later.

Noodle Street was louder than ever. Ren Kai could hear the whole city talking as he walked.

"A servant boy ate Lu Zhen's fire!"

"No, he stole it!"

"I heard he had a mouth on his chest!"

"I heard he was a demon!"

Ren Kai pulled the sack coat tighter and kept his head down.

At the far end of the street stood a stall with a crooked sign. Behind it, a stout woman was stirring a huge pot. She was the same cook who had sold him a bowl three days ago. Everyone called her Widow Mo.

"One hot bowl," Ren Kai said. "To take away. And I will pay with silver."

She looked at the coin. She looked at his face. She looked at the dust and blood still caught in his hair.

"You are the boy from the Arena," she said softly.

"No."

"Yes."

"I really am not."

Widow Mo put down her ladle. "I have a son in the Azure Peak guard," she said. "He tells me how they treat servants. Last year they broke a boy's arm for dropping a plate." She took a clay pot with a lid and began to fill it. "So. I never saw you. And the boy I did not see will take his sister's noodles for free."

"I cannot take them for free."

"Then you will take them for a fair price: one thing." She slid a second bowl across the counter. It was huge. Steam rose from it in thick, golden clouds. "You will sit and eat this. All of it."

Boy, said Old Crow, in a warning voice. Boy. Listen to me.

Ren Kai had not eaten since yesterday morning. His stomach was an empty cave.

"I should not—" he began.

"Sit," said Widow Mo.

He sat.

BOY. DO NOT EAT THE—

The first mouthful was the best thing he had ever tasted. The broth was rich and salty and hot. The noodles were soft. There was real meat. He had not tasted meat in three months.

He ate the first bowl. Widow Mo gave him a second, and a plate of dumplings, and a fried bun filled with sweet bean paste, and she would not take any coins at all.

Stop, said Old Crow, weakly. Stop. Please stop. I am begging you.

Ren Kai did not hear. Ren Kai was crying a little, quietly, into his second bowl.

When he finally put down his chopsticks, his belly was round and warm. He felt heavy and sleepy and happy. He felt like a baby after a meal.

Then something went quiet.

It took him a moment to notice. Deep in the center of his chest, where the great dark thing had opened its eyes, there was now only silence. The black mouth had gone cold. The nine golden teeth felt like nine small stones.

Well, said Old Crow.

"What?"

Nothing. Nothing at all. You are simply full.

"Is that bad?"

Boy, I told you. Do not get full.

"You said that to a boy holding a bowl of noodles," Ren Kai whispered. "That was not clear."

It was perfectly clear.

"It was not."

It was a clear warning from a dying man!

Ren Kai thanked Widow Mo, picked up the clay pot of hot noodles for Ren Lan, and stepped out into the street, feeling like the happiest boy in Azure City.

Old Crow groaned in his head.

Listen carefully. This power runs on one thing: hunger. Real hunger. When you are starving, it wakes. When you are fed, it sleeps. A full boy has no more power than a sleepy sheep. You understand?

"I understand," Ren Kai said, and burped.

He heard footsteps.

Ten of them, perhaps more, running in neat, heavy rows. He turned. At the end of the street, a line of Azure Peak guards in black armor had stopped in the middle of the road. At their head stood a boy in white boots, with a red-eyed, furious face.

Lu Zhen.

"There!" Lu Zhen screamed. "That is him! The thief! The demon!"

Ren Kai backed away. His heart was pounding. He opened his mouth and reached for the great dark hunger that had saved him in the Arena.

There was nothing there.

Only a small, warm, sleepy belly, and a very tiny burp.

Ah, said Old Crow. Now you see the problem.

"Do something!"

Me? I am a voice. You are the one with the legs. RUN.

The guards drew their swords.

Ren Kai looked down at the pot of noodles in his hands. It was still steaming.

"I am not dropping these," he said.

Of course you are not, groaned Old Crow. Of course you are not.

He ran.