The Forsaken Scavenger’s Rise to Godhood

Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Price of Being Worthless

Zephyr didn't have time to panic, so he asked questions instead.

The old woman downstairs, Maren, kept her door cracked open every night. She saw everything in the building and told nobody, unless you paid her in bread. Zephyr had no bread, so he gave her the only thing he had left, which was the truth.

"Who took my brother?"

Maren looked at the pole under his arm and the dried blood on his leg. "Five men. Good boots, clean swords. They carried him out wrapped in a blanket. The tall one gave orders." She spat on the floor. "Garrick Thorne."

Zephyr's stomach dropped. Everyone in the Ash District knew that name. Garrick Thorne was Lord Cassian Draven's enforcer. If Thorne had Rowan, then Cassian Draven had him, and Cassian owned half of Nethralis.

"Did Rowan wake up?"

"He called for you the whole way down the stairs."

Zephyr nodded once and left before she could see his face.

He thought about it while he limped through the dark streets. Brandt wasn't just a hired sword with a noble ring. Brandt worked for Cassian, which meant Cassian had sent an expedition to find that hidden chamber. Cassian wanted what Zephyr had swallowed.

But wanting the relic and being able to take it were different things. Zephyr could feel the cold weight sitting behind his ribs, quiet and heavy. If Cassian could have simply cut it out of him, he would have done it already. Instead, he had taken Rowan and left a message.

So Cassian needed Zephyr alive and willing. That was leverage, but not enough. Rowan would be dead in two days without his medicine, and Zephyr had no silver, no medicine, and a broken leg.

He needed all three, fast.

---

Doctor Hale's clinic was a cellar under a closed fish market, and half the district's scavengers had trusted their lives to him. Hale didn't ask questions. He asked for coin, and he never talked.

Zephyr knocked the old signal, two short and one long.

The door opened. Hale was a thin man with gray stubble and shaking hands. He looked at Zephyr's leg and sighed. "Sit. Show me."

Zephyr sat on the table and pulled up his shirt to check his ribs, because they had started to ache.

Hale went completely still.

Zephyr looked down. A mark had appeared on his chest, directly over his heart. It was black, sharp-edged, and shaped like a crown with half its points missing. It hadn't been there in the ruin.

"Get out," Hale whispered.

"What? Doc, I can pay. I'll find the silver."

"I said get out." Hale was backing away, hands raised as if Zephyr were holding a knife. "Somebody was here an hour ago. They paid me triple to turn you away if you came. They described that mark before I even saw it."

"Who?"

"I don't know their names, and I don't want to." Hale's voice cracked. "Please. I have a daughter."

Zephyr slid off the table. His leg screamed. He didn't let it show on his face.

"Rowan needs medicine," he said. "His fever medicine, the brown bottles. If I bring you the money, would you make it?"

Hale shook his head. "No one in this district will. Cassian's people got to every healer in the city tonight. I'm sorry, boy."

Zephyr left.

---

If nobody would treat him, he would buy supplies himself. That meant selling something.

He had one thing of value, a small bronze compass from an old dig, half-corroded but real. A dealer named Voss, no relation to Darius, ran a stall near the central market and paid fairly for relics.

Zephyr dragged himself there with dawn starting to gray the sky. The stall was just opening.

"Compass," Zephyr said, setting it on the counter. "Old Kessarian work. Worth at least twelve silver."

The dealer picked it up, then went pale and set it down again. "I can't."

"It's real."

"I know it's real." The dealer lowered his voice. "Zephyr Kaelith, right? The scavenger?"

Zephyr said nothing.

"There's a notice. Posted at every licensed trader in the city, since last night." He pulled a paper from under the counter and slid it over.

It was a formal accusation, stamped with Cassian's trade seal. *Zephyr Kaelith stole relics from a licensed expedition and killed three workers while escaping. Anyone dealing with him will lose their license.*

Zephyr read it twice. His hands were steady, which surprised him.

"I didn't kill anyone," he said. "I was the one buried alive."

"I believe you," the dealer said. "But I can't lose my license. Nobody can. Cassian signs them all." He pushed the compass back. "Get out before someone sees you here."

Zephyr stood in the gray light with his compass in his hand and understood how big Cassian's power really was.

It wasn't swords. It was paper. A stamped sheet had turned him into a criminal in one night. Every trader in Nethralis owed Cassian something, so every trader would refuse him. Zephyr had no silver, no allies, and a name nobody would touch.

For the first time in his life, being worthless had been safer.

---

He thought about it all morning, hidden in a drainage alcove while the city woke up above him.

Cassian controlled the licensed market. That was the problem. So Zephyr needed someone who didn't buy from it.

He knew one name. Scavengers whispered it when a job was too dangerous or too strange for the legal traders. The Quiet Buyer. Nobody knew who he was, only where he did business: a tea shop in the Salt Quarter, always open after midnight.

Zephyr waited until dark and went.

The shop was nearly empty. One man sat in the back, alone, in a plain gray coat. He was maybe fifty, with ink-stained fingers and eyes that missed nothing. A cup of tea steamed in front of him, untouched.

"You're bleeding on my floor," the man said.

"I know something worth money," Zephyr said. "I need medicine and a doctor. Today."

"Everyone knows something worth money. Sit."

Zephyr sat.

"My name doesn't matter," the man said. "Yours does, and I know it. You're the scavenger Cassian is hunting." He sipped his tea. "That makes you either very stupid or very interesting. Which are you?"

"There's a ruin," Zephyr said. "Deep in the dead zone. It's not on any map. The licensed crews have never touched it."

The man's eyes sharpened. "How do you know?"

"I've been inside."

That was a lie, and it was a risk. Zephyr had found only the entrance, hours before the collapse. But a buyer who deals in secrets only pays for secrets that are real. If Zephyr could get close to it again, he could make it true.

"Interesting," the man said. "And what do you want?"

"Brown fever medicine. Three weeks' supply. A healer who won't ask questions. A safe room for one night."

"That's a lot to ask of a stranger."

"I'm offering a whole ruin."

The man studied him. Zephyr kept his face blank, the way he did when bargaining with dealers twice his size.

"Three weeks of medicine," the man said slowly. "A healer. One night." He set down his cup. "But I need proof you can reach this place. Bring me back something from inside. Something old that Cassian's people have never seen."

Zephyr felt his stomach tighten. He had just made himself valuable to another dangerous person. It was the only door open, and he had no choice but to walk through it.

"Agreed," he said.

"Good. Then let me see your injury."

The man stood and came around the table. Zephyr pulled up his shirt to show the leg, but the man's gaze went straight to his chest.

He froze. All the calm drained out of his face.

"Where did you get that mark?"

"What mark?" Zephyr said, though he knew.

The man's voice dropped to a whisper.

"The last person who carried that symbol was executed by the Church three hundred years ago."