[Year 1507]
The rain fell like whispers from ghosts—soft, steady, and unrelenting. Tin rooftops tapped in rhythm with the sky's grief, echoing across the rot-stained alleys of Mad Hat Island. Near the edge of the Eastern Market, where shadows moved without names, a young boy sat alone in front of a boarded-up house.
His name was Arthur.
Mud clung to his knees. Dirt painted his cheeks. In his small hand, he held a broken string of prayer beads—each piece jagged, cold, and cruel. His eyes were swollen, not from the rain, but from a memory that refused to die.
It always returned on nights like this.
Every time the sky wept.
---
[Year 1504]
Their home back then was no more than a shanty shack leaning against the bones of a forgotten warehouse. The stench of market waste and rodent nests clung to the air. Arthur had been seven.
And still foolishly hopeful.
Every evening, he waited for his mother to return. Sometimes she brought back crusts of bread. Sometimes, just bruises. Her job at the auction house paid little and cost too much.
That night, she came home soaked to the bone. Her coat was threadbare, her eyes emptier than usual.
"Mom," Arthur had called out from the kitchen corner. "Can I ask you something?"
She said nothing at first, just hung her coat and stared. Her fingers trembled as she lowered herself onto a crooked stool.
"Dad," Arthur said. "Who was he?"
She winced.
That silence before the truth—he would never forget it.
"He wasn't an ordinary man," she said eventually. Her voice was frayed, like fabric torn too many times. "He was dangerous. Important. Not someone this world lets go quietly."
Arthur leaned forward. "A pirate?"
"No," she said with a shake of her head. "Something else. He didn't just break rules—he rewrote them. And if the world knew you carried his blood… they'd come for you."
Arthur swallowed hard. "But I want to know. Who I am."
She gave him a sad smile, one that carried more sorrow than comfort. Then she took the beaded necklace from her neck—worn, cracked, and old.
"This is all I have left of him. Guard it. When you're strong enough, find your answers. But not yet."
Arthur didn't understand then. But he took the beads like they were a sword. A promise.
---
Three nights later, the world shattered.
The door broke open with a sound that still haunted his dreams. He hid beneath the floorboards, barely breathing, biting down on his sleeve so the scream wouldn't come.
He heard them—three men. Rough voices. Dragging her away.
Then silence. Then the sound of something breaking. Then silence again.
When he crawled out, she was gone.
No breath. No warmth. Her hand outstretched. Her eyes still open. The necklace torn, the beads scattered—except the few clenched in Arthur's tiny fist.
He never cried. Not that night.
Something colder than tears had taken root.
---
[Year 1507]
Now, the rain fell again, and Arthur sat with the same beads in hand—older, but not healed. Bastien's map was still etched in his mind. The layout of hell. The predators. The names.
He was done running from them.
"I'll find out who he was," Arthur whispered, the words drowned by thunder. "And I'll grow stronger… strong enough to face whatever comes."
Mad Hat Island was a cage of monsters and shadows. But tonight, in the middle of that rot and ruin, a spark had been lit.
And fire always remembers who first struck the match.