You ever heard the saying "life's cheap in Ashspire"?
It's not a saying. It's a law. One you learn the first time you see someone shivved over half a loaf of bread. I should know. I was there. Third day on the streets, still stupid enough to think there were rules .
I thought wrong.
And tonight?Tonight, I was about to break the one rule that actually mattered:
Don't mess with glyph gangs unless you got death wishes to spare.
But death didn't scare me. Hunger did.And the old bastard running the glyph den had a pouch full of coins just sitting behind the counter, taunting me like a pretty girl at festival.
"Easy in, easy out," I muttered, pulling my ragged hood lower. "Like breathing. Like blinking."
I shifted closer through the press of drunk glyphrunners, every eye glowing faintly with bonded glyph-light. The stronger the glyph, the brighter the glow.Some of them had veins of molten red (Fire glyphs), some shimmered blue like ice (Water glyphs), some hummed with caged lightning under their skin.
Me?I was plain.Normal.Unmarked.
A nobody.
but I still survived
My fingers brushed the coin pouch.
Almost there"Oi, street rat!"
"Damn"
My heart dropped into my boots.
I spun around, hands up, but it was too late.The glyphrunner was already reaching for his belt — lightning crackling between his knuckles.
"Thought you could lift from Morn's men, huh?" he snarled, glyph-light pulsing down his arms.
The whole tavern went silent.
I immediately bolted.
Ashspire's lower streets are a goddamn maze.
You don't live long here if you can't memorize alleyways, crumbling rooftops, and all the shortcuts the drunks and guards don't know about.
I darted left, vaulted over a broken market stall, and slid through a gap between two buildings barely wider than my shoulders.
Behind me, I heard shouting, boots slamming, and the crackle of a glyphstrike.
Zap.
Lightning scorched the wall inches from my head.
I didn't stop.
Can't stop.
Won't stop.
That's the first rule of running in Ashspire:
Run like hell. Think later.
I made it as far as the old glyph shrine before they caught me.
It wasn't much , just a collapsed ruin, walls scrawled in ancient glyphs so old the meanings were lost.Nobody came here anymore.
Except rats.And idiots like me.
I skidded into the courtyard, breathing hard, ribs screaming from a stitch.Dead end.
"Trapped yourself, rat," the glyphrunner sneered, stepping into the moonlight.
His buddies flanked him, three of them, each with minor glyph burns dancing around their arms and faces.
"You picked the wrong gang to steal from," the leader said, drawing a thin glyph blade,a dagger inscribed with flickering blue runes.
"You gonna gut me?" I rasped, backing toward the old shrine altar.
"No," he smiled. "We're gonna mark you."
My blood turned to ice.
Marking was worse than death.
They'd burn a glyph into your flesh — a False Glyph — It was torture. Your body didn't know it, so it fought against it, causing the bearer unimaginable pain. It also made sure you couldn't bond to a real one even if you got the chance.
A nobody forever.
"No thanks," I said, forcing a smile.
And then I threw a handful of dirt in his face and ran straight into the altar.
Pain immediately exploded up my spine.
I felt lightning course through me
I hit the cracked stone slab hard, coughing.
And then—
Something woke up under my palms.
The altar wasn't dead stone. It was humming.Alive.
Ancient glyph lines blazed to life beneath my hands — spiderwebs of light, burning gold.
The glyphrunners froze.
The leader opened his mouth to shout.
He was too slow.
The glyph chose me.
Not the way it was supposed to — normally, glyph bonding took hours of meditation, blood rites, trials.This was raw. Savage. Forced.
The glyph slammed into me like a hammer, searing itself into my bones.
EARTH.
I screamed as my body locked up.
Every nerve fried. Every bone cracked.
And then — silence.
When I opened my eyes, the world was different.
I could feel the ground under my feet.The stones spoke to me — cold, hard, unyielding.
The glyphrunners were backing away now, muttering.
"Kill him!" the leader snapped.
I didn't think.
I moved.
The stones around my feet rose, responding to my will.A jagged wall of rubble exploded upward, slamming into the nearest thug and tossing him like a ragdoll.
The second one lunged with a glyph-blade.
I caught the blade in my hand.
It should've cut me open like paper.
Instead, the Stone glyph wrapped my skin in a thin sheen of rock — a living Armor.
The glyphrunner's eyes bulged as I squeezed the blade until it snapped.
"Get away from me," I growled.
The ground obeyed.
A shockwave rippled out — tossing the last two attackers on their asses.
When it was over, I stood alone in the ruined courtyard.
Breathing heavy.
Hands shaking.
Alive.
Marked.
No — more than marked.
I flexed my fingers.The glyph burned under my skin — not painful anymore.Part of me.
My first glyph.
A weak one, yeah. Earth wasn't flashy like Fire or fast like Lightning.
But it was mine.
And deep in my bones, I felt something else stirring —A second presence.Something older. Darker.
Not the Earth.
Something that didn't belong.
I staggered to my feet, the ruined glyph altar crumbling behind me.
The night wind carried the scent of blood and dust.
Somewhere out there, the gangs would be hunting me now.
They would come sniffing too.
Didn't matter.
Because for the first time in my miserable life, I had something worth fighting for.
A glyph.A weapon.
A future.
I grinned through bloodied teeth.
"Ashspire ain't ready for me."
And I ran into the night, the Earth glyph singing in my veins