The fishmonger shortchanged me by three coppers.
I caught his hand before it retreated from the counter, my grip harder than a girl my age should have. Raikiri crackled at my side, not quite sparking, but the static lifted the hairs on the fishmonger's arm and made his common Anima; a river carp that flopped in a bucket beside him; go still.
"Try again."
The fishmonger's eyes flicked to Raikiri, then back to me. Whatever he saw in my face convinced him the argument wasn't worth it. Three more coppers appeared on the counter.
"Honest mistake," he muttered.
"Sure." I pocketed the coins. "Happens to everyone."
It didn't. Not to me. Not anymore. The streets had taught me to count, to watch, to never let anyone take what was mine. Valerian had taught me what happened when you trusted people who were born to privilege.
Don't think about him.
I grabbed my fish, wrapped in paper, already starting to smell, and pushed through the morning crowd. Raikiri padded beside me, larger than he'd been six months ago. His fur crackled with ambient electricity that made people step aside without quite knowing why. Good. I preferred it when they moved.
Six months since the rooftop. Six months since the boy with the dragon Anima told me I was nothing, that our friendship was a mistake, that a prince and a street rat had no business breathing the same air.
Six months of learning to be harder than the world that kept trying to crush me.
"You." A voice cut through the market noise. Male. Confident. Not a threat; my instincts would have flagged a threat.
I turned. A man in his thirties stood near a vegetable stall, watching me with the kind of attention that meant he'd been watching for a while. His Anima was a raven, glossy-black and intelligent-eyed, perched on his shoulder. Common species, but the way he held himself suggested he wasn't common at all.
"Me what?"
"You're the girl with the Raiju." He didn't approach. Smart. Raikiri's hackles were already rising. "That's rare. Very rare. There hasn't been a Raiju-bonded commoner born in the Azure Kingdom in forty years."
"Congratulations on knowing trivia." I started walking. He fell into step a few paces behind, maintaining distance that said I know your Anima could kill me.
"My name is Marcus. I work for people who think the way things are isn't the way things should be."
"Rebels."
"Some call us that."
I stopped. Turned. Looked at him properly this time.
Marcus had the weathered look of someone who'd lived hard but lived well; scars, calluses, the muscle of someone who fought and trained regularly. His raven Anima watched me with unblinking intelligence. These were people who'd learned to survive outside the system.
"What do you want?"
"You." He smiled, and it wasn't predatory; it was recruiting. "Or rather, what you could become. A Raiju-bonded fighter with proper training? You could change things, girl. Real things. The kind of things that would make the nobles who run this city sleep a little less soundly."
The nobles.
Vale's face flashed behind my eyes. White-blue hair. Silver eyes. The careful mask he'd worn when he told me I was a mistake.
He was a noble. He lied about everything.
"I have parents." The words came out harder than I intended. "I'm not some orphan you can scoop up with promises."
Something flickered across Marcus's face. Surprise, maybe. Or recalculation.
"Parents?"
"On the outskirts. I visit when I can." I hefted the fish. "This is for them."
"I see." He reached into his coat and produced a small token; a wooden disk carved with an owl over a bear. The symbol meant nothing to me. "If you change your mind. If something happens. Find any of Theodora's people and show them this. We take care of our own."
"I'm not your own."
"Not yet." He pressed the token into my palm anyway. "Keep it. Just in case."
I should have thrown it in the gutter. Instead, I pocketed it next to the fishmonger's coppers and walked away.
I don't need a cause. I don't need anyone.
Raikiri's lightning hummed against my leg, a counterpoint to the lie.