My hands gripped the frayed rope of the bucket as I trudged down the muddy path that cut through the heart of Duskfield. The air reeked of manure and stagnant water, a thick, clinging stench that seemed woven into the very fabric of the village. Mud squelched under my bare feet, cold and slick, seeping between my toes. My clothes—a tattered shirt and patched trousers—hung damp and heavy on my frame, offering no relief from the biting wind. But I didn't care. Caring was for people with something to lose, and I had nothing.

The villagers barely glanced at me as I passed. To them, I was just part of the scenery, no different from the rotting fence posts or the stray dogs slinking through the alleys. An orphan. A nobody. A reminder of life's fragility, one they chose to ignore.

I'd been seven when my parents died. A fever swept through the village that winter, merciless and quick. It took them both within days. I remembered them in fragments now—my mother humming softly as she kneaded dough, my father's rough hands steadying mine as I tried to hold a fishing net. Those memories felt more like faded dreams than reality. No one had come to help me when they were gone. No distant relatives appeared to take me in. I was left to fend for myself, a child scraping through a world that didn't care.

Duskfield was the kind of village where everyone knew their place. Families stretched back generations, their roots intertwined with the soil they tilled. I didn't have a place. Parentless and alone, I was an anomaly in a world that prized belonging. The other kids called me "rat boy," their taunts following me through the narrow lanes. Sometimes they'd throw stones—not big enough to injure, just enough to sting. Their parents didn't stop them. Some even joined in, their disapproving stares heavy with judgment.

I learned early that no one would save me. When I begged for work, most doors were slammed in my face. The jobs I did manage to get were the ones no one else wanted: shoveling muck, hauling rotting refuse, scraping out the village's clogged drains. Payment was meager—scraps of stale bread, a half-filled bowl of watery porridge, or sometimes nothing but a dismissive grunt.

My shelter was a lean-to I'd cobbled together on the outskirts of the village, where the woods grew thick and dark. Broken planks and tar-stained cloth I'd scavenged were all that stood between me and the elements. The wind howled through the cracks at night, and the rain turned the dirt floor to sludge. It wasn't much, but it was mine. A place to escape the glares and whispers.

Hunger was a constant companion. Every day was a battle to fill my belly. I scoured refuse piles behind the baker's shop and butcher's stall, hoping for a crust of bread or a bone with some meat left on it. Most days, I found nothing but rotting scraps, too foul even for my empty stomach.

I learned to endure the gnawing ache of hunger, to swallow the bitterness of it and keep going. In the mornings, I'd take any job I could find, no matter how humiliating. I mucked out pigsties, hauled freezing fishing nets, even cleaned the priest's privy when no one else would. At night, I collapsed on the damp ground of my shack, my body aching and my stomach growling.

But hunger wasn't the worst of it. The loneliness was sharper, a deeper kind of pain. The villagers avoided me like a bad omen. No one spoke to me unless it was to insult or dismiss me. I couldn't remember the last time someone looked at me with kindness.

The world, as I knew it, was bleak and colorless. The sun rose and set, the days passing in an endless cycle of labor and survival. I watched the villagers from the shadows, their lives filled with things I'd never have: warm meals, soft beds, the comfort of family. I didn't hate them. I didn't have the energy to hate. What I felt was closer to numbness, a quiet acceptance of my place at the bottom of the world.

That's how I felt at least until I met her.