The muggy night air was filled once more with rain in Old Rose—sharp and hammering against the patch-shingled roofs. People hastened inside with raised collars and up-thrown hands. Stall-keepers frantically packed. Cramming wares into crates. Covering them with tarps. Fighting the soggy weather. Honest men rushed for cozy homes. The not-so-honest packed into leaning hotels with noisy bars and candlelit card tables. Even grimy urchins in the street huddled together under dry store awnings as they bit and teased at each other. The residents of the harbor city were all doing their best to keep warm.

Bey was not warm.

The dull drip and plish from the room's single leak wouldn't let him sleep. It mattered little, for, he could not even if he tried. He couldn't. He hadn't—not for two days. And that was only a fraction of the time he'd spent his searching. He'd questioned every soul who didn't look like they'd give him a bullet to the gut. He'd emptied his pockets with bribes, hoping to loosen a few tongues with a show of gold. No use. Men would lie for a fort and so many had given him a negative response that Bey hardly believed that horses existed any more. Clinging to hope was near impossible. Hope did not coincide with the Harbor.

Now the young man was on his side in a thin straw mattress in an upstairs room the size of a broom closet. The wooden walls were as grey as his stare. His dulled eyes—underscored by dark circles—fixed on nothing. This was to be his last night under a roof and the flatness of his rucksack on the floor was his viscous reminder of his poverty. He had no money left; no food either. All he carried now was that limp rucksack and a gold ring. That he wouldn't part with. He'd already lost part of his past—part of Wrathwine. He wasn't about to loose all that remained of his mother.

He never should have left the Wrathwine. He should have known better than to question his place in the great Vita. The dense forest was the only place he belonged, the city proved that when its great maw swallowed Dawn. Now she was probably lost to him forever. Walking down the streets was a marrow-chilling affair these days. There was no reassuring clop of hooves, no gentle snorts at his back, no insistent nudge and teasing whiskers on his neck. Now there was nothing for him but the rain and wind.

Rain swilled down rusty gutters' throats, down into the grooves through cobbles, cut generations ago by the that which preceded it. It was ongoing, never ending as the great wheel of the year with its ten spokes passed for another turn. It was Loshis, and after, Hamis to come with even more rain, then Roalis bringing its autumn chill down from the north. Then all the rest of the spokes would continue their journey ‘round.

And that was how it had been between the youth and his mare: never-ending. She was never intended to leave his side, and he was never intended to go anywhere her flying hooves couldn’t take him. The wheel wasn’t intended to be broken and this new gap left Bey shuddering and vulnerable. Now that she was gone, a gaping hole grew in the center of his chest. It pained with every drip from the roof and every blink of his eyes and opened wider when he thought of his beloved horse.

His next move? He didn't know, nor did he want to think about it. Moving on meant moving that much father from Dawn. It felt like losing hope and letting go. But what if she was in some danger? What if she was being ill-treated? What if she needed him? There were too many dangers and too many worries to completely give up on Dawn. Even still, he needed another plan and a job, and money, and, currently, food. He needed sleep.

Bey shivered and drew his arms tighter around himself as a slicing draft squeezed through the thin wall boards. It cut against his back.

This rancid world was not the clear Wrathwine of his happy years.