The outer city was a different world.
It didn't shine like the castle towers, didn't hum with aura energy or hum with elite guards patrolling rooftops. Here, the air smelled of rust and fire. The roads were cracked. The people moved quickly, eyes down, hands hidden.
Leia had never walked these streets until now. Not really. Born inside the inner walls of the Crows family estate, she had known nothing but marble floors and tailored clothes.
Now, her shoes were worn thin. Her coat had holes in it. And her mother's hands shook every time they counted their coins — mostly copper, never silver.
They slept in an old storeroom behind an abandoned food stall. It had no door. Only a curtain. When it rained, it dripped straight through the ceiling and puddled around their bedding. Rats visited often. So did hunger.
Leia never complained.
Selene tried to smile every morning. "We'll manage," she would say, tying back her long black hair with a broken comb. "We always do."
But Leia could hear her coughing in the dark. Quietly. So Leia wouldn't worry.
---
One afternoon, Leia walked down a cramped alley carrying a small basket of scraps. Her mother had sent her to trade them for bread. She passed two boys huddled around a barrel fire. They stared.
"That's the Crow girl," one muttered.
"No way," the other said. "The noble brat who got kicked out?"
Leia didn't stop. She kept walking — head up, chest tight.
She wasn't used to being looked at like that. She wasn't used to being laughed at from behind.
And it stung.
---
At the market, vendors ignored her. A baker waved her off.
"You have nothing worth selling," he snapped.
She stood there for a long moment, gripping the cloth in her hands, trying not to cry. The cold bit into her cheeks. She turned and walked away without a word.
Back in the storeroom, she dropped the basket in the corner and sank beside it.
Selene looked up. "No bread?"
Leia shook her head. "They said we had nothing."
Selene moved to comfort her, but Leia pulled away.
"It's because of me," she whispered. "If I had awakened like the rest of them, we'd still be in the castle. You'd still be safe."
Her mother's voice was firm. "Leia. Don't say that."
"It's true."
"Being born into power doesn't mean it belongs to you," Selene said softly. "It's how you use what you have — not what others expect."
Leia stared at her empty hands. "But I don't have anything."
"You have you. That's already enough."
Leia didn't answer.
But something inside her — small and cracked — held onto those words.
---
That night, she lay awake, staring at the shadowed ceiling.
The Crows believed power was everything.
But if that were true, why did the powerful always seem so afraid of the weak?