Before he was even aware of what was happening, the bucket was kicked out from his grasp. As he tried to scramble backwards on all fours away from the advancing men, their laughter chased him. Laughter that was drunk not on ale but on power, that didn’t care who or what was hurt or even killed in order for them to feel as though their meaningless lives were superior to the gentler, kinder souls around them.

While the boy’s arms were restrained behind him by the thugs, the ringleader grabbed him by his collar and lifted him off his feet, cocking his fist in preparation for what would be a devastating blow that was sure to break bones and possibly cause even worse, life-altering damage.

All for the sake of power, or at least the appearance of it.

Well, Bryony had power too. When everything had been taken from her at a young age, when she’d lost her mother, father and home on one fire-scorched night, she’d promised herself that she would never feel weak again.

The murderer’s head twisted back when she grabbed his arm.

(If I wasn’t here, he’d have already maimed this poor boy. Who else is being beaten senseless while I’m not there to protect them?)

“What?” was all the man said at first, surprise and confusion flitting across his face before changing to a cruelly delighted smile. “Well, hello there.”

He dropped the boy, his thugs doing the same, and the boy had enough good sense to skitter away, even having the instincts to grab his bucket from where it had come to rest to avoid a tongue-lashing from his mother. But then he stopped halfway down the alley, turning back and wearing a look that seemed to say, Are you going to be alright? to which Bryony responded, simply, “Go home.” He didn’t need to be told twice, turning and bolting away with jackrabbit speed.

“Why did you save him?” the man asked as Bryony dropped his arm. “What is he to you?”

“Hope for humanity,” she said.

The man laughed, a sound that was really starting to grate on her nerves. “The only hope for humanity is men like us, men who take what is ours to take, to punish the weak. This may be a time of peace, but it won’t last forever. And when war comes again, who do you think will do the fighting? That boy? You?” More laughter, this time echoed by the two thugs that had moved to cut off her escape in either of the alley’s outlets.

Not that she was thinking about escape.