The Thief and the God

The Thief and the God

Kael was a good thief.

He'd picked it up early. Learned that bread was sweeter when you hadn't earned it, and gold was warmer when it didn't belong to you. Learned that no one looked twice at a street rat, especially not one with quiet feet and quick hands.

So when he saw the face of the lanky person glide across the Night Market, hood pulled up over the face in a cobalt mask, he saw promise. The pendant around their neck shone like honeylit fire, hung too low over an open cloak.

"Invitation accepted," Kael growled, dissolving into the crowd like a shadow with purpose.

He bumped the stranger by mistake, snarled a slurred excuse, and reached into the pendant with one slick movement. A perfect lift.

Then everything went bad.

The instant his fingers wrapped around the pendant, the world tilted to one side.

Pain scorched the palm of his hand. The air twisted, rippling like water. For a moment, Kael thought the actual sky blinked.

Then there was a voice—low, greasy, old—speaking in his mind.

"This is a mistake."

Kael stumbled into an alley, racing heart. "Who said that?"

"You did. By picking me up."

He stared at the pendant in his palm. It was warm—almost pulsing. Lines of forgotten script shimmered along its surface, symbols that made his teeth itch.

“What are you?” he whispered.

“I am Yl’varan,” the voice said, dry and venom-sweet. “God of trade, fate, and perfectly symmetrical revenge. Once worshipped by empires, now imprisoned in jewelry and held by a sewer-born maggot.”

Kael blinked. “You’re a god?”

“And you’re a thief. Let’s skip the existential horror and make a deal.”

Yl’varan explained—grudgingly, between insults. He had been bound centuries ago by his own followers, sealed in the pendant and scattered across the mortal lands. He could not free himself, but if brought back to his temple—deep in the Scorched Lands—he could reclaim his body and power.

"For your troubles," he growled, "I'll give you strength. I can speed up your fingers, sharpen your wits, make your mind more agile. You'll be the greatest thief in the world."

Kael was half-persuaded already. He couldn't take the pendant off, anyway. It slid back onto his neck whenever he tried to pull it free. And if he was going to be cursed, he might as well benefit.

"I'll show you," he told her. "But when we get there, expect payment."

"Agreed," the god replied. "But don't forget: gods don't stay bound forever."

It took weeks to travel.

They crossed swamps where trees leaned in to whisper secrets, climbed crumbling roads over bandit-ridden hills, and bribed desert demons with wine-soaked honey and sand-silver. Yl'varan hung in his mind—a constant presence, sometimes condescending, sometimes angered, always watching.

And Kael… changed.

He could feel locks before his tools touched them. Hear footsteps three alleys distant. Slash purses in mid-run. His hands were spells, his eyes night sight, and the underworld of the city whispered in reverence of the "Ghost with Gold Eyes"—one nickname Kael did not mind.

He grew powerful. Starving.

It was on one night, near a dune-lit fire, that he spun the pendant around in his hand and said, "Maybe I don't take you to your temple."

Silence.

Then laughter—gaged, merciless.

"You think I gave you power? You think you earned any of this?"

The flames shot higher.

"You are a borrowed sword, little thief. Once I am restored, I take it back. And you—filth that you are—will be nothing. Or worse."

Kael slept not that night.

The temple rose from the desert like black teeth from a sun-dried jaw. Obsidian spires sagged under the weight of time, their tips fractured, their statues wind-worn but still watching.

As Kael stepped into the temple courtyard, the pendant seared against his chest.

"Yes," Yl'varan breathed, close to prayer. "Place me on the altar. Let me become again."

Kael looked at the dais. Stone. Old. Waiting.

He did not take a step.

"Well?" snapped the god.

Kael smiled, slow and deadly. "You talk too much."

Yl'varan's body shifted. "What are you doing?"

"Making plans. As you instructed."

From his belt, Kael pulled out a small vial of glass. It pulsed with soft silver light. Inside seethed liquid moonstone—a rare alchemical poison for spirits, purchased in private on the world's edge.

"You said power was borrowed," Kael said. "Maybe. But I'm not returning it."

He hurled the vial against the altar.

It burst apart in a flare of white flame. The pendant screamed—no, Yl'varan screamed, a sound that tore the air and shook the marrow of Kael's bones.

The pendant went dark, cracked. Then shattered.

Silence.

Kael stood alone in the ruined temple, gasping.

The magic was gone. The voice, too.

But his hands did not shake. His eyes are still sharp. Maybe not god-kissed—but hardened by travel, by danger, by lessons from a monster.

He'd survived a god's deal.

That made him more deadly than any god.

As he strode off, he noticed something in the dust—small, silver, untouched by time.

A lost idol, still warm to the touch.

Kael pocketed it.

A thief did not just take what was offered. A thief took what others forgot.