There was a group sitting in the shade of the potting tent in the centre of the space. He wove through the paths towards them.

Gabe, as like to Mik that they might be twins, although they denied even being brothers, waved from a short stool in front of a group of youngsters. “Now here’s someone who’ll tell you the fancy version, then what really happened. Raf, come tell these ingrates the story of the Hero of Glasslight.”

“I can’t be doing that today, my friend, I’m on my way to a meeting.”

The older man beckoned again. “If you want to know where that book you’re after is stashed, you’ll be a touch more obliging, lad.”

And just like that, he was straight over a barrel, with a smile that was more snarl than grin, Raf obeyed.

He took a stool from the pile in the corner of the tented area and sat next to Gabe, fixing the bored, grubby little faces in front of him with a hard stare. “It’s getting on in the day and I have places to be, and I daresay you have things you’d rather be doing too, so I’ll make it quick.”

“In the times of change and disaster, when fires with flames like blood were lit on every hilltop, and the valleys echoed to the clash and clatter of weapons we no longer know, when cities fell and highways ran red, a hero came. No one knows where he was from. Some say he was the son of a fallen Emperor.”

Some of the children grinned at that, Raf shook his head. “Those people are idiots. The regimes before the fallen didn’t believe in the divine right of rulers. They used committees. Large, fragmented, rigid, and slow. They were too easy to manipulate and too faceless to follow. They are why the old ways fell, and we reverted to the older ways, to leadership of the strong and worthy.”

A few grins fell, others grinned wider.

“So this hero arrived on our shores and began gathering people. His promise to them; a new home, one of safety and beauty, and so, after many battles, and many more treaties, Glasslight City was born.”

“The Hero, as he became known, laboured alongside the workers to build the walls of this home, and they repaid him a thousand times over in the construction of the glorious Palace of Glasslight. A final treaty brought him a bride of exceptional accomplishment and beauty from across the sea, and they ruled in peace and prosperity for many years.”

Raf leaned forward. “And then, as the children borne by the Treaty Bride grew to adulthood, and Glasslight City was celebrated across the southern realms as a bastion of culture and learning, as the city leaders decreed that only one with the blood of The Hero would be permitted to sit in the Ruler’s Chair, The Hero disappeared.”

He nodded to the sceptical faces watching him. “A strange happening indeed. From a well-guarded palace, at the centre of a fortified city, a man every citizen knew on sight simply vanished.”

“His eldest son, a ruler every bit as capable as his father, stepped into the breach, but none in Glasslight City, or the lands beyond, ever saw or heard of him again. His fate remains a mystery to this day.”

Raf looked at Gabe and said. “At least to those outside Forgotten…”

The older man chuckled. “Indeed, indeed, lad.”

A voice piped up from the middle of the group. “Are you saying he came here?”

Raf replied. “When ‘here’ was nothing more than a massive rubbish dump with a couple of hundred outcasts huddling into whatever shelter they could find and squabbling over food scraps, yes.”

There were several snorts of derision from the group.

Raf chuckled and went on. “A group of these misfits had banded together, building a communal hall of sorts and sharing skills and resources. One day, a man appeared in the opening to their shelter. He was tall, and strong, but his shoulders were slumped, as if he carried a great invisible weight, and his face was sad and tired. He told the group he wanted to be one of the forgotten people.

“They laughed, and took him in. He proved a genius, designing structures and systems beyond anyone’s dreams, and all built with the rubbish around them.”

Raf waved an arm to the green space surrounding them. “The gardens were one of his ideas, created and fed by the scraps of food waste from Glasslight City. They were his favourite places, according to the old records, and he worked in them until he was too frail to dig, and even then he’d come and sit, watching the plants and the people. And when he died, he was given to the earth; just as he asked, one of the Forgotten.”

Gabe applauded. “Fancy indeed. Why you’re chasing after yet another book is beyond me. You’ll find what you’re looking for in the records room.”

Raf stood and returned his stool to the stack in the corner. Old habits died hard. “Stay Forgotten, old man.”

“You too, rapscallion.”

Crossing the garden to the haphazard pile of shipping containers and car panels that housed Forgotten’s library, Raf wondered for a moment about the man who’d chosen to work in a rubbish dump over a life of luxury in the most celebrated palace in the known world. He liked the sound of the old bastard, pity his descendants were as rotten as the rubbish they sent over the dunes.

The records room was on the ground floor, with a row of old car doors – windows miraculously intact – set into the outer wall, providing a foggy view of the garden.

He entered the room and stopped. There was someone there, lounging back in a battered leather armchair, waiting for him.

“Asha.”

She smiled and held up a long-life tablet. “I believe you’re looking for this.”

Shit. How had she got hold of it and how was he going to get it from her?

He hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his jacket and stood. Waiting.

She stood and wandered towards him. “It’s exactly what you were promised. The DNA records of the ruler’s family, from the current ruler’s grandfather down. Annotated with rants by the family’s genealogist, my grandmother.”

Raf frowned. “Why was the Ruler’s wife the genealogist?”

“Because there are secrets to be kept. And unfortunately for my father, grandmother is too much of a scientist, and not enough of a mother, to not record the truth somewhere.”

“And you know this because…?”

“I’m the apprentice genealogist.” Asha’s expression darkened. “Because I’m no use for anything else, being tainted like I am.”

She forestalled Raf’s question by holding up the tablet again. “It’s all here. Proof that not one of the Ruler’s line, at least as far back as grandfather, probably further, carries even a drop of The Hero’s blood.”

Raf held his elation down, he had to verify. “It’s been several generations, no doubt it’s been diluted.”

Asha shook her head. “I’ve studied verified samples of his blood and tagged DNA. The Hero had several unusual, distinct, and very dominant markers. Not one of them shows up in these records.”

She was close enough to touch now, and she tucked the tablet into an inside pocket in his jacket. “Yours. I’ve marked all the best parts so you don’t have to go digging. I want an answer to one question in return.”

He stayed still. What did she want of him?

Her hand moved up his chest, up his neck, and around to the back of his head as she stared into his eyes.

Her fist clenched in his hair. “I want to know why our child has The Hero’s DNA.”

He jerked back, her grip tightened. He said. “I have a child?”

“We have a son. He’s five and a half years old and his name is Malo.”

His hand went to the square bulk of the tablet. Asha shook her head. “It’s not in there. Children are tested when they turn twelve. I used a couple of drops of his blood for a test sample, to learn how to use the system. Grandmother cannot find out.”

He placed his hand over hers, pulling from his head and placing a kiss in her palm. “You have two days to get him and you out of the palace, then we’ll talk.”

“I need to know now.”

Were those tears? Asha never cried.

“Why?”

“Please Raf.”

She never begged either.

He sighed. “In the months before the arrival of the Treaty Bride, her name was Estelle by the way, The Hero, erm, enjoyed the company, of one of the palace maids.”

“He forced a servant to…?”

“Hardly. Your grandmother isn’t the first person to keep a too-honest diary, and my whatever-greats granny liked to go into detail. She was very happy with the situation, and even happier when she got pregnant and was married off to a kind, handsome young guard. They were given a minor title, a decent income, and a pretty house on the edge of the park district. Generations of her family lived there until ten years ago, when your father decided their home was the perfect little love-nook for his latest mistress.”

“You could become Ruler.”

“I could.”

Asha sighed. “But you’re not going to. You’re just going to destroy my family and leave the City in chaos.”

Raf tilted his head towards her. “And you’re helping me do it.”

“My family deserve it. Glasslight City doesn’t.”

He pressed another kiss to her palm and stepped back. “Two days.”

She said nothing as he walked away.

He stopped by Mik’s on the way back, and bought chips for the seagulls.

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