A Glimpse
Ijumped at the screams, still unused to the sound of neighbors so close, though it’d been ten years since I left the hut in the swamp where my hag mother raised me.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I missed the swamp.
I was fond of many things that city life afforded me.
Clothes I could buy rather than sew myself, food I didn’t need to hunt, parties and ribbons, schools and friends.
All those notions had been completely foreign to me for the first half of my life.
But the noise could still catch me unaware and put me on my guard. Outside of cities, unexpected noises meant wildling, feral beasts or demon attacks.
Here it merely meant that someone stomped on Malinda’s foot.
I would have dismissed it entirely, the neighbor’s teen daughter was a well-known gossip, and prone to fits, except her exclamation followed more unrest. Shouts, feet marking left and right, both bellow and above my tiny apartment on the second floor of Flower Row.
Though not one to stuff my noise into anyone’s business without cause, I considered whether I ought to make my way up to the third floor and knock.
They were making their affairs my business by triggering my sensitive ears.
But before I’d resolved to move, I caught a familiar set of footsteps moving fast, first across the pavement, then up the squeaky stairs leading to my door.
As a half-shifter, though beastless, I could hear further than most, but there was only one person whose very footfall I could sense: Nerissa. She was both quick and light, like a little fairy who belonged in an enchanted forest rather than the bad part of Tiridale.
I set my reading aside and crossed the length of the narrow sitting room—that doubled as dining room, library and laundry room depending on my need—to open up for my friend.
She wore rags—a pinkish cotton sheath which had once been dark purple and had faded much in the last three years. She mended holes at her elbows and knees.
When I first met her, not even her servants dressed so poorly. The change in my best friend’s fortune would never cease to enrage me.
“Morning!” I greeted her warmly. “I didn’t expect you until after work, but I have pumpkin soup to hear up and some fresh bread—”
“Never mind all that,” Nerissa breathed, stuffing the Gazette against my chest. “Read this turd.”
I frowned, surprised because the Ilyan Gazette was indeed, a turd only worth using as toilet paper in an emergency. All they cared was to sing the praises of the lords and ladies, and explain the many reasons why our taxes had to go up every year.
Not that taxes were any of my concern. I earned too little to owe any. My tuition at the royal college was covered by a merits scholarship and helped at the royal kitchen four nights a week to pay for my room, boards and small expenses.
Nerissa knew all about taxes, though. The moment her father was in the grave, they swooped in to seize most of his fortune, only leaving a little nest egg that went to his widow rather than his daughter.
Intrigued, I scanned the front page as I was bidden.
Then I slowly redirected my gaze up to my friend, mouth parted in a wordless gap, and I read it again, out loud to ensure I understood every single word.
"It is the decree of their majesties that all single wixes of marriageable age be matched with a compatible spouse in order to replenish our magical population of our great nation.
Ninety days from this announcement, unmarried wixes will be required to submit one drop of blood which will be used to determine the best possible partner by the crown.
Henceforth, underage wix reaching the age of majority are allotted one calendar year from their birthdays to find and wed their partner, before being submitted to the law.
" I scrunched up the paper in my fist and demanded, “What in all the moons is this?”
In truth, I shouldn’t have been as shocked as I was.
It was often discussed that wixes—those with magic in their blood, would it be sorcery, shifting abilities, or even curses such as vampirism—had lost much of their former power by marrying regular human without skills.
In a world as hostile as ours, with a thousand magical dangers outside of our shielded cities, every kingdom and empire did their utmost to encourage wixes to marry amongst ourselves.
But a royal decree, demanding a timeline, and threatening to pair us up if we didn’t comply? I could barely get my head around the barbarism, the utter disgusting tyranny behind the notion.
Nerissa and I were both wixes, and over twenty.
“They can’t really do that to us, can they, Ophie?”
I snorted. “They can try. Fuck that shit. I’m leaving the country."
My friend laughed, like I was joking, until she caught the determined look in my eyes.
“Leaving—Ophelia, can you even do that? Where would you go?”
I was silent for a while, considering my options. “Anywhere.”
Nerissa struggled to conceive the thought of leaving because the wild lands outside of guarded, gated, shielded cities were a death sentence to most. There storms full of dark spells that could infect travelers with a maddening incurable illness that turned them into thoughtless beasts, creatures which had once been mere animals, but now were turned to darker things, ghouls, ghosts, wraiths, and barrow wights in the forest.
But I was born in the wild. I wasn’t even technically Ilyanan.
I was here because one day by chance, when we were both children, Nerissa’s handsome caravan was attacked near my mother’s hut, and hearing the commotion, I begged Mother to help.
She did. She died. Nerissa’s father was king enough to take me along with him after that, raising me alongside his daughter.
Until he too was taken.
But this life I’d grown accustomed to, this city where I could find so many pretty things, and read a thousand books, wasn’t my only option. It wasn’t even Nerissa’s.
“North,” I stated after a moment. “And you’re coming with me.”
Watch out for news of The Serpent’s Pet!