Chapter 3 Evera #2
It was poetic, despite the improvisation. Or, perhaps, because of it. I trailed my thumb over the smooth, dark surface beneath one of the eye slits. “You’re incredibly skilled. Have you always been a carver?”
The old man returned to his stool and lowered slowly to sit. “When I was young, I wanted to be a blacksmith.” A distant look crossed his face, and he cast his eyes down. “It wasn’t an aspiration I was given the chance to follow.”
“I’m sorry.” I knew all too well what it felt like to be unable to pursue one’s desires.
The man shrugged. “I found another method to create. Fulfillment can be found in many places.”
Setting the mask back on the table carefully, I raised my eyes to him. “You’ve found contentment, then, in this?”
“When you approached my stand, you had a far-off look, and now you appear wistful. That has brought me happiness.” He gestured with a nod to the mask. “Something about this piece speaks to you; it should be yours.”
I offered him a smile but shook my head. “I haven’t the coin.”
He interlocked his fingers and stretched. “Take it nonetheless.” There was finality in his tone. “We all need the freedom that comes with obscurity at times.”
After relenting and taking the mask, I dismissed myself, musing over the carver as I walked the dust path uphill.
I was grateful the old man had found happiness.
Yet in the same breath, a strange bitterness befell me.
I wanted to be an apothecary, to work in the shop with Aureus.
Yet, as a woman, I never could be a healer, never let others see my skills.
Not when such a concept caused whispers in the street.
“Witch,” they called me. I could only ever be someone’s wife.
I let out a huff of air and brushed the thoughts away, tapping the pouch at my hip and considering how I might spend my coin. The slight weight of the mask was a comforting presence in the oversized pocket of my skirts.
After a short time, the path gave way to a cobbled road, and the hum of voices grew as people shopped in closer quarters. I stopped and raised my head, letting the awe of the city and the festival decorations settle over me.
Banners of a shimmering silver cloth that hung between buildings, some with moons painted on them, flitted in the light breeze.
Though the road was narrow, stalls still lined either side, pressed in tight against townhouses and shops.
In Elrune, very few buildings were taller than two floors high.
Here, some reached three or four. But they were nothing in comparison to the massive castle that sat atop the hill, at the highest point of the city.
With its towers, high walls, and billowing banners that must have been some thirty feet or more in length, decorated with the royal crest, the castle was a formidable and captivating sight.
A woman bumped into me, breaking me from my trance.
I’d been standing in the middle of the road, completely enthralled.
Yet beneath the wonder, my heart thumped with a distant sorrow.
For when the sun set, the castle would stretch an impending shadow over the poorer part of the city, on the eastern side where the hill dipped down to the meadow beyond.
In the alleys, the stench of decaying food and the contents of bedpans tossed from windows hung in the air.
Hunger clawed at the bellies of men, women, and children alike.
The path I traveled, where the higher classes lived and worked, was merely a facade.
Stepping to the side to allow people to pass by, I caught the scent of fresh bread.
I let my nose lead me to a bakery with a permanent stand out front.
Its awning was a stretched hide of some sort, sturdy and dyed a cobalt blue that matched the shop’s door, which stood propped open.
As I approached, a young boy wearing a dark apron, patted with smudged handprints of flour, appeared in the doorway, carrying a basket of rolls.
The bread steamed in the brisk midday air.
“How many can I get for a single ferre?” I asked the boy, nodding to the fresh bread as he drew nearer to the stand.
“One apiece, mam,” the child said. He placed the basket and adjusted the cap that sat atop his head. The cap, made of a brown fabric, matched his short, straight hair.
A ferre for a single roll. I let out a breath, and my stomach growled as if voicing my disappointment. If these were the prices in the city, I would have to head back toward the stalls in the outer grounds. I’d have better luck stretching my coppers there.
Someone brushed against my side, the touch faint, and I lowered my gaze, aware of the threat of pickpockets, though my pouch hung on my opposite hip.
Beside me, a girl made a quiet noise, an apology perhaps, and sidestepped.
Her shoulders slumped as if she were trying to shrink into herself, to be unseen, a shadow.
The baker’s boy leaned against the table, addressing the newcomer with a hostility that took me by surprise. “If you don’t have any coin, get lost.”
The girl swallowed, her throat bobbing. Her clothes were simple and worn, her tawny hair greasy and dirty, indicating it had been some time since she last bathed.
“Are you daft, skell? I’ll call the guards on you,” the boy sneered, using the derogatory term for someone who lived on the streets. I gritted my teeth at the child’s words, forgetting my vow to complacency. A fire burned in my belly.
“The fuck is your problem?” I snapped. Excellent, now I was cursing at children. Aureus would be so pleased.
The boy gawked at me, presumably never having heard a lady curse before. Well, there was a first time for everything. “She hasn’t done anything wrong. Leave her be.”
As if on cue, the girl at my side sucked in a breath and, with a thin arm, reached out and snatched a roll from the basket. Before I could form a word, she fled, the beige tones of her old clothing disappearing amid the crowd.
The baker’s boy shot me a glare. As I had with my brother, I met the child’s expression, knowing full well I’d been wrong and didn’t give a damn. He was still a little prick, and the girl was just hungry. I knew all too well what that was like.
Disregarding me, the boy stood tall on the toes of his boots and scanned the crowd.
I followed his gaze to a soldier, his attention rapt in the advancements of a street woman running a finger down his cuirass.
The boy hollered, and I sucked in a breath.
On reflex, I leaned across the table and grabbed him by the front of his shirt.
The contents of a rounded bowl were knocked over as I did.
The boy silenced, and a muscle twitched at his jaw.
Eyes darting back to the soldier, I released my breath, relieved to see he was still entirely distracted.
The woman, some ten years older than him at least, spoke against his ear.
She trailed one hand down his chest and cupped it rather blatantly between his legs.
The man’s lips gaped slightly; he released a moan that was silenced by the noise of the crowd.
The soldier would take little notice of anything so long as that woman entertained him.
So much for being a protector of the people.
Huffing, I turned my attention back to the boy.
“Stop yelling,” I hissed. The boy nodded, and I dropped my grasp on his shirt.
He narrowed his eyes and, without a word, pointed to my coin purse.
So that was how it would be. Fine.
I withdrew a single ferre and flicked it to him off the back of my thumb, scoffing when he missed the catch and had to drop to his knees to collect it off the ground.
While he was distracted with his head beneath the table, I considered pocketing a roll for myself, but my days of stealing were in the past.
I quirked my lips, considering Aureus’s number one rule. Don’t draw attention to yourself. There was always tomorrow for a fresh start and for following the rules. At this point, the day was already spoiled. I started off in the direction the girl had taken.
As I walked, I scanned the shadows. All children raised on the street knew that the light, the open, made us vulnerable.
Only in the dark recesses could we steady our breaths and wait for the passing of time, until the pounding of our hearts settled and the guards’ shouts diminished.
Then, and only then, could we consider our rashly stolen meal truly ours.
It took only a few minutes to find her hiding behind a cart in the narrow space between two buildings, a hiding place that would have been indiscernible except to those who knew where to look and had lived by the rules of the street.
Internally, I checked off Aureus’s list. Don’t draw attention to yourself, and, as I slowly skirted the wagon so as not to startle the girl off, I mentally marked off Stay on the main road, avoid alleys.
Kneeling just within the shadows, some seven feet from the child, I stilled my advancement. We studied each other. She was with her back against the wall and legs drawn to her chest, eyes wide with fright. Me with the gut-wrenching remembrance of what it was like to be in her position.
“They aren’t coming for you,” I reassured her. I nodded to the roll. “I paid for it.”
The girl’s pale eyes were a watchful cornflower blue. She held tight to her meal, likely the only food she’d had in days.
“I won’t take it from you. Eat. It’s alright.”
Hesitantly, she took a bite. Her stomach rumbled noisily, and with rapid breaths and unhinged hunger, she gave in to the need to sate the hollowness of her belly.
Sighing, I rocked back, sitting on my heels. I watched her, plagued by vague and fragmented memories of the time Aureus and I had lived on the streets. The images that came to me were fuzzy, like a fading dream.
Yet beneath that fog, there were the sensations.
Those I could remember with clarity. The gnawing emptiness of my belly, the pinching ache of starvation.
The press of skeletal bodies against my own, rasping with cough as the cold numbed me to my core.
Counting my breaths in the dark until Mother returned for us.
And through all of this, the one thing that grounded me was the reassurance of my brother’s hand.
And Mother’s lullaby, which he would hum to me to still my fear.
When the girl was finished with her roll, I scooted closer to her, bit by bit.
The rise and fall of her chest was steady, and her eyes addressed me with pointed curiosity.
When I was close enough, I reached out a hand and placed it atop hers, offering a reassuring smile, for there was nothing else to offer her, and I desperately longed to offer something.
However, at my touch, the girl inhaled sharply. I withdrew, and she dug the heels of her bare feet in, scraping at the stone. She tried to back away, only to press into the solid wall behind her.
As if realizing she had nowhere to go, her breath began to hitch.
“I won’t hurt you,” I promised, a tightness in my chest as I witnessed the panic building within her.
I worried my bottom lip, chastising myself.
Each person held within them an innate response to what they perceived as danger—fight or flee.
To flee was the safer option and what most chose.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a low voice, defeated, as I backed up to give her room.
But she didn’t flee.
Statue-like, aside from the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the girl held my eyes.
Like a cloud passing over the moon, shrouding the world in darkness, the blue of her irises faded.
They took on an ashen tone, chimney smoke against a dusk sky.
Her head dipped slightly, and her lashes fluttered; her knuckles were white where she held tight to the cloth of her pants.
As if she were fighting something internal.
The healer within me fumbled over this, leaving me with a push and pull. To offer help or to stay back so as not to further frighten her. What ailment brought about the darkening of eyes?
The girl’s body shook, and the air filled with an indescribable charge. My blood vibrated, accompanied by a prickling sensation that began in my fingers and spread out in static tremors. The hair rose on the back of my neck.
Releasing a breath to steady myself, recollection fell over me of the traveler’s warnings. The whispers of what people believed me to be, the whispers of a dark magic. Despite my knowledge, no other possibility came to mind. The black eyes, the charge in the air. The child was an Alidian.
Aureus’s last rule came to me as an echo in my mind, nearly drowned out by the steadily growing hum in my ears: stay safe.