Petals for Vicious Secrets (The Panom Saga #1)

1. Chapter 1

1

T he best approach on Trading Day was to kill for survival. Hence why beings with a peaceful mindset never made it out alive.

The dark-haired young woman was patiently waiting for the sandglass to turn in the exact spot facing the big arena where she had been countless times over the past six years. The only difference today was that her mother wasn’t at her side. She had suffered severe injuries in the previous Trading and right now, she was clinging to life by some Cardinals-blessed miracle that surely would not last much longer.

It was a defiance in its own that none of them had ever been injured before in over twenty-four years of Trading. Her mother had always been the one who got everything they needed since their arrival at Verdania. Every single Trading. Every single week. For eighteen years she had always gone alone, and returned to the treehouse alone. Until her daughter had convinced her she could stay alive and kill whoever she needed to. It had only taken three years of convincing. And fifteen years of learning to fight.

The rivalry against the villagers had been increasing over the years. There were more of them than ever and less useful stuff provided by the Trading Table. The Rulers either grew tired of supplying long-term food, construction materials, and warm clothes, or they were deluded enough to think that giving cakes and flower vases to an island full of starved people was relevant or funny. On the only day per week when they could get items other than what Verdania itself provided. There was a handful of options which the dark-haired woman thought they could shove up their pretty vases.

Her mother had been sweating and weak in bed since two men had paired up and stabbed her at the same time. All to steal a blanket she had gathered in her pack. If there was such a thing as stealing when it came to Trading Day. The mentality was more suit-yourself or kill-yourself than anything remotely similar to caring about property and ownership.

The dark-haired young woman shook her head silently, remembering it. She didn’t mind that her blanket had thinned over the years and there wasn’t more than a foot without a hole. No blanket could be worth her mother’s life. She had made the two men understood that very clearly before their last breaths.

So, here she was. Her first ever Trading Day by herself. She could only hope that the Rulers had been kind enough to leave some sort of medicine at the Table. Her plan B was to get as much food as possible and try to help her mother recover.

At the heart of the expansive arena, a lengthy table was set up, offering enough space for thirty people to dine together. Except there were no chairs. Just a huge white cloth on top of it. Standing in a circle around the Table there was a good mix of strangers: a handful of young skinny children, probably orphans like most children in Verdania; tons of young men and women, faces ready with the focused look that only experience could give; some older people, with tired faces and aching bodies; and then a few random people who looked like they had no idea about what they were getting into or what to expect.

Even when she had first gone to the Trading, the dark-eyed woman hadn’t been in the latter group. She had been thoroughly briefed and prepared. Her mother was not perfect by any means, but she was a fighter. A life fighter. And that was exactly what the Trading was about, she explained when the dark-haired girl was old enough to understand.

“The Trading is not about the oh-so-generous Rulers providing for us to survive for a week. The Trading is a game of goals and intention, a chance for them to see if we have lost the will to live or not yet.”

Except the Trading had evolved over the years and had become a survival fight, and the Rulers didn’t seem to care about whether they lived or died. They were Trading with their lives. If anything, the Rulers were helping by providing multiple weapons on the Trading Table regularly.

The sand falling down showed two minutes until past meridiem. Two minutes to until the sun would shine from the middle of the sky. Two minutes to focus. The plan was simple, and so was the advice.

No distractions. No pity for others. No looking around the fallen ones. If they were dead, she could grab some extra items from them, but that would take time. And she did not have time to waste. If there was indeed any medicine at the Trading Table, she would not be the only one looking for it. Not in Verdania, where people died every day from all sorts of sickness.

One minute left. The experienced traders started jumping on the spot, some lifting their legs up to their waist, some stretching their arms and necks, some adjusting the belts where different weapons hung from. She knew some faces from other Trading Days, but it was useless to pay much attention. People didn’t live until they were old in this place, and death was only a knife away. Emotional attachments and socialization were a waste of energy.

With no warning sound, the cloth on top of the Trading Table disappeared, revealing everything underneath. The Trading had started. People around her started running.

It took her a half a second to take a deep breath and start her sprint to the Table. She was running and feeling her fast heartbeat, hearing her deep breaths. The floor was smooth, her steps were steady, her body fast. She could see people around her slowing down, unable to keep the sprint pace for much longer. But she could. She had been practicing for years. Even with hunger present in their lives as a well-known companion, she trained her muscles. Her legs could sprint for a while longer.

She counted three young women, six young men and an older man still running at the fastest pace they could. Like she was. Eleven people that would fight for the best of whatever the Table brought for them today.

The dark-haired woman was now fast approaching the Table, and things on top became clear. There was a vast pile of clothes on her right side of the table, as high as a tall person. At the other end of the Table, there were plates and bowls full of what seemed to be warm food, by the looks of the steam raising to the sky and the delicious smell coming from them. Her stomach grumbled and her eyes couldn’t stop looking there. In the middle of the table, there was a vast area filled with a variety of small things. She couldn’t tell what the items were from her distance. Four other people went straight to the middle area, one young man to her right, and three young women in front of her, running from the opposite side of the Table.

She had to hold the Table with her hands to stop smashing against it. She grabbed her empty cloth bag from her back and started looking for things that could be medicine. The other traders were fast. So fast. She usually was much faster identifying items, packing them, and running away to safety. If she only knew what a medicine would look like in the world of Rulers.

If they are fast, I need to be faster. But where on Terrha was the medicine? She saw an array of knifes but the belts on her thighs and waist needed no more. There were small devices full of buttons and numbers, things that looked like they could make noise, stacks of paper and pens, candles, boxes made of strings, sparkly long things she guessed were jewels, wood pieces of all sorts and shapes, and so many other things that her head ached by trying to pay attention to all of them at once. And next to the very middle of the Table, there were six small vials full of colorful liquid. Two blue ones, two green ones, two red ones. All in a neat white little tray.

For all she knew, the liquids could be fruit juice or poison. She could not risk another week of her mother being sick without a medicine. She knew she might not make it to the following Trading.

A pale young woman in front of her stood still. Her hair was like snow and her eyes like the bluest sky. Her pale hand was stretched towards the vials, looking at them with the same worried look the dark-haired woman likely had. There is no time for this. No time for distractions. Grab all the vials and run.

The blue eyes of the young woman looked between her and the vials, which were closer to her. She could probably grab them and make a run for it. But the blue-eyed stranger swiftly picked one vial of each color and placed them in her bag, then looked at her and slightly nodded as in a silent agreement. Leaving one vial of each color for the dark-haired woman. For her mother.

If the Rulers were going to be useful for once and one vial did, in fact, contain medicine. How they would figure that out was a thought for later. Now all she had to do was pack the vials and run. From the initial eleven, only a red-haired young man picking weapons in the middle area, the blue-eyed white-haired young woman now on the food end of the table, and she remained there.

Without a further look back, she started sprinting to the forest on her left. With all the other slower villagers now approaching the Table, it wasn’t that easy. The young woman felt angry stares on her, towards her bag, and she could see the reflection of blades coming out of their safe places as two young women pivoted and started running towards her instead of the Table. She sprinted faster and faster. There was no doubt she could outrun them. She had to.

The red-haired young man from the first eleven was ahead of her, running towards the forest as well. She could not hide if there were other people around. It wouldn’t be safe. She moved towards the south part of the forest.

Panting, her own heartbeat sounding in her ears as loud as drums, she stood behind a tree for a couple of breaths. Enough to acknowledge her surroundings, briefly inspect the area and assess potential risks. There were tall trees with thick bases around her. It was a dense, vast forest, and she could not see the end from where she stood. She could only see the arena behind her and hear some sort of water stream further inside the woods. No sight of the two young women that had chased her for a while from the Table. Even from the woods, she could hear screams coming from the Table. Adults screaming and, with a sting on her chest, she heard children screaming too. How dare anyone attack innocent children because of material things? No distractions. No pity. Focus.

The dark-haired woman found a tall tree separated from the others and started climbing it. She wouldn’t risk staying in a tree that others could reach from nearby branches. The final choice was a thicker branch, a safe distance from the ground. She just had to wait until everything fell silent again, until the screams and steps ceased, and when no one remained, she would go home. It was the safest way to get home without unwanted traders following her and knowing where she’d take the items she got from the Table.

Her sweat became dry on her skin, and she could feel thirst and hunger building up. She could wait. She was probably thirty minutes away from her treehouse. From her mother. The last thing she had to eat was an apple that same morning. They always kept the best ones for Trading Day.

From her spot at the top of the tree, she saw some people carefully walking through the woods. None saw her. She wore brown clothes that hid her well in the woods, all part of the elaborated plan her mother had successfully completed for years. Their bodies were similar: slightly muscled, not too tall, not too thin. That made it easier to share the few clothes they had. The main difference between her mother and her was the hair. Mother had short light brown hair, yet she had almost-black hair, long to the end of her back, usually plaited in two braids on the sides to keep her comfortable while running or training.

It had probably only been an hour since the Trading had started, and the silence grew louder around her. Occasional branches snapping in the woods revealed people walking around them. She thought she could wait a bit more before heading home. Then she heard the scream.

A female scream, loud enough to know it was somebody nearby, and with pure rage and pain in it to know someone had been badly hurt.

I am safe here. No distractions. No pity for others.

Another high-pitched scream made the branches and leaves shake, closer this time. As if the trees were not happy about it. From her branch, the dark-haired woman saw a man dragging a hurt female through the woods. A white-haired young woman with her hands tied in front of her.

She recognized the dark clothes of the blue-eyed woman that had ceded the vials to her. The vials to potentially save her mother. By tying a piece of cloth around her mouth, the man silenced her screams. The woman kept kicking her legs with energy, even though one leg had a cut that was big enough to be visible from her spot at the top of the tree.

She felt a knot in her stomach as she felt the panic in the kicks of the white-haired young woman increase. A young woman that could be the same age as her. That would die at the hands of this man if nobody helped her.

No pity for others. This is the Trading. We all know what we come for. We all know what can happen.

She knew how to fight. Her mother had taught her how to defend herself since she had memory. “You can only trust yourself, always be prepared to strike and save your live,” she always repeated.

“Don’t bother with the kicks, Nina, you know how this is going to end. You’ve seen it coming for weeks,” said the man with a bored hand gesture while looking at the sharp dagger in his hand.

The white-haired woman stopped kicking and looked at him in the eyes. There was rage in that stare. From the top of the branch, the dark-eyed woman could sense the hatred that flowed between them two.

“It is very easy. You just need to tell me where are you hiding your little brother, and I’ll let you go,” he continued. The dark-haired woman very much doubted that was going to be the case. He added, “Or if you choose not to help, I will kill you, and when I find Raoul, I will kill him, too.”

Her feet moved unconsciously on the branch, quiet with the expertise of doing so during years, but the blue eyes met her dark brown ones for less than a second. She could see the defeat in them. The impotence. The fact she was assuming this was her end. And her brother’s end too, apparently.

She assessed the situation. It was only this man, and the tied woman underneath her tree. She could easily take over one man and then help her get out of here. It was just him. She could do it. It was not risking too much. A voice in her head told her this was exactly what her mother always told her to stay away from: trouble that was not directly related to her. But this woman, this Nina, had helped her. Without her, there would be no vials in her bag. Thanks to those vials, she maybe had a chance to help her mother live through next week.

Without thinking about it again, she unsheathed two of her daggers. So long, sharp and pointy that they almost looked like spears. She grabbed one in each hand and carefully moved through the branches to position herself on top of them while he continued talking with the same bored voice.

“I don’t have many places to be today other than here. Which works out well, as I can enjoy your death. We’ll take it slow. There is no rush. So where shall we start? Shall I break the bones of your arms or shall we have a different type of fun as starters?” he asked while stretching his wrists and looked at her with a satisfied smile. Nina had stopped moving, her breath steady and charged with fear. The only noise coming from her was the dripping blood from her leg, now making a small puddle.

He took one step, and a dagger neatly stuck his foot to the ground. His scream was short and acute, his eyes moving around desperately to see who threw the metal weapon.

The dark-haired woman jumped to the ground, landing quietly within arm’s reach of the man, and spiked the spear on his throat in a neat strike. He could only open his eyes wide while he choked on his blood and fell face-up on the ground, his stuck foot bending in an awkward position.

Nina's blue eyes were wide, looking at her with a combination of awe, relief, and horror. Did she think she was going to hurt her?

“I will not harm you,” she said. “If you want, I can untie you and try to fix your leg so you can get out of here.” Nina nodded, a tear appearing in the corner of her eye.

She removed the cloth from Nina's mouth and undid the tie that held her hands together.

“Why?” was all Nina said, relief tears now silently flowing down her cheeks.

“You were generous before,” she said while cutting with her hands a long piece of her shirt. She started wrapping it around the cut on Nina's leg like a bandage.

“I need to go, but I can help you get somewhere safe first,” she said while looking around the trees. They were too visible sitting there on the ground, and the blood puddle would start attracting animals soon enough.

“Thank you. He would have killed me. The last time I barely escaped,” she said. Her white hair was so bright it was impossible to camouflage in the woods. “What’s your name?”

The dark-haired woman hesitated. Giving out one’s name was like giving one’s hand, and hadn’t she just done that.

She swallowed, and opted for the truth. “My name is Hope.”