Part of the Night-Chapter One Cont.

Spoiler! :

Please share your opinions regarding dialogue, I prefer describing things much more than having my characters talk. However there's more dialogue than description in this chapter so I'd like people's opinions!

I was able to swiftly dash through the rest of the city’s whereabouts. This city had always, in a sense, been mine. The way it always seems ready and able to help navigate me safely through the dead ends in the heart of the night. Whereas other’s lose their way and perish on the frigid street side. It also has been willing to shield me from the Castle Guards, known as the Light Bearers.

Tales of the Light Bearers are told when tiny thief children don’t obey. Threats about how the Light Bearers have the ability to wield a glistening form of magic. This magic is said to glow from the purest essence of light, and only the most perfect of men are capable of controlling it. Once their light has seen a glimpse of my kind, a street rat, there’s no way out.

Scullery women whisper about how the Light Bearers power is inescapable. They speak in the dark, murmuring about the way it will squeeze the life out of you. The way it coils around a thief’s neck, wringing itself around again and again, until all the air is constricted from the lungs. Resulting in the flare and sparkle of a bandits eye to dull and diminish into nothing but a pit of sorrow. Once this light has gone out the night beings end is near, for only then will a crook agree to leave the dark and join the light.

My body shivered at the mere thought of becoming a day creature as I proceeded down the alleyway, entering the marketplace. The warm smell of honeydew and roasted yams began to engulf my senses, as I examined all the people out at market. The marketplace is a mass area of the city where anyone can come and make a dollar. I smiled at the memory of picking my first pocket here with Cade.

Cade had been apart of the thieves ever since his mother left him for dead when he was only a babe. The master of the thieves took Cade under his wing as his personal student. Cade had certainly been trained well, allowing him to become one of the youngest and most respected members of the gang. His talents only improved more overtime as he quickly developed the necessary skills.

Therefore eleven years ago when he found me grimily scavenging through someone’s leftover pie he figured I would be a simple take. In Cade’s mind a “simple take” entails striping someone of all their valuables and bearings, then leaving them to ice over and freeze to death in the bleakness of the night.

So when he spotted me he had all intentions of ending my life and feeling no remorse. For in the words of Cade, “the work of a thief is shameless. What others view as cruelty we see as survival.”

Cade certainly didn’t display his abilities that night, for I was able to sense his presence behind me as he was about to drag a knife through my gown. Everything after that remains crystal clear in my memory, every tiny detail and movement of Cade’s weapon.

I could feel the breeze blowing my skirt as I wept and furiously dug through the pie. For a moment I stopped snuffling and glanced to my side. That was when I spotted the raggedy black haired boy, Cade. He was in a position ready to strike and tear at my once beautiful nightgown, when I called out.

“Why are you doing this?” I gazed into his eyes desperately trying to read his thoughts.

His eyebrows furrowed together revealing that I had puzzled him. So I began to speak again, my voice clear and smooth.

“If you must, then you can take all I have. It doesn’t matter, I’m dead already. Inside I mean…” I remember Cade looking at me in disgust as he started to lower his weapon.

“Girl why are you talking like that, who the hell are you?” His eyes full of hunger flew to the diamond necklace that was dangling around my neck. I clasped my hands around it squeezing it tightly, allowing the diamond to pierce my fingers as I whispered under my breath.

“My name is Saskia,” I straightened my spine and raised an eyebrow, “and you are?”

He just stared at me obviously puzzled before he responded with,

“Cade, and why are you dead inside?” I held my breath and began to smooth out my skirts before answering.

“I don’t know who I am, all I feel is emptiness. My mind is completely and utterly blank of any important memories. All I know,” I could feel tears welling up in my eyes as I tried to relay to this filthy little boy how I felt inside. “All I know is that I woke up wearing this dress in the midst of a bush.” My voice was barely audible but I knew the boy had heard me.

The next thing that Cade did will forever awe me. He scooped me up in his arms and took me back to his camp. At the time I’d had no idea where we were headed and I hadn’t cared, I hadn’t cared about anything except disappearing and dying.

After that night together Cade and I came up with my new name, Saskia Night. He helped me to find purpose in my new empty life. He became my mentor and taught me everything I needed to know about street life and our status with the way of things. We were at the bottom, the worthless scum, and we all knew it. However to us, the thieves, that was better than joining the light.

Cade and I were inseparable and in love, we helped one another with every job that we had ever been given. Well up until recently when I’d begun to question the natural order of the light and the dark. Cade is fully devoted to the dark and the order, therefore he doesn’t understand my skepticism, my doubts regarding that someone apart of the dark is doomed to being truely heartless and leading a life of affliction.

My thoughts quickly returned to navigating the marketplace as I felt the chilling wind brush up against my cheek. Each person in the market was busy at work, bustling around and yelling to one another. As I passed various stalls people yelled out to me, urging me to come over and do business with them.