CHAPTER TWO

PART ONE

Alinea

Six Solsturns Earlier

At twelve, I learned the harsh reality of life. 

It was one of those really rare nights when I’d “found” enough coins to feed me and Pops till we were full. Not just satisfied. I was so excited to share with him, even though he’d likely scold me for stealing again, then smile despite himself–the usual. 

I was walking down the alley to get to our small room, shared by a few others because none of us could afford rent alone. 

Then there was a scream, a woman’s voice I recognized. 

My heart picked up, so did my feet. Then I was running. Fire. Fire everywhere. I couldn’t breathe, both from the smoke and my tears; the coin pouch I’d stolen long forgotten back down the street. I had to find Pops. I threw furniture and worthless things out of my way mindlessly.

“Pops! Pops, w-where’d you go?” I screamed and kicked as the woman, our roommate, Kiera, did her best to drag me outside until her husband held me down. All of it futile. Soon, the fire settled and disappeared, leaving ash and smoke in its wake. I scrambled to my feet and raced inside. All our stuff had at least charred, most worse. Burnt. Dead. Useless. 

My breath had caught in my throat at the sight. The body had burns all over, severe ones. Its arm was bent in a sickening way, and the leg bone was sticking out of its skin. And the face. Even with most of it seared off, the eyes were so recognizable. His gray eyes. The ones that used to look down at me with warmth, pride, forgiveness. The eyes that stared lifelessly at the floorboard.

To this day, I have no idea how long I knelt there, bawling out my eyes. I also vomited quite a bit. Eventually, the gnawing emptiness in my stomach became impossible to ignore. My stomach twisted painfully, demanding what I had no strength to give it. Still, I rose. Grief would not feed me. Tears would not undo. So I walked.

My feet knew the way better than I did at the moment–face tear-streaked, hair snarled with ash. They had carried me there on empty mornings, wild afternoons and nights when Pops pretended he wasn’t hungry so I could eat more. The clamor reached me first: merchants barking prices, wheels grinding over stone, coins clinking in palms that had never known hunger. Then came the smells. Hot bread, roasted meat, horse sweat, sweet peaches and smoke. The smoke made my throat close.

My gaze caught it: a coin pouch, fat and heavy, swaying from the belt of a tall man cutting through the crowd. It bounced against his thigh with every step, clinking softly, practically calling my name. I told myself I only needed enough for a pastry. Maybe a delightful apricot too, if Helios was feeling generous. My fingers twitched; Pops would have scolded me. Pops is gone. 

I stumbled straight into the tower of a man, causing him to drop his bag, along with his pouch.

“I-I’m so sorry, sir. Please forgive me.” While making my voice sound small and harmless, I swiped the pouch and stuffed it into my dirty pocket, then continued to babble apologies before he let me off easy. Well, that’s how it went in my head.

His strong hand snapped around my forearm, gripping it hard enough to make me wince. He leaned down to my face level, close enough I could smell his breath that stank of stale ale, his smile too slow to be remotely kind. “That yours, little rat?” 

His coat shifted, and I saw the bronze leather badge tucked underneath. My stomach plummeted. My heart was pounding; I couldn’t even get a syllable out. I looked around, desperate for help. People saw. People always saw. They just decided not to.

“Well, well. What’s a little gutter rat doing with my coin?” 

I shook my head so hard my hair clung to wet cheeks. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

His grin only stretched. “No? Then you won’t mind emptying your pockets.”

My whole body went cold, thoughts scrambling. I had to think of something.

“I could hand you over,” he said. “Or…” His gaze crawled over me again. “I could make use of you.”

I smashed his toes with as much force as my skinny body could manage, darting off. 

“You’ll pay for that, brat!”

I ducked under hanging cloths and crates raised high, dodging overturned baskets, hopping over bird carcasses and spilled fruit, and yet, I rammed straight into his chest. I tried getting away from his taunting smirk. It just didn’t work.

My knees ached from the hard platform, wrists rubbed raw by the shackles, throat dry, lips cracked, the sun beating down on my face. Children pointed while their mothers ushered them away. Some townsfolk just stood and stared, some laughed.

The restraints were awfully tight, biting deeper every time I shifted. I had stopped pulling at them hours ago. All it did was tear at my skin. 

The sun never sank, but based on the silence, it was likely twilight. The market had emptied around me, but not in a kind way. The stillness felt worse than the laughing. Because it left me to my own thoughts. Scraps of cabbage and bruised fruit lay smashed into the dirt below the platform. What a waste. A few flies circled near my knees. Somewhere beyond the square, someone was singing, warm and careless, until quickly quieted by a nearby “Shut the hell up!”

Then I heard it. A soft slosh. My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. My head lifted. The guard stepped out from the shadow of a nearby stall, turning the canteen lazily in his hand. It was made from dark animal hide stitched along the sides, swollen with water. Real water. Clean water, maybe. My throat ached for water, my mouth yearned for it.

“Thirsty, little thief?” he asked. I did not answer. I would not beg. I would not give him that. He tipped the canteen. Water spilled onto the planks in front of me, darkening the dry wood. The sound was small, almost gentle. However, it struck me like a slap. My body moved on its own. I lurched forward, irons snapping tight, wrists burning as I strained toward the wet boards.

The chains caught me hard enough to yank the breath from my lungs. Pain shot up both arms. My knees scraped across the wood, but I kept reaching anyway, fingers clawing toward the dark stain spreading over the planks. So close.

Then the water slipped between the cracks. Drop by drop. Gone.

He laughed under his breath. “Look at that,” he murmured. “Still has some fight in her. Or is that just thirst?”

I said nothing.

“Seven days up here,” he said, tapping the empty canteen against his palm. “No food worth chewing. Barely enough water to keep your tongue from cracking. That’s what thieves get.”

I said nothing.

He crouched in front of me, close enough that I could see the grime beneath his fingernails. “Unless, of course, they prove useful.”

“What do you want?” I finally spat.

“Those hands of yours,” he said, glancing at my shackled wrists. “Quick enough to steal from me. Not quick enough to get away, but quick enough.”

“And?”

“People don’t notice children,” he responded. “They speak over them. Around them. Through them. I need ears where mine can’t go. I need you to steal something for me.”

“What if I say no?”

“Your father died in that fire, didn’t he?”

My breath stopped.

He knew he already won. “Do this for me, and perhaps I'll tell you who lit it. Besides, you don’t have much choice, brat.”

I spent too long wishing for another way. There wasn’t one.

“There’s an auction house in the upper district. The Gilded Exchange. Tomorrow, nobles from every corner of the Solian Republic will gather there to wave their gold around and pretend it makes them holy.” He smiled. “One of them will be carrying an envelope sealed in red wax. You’re going to bring it to me.”