PART ONE

THE DARK

PETBE

Every time on my birthday, someone dies. Well, not always. But I always felt it was bad luck.

I was getting showered with lemon milk and roses. The maids were dressing me up with the finest silk of Aztlan. My father was a priest you see and he had countless offers from the believers. My mother told me that it would be wiser to become a priestess too. Sleep to the clouds of bed sheets, eat sweets with white cream stuffed inside them, and give people hope like Father did. Like Princess of the Fairy Tales did.

But then I turned six.

Father died from a warlock attack. Every priest in the temple was found dead.

But that was not the only problem. The soldiers found that Father was stealing from the temple, selling statues and paintings for more money.

That made Mother a poor widow with her now almost an orphan girl. There was no support. No family to turn on them for sympathy for hope. Only pity and disgust.

The once-rich walls with expensive paintings were now empty, making the house look haunted. Mother didn’t even try to fix herself, or let the maids help her style her thick white hair. Because there were no maids.

My clothes were terrible too. Just like the ones the gunsmiths were wearing.

But Mother did not stop smiling. Even with her daily rugs she still tried to cook me dinner, send me to temples, and try to teach me everything a girl had to do. She was the one to wash my hair, make beautiful braids, and shower me with small kisses.

It was not much but it did not matter.

Or so I thought.

I turned ten when my mother woke me up in the middle of the night.

She was packed heavy with a suitcase close to her hips.

‘’Come here Petbe’’She let out a rough noise from her lips. I had never heard of her being so tired before.

She told me to sit down on a chair as she explained to me everything. That we had to move away from Aztlan. To a newfound home. But I had to do something.

Her fingers traced around my hair while a lullaby escaped her sweet lips.

Baby snow, Little snow all, pale and the softest of all.

Soft falling to the ground from the sky.

Baby snow little snow, you came from a storm.

And then she cut them all with a pair of scissors. So short that in the mirror, I thought that I was a boy. But my mother was different too. I had her blue crystal eyes, no light, no joy left. Her pale skin had lost weight as she barely was moving perfectly.

And then we walked out of the house, packed with heavy clothes and luggage.

I was far too young to understand but I do now. Money was not enough. They were kicking us out of our own house. So Mother decided to get us to a city made of darkness. Diyu. And she cut my hair for two reasons. To sell it and so I would not…

‘’For now, on, you will be a boy’’She told me as we were walking in the forest all alone. ‘’You will be a boy and your name is Pete,’’

‘’But what if I want to wear a dress?'' I asked her, tired.

‘’Pete’’Mother stopped walking and turned to me furiously. Spirits I had never seen so furious in my life.

''This place we are going is filled with wolves, sharp and filled with greed. They need lambs to survive. ''She took a deep breath and forced a smile.''They should think you are a cub, even if they will never see you.''

''But Mother-''I tried to argue but she hushed me.

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‘’Being a man is to keep you safe’’She lowered herself, clenching her hands to my shoulders. ‘’You have to be safe.’’

I had to be safe.

''You are now my little man,'' She played with my now short hair and kissed me with all of her strength on my forehead.

I was now inside the dark veil with my Mother. I could see everyone’s faces. Greed and despair that I could not understand.

And then I was locked up in a tiny dark house. A cage of an apartment with only one bedroom and a cranked flatbed a ruined bathroom and a kitchen ready to fall to the floor below. A new home my Mother said. But the new home was filled with a stinking smell.

Only my mother was allowed to walk outside. She was getting out, dressed in almost fine silk and with red lipstick late at night. Sometimes with green. She was returning early in the morning with money and food as her lipstick had now faded. On other days had a small box with canned beans and paste. Sometimes she had boiled potatoes on the crooked stove. And I always ate them all while Mother was eating shakily her canned beans.

But her smile was still there, no matter how many times her body was returned with marks of cigarettes or bruises. She still found a way to make me happy.

And one day, Mother did not return. I got used to her missing for days. She was missing for a month. She did not return.

And panic grew on me. I looked everywhere for any note of some clue, something. But there was nothing.

I was thirteen. Thirteen when my mother was gone.

And then there was a knock on the window.

A bird, I thought. But there are not supposed to be birds. I kept ignoring it. But the ticking became louder, almost as if the window had.

Opened.

I rushed to the tiny kitchen and began to search for anything to attack. First, I looked at myself in the nearest mirror. My hair had grown till my nape. Mother was supposed to fix them. Mother is not here.

I hid my hair in a hat and continued searching.

One step. Someone got inside.

One more step. I found a kitchen knife in the drawers and turned back.

The intruder was now in front of me. It only took her two steps.

I tried to attack but it was far too late as she disarmed so quickly as she pushed me to the ground.

Looking above, I could see the intruder’s face. She was probably a year younger than me. She was shorter than me, heavier than me, with dark hair braided, coal eyes, bronze skin, and a mask covering her mouth.

My knife in her hands, her eyes on my body, and her smile being exposed from her helm. Her weight pressured me to stay on the ground

I tried to move but she pressed my knife into my throat, letting me feel the dark blade.

''Nilcte'' She hissed. ‘’Where til Nilcte?’’

‘’What are you talking about?’’ I cried. Like I began sobbing in the presence of the girl.

''Please don’t hurt me,’’ I begged her, sniffing my nose. ‘’Please,’’

Her eyes were sharp and deadly. But for a second I saw them becoming soft. She moved slowly away from me as her free hand took off my hat, exposing my hair.

‘’You are not a boy.'' Her voice sounded broken, sincere.

I could not help but cry at how near her knife was to me. But she was now far from me with the knife moving away from my skin. I took the opportunity by swinging my hand to her face.

She let out a shout, with her body moving far from mine. I stood up, panting, and grabbed the knife from her relaxed wrist.

‘’Who are you?’’ I said, standing far from her, aiming the knife at her body.

I had a better look at her. The clothes she was wearing were a dark red tunic with thick sleeves beneath her dark gold vest. Almost every part of her skin was covered. Even with her black leggings and leathered filthy boots.

‘’Are you an assassin?’’ I squeaked, remembering my father’s stories. An assassin skipped his footsteps on the princess' balcony, wanting to take her life so a cruel witch would be the prettiest one on the land.

But I wasn't a princess. And she was not an assassin.

The girl panted and stood up without any care that I had the advantage.

She patted her leggings and let her sharp gaze at me. Then, she looked at the rest of the apartment. But mostly at one picture that was hung on the wall. A family picture of my Mother, Father, and me when I was four, still in my Mother’s arms. After that, the girl grunted.

The girl’s eyes opened confused as she stared back at me.

‘’Who are you?’’ I finally gathered the strength to speak.

No answer. One more look at her clothes. Spirits I have forgotten how many years I haven’t seen someone, someone my age for years. I almost forgot how to interact.

One look at the girl again. She stood silently. Tired as she kept looking at me.

‘’Mara’’A voice shouted from outside the window. Both I and the girl faced it shocked. When the girl turned her head back, I noticed how her braided hair had a beautiful pin of white crystal as a base and bright rubies shaping a crimson flower with more white crystals, small once in touch with the rubies.

‘’Are you alright? Did you find her?’’ The voice shouted again.

My brow arched and looked back at the picture of my family.

‘’Her?’’ I turned to the girl. ‘’Are you talking about my mother?’’

The girl looked away with her shoulders rising.

‘’Where is she?’’ I asked. ‘’It’s been a month.’’

The girl narrowed and showed her knife as she was walking away from me. A sort of panic grew in my heart and did not take any step front or back.

‘’Keep your disguise.'' The girl with the name Mara whispered.’’If you don’t want to end up missing too.’’

Back then I thought that that moment was a love story coming out of a fairy tale.

But then I grew up, and I realized that it was a love story coming out of a tragedy.