“She could’ve just told me that at the beginning. What a waste of time!” Abrial muttered to herself irritatedly as she emerged from the darkness into daylight again. As she looked up, she frowned.
Wait a minute…Where did the sign go?
The fortune teller’s wooden sign, which had been swinging squeakily outside when she entered, was nowhere to be seen.
Abrial whirled around, flabbergasted.
Where the entrance to the underground room had been, there was now only a wooden wall. It was as if the fortune teller…
Had just never been here at all.
Abrial stared, utterly perplexed for a whole minute. She blinked and rubbed her eyes, turned in a circle and kicked the wall to check if it was fake or something.
Nope. It kind of hurt. Not fake.
Abrial rubbed her chin in thought, contemplating this strange turn of events. Was this some kind of brand of advanced magic, making rooms and signs disappear like they’d never even been there? It must be — she couldn’t have just imagined all that, right?
Yeah, that had to be it. Right? And if that was true…did it mean that fortune-telling old woman was…kind of legit? As in, legit enough that Abrial should listen to her?
The real question is, should I listen to that old woman and meet Finley under the biggest star in the north? Or should…I keep running back towards the house and Finley?
The woman’s yellowed teeth, gleeful, slightly crazed grin, and yellowed toenails flashed across her mind. Her mouth curled sourly.
“How can I know for sure what a fortune teller tells me is true? Especially one who was as wacky as her? I need to make sure Finley’s safe, and I can’t do that if I just follow some star in the opposite direction of the house. How about this: if she’s not at the house, I can head to that camp place next. But first thing’s first, I need to get to Finley.”
With her eyes determinedly glinting dark as obsidian, Abrial plunged back into the market crowd, heading for the exit.
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The next village over was about a day’s running away. It could be seen from the outskirts of Gananjag on the top of a hill a good ways away in the direction of the house.
Abrial spent the day alternating between sprinting and briskly jogging until after a while her limbs finally began to shake and she could hardly lift her legs. Then, at last, she flopped down reluctantly into the grass and lay staring up at the sky, heaving breaths as loud and raw as storm gusts.
The sky was very beautiful today.
It was the same bright, azure blue as she had often seen laying in the bushes of the garden or by the lotus pond, staring up at the clouds. But from the grass on a hillside far, far away from that prison of a house, it felt different, somehow.
Wider.
Vaster.
More endless.
A soothed smile rested on Abrial’s face as she watched white wisps of cloud float by in a sea of blue. The breeze rustled the tall grass around her gently, tickling her face, but she didn’t move to push it away. The sun was mellow and warm. Her breath calmed, slowly quieting into an easy rhythm.
“I wonder if Finley’s looking at the sky right now,” she mumbled. “I hope she’s looking at the sky. I hope she’s all right.”
When she woke up, the sun was high in the sky again. She swore and sat up, wiping drool from her face irritably. Launching to her feet, she gathered up her sack and began muttering furiously to herself.
“That’s what I get for not sleeping last night. My body really does always give out on me if I haven’t slept for a day. Why can’t I just be tougher and not sleep for three?!”
She swigged an enormous gulp of water from a jug she’d swiped at the market and filled at the river beside Gananjag. The water was sweet. She chugged half of it, then stored it away and stuffed a roll of bread into her mouth. After a few chews, she swallowed it as though it were water, too.
Then she set off down the hill at a brisk run, headed for the next village up ahead.
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The next village was similar to the last. Many clustered small houses, a river nearby, and the merry sounds of a market within. When Abrial entered, people stared at her here, too, though this time, far more out of suspicion than interest.
“Look at her, wearing stark black. Is she a thief?”
“She looks fierce. A little threatening, too, doesn’t she?”
“Watch out for her. I’ve heard there are more bandits out and about lately.”
Their words went right over Abrial’s head. She was headed, this time again, straight for the market. She hadn’t seen many more villages in the direction that would take her back to the house, so she wanted to steal as much food as possible for the journey. This would be her last stop, if she could help it. Then it’d be sprinting, sleeping, and sprinting the rest of the way.
When she reached the market, there was some sort of commotion going on.
A big crowd had formed, blocking her view of what was going on. Several stands near the crowd had been overturned somewhat violently: one was broken in half, beads and bracelets scattered chaotically over the road; another had a cracked awning and was buried in a mound of unraveled embroidered cloth.
Somebody inside the crowd cried out.
Abrial’s obsidian eyes sharpened.
It was a cry of intense pain.
She grabbed the nearest person by the elbow — a middle-aged man.
“What’s going on?”
He looked at her, miffed, and shook her hand off his elbow. “The guards caught a magician. They’re punishing the person now.”
“Punishing a magician?”
Something whistled through the air further in the crowd, and cracked against something.
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The person screamed in pain.
Abrial’s lip curled, her teeth clenching tight. Her eyes flashed dangerously.
A whip.
“Hey! Let me through! Get out of the way!” She forced her way through the dense crowd, elbowing and slipping between people until she had reached the front row. There, her fists curled into hard stones.
There was a young person sprawled in the dirt, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. Abrial couldn’t tell if they were a boy or a girl; in fact, they seemed both feminine and masculine at once. Their dark blue cloak had been ripped in two, and their black robe was torn and bloodied in many places. There were cuts on their thin collarbone where the robe was torn away, and their face was badly bruised. One of their eyes was swollen shut and purple. Out of the corner of their mouth dribbled a trail of dark, shining blood.
Standing all around the young person were guards.
She assumed they were guards, at least. Judging by their crimson armor coats covered with steel scales and shining helmets, they were probably even imperial guards — part of the Emperor’s military. Their boots were large and spiked, like the ones Friedrick always wore. The type that shook the earth with each step.
Abrial’s eyes flashed like molten lava. Her vision flickered hot and red at the thought of Friedrick, and how similar these guards seemed to him.
The enormous guard standing in front of the beaten young magician was playing with something between his hands. Abrial tasted furious acid in her throat when she saw what it was: a thin, long, woven whip with what looked like small spikes on it. He was flicking it in circles as though it were a tassel or a toy.
“You little demon! I will repeat, as has been imperially decreed for hundreds of years, you and all those like you are barbarous and not fit to exist in our society. Admit it! You’re scum, you magician!” The guard spat on the young magician, who lay limply on the ground, their chest rising weakly.
They raised their head the slightest bit, then lowered it again, saying nothing.
The whip flashed through the air. It cracked against the young magician’s skin with the sound of thunder, and the magician swore hoarsely in pain. A guard close by raised a foot and kicked them, sending them sprawling in the other direction. The spikes on his boot left cuts bleeding scarlet down the magician’s shoulder, the sleeve of their robe hanging in shambles.
Abrial’s fists began to shake. Her teeth ground at each other like a pestle and mortar. Something was bubbling up within her, fiery and violent, like scarlet molten rock, threatening to burst out of every orifice of her body.
“This weak little bastard, heh.” The guard with the whip laughed. He spat again at the magician, his spit landing in their relatively short, dark hair. “You dared to attack a guard with your unclean demon’s magic — you lunatic scum! Who knows who you would have attacked next? Magicians like you live to inflict pain, to curse others, to bring hardship. Now, will you say it or not? Admit that you’re filthy, vile waste! Then, I might spare your puny, disgusting little life today. I’m in a good mood, heh.”
The young magician attempted to move further away from the guard, but they were moving slowly as a crippled person. Their left arm didn’t seem to be working.
“That…stupid guard…was fucking…stealing from…me…” they mumbled hoarsely.
The guard smirked, lip curling leeringly.
“Be careful with that dirty mouth, accusing the Emperor’s guards of theft when you’ve cursed everyone in this village with your presence. If you won’t admit you’re scum yet, I’m happy to give you another ten rounds!”
The whip flew through the air in a twisted arc. The young magician curled up as best as they could to shield themself, scrunching their swollen eyes shut.
Whoosh.
A dagger slashed through the air, slicing the whip in two. Half of it fell to the ground with a flump at the guard’s feet.
Abrial stood between the guard and the magician, the dagger gripped tightly in her hand. Around her, her black and scarlet robes fluttered like blood and stone. Her obsidian eyes smoked with a dangerously dark, burnt rage.
The guard blinked, thrown off for a moment. Then his face split into a wide, square-toothed grin. He began to splutter with laughter, pointing a thick finger at Abrial as he wheezed.
“You’re defending this bastard? Are you its lover? Come to save its worthless bum?”
Abrial gnashed her teeth, eyes flashing. “Shut the fuck up, you fucking worthless scum!”
Suddenly, the guard’s howls faded away. His lip twitched, along with one of his dark, wide eyes. Slowly, very slowly, he bent down to Abrial’s height, twirling the half-whip near her face.
“Little lady,” he growled, his voice unplayful. “Unless you’re this scum’s lover or sister, it would seem to me that you have no intelligent reason to be acting like this right now — unless you’re either stupid…or you’re also a demonic magician who needs to be dealt with in accordance with imperial law.”
The crowd gasped.
“I knew it!” one person called. “She was wearing black, and she looked so livid! A demonic magician, for sure!”
Abrial hardly heard them.
“So what if I was a magician?” she spat. “Who the fuck cares? Tell me what’s wrong with magic?! And tell me what crime this person committed for you to beat them almost to death! RIGHT NOW! Or get the fuck out of here!”
The guard’s lip curled back at her. His eye continued to twitch with rage.
He lowered the whip slowly, tracing it along the side of her bare neck, down to her pale collarbone like a scratching finger. It left a thin, pink mark where it touched her skin.
“So I’ve got a little bitch on my hands, have I? Listen here — magic itself is a sin. Hasn’t anyone told you? For that, both of you ought to be tortured to death as an example, and to cleanse this innocent village of curses. But wouldn’t it be a shame if this pretty little neck of yours was scarred with whip marks for the rest of your life?”
Nausea roiled in Abrial’s stomach. Her vision went red.
Silver flashed through the air. Something dropped to the dirt with a quiet flump.
It was the other half of the whip —
along with the guard’s index finger.
The crowd gasped in horror.
Abrial’s dagger gleamed crimson in her fist, dripping thick drops of blood. Her eyes smoldered with revulsion and satisfaction.
A drop of blood dripped from the guard’s hand to the ground. It splattered the half-whip, sliding down its side into the dirt.
“You little bitch.”
The guard’s voice was trembling. His lips curled into a snarl. He raised his now four-fingered hand, quivering with rage, to point at Abrial — or, just to gesture vaguely at her, since he didn’t exactly have an index finger to point with anymore, heh.
“You little whore!”
Abrial’s eyes glittered with dark fire, black as onyx. With every one of his words, her lips curled into a more enraged scowl.
The guard continued, his voice shaking and swelling in volume to a troll’s beastly bellow.
“You think you can get away with cutting off the finger of one of the highest-ranking generals in the Emperor’s military? Do you even know who I am?! You little bitch, you whore, you think, just because you’re fast with a knife and have a rebel streak, you can get away with anything? You think you can raise a finger against me, His Divine and Immortal Majesty the Emperor’s Imperial General Magnus, and live?”
Abrial snorted, squinting at this buff man in disdain.
“Raise a finger against you? An imperial general, or whatever? If you’re the standard for imperial generals, the Emperor’s military has gotta be really laughable. All I see is a big, stupid oaf who works for a silly, stupid Emperor. Heh…imperial general my ass…”
The crowd gasped around her, with even more horror than before, if that was possible. Everyone broke into a shocked muttering.
“Did you hear that?”
“She called His Divine Majesty silly!”
“Stupid, too! What a deadly sin…What a demon she is!”
The guard’s mouth curled into a sick smile. He wiped his hand on the cloth of his pants, letting the blood soak into it in a growing stain.
“You show the utmost disrespect for His Majesty, I see. You’re giving me more reasons to tear you apart limb from limb every moment.” He grinned, showing a mouth of squared, half-yellowed teeth. His dark eyes gleamed like greedy prisms, inspecting her up and down. “I’m going to torture you until you can’t remember how to use that cheeky mouth to speak even one more word, you little demoness. And then…I’ll kill you. Because I can! Heh.”
With that, he lunged forward like an enormous, ferocious bear.