"Bandits? Thieves? Don't pester me with such nonsense. My kingdom is devoid of such ruffians. 

You can put that in writing." 

- Mehmet III

Part One:  Omir

Chapter 1 - Zero Hour

She was too late. Blood was swirling into the gutter and already she had recognised the crumpled body, lying face-down in a puddle. It was her brother.

Since the Maulers had threatened them—no, earlier than that—since they had crossed paths in the alley with those stinking thugs, they had been leading to this point. And now he was dead.

The girl could hear footsteps parting around them as people hurried to get out of the storm. The rain washed away her tears, but it did nothing for the devastation gripped her heart.

She was crouching over the body of a young man, not much older than herself, with the same tone of skin, the same fuzzy brown hair she had, a patch of stubble coating his chin. Her brother was already gone by the time she arrived, and she knelt before him, sinking her knees into a pool of rain and blood.

Rolling him onto his back, she touched his face softly before daring a look at the rest. His mortal wound was a wicked-looking gouge below his armpit, with shallower cuts over his chest and neck, which were visible by the rips on his shirt that was soaked in crimson. Where his clothing met the puddle, threads of blood mixed with muddied water to make a purplish hue, the colour of bruises. Her brother's eyes were open, staring at the darkened sky with something like mild indifference. They had once sparkled with life, a red-gold colour. But now they weren’t shining, weren’t bright, just a dull, flat orange. Their light gone out forever.

The blade he had been holding was still firmly clutched in his right hand, never having struck home.

“No…” the girl sobbed, almost voiceless. “You fool… Why did you…”

She cried in silence, alone in one of the many alleyways in Vesper. In the eyes of the blue-blooded avero, the entrepreneurial mereosa and the wealthier residents, Vesper was a beautiful place. The famed City of Bridges, home to many trading guilds, famous musicians and sculptors, its landscape replete with lush gardens, palatial manors, and a thriving harbour full of fishing boats and merchant carracks. 

She knew otherwise. Beyond the trade fairs and the winding marble streets, Vesper's inner core was rotten beyond saving. Like a gourd that looks fine on the outside, one need only cut into the surface to witness the truth—a heart teeming with maggots and wormy grubs, the infiltrators devouring it slowly from the inside out.

The corrupt city officials let thugs and criminal gangs run free, as long as they didn't scare too many customers away and supplied them with fat bribes. One such gang, who called themselves the Maulers, had terrorised both her and her brother since they had accidentally stepped on what they claimed to be their territory, several months ago. They apologised, but the Maulers' leader, the most despicable being she had ever met, demanded her brother to hand her over as a slave, so that their score would be settled. 

Of course, he refused, and after a rather brutal beating, they told him he had until the afternoon to decide. In her bones, she knew he would never hand her over, and when her brother left her with a shiv hidden under the sleeve of his ragged, dirty tunic, telling her that all would be okay, she knew that she was going to lose him. But that was then. Seeing his actual body, sprawled, lifeless, was too much for her to bear.

For as long as she could remember, her big brother had cared for her, and even if they were poor, life on Vesper's streets was at least bearable. But no longer. That life had ended.

Before he had set out to meet his end, her brother had given her the few coins he had acquired in their miserable life. At first, they seemed pretty and useful in distracting her, the silver discs embedded on one side with the image of a winking tomcat, and on the other with the face of a noble lord of House Wulfric. The avero adored their mewing servants greatly. If only she had been born a cat.

 She knew that she couldn't stay in Vesper. The Maulers would be hunting her even now, and she imagined them turning the corner, finding her crying over the corpse of her only remaining family, his life wasted with her death. And she didn’t want to die.

The girl reached for her brother's clenched fist, pulling the worn dagger free. She had never hurt another human before, let alone think to kill one. That's not what her brother would have wanted. 

He had sacrificed himself to give her a brief respite, for her to carry on... but how? She was alone. “You fool,” she muttered, as tears continued to fall.

She cradled his body for a time, holding his head in a useless gesture of comfort. He would never get up again, never laugh again, or-

Fear hit her like an electric shock, going right to her bones. She stood up abruptly and turned away, her brother’s body splashing in the dirty puddle. It took all her courage not to turn back.

She had to leave, now. Time was not on her side, though she doubted anything ever had been. Except her brother. The girl was running before she noticed it. Running from both those who were looking for her and running from the pain.

The tiny figure went unnoticed through the city gates, so awful was the storm.

There was nothing left for her in Vesper any more. 

***

How long had she wandered? The sun rose and fell, more times than she could count. The trees were in full bloom, sunlight shuttered through the leaves, and feathered creatures that fed on the clouds of biting insects. 

At first she had thought to use the few coins left to her to buy some provisions, but she soon found this unnecessary—the wilderness around Vesper was filled with fruit bushes and nut-bearing trees. The tattered cloth backpack she wore was soon full of their bounty—hobnuts and russet apples, as well as a growing collection of curios. Shining stones, a dappled leaf, a spiral shell.

She had been walking down a narrow dirt path when the sounds of rickety wheels and men chattering made her leap sideways into the brush. Hot meals for labourers were sold from the cart, which was piled high with coarse bread and held a great insulated stew pot. The smells of meat and vegetables made her mouth water, but she had stayed frozen to the ground, her hands grazed from the fall and clinging to the dirt. 

She thought it might be better for her to live in the woods. Alone, but far from harm, far from others that would harm her. They were surely the same thing.

***

Days passed, the sun rose and the sun fell, and the moons rose and hid behind boiling clouds and she just kept walking. The bounty of nature was easy to find in the forests of Vesper, nuts and berries supplanted by picking a few ears of corn from the edge of fields when she was sure that no one was around. She learned how to watch, and wait. People were loud. She could spot them easily. 

The nights were the worst. It was late summer, so the forest wasn’t cold, but at night she only had time to think. Time to be lonely, and miss her brother. Time to wonder how different things could have been if only they had left earlier.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

But dawn always came. Walking through the woods became a peaceful routine. There was so much to see, and she indulged in her curiosity. Before long, her thoughts strayed away from Vesper and its filth-ridden slums. The wanderer life had distracted her well, and for a time she thought she was almost content.

However small, all happiness must come to an end.

It didn't take long for her to hear a rough, scornful voice that made her shudder. Taunting. Who was he talking to? Hiding inside the dead hollow of a tree, she covered her mouth when she saw the familiar face of the bandit she knew had murdered her brother. She knew it. It was a secret revealed in his eyes.

Maybe he would miss her. She was hidden, and when he was gone, she would just go in the opposite direction. Spots danced in front of her eyes as she forgot to breathe. She forced herself to exhale carefully, slowly, even though her lungs were burning.

He was alone, making his way through the woods, following her tracks. The remains of her campfires, the half-eaten fruit she threw away, the earth disturbed by her footsteps. He took note of them all, trailing ever closer, like a hunting dog. Tears of despair ran down her cheeks, and she clutched her brother's shiv as hard as she could. The man seemed to be alone, but he was still too much for her, too fast and clever to escape from. What use would there be in running away?

Running forever? No, something had to be done. Something... She gripped the shiv so hard her knuckles were white.

Suddenly, the light coming through the dead tree's cracks was taken away from her, and a horrid eye peeked from one of them.

“Found you, you little b-”

She stabbed at the peeping eye with the shiv, as hard as she could, gouging it in a spurt of blood.

The man howled and writhed in agony. Abandoning all reasoning, the girl crawled out of the trunk and ran for her life, the scream reaching deep within her.

“You’re dead!” The wound only served to enrage him, and he had already pulled the knife from his ruined eye. She heard the metallic rustle of a blade being drawn. A blade, she was certain, that she would be stabbed by. Perhaps the same blade that had killed her brother, a gouge under the armpit...

Run. Now.

A hand whipped out, grabbing a hold of her backpack, pulling her upwards. She screamed, and wriggled away from it, dropping to her knees on the damp ground. The man stabbed at the air uselessly.

She ran as fast as she could. Every shiver of the trees around her startled her attention until she was darting away from each of them, running zig-zagged through the forest. Away from the hands and sharp knives which would surely tear her to pieces. 

She stumbled. It was hard to avoid the uneven bits of ground that rose up from nowhere, tree roots that tried to trip her. She was getting tired. Careless. Diving behind a tree, she leaned on it to catch her breath. The air was thick with the smell of leaves and damp earth, and she was calmed for a moment. She breathed in, and breathed out. A glittering flash sparked across her peripheral vision, jolting her towards action. 

She ducked. On the tree above, where her head had been a moment earlier was a freshly quivering dagger stuck deep into the wood.

Before she could consider her luck, a blur of grey and black darted towards her. She leapt sideways, sprinting away and hurtling over bushes and fallen tree-trunks. Used her hands to guide the way through the thorny sea of vegetation that tore at her skin. She saw light ahead, rays that broke through the endless morass of the vines and leaves of the forest. The light was her salvation, but she could hear footsteps approaching fast behind her. She broke free into the clearing, and realised just as she went screaming over the edge that it opened out into a steep grassy drop between the clearing and forest. Head went over feet in a tumbled blur, picking up speed as she raced towards the ground.

With a dull thump, she collided into a grassy knoll, which dazed her for a moment. Her ribs ached sharply with each quick breath, battered from the journey down the hill. She looked around quickly for her pursuer, annoyed by the way the world still tossed and turned in her vision. She stumbled to her feet, almost tripping over them, and ran in any direction, just hoping she was putting some distance between her and her pursuer. At first she thought there was a cave rising up towards her, but its stone edifice was too smooth and uniform. It was a perfect cube of a building, its walls inlaid with geometric patterns and covered with snaking vines. Yet the stone of its construction was still pristine. Two columns, the remains of an archway, gave entrance to the building. They were etched with runes that held no meaning to her, who was only concerned with the possibility of sanctuary.

There had to be someone inside, she thought. Someone that could protect her, someone that could fight, someone strong. She rushed inside the entrance, and her eyes quickly adjusted to reveal a single square chamber. The inside was a ruin. Stone blocks of the floor rose unevenly, the ground covered with twigs and debris. On the opposite wall, a great golden symbol was embossed into the stones. Compared to the rest of the place, the symbol glowed, looking somehow newer yet much older than the rest of the building. Dust motes scattered as she spun around.

Where was everyone?! Her thoughts were filled with horror and visions of destruction as she imagined the steps that would soon be behind her. The symbol took her attention again. It was shimmering, almost as if it was giving off heat.

She walked towards it, and was filled with an odd sense of peace. Although she was crying, she wasn't as scared any more. The sense of peace heightened as she grew closer to the symbol. She had seen something like this before, or perhaps, heard about it. The girl touched the shining metal that seemed to be made of purest gold. Her legs faltered, and she dropped to her knees, setting her eyes upon a great inscribed tile on the floor.

SACRIFICE

She recognised the image as one of the Ancient Virtues. The principle of Ka, or Kaagen-baltu as it is known in the old songscript. Sacrifice. Ironic, she thought. She wasn't scared. It would be only fitting if it all ended here. The girl tried to remember where she had heard about this place before. A local shrine, a place for meditation and atonement, it attracted pilgrims from all over Sarkoth. Her brother had told her that they would visit this place after they left Vesper, on their travels North, all the way through the Fens and to the forests of Timberland beyond, far beyond the Maulers' reach… The shrine becoming the first destination of their new life. It had only been a short time since they had both imagined this moment. Now, it felt like a lifetime separated her from that memory and her current predicament. It wasn’t ironic. It was just... cruel.

She startled at the clack of boots upon stone, loud in their approach, and she felt her pursuer's steps resonating through the marble floor. She stood still. She could sense everything, as if being about to die had given her a form of prescience. His ragged, foul breath. The wicked sound of blood dripping to the ground. The coppery scent. The blade whistling against the stone. This was it. The end. Her end.

The man held up his sword, looking at her with murder in his good eye. He smiled.

“Come now, Zahra.  Give yourself up and I won’t have to kill you, not yet. I’ll just cut you a bit, and then we’ll go back to Vesper. I have some friends who could use a bit of target practice,” he chuckled. A fist shot out and caught her in the head, and she crumpled onto the stone floor. She tried to retreat but only found a treacherous barrier of stone at her back. The visage of the laughing brigand, blood still streaming down his face, was terrifying. 

The blade descended, and she closed her eyes.

An incredibly loud voice boomed across the shrine.

“WHO DARES TO COMMIT ACTS OF VIOLENCE IN THE SHRINE OF SACRIFICE? THERE SHALL BE NO VIOLENCE IN THIS MOST HOLY GROUND, TOWARDS THOSE WHO SEEK SANCTUARY. DEPART NOW, SCUM OF THE EARTH, OR FEEL THE RIGHTEOUS WRATH OF THE OLD ONES.”

She flinched from the sound, the echo fading into an eerie silence. A breeze flowed across the room, dulling the stench of blood. The girl hesitantly opened her eyes to see that the man had frozen in his tracks, his blade raised high above his head. His brown flesh peeking out between the crimson took on a grey hue, and she realised he was afraid. Afraid?

The man trembled, and she thought it was as if she could hear his bones shaking. For a moment, he didn't make a move, the blade stopped still in the air, and this one moment seemed to stretch towards eternity.

“ALL WHO DISRESPECT THE GODS IN THEIR OWN HOUSE WILL BE TRANSFORMED INTO DUST! BEGONE, AND BE SPARED!” 

At this, there was a crash of thunder, a sound so loud it was as if the earth was shaking.

She found herself praying, her thoughts spiralling into nonsense as she promised whatever she could to the King, the gods, anything.

Then the blade lowered, returning to its sheath. 

“If you ever show up in Vesper again, I'll hunt you down like the worm you are, and bring you back in chains,” the Mauler said. He spat at his feet, onto the marble floor.

The temple became silent.  She looked up to the symbol and to what mysterious power that had given her another chance to live. It was then that she heard something behind her.

She was considering running as well, but the twin fears of both the shrine and the brigand fixed her in place and made her unsure what to do next. The shrine had fallen silent, and the silence stretched on for some minutes. Eventually, she heard footsteps coming down stone steps. 

 The girl turned to see a man rising from behind one of the dislodged stone blocks.

It was a short but broad figure, and wore long, tattered robes, their face hooded.

The figure threw back the hood to reveal a man of around fifty, with dark skin not unlike her own, grey hair and a short beard. The girl stared at him. His furrowed brows gave him a permanent scowl, and his silver eyes seemed to look through everything with equal indifference.

The Mauler brigand turned to the newcomer with something like expectation. The old man raised his hands.

Something shot out from the old man’s wrist in a flash. A knife? No... He hadn't even moved to make a throw. She looked across the room, where a thin crossbow bolt was embedded in the Mauler's chest.

The brigand fell backwards onto the floor, blood spreading through his shirt from his punctured heart. The dying man let out a shuddering breath. 

She heard a peculiar sound from far away and then identified it as her own ragged whimpering. The old man stepped forward and gently picked her up by the arms.

The voice was rough and much quieter than the booming voice from before. “It's all over, now.  Don't worry, no one is going to put you in chains,” he said, gently. “It's a lucky thing that this shrine has great acoustics. That mongrel totally fell for it, don't you think?” he laughed. “Gave me just enough time to finish him off.”

She didn't feel like she could speak. She didn't feel like she could control her limbs, and if it weren't for the man holding her, she would probably have collapsed to the ground like a rag doll. Was he going to kill her now, too?

“I'm Omir,” he said with a smile. “You seem to be in shock. Poor child. Do you have a name?”

She didn't speak. Couldn't.

“Zahra, did I hear correctly?” he asked. Her throat burned, until she realised that the Mauler had called her by name in the shrine. She nodded.

"Zahra," repeated Omir. “It's nice to meet you.”