Yassen jumped over the counter and dashed out into the street, the wind singing past his ears as he ran deeper and deeper into the park. When he could run no farther, he had collapsed, sucking in air. But his hunger was greater than his exhaustion, and he greedily began to devour a khaja.
He had been so hungry that it wasn’t until he had finished his third burfi that he became troubled by Samson’s absence. He searched the park and eventually found him on a bridge overlooking a sandpit. The khajas were cold by then, and Samson had greeted him with a bloody smile and a split eyebrow.
“Looks like you hit the jackpot,” he had said.
“What happened?”
“I was kissing her, and then she bit my lip!” Samson shook his head. “Hand me a khaja, will you?”
Now, Yassen peered into the empty bakery. A holosign advertised that it was available to lease. There were marks on the floor where the glass counter had been. Stealing from the bakery had been the first of many transgressions, but at the time, it hadn’t felt like a crime. It felt necessary.
He looked down the street at the unfamiliar neon signs and newly planted trees. Overhead, floating holo billboards advertised companies he had never heard of. A young couple staggered down the street, laughing, their faces red with drink.
Yassen watched them and then looked back at the empty store.
The city had gone on without him, evolving without his supervision. He knew he had no claim on the capital or its ways, but he had been born here, had been raised by these streets, shaken sand out of his hair after winter storms, strained his neck as he and others watched the Fire Birds take on the Metal Warriors in games of windsnatch.
In a way, he felt betrayed by the changed city. Yet a part of him knew such change was inevitable. He had long ago forsaken this place. He could not expect it to bat an eye at his nostalgia.
The neon signs grew dimmer as Yassen entered the park. The sandpit had been hollowed out. Drunks, vagabonds, and storytellers gathered within its crater. As he walked onto the bridge, the sound of quarreling voices made him pause. Yassen peered down and saw a woman with hair the color of polished bronze standing on the foundation of a elevated statue.
A sizable crowd surrounded her. One bearded man with a bull tattooed on his hand argued with a thin teenager still dressed in his school uniform. The woman watched them. She raised her hand, but they paid her no mind.
“Enough,” she said as their voices grew louder. “Enough!”
The two stopped, stricken by the steel in her voice.
“My comrades, we need to stop fighting among ourselves,” she said.
“Well, he started it,” the bearded man said.
“This man’s head is not screwed on right,” the student retorted. “Fucking refugee.”
“Werefugeessweat and toil as much as you. More than you.”
“If you want to complain, then just go back to your own damn land! We can carry onourrebellion without you.”
“I’ll have both of your heads lying in a ditch for the silver feathers if you don’t shut up,” the woman interrupted. The two men looked at each other, as if weighing their options, then fell silent.
“We will never win if we feud.” She pointed north, where the palace glimmered like a distant star. “They will devour us like they have countless times before.”
She studied the faces in the crowd. “How many times have King Leo’s guards ‘taken’ our brothers and sisters who spoke out about the state of this kingdom, only for us to never see them again? How many of his mindlessgold caps,” she said, her voice dripping with venom, “have bullied you into silence? They swagger through our streets as if they own this kingdom because Leo has allowed them to.” The woman spat in the sand. “The king knows his reign is coming to an end, so he grows crueler. You have heard his gold caps recruit men for war.War.Who here thinks we can survive a war against the Jantari?”
There were muffled grunts, but no one raised their hands. No one spoke up.
“We may have the Black Scales on our side, but their leader is a Jantari pet. He will sell us to Farin as soon as he gets the chance. And what does the king do? He organizes a fucking march along the border.”
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Yassen recognized it—the whisper of rebellion. He had felt it before.
“Ravence is crumbling, and Leo knows. He sees it and he does nothing. But we won’t take it anymore,” she said. “Because we know the truth. We know the kingdom is old. It was founded upon death and blood—upon a myth. The Phoenix is gone. There is no Prophet. A new era has come. An era for a government led by the people—not by a bloodline or a false god.”
She paused and let her words sink in. Yassen watched as others began to nod, as their murmurs rose to shouts of agreement.
“It is time, my friends, for our revolution. A joint revolution, Ravani and Sesharian alike. This is our chance to stop the bloody cycle of history.”
“But they were chosen to rule this land!” someone called out. The crowd pushed an old man to the front. “The Phoenix burned every king’s and queen’s name in the sand before Alabore. He built us this home.”
“If there really was a Phoenix,” the woman said, “why did she bless Alabore? And what about her Prophet?”
