Why didn’t she listen to me? She has to go before they figure out who she is and she gets caught. I beg her with my eyes to go, to be safe and live her life without me. Otherwise, all of this will have been for nothing.
Something irritates my wrist, but compared to the emotional turmoil that I’m experiencing, it’s a minor annoyance. More hands land on me and start to pull me backward. I want to lash out, to spend another moment with Ella but I know that fighting is useless. It would only hurt her more to witness me struggling. Still, all the while, something continues to rub my wrists, the feeling getting more and more intense but with my hands bound behind my back there is little I can do to ease it. Desperate to ease it though, I reach with my fingers I grip the fabric causing the irritation. It is part of my pouch strapped to my belt. It must have spun around when I was trying to get away, now wedged between the small of my back and my bound arms.
The high-pitched ringing in my ears increases, shifting as I move and I realise that the sound isn’t in my head like I had first thought. It’s coming from the bag; from the crystals within.
Of course! Why didn’t I think of the crystals? They can’t save me, the stones only have small magical properties, but I am desperate and will take any help I can get. Wigging my hand as best I can, I force my fingers of my left hand into the bag. The stones are just out of my reach. Grunting in frustration, I feel the urgency of the situation weighing heavily on me. My instincts are screaming at me that I have to reach the gems before I’m caught. Fingertips brushing the stones, I bite back a noise of annoyance. I push harder, the rope cutting into my wrists, but I don’t care. The ringing only gets louder and I don’t know how no one else is hearing this.
My fingers wrap around one of the cool gems and a shock zips through me. Power like nothing I’ve ever experienced before fills my body and I get a flash of what my life could have been if I hadn’t been branded as sullied. I would be strong and independent, living with a family that loved and adored me. My racing mind seems to calm, helping me to see clearer.
The labradorite, the stone that I brought with me on a whim. A pulse of something passes through me and back into the stone. It didn’t react that way when I touched it this morning, only now that I’m in need. The hairs on my arm stand on end, prickles of lightning buzz against my skin.
My eyes open just in time for me to see a wagon being dragged through the gaping market gates. No one is reacting to what just happened or the wave of power that left the labradorite. Did no one else feel it, or sees the change in me? How is that possible when I feel so different? It is difficult to put my finger on exactly what has changed, but it feels momentous.
The wagon doors are swung open and I roughly manhandled between the guards, shoving me into the back. A quick flare ofpanic reappears as I search for Ella in the crowd, but she’s gone. I’m glad, she shouldn’t be watching that, yet at the same time I’m disappointed that I don’t get one last look at the closest person I have to family.
Everything seems to be a blur and I feel disconnected from my body as I fall back in the wagon, the doors quickly slamming shut and encasing me in darkness. Pain lances through my shoulder and arm as I land on my left side roughly, unable to break my fall thanks to my hands being bound.
Sounds are muffled by the wooden walls of the wagon, the calls of the guards and the crowd being broken up. After all, the show is over. I should jump up, press my ears to the panels and see if I can gleam any information about what’s going to happen to me next. That is what Ishouldbe doing, now laying face down on the dusty floor of the dark wagon.
From the stuttering of my frantic breaths, you might think that I had just been sprinting across the city. My eyes feel gritty and sting mercilessly. Not because I am crying, I’m not. It’s the dust. A sob rips from my throat, raw and brutal, shedding all of my control. Tears roll down my cheeks, dripping onto the wooden planks I’m sprawled across.
My entire life has changed so quickly and I am struggling to process what’s happening. Thinking coherently is like trying to drag myself through mud. Exhaustion washes over me, hitting like a tonne of bricks, yet my muscles zip with a nervous energy that makes me want to pace like a caged animal.
When I was named sullied, everything changed. The life I then built for myself wasn’t perfect, in fact, it was brutal at times, but it wasmine. Then Ella came and made me want to start living again, not just simply existing, and now, that has been taken from me. Again.
That is enough. I live in the desert; I can’t afford to lose vital fluid through crying. Moreover though, I refuse to let themsee me cry. Here, in the darkness of the wagon is fine, I have released it from my system. When I stand in front of the king, it shall be with a dry face and a will of iron.
I take a deep, shuddering breath and roll over onto my back. Pulling my knees up, I manage to wiggle over to the side of the wagon and push up into a sitting position. The carriage is moving now, the rocking making this an extra challenge but I’m determined. A few thin streams of light poke through the slats in the wagon. Shuffling over to the closest one as best I can, I press my eye against the hole. I’m momentarily blinded, but it passes quickly.
The houses here are all pale stone, decorative arches and coloured domes. We’re in the gated part of the city. Wealth is obvious and on every street corner. Public wells and fountains seem to litter every other road. Bright, beautiful fabrics and clothing remind me of gemstones, glittering with silver and gold embroidery.
The blatant display of wealth makes me sick. The majority of our population lives in the Gutter, where people die daily thanks to the lack of clean water. Here, it flows freely. There is more than enough, yet it is locked away for the wealthy.
Disgusted, I fall back from the gap and slump against the wooden wall. Swaying slightly from the motion of the wagon, my mind wanders. What awaits me at the end of this journey? Closing my eyes I try to remember what the captain of the guard had said. Plans; that the king had other plans for me. Which means that death isn’t on my cards. At least, not for now. What could the king possibly want with a sullied like me? One that’s been accused of witchcraft at that.
There are too many terrifying answers to that question and I don’t even want to contemplate it. I have already lived longer than I ever thought I would, my only regret is that Ella is going to be left alone.
Without an open window to watch the world pass by, time passes strangely. I could try and hold myself against the peephole, but I think I will be better off if I preserve my strength for whatever awaits. In an effort to take my mind off the worst-case scenarios my mind is plaguing me with, I instead think over where we might be going. Part of me hopes it will be the palace, just to see its majesty once before my inevitable death or servitude. In reality, it will be somewhere else. The king might have plans for me, but he won’t lower himself to meet with one of the sullied. Oh no, that’s what he has advisors and Lords for.
I’m not sure how long we have been travelling for but the wagon feels like it is slowing. It’s funny, when the carriage was moving I felt as though we had been travelling for a lifetime, but now we are preparing to stop I find that’s its gone too fast. I’m not ready.
“Open the gates!” A Guard’s voice rings out, followed by the sound of loud hinges.
Open the gates? There is only one place in the where they would order the gates open and closed in this way. My heart is hammering in my chest and I lurch forward to press my eye to the gap in the wood. Excitement and fear slam into me in equal forces.
We are at the palace.
Seven
Ican’t believe that I’m here. The palace.
Stories of the beauty of the palace are told with wistful expressions in the marketplace, although whether these are accurate or not is another matter. The likelihood that anyone of us has actually been lucky enough to see it is almost naught. From the Gutter we can see parts of the white towers and glistening domes, but none of this does the palace justice.
The first thing I notice is all of the green. Lush leaves and plants seem to grow everywhere. Manicured to perfection, not a single leaf it out of place, the rich green of life everywhere I look. Flowers bloom in a riot of colour, their scents hitting me even in the back of the prison wagon. Whole swathes of the ground are covered in grass, nothing else grows on it, just a pure, green, living carpet.
It is nothing like the scraggly, yellowing grass the cattle graze on in the Gutter. Getting anything to grow there is a tough, laborious job, yet here it’s in abundance. Why? There are no animals here to feed that I can see, so what is the point in having these lawns other than just to marvel over? How do they even manage to keep all of this alive?
The sound of trickling water answers my question and my gaze flicks around to search for the source of the water. I swallow uselessly, my mouth so dry that just hearing the water makes my throat hurt. We continue along the long road up to the palace, passing tall trees, the glittering of what looks like mirrors filtering through the gaps. Moving past the final tree, my jaw drops open at what I see. The mirrors I thought I saw are actually huge pools of water. One of them is shaped like a long, stretched oval and is so large that it wouldn’t fit inside the marketplace. Either side of this are decorative fountains, spaced out in even intervals and surrounded by flowering bushes. I have never seen so much water in one place.
