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One
The scars on my back scrape the wagon’s underside through my hooded tunic. I creep onward in my hunched pose, absorbing the prickle of pain.
It’s a reminder of where I came from.
The heroes in fables and histories don’t scuttle around beneath horse-drawn wagons in the shadows and dirt. They stride forward under the sun to carry out their virtuous deeds.
If the stories are true, you’d figure most of them stood ten feet tall and shone sunlight out of their exalted asses too.
But I’m not any kind of hero. I’m a monster with a broken soul.
I’d like to think that qualifies me to identify other sorts of monsters. Like the charm merchant who owns this wagon, whose soul I’m willing to bet is at least badly smudged.
He’s parked off to the side of the ramshackle square on the fringes of the city, and a small crowd has already gathered to ogle his wares. With every false promise that rolls off his lying tongue, my grimace deepens.
The trinkets jingle as he holds up one and another. “Blessed by Elox himself! Keep this charm close, and you’ll be free of illness for a year. This one, touched by Prospira’s promise—plant it with your gardens for twice the yield.”
Sure, and my spit turns shit into gold.
The arid breeze sends a tickle of dust into my nose. I stifle a sneeze and ease even closer to the swarm of legs just beyond the wagon.
The shadows and the dirt-brown fabric of my tunic make me all but invisible. Just in case, I tug the hood farther over my pale face and tuck back a few stray wisps of my reddish-blond hair.
A voice I recognize speaks up, sweet but thin. “Will the Elox-blessed charm help someone who’s already sick? My son—he’s been down with a fever.”
I wince. It’s Zuzanna—the housewife with the dotted curtains and Elox’s sigil carved into every wall of her rickety house. Her appeals to the godlen of healing haven’t brought any miracles yet. Her frail son is ill more often than he’s not.
But she can’t help grasping at any slim chance she gets.
The merchant answers in a tone slick as oil. “Oh, for one already ill, I have a stronger charm. It only costs a few bits more.”
Murmurs ripple through the gathered onlookers. I can taste the tang of hope in the air—but it’s all in vain.
Charms imbued with godlen-blessed magic exist, but not for the prices at which the merchant is hawking his fakes. The residents of this neighborhood could never afford the real thing.
I’ve crossed paths with legitimate relics a few times, and they give off a thrum of power that quivers right through the center of me. From the trinkets hanging from the display over my head, I sense only a brief tingle.
It’s probably a dusting of conjured happiness that will satisfy the buyers for the first week or two.
A deeper prickle races into my skin whenever the merchant speaks. Most of the scam artists who prey on the city’s poor have gifts of their own: a knack for encouraging trust, a talent for persuasion.
They can always find new customers. Hope is in awfully short supply on these streets. Plenty of people can’t resist the gamble.
I blink, and an image of my father flits behind my eyelids. Years ago, setting a charm on the foot of the bed where Ma lay wasting away.
The sham didn’t so much as quiet her whimpers.
This fraud’s current targets can spare far fewer coins than Da was able to. But Zuzanna is already fishing in her purse.
She’ll be skipping dinner for weeks.
My fingernails dig into my palms. I picture myself leaping out and condemning the fraud directly, but the weight of experience holds me in place.
It’d be nowhere near as simple as popping up to say, “Hello, I’m Ivy, your hunter of scams. This man is a crook!”
I have no proof I can present to the crowd that will conquer the hope the conman has stirred up. I learned long ago that the guards supplied by city’s elite care more about keeping tax-paying merchants happy than protecting the needy.
And when I try to set things right head-on, there’s too much chance of it going horribly wrong instead. It’s safer for all of us if I stick to the shadows.
