Soul of Shadows

Xarran

I slid my dagger back into my belt, along with the purse of coins I had just stolen from the trembling Faery before me, her dark blue wings and gills spreading wide at the threat, her eyes narrowing into thin slits as she blinked, her eyelids sideways. Bowing deeply, I purred, “Pleasure doing business with you.”

She shuddered, running on webbed feet before I could grab anything else from her, and I stepped back into the alleyway, heading back toward the abandoned home I had been hiding in for two weeks, Nazareth delivering me directly into the capitol of the Lake Palace territory.

Juggling the coin purse, I grinned at the weight of it, finally able to pay for the horse I would need to traverse this massive city, and cracked open the door to my home, the hinges screaming in un-oiled agony.

It wasn’t much, in terms of places I had stayed, but it had a roof and walls, even if they were crumbling, or covered in mould.

The bricks were old enough that they flaked beneath my hand when I ran it across the wall, the single window on the bottom floor grimy and boarded over so only a sliver of light made it into the damp living room within, illuminating the satchel I had left on the floor, full of the belongings I had gathered over the last two weeks while I searched for Selphien. Picking it up, I made my daily walk through the house, checking for intruders or other squatters who may be looking for a place to stay, clearing each room as I went.

The floor hadn’t been swept in what could have been centuries, and what furniture remained, which consisted of a rotting table with only three legs, the fourth made of a pile of bricks I had collected from outside the building, an armchair with no fabric on the top piece, just an old, yellow cushion in its place, and a writing desk that had been tucked into a small alcove where a fireplace had once been, the chimney still in place although the hearth had been long removed. There were stains left behind from soot on the walls and upper-most corner of the roof, where it appeared the room had caught fire, and a set of once-white, but now beige-yellow curtains on the window were singed at the bottom, the fabric full of holes from mice. The room would have been grand once, with its cerulean blue walls and dark floorboards, but where wealth had once shown, there was now dust and cobwebs.

There was a kitchen down a set of wobbling, uneven stairs, buried deep within the basement, where a wood stove had been left behind, the levers broken and laying on the ground, as well as a set of pale blue china and matching cutlery, all of the pieces lovingly packed into a trunk that I had found underneath the stairs, the pieces shining even now.

The upperfloor had three bedrooms, and it was there that the furniture had been left behind, as though whoever had last lived here couldn’t bear to take it with them. The scorched hallway walls gave me a good idea as to why. The entire upperfloor had been burnt almost to a shell, only the bedrooms still in any kind of recognisable condition, and it was here that I had to tread carefully, if I wanted to avoid sending the charred floorboards plummeting.

The first of the bedrooms had belonged to a young girl, only a toddler at the very most, the room painted a delicate pink except for around the doorway, where the paint had peeled away and left behind more soot, the carpet beneath the door in a similar condition. There was a white chest of drawers covered in multi-coloured flowers that had clearly been painted by a child, and when I opened them, neatly folded piles of toddler clothes remained. Most of them were sparkly or sewn with tulle, although a handful were winter pieces with fur and thick wool, and a jewellery box filled with mock-gemstones and fake jewellery had been nestled into the cloth, a name painted atop the box.

Carredin.

Little Carredin had liked flowers, her bedframe also painted with pretty designs, although these ones had been made by a skilled adult, and her sheets were a bright, eye-aching pink, flowers stitched into the hem.

The walls were covered in drawings of flowers, too, and a painting that hung on the wall depicted the little girls wings- a Faery tradition, from what Astaroth had told me, to paint the wings of Faery children. Even her wings had small flowers in them, glistening against the purple sheen of her gossamer wings.

The window to the room had been barred shut from within, carefully locked at the top of the window to prevent the little girl from tumbling to the alleyway below before she would have known how to use her wings, and the glass was now cracked, the frame around it chipping away.

Sitting on that frame was a handsewn doll, her little dress covered in ash, her blonde hair tied back into two pigtails. Her button eyes stared out at me accusingly, and I saluted it, turning and exiting the room, heading for the next one.

This room had belonged to two siblings; sisters, or perhaps even twins, and when I entered, I was greeted with a room that was mirrored on both sides.

Tucked against the wall, mirroring the other, was a bed with the sheets neatly made, one blue and one purple, the pillows propped up against the wall, and the curtains were half blue, half purple, like a compromise had been made so the girls could each have their favourite colour. The window wasn’t barred, although it was locked, and small charcoal drawings had been stuck to the glass, the bottom of them labelled. Keli and Mai. These drawings, along with the beds, were the only parts of the room that hadn’t been completely destroyed, even the door broken in the middle and bottom, and I could imagine someone desperately trying to kick through it. The most disturbing part had been the fingernail scratches on the inside of the door, like the two girls had tried to claw their way out through the burning wood. If they had succeeded and escaped the flames alive, I did not know.

Carredin’s room had been peaceful, indicating that if the little girl had died, it had been in her sleep, tucked into her cot beneath the window.

These girls… They had fought to survive.

The roof was completely burnt-through, revealing the attic space above, and the dressers were gone, reduced to a shell of drawers, the clothes within curled on themselves. A bookshelf beside the door was nothing more than a pile of wood, the pages no more than ash, and the floor was singed right up to the bottom of the beds.

Exiting the room, I headed for the bathroom across the hall from the girls room, ducking under the broken door frame.

There was nothing but a cracked porcelain tub, and a melted pile of what must have been bath products, only the glass jars remaining, although most of them were also cracked. I couldn’t even tell the colour of the walls in this room, it was so destroyed, and a portion of it had once been open to the street, the wall broken by the fire. The hole had been boarded in, but a wind still filled the bathroom, swishing the ash around.

There was nothing left but the final bedroom, and what I had attributed to be the source of the fire that had destroyed this place. It was so destroyed, this final room, that the only way I knew people had once slept in it was the melted mattress that laid in a pile of wood and broken furniture. Even the windowsill had been burnt out, the glass missing.

Seeing that the house was empty, since the stairs to the attic were long gone, I headed back downstairs, taking a seat on the floor and emptying the coin purse and satchel, counting the coins.

With four-hundred gold collected over the last two weeks, and a small amount of bread and cheese, I could begin searching for Selphien.

Word of her returning to the city had begun spreading, and I had heard Faeries whispering about her more than once, although none of them had been able to tell me just where, exactly, she was staying. Most had said on the other side of the city. Others had said she would be going on tour soon, offering support and listening to her future citizens woes to try and gain votes.

I had shut the connection down before it could truly begin, which meant speaking to her with my mind was impossible, leaving only one option: Buy a horse, since stealing one was impossible with the watchful eyes of the constantly-present Guards, and follow Selphien.

Gathering my coins, I tugged the satchel onto my shoulder and saluted the house one final time, heading for the alleyway once more, excitement making my heart race for the first time in weeks. Opening the door to see two Guards and the Faery I had robbed, I was immediately slammed with a large metal stick, a set of shackles clamping around my wrists…