Syril was a woman who understood the weight of things. She knew the difference in sound between coins of different weights, the value of warm bread in a shortage, and most importantly the gold to be found in a secret unsaid. She walked through the Merchant’s Quarter, her boots clicking a wary rhythm against the uneven stones as she walked in the shadow of misery and rot. All around her the thick smell of wet soot and burnt flesh, an ever present reminder of the ruin that had come to the city. It might have been two weeks since the Governor’s palace had burned, but the city still smoldered, and the dead still adorned the streets.

She was not a cruel woman to feel nothing at the sight of her friends strung from trees and on pikes. No, she was not cruel, or some heartless monster, but she was a realist. She had lived in Marchand long enough to see the way the wind blew, and it had been blowing toward a storm for years now. Syril was only surprised it had taken as long as it had for the city to fall. Governor Risha had relentlessly pushed the city toward the abyss with his greed and his insatiable blood lust. Syril had watched it happen from the edges, a merchant who dealt in facts and figures, and dared not delve into the messy business of politics. She had seen the seeds of hate sprout in the darkest corners of Marchand, and she knew it for what it was. A symptom of a far greater disease that had taken root across the Empire; a slow rot that spread like wildfire among the poorer areas of the cities and even now raged unchecked across vast swathes of the country. The rot was too deep, the fire too large, and even with the loss of Marchand the leadership in Klejnot would deny and make their excuses as revolt after revolt took their cities. She had seen the way the guards looked at the poor, and the way the poor looked at the guards. The chasm between their lives had become too great, and now there could be no reconciling the two sides.

The rebellion had been utterly ruthless in its efficient removal of all powerful officials. Syril had expected the change, she’d even planned for it, but she hadn't expected it to be so bloody. She had seen the mobs dragging men into the streets just because they wore clean shirts, a terrifying display of raw resentment. She had heard of families being butchered in their beds because they had a bit of gold hidden under the floorboards. Syril was a cautious woman, but she was also a wealthy one, and in this new Marchand, wealth was not indicative of a long life.

She kept a low profile, hiding in plain sight. She stayed in the Merchant’s Quarter, where the walls were thick and her neighbors kept to themselves. Even as they hid in terror, unwilling to risk the streets, Syril spent her days giving out small bits of bread and old clothes to the revolutionaries and poor alike. It wasn't because she was a saint; it was because she was buying her life. If the mob came for her, she wanted them to remember the bread before they remembered her silks and comforts. But that same favor she purchased was a fragile thing; one wrong move, and she would have a mob knocking down her doors ready to drag her away.

And her old friend, Barison Veril, he was making a very wrong move.

Two weeks ago, the old fur merchant had come back to his rooms carrying a secret, a bundle of rags. Syril had seen her then, the girl, just a glimpse of a pale face and haunted eyes. But that girl was no merchant’s daughter, no lowborn woman. She had heard it in her voice and the tears the first night she had arrived. Hers was the sound of royalty, of palace balls, a voice used to command, but unaccustomed to the realities and miseries of the true city of Marchand.

In a city that was currently hunting down every person with a drop of noble blood, Barison was hiding a princess, and it would be the end of them both.

Syril reached Barison’s door and didn't bother to knock; he always kept his quarters unlocked, even as he drew the noose around his own neck. He was a fool, and Syril felt an irrational stab of fury at his arrogance; at his stupidity. This was not only his neck on the line. She pushed the door open and stepped inside, the anger still burning as the stale air assailed her nostrils. Her face crinkled in disgust at the scent of unwashed skin, and the overpowering perfumes that utterly failed to hide the rot. In a room of this size there was no escaping the smell as it permeated every surface, every fabric, and the anger faded into annoyance as she looked not at an arrogant old man and a princess, but two broken people hiding in their own filth. She could not stay angry in the face of their misery.

In the corner, the girl sat on the floor. She was a small thing, a shadow of what she must’ve been. She had her arms wrapped tight around her knees, pulling them into her chest as if she were trying to disappear into herself. Her hair was a matted mess of blonde and brown, and she was wearing a man’s heavy robe that was far too large for her. It was probably one of Barison’s. She was rocking back and forth, a slow, mindless motion that made Syril’s lip twitch. Her eyes moved toward the door as Syril entered, but there was no life in them. They were flat and empty, like two pieces of glass staring at nothing.

Barison was sitting at a small wooden table nearby, looking like a man who had already given up. He looked terrible. His face was covered in a grey stubble, and his eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. He held a small cup in his hand, and the smell of cheap grain spirit wafted from it. When Syril barged in, he jumped, nearly knocking the cup over, his nerves frayed to the breaking point. He relaxed when he saw it was her, but the wariness didn't leave his face.

“Barison,” Syril said, her voice sharp and cold as the winter air. “What do you think you’re doing? That girl is not your daughter.”

Barison’s expression did not change, but Syril saw it in his eyes, the depression that he kept hidden so well that he even fooled himself. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came. Some strange emotion crossed his face, something half hidden as it stretched his features, a bizarre meshing of happiness and misery. But Syril saw through the mask of emotions clearly; she was not one easily deceived after years of tough trades and lost fortunes. For her, Barison was an easy man to read. She knew when a man was lying to her, and even more easily she knew when a man was lying to himself.

“Syril,” he said, his voice empty. “It’s good to see you. I was just-”

“Don't,” she snapped, stepping further into the room, her disgust rising. “Don't lie to me. You might think these walls can keep out the world, but they can't. And they certainly don't keep your secrets from the world. I don't judge you for your heart, Barison, but I judge you for your head. This girl is a real danger to not just you, but all of us. You think you can hide her noble blood from the mobs? Even like this you can see her upbringing in her face, her hands. No commoner has her complexion, or bearing. Right now her kind had been dealt the death penalty, and you bring that death penalty to everyone in the Merchant’s Quarters. The mobs haven't set on us yet, but one whiff of nobility hiding here and they will set on us with a brutality that will spare no innocents. You can't reason with madmen.”

She pointed a finger at the rocking girl, who seemed oblivious to the conversation. “Look at her Barison. Really, look at her. She might not look it, but she is a danger to you. She is a danger to me. You haven't thought about what happens when the men in the streets find out she’s here. They won't just kill her, Barison. They’ll kill you for hiding her. And they’ll kill me just for knowing you. Probably they’ll just go ahead and start killing everyone that knows you, whether they knew of her or not.”

Barison stayed quiet looking down at his cup, his face a blank mask. He had regained his control, the calm of a man who spent his life rationalizing the words of dead gods. Syril hated that look. It was the look of a man who thought he was answering to a higher power when he was just damning everyone to a slow death. But even Barison couldn't be so dense, not now, not when the world was burning.

“You’re no fool,” Syril continued, letting the frustration show.

“She will be found. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow, but you will be undone but this secret. What happens when a neighbor hears her cadence? Then what? All your preaching, all your prayers, what good will they do when the door is kicked in and they drag you to the hangman?”

She leaned over the table, forcing him to look at her. “Do you think that anyone wont recognize her just because of a little grime on her face? The Governor’s own daughter, do you know they’ve been looking for her? Her parents were cruel, and her own actions were none too gentle, even with as few years as she has. Do you think the apple falls far from the tree? Do you think the people who lost their sons to the Governess's games are going to stop looking for her just because the girl is quiet now?”

Barison let out a long breath, and with it the remaining strength in his body as he slumped forward. There was no anger in him, only quiet acceptance.

“Sister, I do not believe you are as cold as you want me to think. If you wanted her dead, you would have called the mobs already. You speak of choices, but you have stayed silent for two weeks. You have already made your choice.”

Syril felt the fight leave her for a moment even as the annoyance returned. Barison has not been listening to her, he had not heard her warnings. She wanted to scream at him, to tell him that she was only staying silent because she didn't want to see an old friend hanged. But she could not deny the kernel of truth in his words, and now the annoyance twisted and found purchase against herself. She did have a soft spot for the old man, and that thought drove her nearly as mad as his obstinance and idiotic choices now. How many times had sat through his long winded stories about the Cantor faith? How many times had she heard him try and make sense of the strange sing-song words of his holy book; worse, how many times had she let him prattle on in his teachings? She cursed herself inwardly for letting the affection blossom. She had never believed in his God, and never would, but she believed in him, and she did not want to see him hurt.

“You may be right,” Syril acknowledged at last.

“But don't get comfortable, you old fool. I have a family, people that depend on me. If it comes down to choosing between my family and a girl I don't know, I will choose my own every single time, even if you end up getting caught up in it. I'm at least honest enough to tell you that.”

“I know you are,” Barison said. “And I don't hold it against you."

Syril rolled her eyes, like he was in a position to hold anything against her. It wasn't her that was dangling a noose above both their heads. “Tell me, wasn't there a passage in your scripture about using the gifts we're given?”

Barison smiled, a small, genuine crease in his tired face, as if welcome for the change in topic. “For we have all received gifts, pieces of God. To waste them is to deny the one who gave them. We are commanded to use our knowledge, our healing, our teaching in all we do. To share a gift is to glorify the truth.”

He paused and looked at the girl, his expression softening. “It is a good passage. It reminds us that we have a duty to the world, a -.”

“Oh does it?” Syril interrupted.

“Well, your God gave you a brain, didn't he? Wouldn’t you say that intelligence is a gift too? Shame that you dont seem to be using it. If you stay here, you will die. The girl will die. I might die. Does your God want that? Does your God want you to sit here, singing and dancing in your own filth and stupidity, just waiting for a mob to gut you? How does that serve anyone?”

Barison opened his mouth to answer, but Syril cut him off, her mind made up.

“No, let me finish. I’ve heard you preach. You say we have to share these so-called gifts. Well, let me share some common sense with you, a gift that you apparently lack. If you were in a house that was on fire, would you sit in the corner and pray for God to save you? Or would you use your legs to walk out the door? Your God gave you legs, Barison. Use them.”

Syril took a breath, trying to calm her racing heart. She couldnt stand to look at Barison now, the tottering old fool was sitting as she had struck him. What did he hear? Did any of her words matter? She turned from him and looked at the girl now. Ester, if that was her name, wasn't even looking at them. She was staring at a spot on the floor, lips moving silently as if she were dreaming, completely oblivious to their conversation about her. Syril paused, considering. Maybe she could get through to Barison another way.

“If you want to help her, and you won't give her up,” Syril said at last, “then leave. Get out of Marchand. What we have now is a temporary peace. A changing of tyrants; but when the food runs out and the winter hits, the people will look for someone to blame. They wont have forgotten about the Governor’s daughter just because of a little hunger. No, that hunger will sharpen their rage. Then they will find her, and every remaining loyalist in the city, and they will sate their frustrations with their blood. There’s nothing for you here, not if you want to help her. You need to leave town before that happens.”

Barison slumped still further in his chair. The weight of the last two weeks seemed to finally crush him. He looked at his hands, which shook with the slight tremor of his drinking.

“I know. I suppose I've known that was the only real option this whole time, I just needed to hear it from someone else’s lips. I will leave in the morning,” he whispered. “Not tonight. She isn't well enough to move in the dark, and one more night of rest will do her good.”

Syril chewed on her lip, her eyes narrowing. She didn't like the delay, but she knew Barison. He was as stubborn as a mule when he thought he was doing the right thing. One more night was a risk, but it was better than him staying forever and bringing the fire down on all of them. Besides that, it would give her time to clear the way for their departure the next morning. A few small bribes, maybe a false report. She could make sure her old friend got away.

“Fine,” she said. “Tomorrow morning. But make it early. Before the sun is even up. The city is looking for scapegoats, and I don't want you to be one of them.”

Barison nodded, relief washing over him at having someone else make the decision for him.

“It’s a weight off my shoulders to share this with you, Sister. I admit, I have been at my wits' end. I don't think her body is sick. I think it’s her mind. She saw something, or lost something, that she can't find her way back from.”

“What happened?” Syril asked, her curiosity at Ester’s lack of response through their conversation finally peaking.

“A few days ago, when she first woke up, she got out the door,” Barison said, gesturing toward the entrance. “She didn't go far. She just stood there. You know you can see the ruins of the palace from the street here.”

“Everyone can see that heap of burnt rocks,” Syril grunted, thinking of the smoke that still twisted the horizon grey.

“I think the sight of it broke her, or broke something inside her,” Barison said. “She could still talk then. She asked for her father. She asked for someone named Arella, or Aralla, and then she stopped. It was like she’d become something different just from speaking the name. She let me bring her back inside, but she hasn't said a word since. She eats when I put food in her hand. She drinks when I hold the cup. She goes to the washroom when I lead her there. But she’s not there, sister Syril. Her mind is somewhere else.”

Syril stepped closer to the girl, her shadow falling over the frail figure. As she drew near, Ester’s eyes suddenly focused. For a brief second, the vacancy vanished, replaced by a desperate hunger. The girl’s eyes searched Syril’s face desperately, and for that one moment, Syril saw the woman Ester was supposed to be, intelligent, but terrified and alone.

But then as quickly as it came, the light flickered out of Ester’s eyes. The dullness returned and she began her strange rocking, lost once more to her own mind. Whatever she had been looking for, she hadn't found it in Syril.

Barison had seen it too. He moved quickly, kneeling in front of the girl as he took her small hands in his. “Can you hear me, little one?” he asked, his voice trembling with a fatherly concern. She did not respond, and for a long moment an awkward silence settled in. But then Barison began to speak, slowly at first, but growing more confident as he told her a story, something about a bird with golden wings. It was a children’s story, the kind people told to babies to stop them from crying, a futile gesture in a world this dark, and certainly not suited to the woman she was.

Syril watched him for a long time, her lip twitching. She felt a pang of something like pity at seeing Barison like this. She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder.

“She’s not your child, Barison,” she whispered as his story came to a close. “She’s not your burden.”

“A child is never a burden,” Barison replied, not looking up, his focus entirely on the girl. “Every child is a gift. Even when they are broken, they are to be cherished.”

“She’s not even a child,” Syril said firmly, her voice hardening. “She’s a woman. She’s the daughter of people who would have seen you hanged. You might not remember them coming for you, but I do. If you hadn’t been so damn drunk you would have known those guards weren’t there for your advice, no matter what they told you. If you so much as inconvenienced them you would have been strung up, and it's a miracle it didn't happen. You own her nothing. Give the girl some money and send her on her way. I’ll even hire someone to take her to the mountains, to the barracks at Dansen Pass. The soldiers there might still be loyal to the old ways. They’ll take her.”

Barison shook his head, his resolve unshaken. “I believe she was put in my path for a reason. I will use my gifts to keep her safe. Even if she never speaks again, then that is God’s will. But I will not abandon her to a city that wants her blood.”

Syril stood up and walked toward the door, her frustration boiling over. The damn fool wasn’t listening to her. He never really listened to her, he was always so sure of himself, so wrapped up in his faith that he couldn't see the abyss edge he was standing on.

“Fine,” she said, her hand on the latch. “Be a martyr if you want. But be gone by tomorrow morning, because tomorrow afternoon I’m going to tell the new town watch that there’s a suspicious woman hiding in this block. I’m done risking my life, and my family's lives on the stupidity of other people.”

She turned to look at him one last time, wanting him to understand the gravity of her words. “If you’re still here when they come, Barison, I won't help you. Do you understand?”

Barison looked at her and nodded, no accusations or betrayal on his face. “I understand, Sister. Thank you for your words, and for the warning.”

Syril stepped out into the hallway and slammed the door behind her. She walked quickly, trying, and failing, to not hate herself for the threat that she knew she would follow through on. She had to. In the city Marchand had become, you either watched the fire or you became part of the pyre.

As she stepped out into the street, she looked up at the ruins of the Governor’s palace. It was a black jagged husk framed against the darkening sky. The world was changing, and the old rules were gone. She just hoped that Barison was smart enough to run before the new rules caught up with him.

 

—---

 

Back inside the room that Syril had left, Barison didn't move. He stayed on the floor, holding Ester’s hands as he prayed for wisdom, for comfort. He didn't know where they would go, but perhaps there was some merit to Syril's suggestion, though how they would survive the road to the North he couldn't say.

Ester continued to rock, her eyes fixed on nothing as deep inside the darkness of her mind, a rot spread, snuffing out memory and emotion alike. She was trapped inside darkness, waiting to be saved by someone who no longer lived, and could save no one. She knew this, and so she rocked back and forth, the darkness her only friend.

Somewhere she heard gentle, whispered words, and she clung to them for strength. Listening to the words, not understanding, but embracing the tone of them as they slowly drowned out the whispers of the dark presence in her mind.

The tendrils of madness reached out to her, and she resisted, but could not stop the spreading rot as it whispered things she knew to be true. The city was a grave, her life was in ruin, and she was the only one of her family who hadn't been buried yet.

There was a pressure in her hand, and Ester felt a momentary strength. The drones of the man who had been caring for her, and she listened again, a momentary reprieve from the darkness, though he did not know. Barison squeezed her hands, and for a split second, she was able to squeeze back, a tiny flicker of life. It was a tiny movement perhaps, almost nothing, but to Barison and Ester, it was more than enough.

Tomorrow, they would leave. Tomorrow, they would face the fire together.