Vivien and the Scoria

Chapter 6: Changing Times

7th day hour

Twister's Shop

Mount Api

4th Year of Lord Tante's Rule

The streets of Aernir were completely empty when I stepped off the path from Mount Api. It was a reasonable hour of the morning – the sun had long since risen, and the air was already hot as the city was in the grips of a heat wave from across the desert to the south. There should have been people bustling everywhere, getting as much done in the morning before the heat of midday drove everyone indoors until the cooler winds from the sea blew through late in the afternoon. But there was no-one, not one single soul.

From behind me, Rael muttered, "It wasn't this quiet when I left earlier on this morning. We're not due for a raid until next week!" I hushed her quickly, my left hand creeping to my right hip where I had sheathed my katana before leaving my house with Rael an hour before. Silence in Aernir was not a good sign. The mountains, from what I had seen from the midpoint lookout coming down the mountain, appeared to be functioning as normal, but there was not a soul in sight in Aernir.

Silence in Aernir usually only meant one of two things – it was past curfew and the Scoria clans that roamed the street at night were near, or there was a raid going on. Both circumstances were never completely silent however, not like it was now. Rael came to walk beside me as I walked through the streets with my hand on the hilt of my katana, a short but wickedly sharp dagger in her right hand. I had hoped to escort Rael back to the house she shared with other female students before going to Twister's shop myself. Now, I cautiously walked with Rael straight to Twister's shop. It was the safest place to be if we had just walked into something potentially dangerous here in the centre city.

Distantly, I heard the sound of clomping boots on hard cobblestones, and knew that it was a Scoria clan doing rounds like they would after curfew. The sound grew louder as we continued to walk towards Twister's shop, and I pulled Rael into an alleyway as the sound grew deafening. I put my hand over her mouth to stop her making a sound, and we watched as three Scoria clans marched past us in a hurry, completely focused on the path ahead of them. We waited on baited breath until they had passed us by and we could only hear their boots distantly clomping on the cobblestones away from us.

"Three clans?!" Rael whispered harshly in my ear as I pulled her from the alley and raced towards Twister's shop, not caring about the sound of my own boots on the road. I was shaken as well; one full Scoria clan was a lot to be patrolling one area at a time, as they usually split into groups of four to cover the residential areas of Aernir. To have three full Scoria clans working together as one group was unheard of, and it was extremely distressing.

We had to hide once more before we reached Twister's shop. The same three Scoria clans came back from the way they had hurried earlier, and this time, they were dragging at least two dozen Merasans behind them in a long line, all chained together with element blocking shackles. My hand was covering Rael's mouth again to stop her from making any sound that could lead to us being in those chains ourselves. I felt tears dripping down her cheeks onto my hand as we watched, horrified. There was absolutely no reason for such a large group of Merasans to all be chained up at the same time, heading for the centre of Aernir, the Towers.

The backdoor to Twister's shop closed with barely a click behind us as we entered, but it was still enough of a sound to alert the three men in the room to our presence. All three leapt out of their various seating positions, drew weapons, and turned to face us in one fluid movement. When they saw who we were, they relaxed marginally, and returned to their seating positions.

One of the men was Twister, Will's biological father and my adopted father. He sat slumped over the map table in the centre of the room, long black hair streaked with white and in desperate need of a wash. To his right, Rowan Faercrag, son of Lady Mara of Api, leaned casually against the bookcase filled with illegal books and artefacts from through the Other-World Portals. His glaringly red hair was tied up in a small bun at the nape of his neck, leaving his face open to stare disapprovingly at me.