City of Endings

Prologue

PROLOGUE

Lots of things happened on June 21st.

It was the first day of summer

The first orchids of the year bloomed, almost a month early

Sirith waged war on Tichloch

Louise Vellichor was born

Not a super interesting list, unless of course, you love summer, are super interested in orchids, you live in Sirith or Tichloch, or your name is Louise Vellichor. And to one girl—can you guess who?—all three of those things are pretty interesting. Some more than others, of course, but all still worth thinking about.

Louise loved the summertime. Even from a very young age, she was content just sitting in the sunlight, not too dissimilar from a cat, and basking in its hot glow. She loved the way the sky was always a bright blue, the way the warm breeze tickled her chin, how she had to squint to see her older brother, the sunlight sometimes being a bit too much. She loved the fresh, green grass and dunking her toes in cold water after running around in the backyard they shared with two other families. She loved the orchids.

Orchids were her father's favorite, too. He'd grow them in their small living room, watering them only once every two weeks. "That's all they need," he would tell Louise, stroking her soft baby hair as she perched on his lap. "If you water them too much, they drown. If you don't water them enough, they dehydrate. You have to find the sweet spot, the place just right." Of course, she didn't understand any of that. How could she? She was two! She just liked them because they looked like a face, smiling back at her through their purple petals.

She didn't like the war. Well, she didn't really feel anything for the war. Not yet, at least. She didn't understand that that was why her father left, and why he never came back. She didn't understand that that's why her mother stopped eating, stopped sleeping. Why her brother, five years her elder, picked up the slack.

She just bounced around, usually happily, not bothering to listen to her family and neighbors when they talked about Sirith's invasion, the bombing, the Koenig being threatened. She cried when her mother couldn't buy her the lollipops she usually did, even if she didn't know it was because of the war's lasting effects causing a great depression in Tiris, in all of Tichloch.

Like all two-year-olds, she didn't care. When she turned three, she didn't care either. She did, however, care that the small birthday cake her brother could barely afford to buy was carrot, and therefore disgusting.

She also cared when, one week after her birthday, she was at school someone pushed her into what they thought was a pool of vomit, but was later discovered to be some kind of dark magic, either charmed or escaped. And she cared that it caused her to get sick, so sick that she was out of school for three months, so sick that she lost her sight.

Completely.

Well, not completely. She could still see some light, some faint traces of the sun in her black world. But she became helpless. She cried when she could feel her mom or brother, or when all the lights disappeared and everything was pitch black. And eventually, she cried when she saw too much light, preferring the dark.

She walked with a cane, not because she was crippled or anything, but so she wouldn't run into things. A tough feat in their tight, two-bed, one-bath apartment. At least it was on the first floor.

At least.

It was her least favorite word. She hated it.

As she got older and could finally understand the world more, could finally hear and talk for herself, it's all she heard.

"At least you still have your hearing!"

"At least your brother was there!"

"At least you don't have to worry about being flashed!"

"At least you lost your sight so young; you can barely remember seeing!"

Louise could spit every time she heard those two, terrible, awful, stinking words. But she was tired, too tired to fight. Too tired to correct people when they said the wrong things, too tired to scream in annoyance when people asked if she could "see how many fingers they're holding up!" So after a while, she learned to brush them off, or at least pretend to brush them off. If only for her mom and brother's sake.

But they still haunted her.

Because she could remember seeing. Not much, not many things. But she could remember some color. And trees. And the way the veins of the orchids leached into the white petals, staining the white with a purple dye.

And even if she couldn't remember her brother's face, she could remember looking at him, the sun outlining his body to make him just a silhouette. She could remember the sound of his laugh, not because she lost her hearing too, but because she hadn't heard it in fifteen years.

So this was how things were. And they weren't great, but they could be worse. That's what Louise told herself every day. Fortunately, she was right. Things could get worse.

Unfortunately, they did.