My fingers ache from the frostbite, stiff and pink when I emerge onto the street the next morning. I glimpse the bags under my grey eyes in the window across the street. Stained in red, stinging, and hollow. The green eyes in the forest haunted my dreams, and I woke up in sweats. I round the corner, slipping into one of the major streets. Even though the sun is only peaking over the walls in the east, the street already teems with the Convex people. But eyes remain cast on the ground. A woman popping out of a textile warehouse flinches and squeaks when she bumps into me. Her nose scrunches and her body trembles. While she wears a drab, torn frock, and stained corset, she carries an armful of brightly coloured fabrics. Bold pink, baby blue, sunny yellow.
"I'm sorry," I stammer, darting out of her way. She blinks before placing her heap of clothing into the back of a carriage, where a chestnut mare snorts and stamps her feet. The woman climbs aboard the cart, flicks the horse reigns and heads north, towards the Concave Sector where wealthy patrons will browse and purchase her garments. I hear bright colours are all the rage now.
As I bypass her, I almost trip up over a person huddled on the footpath. The man is curled in the fetal position, embracing his knees. His eyes are wide open, staring lifelessly in front of him, his eyelashes coated in a layer of white frost. My insides churn. No one has bothered to move his body to the morgue yet.
I increase my pace, trudging through the icy, dry maze of streets, passing Lyra's laundromat and the large horse stables. Stablemen scramble back and forth, with handfuls of hay and pails of horse feed. Others sweep the stalls and brush the horse manes. Soon, I cross the square, careful to keep my gaze forward. I fight the urge to glance at the Tranqs stationed in the vicinity, to look for those green eyes. Maybe a rogue Tranq was out there? Freshly sharpened claws slither around my throat, tightening. If it was a Tranq, then they watched me break the law right in front of them.
The girl's scream from yesterday reverberates in my ears, followed by the shudder of the city gates.
I pull the hood of my coat over my head. The shadows of the markets welcome me as I slip into the alleyway. I allow the disarray of senses to swallow me whole. Hooves clatter as horses pull carts of goods, the metal wheels rattling along the cobbled ground. People shout greetings at one another. They huddle in small groups and flit between the stalls. My nose wrinkles at the sharp scent of burnt metal and charcoal from the blacksmith stand. The burly man hammers a sword into shape, grunting with the effort. A tall lady selling her pottery waves at me. She presents a gummy smile as she tries to coax me into buying one of her vases.
I pass the lady from the apothecary, stirring a steaming herbal mixture in a pot. She has a sign on her stand offering bloodletting, with a tank of black leeches floating inside.
"Two leeches for the price of one! Purify yourself today!"
With a shake of my head, I ignore the protest of my stomach. The aroma of stew almost pulls me to my knees. As I round a corner, I have my sights set on a stall selling oils and someone hollers my name across the aisle of vendors.
"Elle!"
I spin around, regarding a boy loitering behind a stall selling old fruit and vegetables. Although, his baskets are looking rather empty from the lack of crops. I grin and zigzag through the traffic. He yanks me into a hug as soon as I squeeze behind the stall.
"You would not stop by the markets without purchasing some of my delicious produce, were you?" he says with a chuckle, releasing me from his embrace.
"Of course not, Aston." I roll my eyes and laugh. "Although, I think your carrots have shrivelled up against the cold. They're growing a nice green mould to keep warm."
Aston's hazel eyes glimmer and he presses his lips together, cheeks flushing. "The orchards are struggling, even for the Concave food." He blows out his cheeks and pushes his ashy blond hair out of his dirt-stained face. "My grandmother says we can only sell the old food until the summer. Or we risk our necks."
"Aston!" a high-pitched voice chirps before I can reply. A girl, around our age, shoulders her way through the throng.
"Hello, Sadie," Aston says, his voice smooth as honey as he flashes her his trademark grin.
"When do you finish work today?" she asks. Sadie blinks her heavily black-lined eyelashes at him so fast I fear they will fly away.
Aston sighs and pouts. "I'm scheduled until late. I must sell as much as possible."
Sadie's otherwise wide smile falters. "Another time, then?"
"Of course, see you soon."
Sadie throws me a dirty look before sauntering off back into the crowd. I stare after her slim figure, tanned from too many days on the farms. With a shake of my head, I turn back to Aston. "I will never understand why every girl practically drools over you."
"Not just girls," he reminds me, waggling his finger playfully. As if that were a cue, a darker-skinned boy approaches us. He smirks at Aston as he purchases a couple of floury apples.
"I'll see you after work?" the boy says, eyes pinned to Aston as if I were invisible.
Aston chews his lip and heat creeps into his cheeks. "I know where you live," he says, throwing the boy a smirk.
When the boy slips back into the crowd, Aston grins at me and I roll my eyes. I catch Sadie glaring at Aston and me from a few vendors along.
"It is like I do not exist sometimes," I say, jabbing him in the ribs and snatching an apple. "Can we meet at our spot later?"
"Did you not hear me solidify my plans for after work?" He wiggles his brows and I mock, throwing up.
"I can wait up for you. It's important." My voice is laced with urgency, and he senses it, nodding.
"I'll be there when the moon crests the sky."
As I turn to leave, the air deflates from my lungs. A group of Tranqs, dozens of them, march into the markets, splitting the crowd in half like meat falling from the bone. Convex people shriek and tremble, cowering against the building walls. The Tranqs disperse, each person moving like drugged rats into the slim gaps between each vendor's stall. One Tranq per gap. They grip the long, shining metal beams of their staffs, with spearheads melded to the end. Dainty and powerful.
Of course. Tonight is the Winter Solstice. Music and dancing will fill the streets of the Concave Sector. But the Tranqs swell the Convex streets like an oozing wound. The night of the Winter Solstice marks the beginning of increased surveillance during the cold months. One man, whose boots ring in my ears as they march through the alleyway, sweeps his hawk-like gaze on all of us as if someone might be stupid enough to stash some stolen food into their coat.
Aston squeezes my hand. I move forward. The first to take a step after the crowd dispersed. A rumble of people merging back into the centre of the alleyway fills my ears, and I feel the heat of hundreds of eyes pinned to the back of my head as I exit the markets. My insides stiffen and then quake. Sweat trickles down the sides of my face but I do not stop moving, the din of the markets driving me forward, as if I'm a hare trying to escape the fangs of a fox.
--
The wind sounds like a thousand ghosts wailing at the stars when I haul myself over the ledge and onto the building roof. My fingers grapple for the gutter and I push myself off the windowsill below. I grunt, brushing the dust from my hands and trousers.
"Took you long enough," Aston says.
He sits on the furthest edge of the building, gaze pinned on the Concave Sector beyond the river. The bright lights of the wealthy sector glint in his eyes. His legs dangle off the side, kicking clouds of dust from the brick wall.
"I'm surprised you are here at all," I say, sighing as I sit next to him.
"My date bailed on me; you see." He flicks his eyes at me, brimming with horror. "I think the Tranqs arrested him. Stole from the baker."
My heart twists and I lean my head on his shoulder. "It will not always be like this. It can't be."
"How do you know?"
"Don't all human civilisations follow the same pattern in the end?" I stare at the lights of the palace, tracing my eyes along the half dozen towers reaching into the skies. "They always crumble. Rome fell, even the United States of... well, you know. Every single society to ever exist has crumbled to the Achilles' heel that was their greed and hunger for power."
"They destroyed the world," Aston murmured. "We shouldn't even be alive."
"Humans are tenacious creatures, hell-bent on surviving. We are still alive because of that obnoxious all-too-human trait."
"Maybe we should sneak out," he says, beckoning past the city gates in the west. "Perhaps there are other cities who treat their people better."
"We wouldn't make it far. There is nothing out there, Aston. No food, no water for miles. Only the insanity and the monsters."
"Do you truly believe there is nothing?" The shadows of the night settle into the grooves of his face and pool in those hazel eyes that I love so much. "The monsters are only from stories our parents told us. It isn't like we are training to fight some phantom enemy. I know we do not know who it is out there. But it must be a threat if King Talin has begun the training."
"We are nothing but a pawn in his little game," I snap, fidgeting with the string bracelet on his wrist. The bracelet that his father gave his mother on their wedding day. "He's only trying to protect his reign and his heir. Chances are, whoever is out there wants our resources. They probably want the control King Talin has. We are the pieces that will protect him. Useful, but replaceable when disposed of."
Aston laughs a full belly laugh that sends a wave of warmth over my skin. I shake my head and raise my brows. "Your thoughts are practically spilling from that smirk, Aston."
He scrambles to his feet and pulls his sword from the sheath at his waist. Its long, bronze blade glints in the pale light of the crescent moon. "You brought yours, didn't you?"
I stand and pull my sword from the sheath. In one movement, I swing it around and the clash of blades reverberates in my chest cavity as Aston blocks it. We grin at each other. Two feral creatures. I bounce on the balls of my feet, parrying with Aston. We laugh, the wind carrying the sounds into the sky. A rush of freedom and adrenaline courses through my veins. The fiery glimmer in his hazel eyes fuels me. He parries his sword high, and I stumble. I fall over and his laughter flecks my shadows in tendrils of gold. The tip of his blade meets my throat, and he smirks in triumph before tucking the sword back into his sheath.
"Let it be known," I say, pushing myself up. "I was going easy on you."
He snorts. "By the Gods, no, you weren't. It's okay to admit when you lose, Elle."
"Fine. I will shout you a beer for your efforts."
We chuckle as we scale the rusty fire escape down the side of my apartment building, dropping into the narrow alleyway below. I elbow him in the ribs playfully as we slip into the main street. A cacophony of drunken laughter and shouts swallow us whole as we enter the pub, shrouded in shadows with pockets of flickering burnt orange light. We slide into the wooden seats at the bar and grin at Sam, the owner. A tall, scrawny man who hardly sees the light of day. We greedily gulp our pitchers of ale. I welcome the familiar heat of the alcohol. My mind grows woozy as my muscles become heavy. The room spins and sways as a rosiness fills Aston's cheeks and I stare fondly at my friend. The stubble over his cheeks and the third beer in his hand are a far cry from the boy I met as a child mere days after we both lost our parents to exile from the kingdom. He used to sell freshly squeezed juice from the market with his grandmother, and I spent the last of my parents' coins to purchase a cup. His hollow, reddened cheeks were a mirror of my own.
The beer carries us into dawn, where the hunger will greet us.