Page 31 of A Broken Promise (the Freckled Fate #1)
31
T all aspen trees were lined in a neat row, glimmering brightly even through the foggy glass of the small carriage we were in. It’d been three weeks of nonstop journeying, deep into the Royal lands. Long gone were the mighty buildings of Svitar, or the moss-covered brick of Port City, replaced by gloomy, cabin-like houses and tiny villages. Hotels and taverns were getting poorer and dirtier the further we traveled. Soon, even the carriages wouldn’t make the trip that far into the gods’ forsaken lands. Even the weather seemed to match the lack of life in these lands. It was cold and gloomy, with only occasional yellow and orange leaves stranded in the sea of grays.
The carriage abruptly stopped. Half asleep, Priya raised her head to the corner.
“Why are we stopping here? For gods’ sake!” she grumped, rubbing her face angrily.
The old man with large, white sideburns opened the carriage.
“The bridge is under construction, miss; the carriage can’t pass.”
“Then what am I paying you for, old man?” she argued, getting out of the carriage. I followed. The cold, autumn air wrapped my body immediately. The dark rain clouds were now constantly covering the skies, as a reminder of never-ending gloom .
“I could take you back and try again in a week or so,” he offered.
“Oh, and spend a whole week in that rat infested motel? I’d rather die.” Priya dramatically growled in frustration. The old man just shrugged, climbing back on his high seat.
“On foot it is then,” Priya irritably said, chucking a silver coin to him.
I grabbed our bags and slid one across the shoulder, passing another one to Priya. There was no point in arguing. Not when I had to save whatever remaining bravery I had to find the one man that had altered my life. Plus, I wasn’t that eager to return to that nasty motel either, and if we were fast enough, we could make it to the next village before sundown.
Tall grass ran up to my shins, my boots now covered in moisture. The grass was muted green in anticipation, before it slowly rots underneath the layers of soon to come snow.
“Let’s play marry, fuck, kill?” I asked. I had heard the village girls play that game a few times growing up, but I was never included.
“Oh gods. Are we five?” Priya rolled her eyes as we crossed the small makeshift bridge across the lazy river, but nodded her head in agreement.
“Florian, Beatrice, Ronald?”
“Obviously kill Florian. Kill Ronald too. Fuck Beatrice, that’s easy.”
I laughed. A Priya-fitting answer. “It doesn’t work like that; you have to pick one to marry.”
“I’d rather kill myself and they all can go fuck and marry together. Beatrice would probably enjoy it too.”
“So predictable. Boring.” I yawned.
“Fine, smartass, your turn.”
“I mean, not that I’ve thought about it but marry Beatrice because I am sure she would be the best. Fuck Florian for obvious reasons, and kill Ronald.” I eyed the sky and whispered, “Sorry, Ronald.”
Priya chuckled, pulling out another treat from her bag. At this point I got used to the fact that Priya mostly packed food for her trips and not clothes .
“Ronald deserves it,” Priya sneered. “And Beatrice would make a terrible wife, are you kidding me? In fact, Florian would be a better wife than her, granted she talks less and fucks better than him, so I guess I could see it.”
A little shadow crept over my thoughts. I tried to be subtle about it.
“Wait, are you saying you and Florian….?” I paused, anxiously waiting.
“OH FUCK NO. Gods, NO. Bleawh...” Priya just continued making vomiting noises for about five minutes. I chuckled, rolling my eyes.
“I take it as a no then.”
“This might be the most offensive thing you’ve ever said to me. Oh, Freckles, fuck no!” Priya kept on fake vomiting. “Such atrocity. How do you even dare? Like, I chop dicks for a living. I am not putting one near me unless it’s to cut it off.”
I smiled, though slightly embarrassed that I had asked that question to begin with.
“Florian and I met a long time ago,” Priya said, slightly warming up to the conversation I had been leading to and hoping to have for a while now. “I met him shortly after I moved to Svitar. His grandfather and I have mutually beneficial investments and since Florian is the named heir, I have to get along with him once in a while for the money to roll in.”
I slapped another mosquito on my arm. Gods, there were swarms of them now coming at us.
“Named heir for what?”
“Does the name Casteol mean anything to you?” Priya said with her mouth full of dried biscuits.
“No? Should it?” I warily asked. Priya rolled her eyes as if I was the most ignorant creature on earth, but I tried to fight that. “You forget that I spent most of my life in places like this, living cast out with the elven maid.” I motioned my arms to the gloomy nothingness around us. “And after being forced into slavery, we didn’t quite get the morning gossip of Svitar.” My words were sharp, but I smoothed my tone. Incompetent, unaware, clueless . It always irked me. That feeling like I didn’t know something but should have.
“Oh please, yes, be so dramatic, slave girl.” Priya clicked her tongue at me. “Relax. Casteols are drug Lords, but not just drug Lords, they are the emperors in the drug world. Their family has been running the drug cartel in Esnox for generations now. Florian’s dad was murdered, his mom is some singer, performing day shows at the Queen’s Palace. And his grandfather, two years ago, announced Florian as his sole heir to the Casteol Empire.”
“And when exactly were you going to tell me any of that?”
“Are you not going to go out with him now?”
I opened my mouth to object but paused. Yes, I would still go. Drug empire heir or not, Florian was fun. He was such a ray of sunshine in the dark gloomy days.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, if it doesn’t change anything, why would it matter?” Now it was Priya’s turn as she smacked a few mosquitos off her thighs.
“So, you are an assassin and a drug Lord?” I asked casually. It didn’t surprise me at all. Not anymore.
“Me, a drug Lord? Oh please, those men are pure savages with no class.”
“Well, there is some class.” I smirked, my thoughts drifting to that slightly unbuttoned, ironed shirt on that summer tanned skin.
“A. Super gross.” Priya rolled her eyes. “B. Poisons are not the only useful thing you can make out of plants. C. When you make extremely potent opium, there are people, very rich people, that are willing to pay for it. So, as I said, it’s an investment. I like to diversify my portfolio. Who knows, maybe one day if I get bored and Florian pisses me off, maybe I’ll murder them and take over the empire. Who knows, life is full of possibilities.” She slapped another darn mosquito.
At my stern glance, she continued.
“What? I didn’t say I’ll do it for sure, I just mean I would like to keep it as an option.” She smacked a mosquito on my shoulder.
“So, besides the fact that you are thinking of murdering him, what else should I know of Florian Casteol?” I curiously asked .
“That you will probably get an STD just by standing too close to him.”
“Very funny,” I sarcastically said and stuck my tongue out.
She flipped me off with both of her fingers.
The never-ending barren fields were now getting broken up by occasional cabins. Finally, we were approaching the village.
The tall grassy road turned into half-dried mud. The village was small, with just a few barely noticeable smoke streaks coming from the mud-covered chimneys.
A handful of young women passed in their patched up, worn-out cloaks, eyeing us with concern and interest.
I adjusted the crossbow on my back, my cloak covering most of it.
“This stench. Gods. Would it kill them to plant a flower or two or pick up this shit once in a while?” Priya cursed as she had to dodge, yet again, another large pile of cow shit. I was too deep in my flooded memories to tell her that planting flowers or cleaning up shit would be the least of their concerns when they were simply trying to survive each day. It was easier to adjust to the smell of wet cow shit than to find the strength to clean it up.
I knew that because I too had to survive that.
Not that long ago, I was in a village just like this, covered in mud and shit, laying on the frozen ground, completely numb from pain. I was barely eighteen, kicked out without being paid yet again, with nowhere to go, no money to my name, and nobody. Not a single soul in the whole wide world to care. My mind drunken, blurred with grief, unable to cope with the loss of the only family I had ever had, loss of the future, loss of hope.
It was so oddly chilling to be back now, when I was well dressed, my belly full of food and my pockets full of coins. I was a different person now; my body strong, my mind, though scarred, craving life more than death.
But familiar notes of grief played within my soul as mud spattered across my winter boots. Yes, I was a different person, but that aching, soul crushing grief had never really gone away. It had torched my soul leaving just ashes in the previously flourishing Eden.
You don’t survive grief. You don’t overcome it. You get used to it. Just like you get used to the wet cow shit smell. One day, you just wake up not feeling it. Its mark had never left, you just have adjusted to it.
I pulled my brand-new cloak tighter, reminding myself that though I was broken, I was no longer floundering in an abyss of pain anymore.
My boots were splattered in dust and drips of nasty mud, but my feet were warm and cozy, the boots fulfilling their purpose, doing what they were meant to do. I kept my eyes on the mud below my feet.
What was my purpose, really? That question had nagged me for a while now, though I masterfully ignored it. When my energy was spent keeping haunted memories at bay, that thought consumed me.
Why was I here?
I was here to kill.
I killed before, and I would surely kill again. That didn’t bother me. It mattered to Priya for it to be specifically Bornean Miteno. In some way it probably mattered to me too.
But why was I here? Fate or no Fate. Why was I here ?
What was my purpose?
The quiet numbness stirred in me, purring, calming the rising storm within.
My eyes trailed off the mud, up to the horizon. I halted. My mouth dried out completely as I saw the pile of dismembered, half-burned bodies thrown together in a heap.
I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure if I could. Even the tiny mosquitoes plastered on my forehead and neck stopped sucking my blood. The world paused for a minute, sorrow and anger flooding my thoughts, like pent-up water through a broken dam.
The charcoaled, clenched fingers and half-burned faces were forever frozen in agony, in their never-ending scream.
No, the world was silent in the moment, but I could hear them still. Just like I did years ago. Those soul wrenching screams .
The heap of bodies was cold, not even an ember of fire, yet I could still smell it; the human burnt hair, the burnt smell of blood and flesh. There were no ashes floating in the air, no smoke suffocating me, though my lungs burned.
Breathe. I needed to breathe. But how could I?
“You look pale,” Priya nonchalantly said as if she didn’t see those bodies. I didn’t reply. My eyes were unmovable from the lives forever lost. Gods, a couple of them must have been less than ten years old, their small, half-burnt feet now forever exposed to cold, never to run through the green fields again, never to laugh or to smile. The world darkened around me.
Breathe . I willed myself. Breathe .
“Gods, Freckles, if you are going to pass out, at least move your perfectly braided hair away from that pile of horseshit because I am not braiding horseshit hair ever. Like ever.”
That was her command, but I didn’t move. Priya took a few more steps away from me, closer to the bodies.
Bright lightning lit up the sky and loud thunder crackled seconds later. Large drops of rain landed on my skin. I blinked. My lungs expanded in the desperate breath again and then once more. Breathe. I stood still, letting the cold-water burn against my skin like acid.
“Come on, Freckles, let’s go.” She motioned to the small saloon a few houses down, quickly walking away.
My eyes were still glued to the bodies, now being washed and cleaned with pouring rain, soon to be drenched in moisture just like me. Except I was alive and breathing and they were gone, never to live again.
A soft hand jerked my arm and pulled me forward. Priya.
“For fuck’s sake,” she grumped. “If you want to stare at the half-burnt corpses all night, be my guest, but do it through a window in the saloon. I haven’t gotten these nice leathers for you to just let them rot like that.”
Priya didn’t let go of my arm until we walked into the saloon. A couple of the gruff men scoffed and growled at our arrival. Priya jerked me to the chair .
“Sit,” she ordered, and I obliged. There was no point of fighting, not with her eyes throwing knives at me.
But was there a point to any of it all?
I should’ve been dead. Should’ve been dead a long time ago. A little tear bit my cheek when the most painful truth had sounded clear in my mind. A truth that I had been fighting my entire life.
I should have never been born to begin with.
That was the most painful truth, because I full heartedly believed it.
Priya went to the big, bearded man carving slices off a large lamb leg. I couldn’t hear her as she argued with the man, but even if I did, it wouldn’t matter.
She shortly came back and sat on the chair, mumbling some profanities as she scraped off the caked-on mud on the edge of the table leg.
“Who were they?” I asked.
“He is the prick owner that will be bringing us the best meal he has ever made because frankly if he doesn’t, I will be murdering everyone here.” Priya was in a foul mood.
“No, who are they ?” I repeated, slightly tilting my head to the fogged-up window with nothing but the small droplets on the other side.
“Hell, if I know,” Priya said, dropping her bag on the table and rustling through her belongings. “And I am out of chocolates? Oh, fucking fuckers hell...”
“I want to know who they were,” I stated calmly.
“This day is seriously getting on my nerves.” Priya rattled her bag again before dropping it on the other chair at our table. She paused, looking at me for once. My question still stuck in the air, unanswered. I watched as servers put a large batch of freshly baked bread on a dirty cloth.
“How the fuck would I know? Not my fucking problem.” She scowled at me.
Fine.
I would find out myself then. Another flash, another loud roar of thunder; so loud I could feel the tremor in my bones. Even the gruff men splattered all over the corners paused their loud chewing and drunken arguing for a moment.
The owner brought a small plate filled with nicely sliced cheeses and breads and some jam.
“Your starter, ma’am” He nudged the plate to Priya.
“Do I look like I am fucking fifty? I am a fucking miss to you, bastard!” Priya spat out quickly, already taking a bite from the fresh rye bread.
The owner scoffed from disrespect but didn’t say anything, taking a few steps back to his kitchen.
“Who were they?” I stood up taking a step towards him.
He turned back and faced me. I looked at the dull blue eyes against his red face.
“Those bodies outside. Who were they?” I asked again, when he didn’t answer.
He paused, wiping his hands on the stained apron, hesitating to answer. “That is what’s left of Rebel sympathizers.”
But I already knew that; had guessed it from the moment I saw those fire marks on them. “No, who were they?” His gray eyebrows bunched up in confusion. I repeated my question again. “Who were those people? What were their names?”
“I am not sure,” he replied defensively. “I don’t deal with Rebel sympathizers.”
“But did you know of any of them? Did you ever see those kids running down this street?” My voice was heavy though steady, there was so much anger within.
“Um ma’am…um miss,” he corrected himself immediately as Priya growled. “I didn’t know any of them, and even if I did, it would be of no good to ask these questions or answer any regarding the sympathizers here.” He slightly bowed again and walked away as Priya waved him off.
I rested my back against the chair, my arms folded tight. A storm much larger than the one outside was brewing deep in my thoughts.
“Eat,” Priya commanded, pushing the plate with food closer to me .
“I am not hungry,” I replied, my eyes pinned on the back of the owner as he chatted with his help and added a few logs to the fire.
“The fuck you are not. You haven’t eaten since the morning. Get over yourself and eat,” she barked at me again.
“I will, when I am hungry,” I firmly replied. A line in the sand.
“Oh, so this is how it’s going to be today.” Priya’s lips turned into a thin line. “Why are you so obsessed over half a dozen rotten corpses?”
“Why aren’t you?” I shot back.
“Some people live, some people die. Thus is life.” Priya dramatically gestured with her butter knife as she plastered red jam on her bread. So trivial.
“Then what’s the point of life then? You suffer then you die suffering?” I said as calmly as I could.
“That is precisely the point, Freckles. You live and then you die. Just as simple as that. There is no point. So might as well live your fucking miserable life to the fullest.” She gave me a skittish smile and took another bite.
“Why not just die now, if it truly doesn’t matter?” I countered.
“You are so dramatic.” Priya rolled her eyes again. I ignored her jab. “I mean sure you can go die now, or later. I personally am in no rush, considering gods are boring pricks and the afterlife is going to be such a bore.” I watched her take another bite out of the buttered bread.
Is everything really that pointless? Live or die, who cares?
“And if that’s not enough for me? If I want more out of life than just to simply exist?”
“Freckles, let me be very clear… you are nothing , but a speck of dust in this world. Simply existing is already more than you could ever wish for.”
I stayed silent, watching a young man approach us with two bowls full of whatever hot liquid it was. Priya ignored him as he placed the soup and quickly returned to the large prep table in the corner.
“If you really must have a mission,” Priya’s voice softened as if she realized the sting of those sharp words. “Why don’t you just stop overthinking and enjoy your life for once? Make that your purpose . Have fun. Murder some people. Go see a show or a circus. Get laid for once. Maybe even get plastered drunk. Hell, get a girlfriend maybe?” She winked at me. I didn’t smile back. “Geez fine, I could even try and accept a boyfriend but only if approved by me though.” She pushed the bowl of soup towards me. “And maybe you could start by just eating some food for once before I force feed you in front of everyone.”
I looked out the window and pulled the bowl closer to me. I’d eat right now. One spoonful after another, letting that liquid burn my throat. My cheeks heated, turning red. Between the steaming pots, the small chimney and large men producing body heat with each of their breaths, the saloon was getting warm. Too warm.
My eyes stayed on the small, crooked window. Another sip and another. My bowl was now empty. The darkness of the evening hid the silver drops of the never-ending rain.
“We are sleeping here by the way.” Priya broke the silence after a while. “This stupid rotten village has the fucking Rebel sympathizers, but not a decent bed and breakfast?! Cook said that we could walk around the town and ask if anyone has an extra bed, but I am not doing that in this weather. Plus, gods, I don’t want to repeat that whole louse situation from two years ago. So, we are sleeping here.”
I nodded in acknowledgment.
Hours went by. My soul and mind slowly twined with dark threads of fog. Most men were now gone, just a couple of drunks left resting on the spit-covered floors. Priya didn’t talk much, only occasionally complaining about one thing or the other. After a while, she stacked a few chairs together and plumped her bag, using it as a pillow.
Sleep. I should get some sleep.
Though my eyes were heavy, my soul was weary.
I watched the small golden and red embers of fire of the giant stove slowly wither away with each breath, the only color now left in the dreary, dark room. The cold draft of wind from the large gap beneath the front door embraced me, taking away the last chance of settling my rancid mind down.
Have a better life . Tuluma’s dying wish for me. My promise to her.
Was it a better life now ?
Have I been surviving for so long that a part of me forgot what I was living for?
The small, half-burnt feet flashed in front of my eyes with each blink.
Maybe I was just a piece of dust, a little speck of nothing, useless and foolish with nothing to offer, but if we all were to die in the end, I would rather die knowing I stood up for something good, than wasting my entire life wishing I had.