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Ten Years Ago

Skaanda—a ruined village

This might be the last day I ever see the sun.

The falling light dazzles me as I clamber up onto the roof of what was once a Skaandan public house, abandoned in the war and half tumbled down.

The entire village is empty of everything but dust and memory, its small knot of buildings and ruined central fountain gilded all in liquid orange.

I want to stand still and tilt my face to the sun, let the light seep into me before it vanishes entirely for the whole of winter. But that is not why I am here.

I squint at the rope that stretches taut between where I perch on the roof of the public house and the small temple across the street, its white pillars cracked, its roof tiles loose and crumbling.

Despite the chill in the air, the dark curls at the nape of my neck are damp with sweat.

I don’t know the feel of the rope, don’t know which spots on the roof are safe to put my feet.

It’s been a week since I last practiced my routine, and this is a far cry from the arena at home.

“Get on with it!” the king shouts from the ground, thirty feet below me. His impatience is just this side of rage.

I don’t dare glance down at him. If I do, I’ll lose courage. I’ll fall.

I take a breath. I shake my muscles loose.

I leap into a sequence of back handsprings along the peak of the public house roof, slicing my hand on a broken tile and barely stopping myself from careening down into the caved-in portion.

The pain hardly registers as I hurl myself back the other way, doing flips and cartwheels and landing with both feet on the taut rope.

I don’t stop. I can’t.

I run across the rope, getting the measure of it, the fibers rough on my bare feet. Adrenaline courses through me, and when I reach the roof of the temple, I flip backward onto the rope, catching it with my hands because my feet miss it.

I swing up, launching myself onto the temple, skidding on the loose tiles and turning it into a dance. I jump and flip and cartwheel as the tiles slide from the roof and smash on the street below.

And then it’s one last mad dash across the rope and I shimmy back down to the ground, doing three front flips and a final somersault before landing in a perfect bow at the king’s feet.

I try to quiet my raging heart as I study the hem of his robe, red velvet stitched with silver.

I’m slick with sweat, my insides jelly. Dust swirls up, sticking to my skin.

The last rays of the sun fade from the world, and the king’s soldiers light torches.

They stink of sulfur; the smoke burns my eyes.

I dare a glance up at the king: His pale skin and dark hair and beard make him look like a specter in the torchlight.

“I told you she’s remarkable,” says the Skaandan woman who brought me here, rings on every one of her milky-brown fingers.

The king scoffs. “I thought she would fall.”

“But she didn’t.”

I bite my lip to keep myself still. I bite deep, deep, until I taste blood.

For the first time since leaving home, I am horribly, wildly afraid.

I didn’t know, before. I didn’t understand .

But it’s far, far too late now to turn back.

That choice was taken from me the moment I was presented to the king.

“I don’t have an acrobat,” he finally says, turning on his heel away from me. “I suppose I will take her.”

“It will cost you,” says the Skaandan woman.

The king snaps his fingers and his steward, a tall, pale Daerosian man, tosses her a pouch that clinks when she catches it.

I tremble before him, everything in me screaming to run. Yet I am still.

The Skaandan woman opens the pouch and counts the coins in the torchlight. I wonder what she means to do with them, what the price of my life is worth to her. The steward hauls me up by the arm while she’s still counting and shoves me into the waiting cart. Then he climbs into the driver’s seat.

The Skaandan woman turns away without another word.

She is no one to me, but she’s my last link to home.

I have to clamp my jaw shut to keep myself from shouting for her to come back.

I huddle between a sack of grain and a mound of wool blankets.

There is another Skaandan child in the other corner of the wagon, a boy scarcely older than me.

He’s crying quietly. I shift my body so I don’t have to look at him.

The king swings up onto his horse, flanked by his soldiers, with the lurching wagon following behind and the torches blurs of orange against the burgeoning stars.

We head northeast, toward the mighty river that divides Skaanda from Daeros.

From there we will travel on to Tenebris, the king’s mountain palace.

I tell myself that all will be well. I tell myself there is nothing to fear, that I will find my way home again soon enough. Goddess of death, it’s a lie.

The Skaandan boy can’t stop crying, and I despise him for it. The king is not known for his kindness—tears will not help us now. I turn my back on the boy. I try to remember the feel of sunlight on my face.

But there is only darkness.