by E. S. Maya
She decided she should pray for her father’s safe return. But to whom? To the Titans or God? And would praying to one offend the other?
Father needed all the help he could get, so she settled on both. She closed her eyes, folded her fingers over her aching stomach, and began to mumble in the dark: for her father to come home safe, to have new friends to play with, and to eat lots of tasty food and never go hungry again.
3
An Unexpected Visit
There was a knocking at the cottage door.
Safi covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut. It was far too early to wake up. Her tummy still ached from last night’s meal, and her bed was so warm, which meant she was warm too—almost. Her feet had escaped from her blankets once again, chilled through the night by her whispering window.
So she tucked in her toes and pulled her blankets tight. Warmth was good. Warmth was everything good. She buried her smile in her pillow, into that golden spiderweb of her bright blonde hair. There was that dream of the princess and the Titan. Where was she?
The knocking came again, louder this time.
She sat up and groaned. There was no sleeping like this! Folding her hands on her tummy, she realized last night’s supper must have roused a slumbering beast inside her. For the first time in her life, she was hungry for her mother’s bland porridge.
The knocking came again, shaking the rickety cottage.
“Mama!” Safi called. There came no answer, so she swung herself off the bed, bare feet slapping the cold wooden floorboards. She poked her head through her bedroom doorway and shouted, “I’m coming!”
Safi twirled into action, one hand pulling her shift over her head, the other swiping a comb off her bedside table. Her bottom barely filled her stool as she brushed her fluffy mane into a more manageable mess. Next she put on her finest dress, reserved for guests, sky blue with little ruffled sleeves. Everyone said it brought out her eyes. Then, reaching deep into her wardrobe, she retrieved a pair of painted wooden shoes her mother forbade her from wearing outside.
She stuffed her feet inside and started for the cottage door.
Bang-bang-bang!
“Okay, okay!” Safi shrieked, clapping the floor as she ran. Whoever was out there had little patience. Could it be about her father?
The doorknob was like ice on her fingertips. She almost fled back to her bedroom and the safety of her blankets and covers. Gathering her courage, she yanked open the door instead, revealing two strange men outside. The first stood tall and straight. The tip of his hood pointed towards the sky, while his nose curved down in defiance, as if ready to thrust right at her. The man behind him stood even taller and as wide as the door frame itself. Despite their size, they looked dignified and official, with their leather traveler’s clothes and finely groomed mustaches.
She recognized the type immediately. These were city men.
The larger man leaned over his partner’s shoulder, squinting. “This can’t be the one,” he grumbled, regarding her head to toe. “There’s hardly any flesh on her.”
The thin man nodded, big nose bobbing. “But would you look at those eyes…”
Safi looked away from the men, growing flush with embarrassment. Her eyes, according to several well-respected elder women of Ashcroft, were her best feature: two golden irises, each surrounded by a ring of blue. Like the sun against the sky, folks often said. They were the eyes of her mother and just about everyone else in the far north. Somehow, hers received special attention.
The thin man cleared his throat. Safi leapt so quickly her shoes nearly flew off her feet.
“Please come in, sirs.” She stepped aside and performed her finest curtsy, testing the limits of her countryside etiquette.
The men tossed back their hoods and shook the drizzle from their dark red capes. They stomped into the cottage, trailing a path of mud from the door to the kitchen table.
Safi shut the door and scampered after, fighting the urge to clean the floor before Mother saw it and became cross. She gasped when she noticed the swords attached to their belts, complete with polished steel pommels and crossguards. Emblazoned on their leather scabbards was an emblem known as far north as the Kingdoms of Snow, and as far south as the Abedi Sultanates—at least she liked to imagine. At the very least, she had the emblem all across Ashcroft, on the tools with which the men once dug and the crates and wagons used for outgoing iron shipments.
A pickaxe crossed with a sword. The Blackpoint Mining Company.
She pulled out two chairs and waited for her guests to be seated. Then she set out a pair of mugs since Mother was sure to prepare coffee. That finished, she stood by the table with her fingers laced behind her back, not quite sure what to say or do next.
The thin man reached inside his vest. He slapped a stack of papers down on the kitchen table. “Read it,” he said to his partner.
The larger man slid the sheets to his side of the table, squinting and nodding. Then he set his eyes on Safi. “Azadi,” he said, as if her surname itself were an answer. He held up the stack of papers and flapped them in her direction. “The girl’s a half-breed.”
Safi looked at her dark hands. A half-breed. She had never heard the term before. The children had sometimes teased her for being Abed, but she had never thought of herself as half of anything. Yet here were her hands, neither the ruddy-white of her mother nor the soil-dark brown of her father, but something between the two, a compromise between the races. Half-breed. It made sense, though she found herself loathing the term.
“Girl!” the thin man said.
“Yes, sir!”
“Don’t just stand there. Fetch your mother.”
Safi barged into her parents’ bedroom without knocking, something strictly forbidden. The bed sheets were made, and the floor was clean, but her mother was nowhere to be found. On the bedside table was a note covered in Tabitha Azadi’s impossible handwriting.
“She left only this, sirs,” Safi said, holding the note in her trembling hand as she stepped back into the kitchen.
The larger man snatched the paper out of her hand. He held it far from his face and scratched a dark eyebrow. “Can you make sense of it, Captain Strauss?”
“Give it here.” Strauss looked over the sheet, and his thin lips stretched into a smile. “Get this, Bernold! Leave the rest of the money, she says. Won’t be home till tonight, she says!”
“The old slag!” Bernold laughed, slapping the table so hard it screeched against the wooden floor.
“Um,” Safi said, touching the toes of her wooden shoes together. Their eyes fell upon her.
“You are Safiyas Azadi,” Strauss said. It wasn’t much of a question.
“Yes, sir.” Safi immediately regretted her answer.
“Then get dressed. Properly. Quickly.”
Safi bowed to the men, backing into her bedroom and easing the door shut.
She began changing into a white blouse and a rough gray skirt. As she tucked everything in, she found her hands shaking, her fingers fumbling with every little thing. The draft from the window cooled the sweat on her neck, and a thought came to her. Treading lightly, she approached the windowsill, where her father’s Titan figurines stood posed in the morning light. It wouldn’t be hard to sneak away, she thought to herself, as she began moving the precious figurines aside. There were many empty houses to hide in until her mother or father returned. Then she could—
“Girl!” barked Strauss from the other room.
Safi jumped, heart racing. She dropped one of the figurines and it shattered against the floor. No, running away was out of the question. Mother would surely be home soon. She’d tell them this was all a mistake, that they’ve got the wrong girl. Passing over her sandals, she slipped on her pair of hand-me-down leather shoes and, staring at crumbs of the broken Titan, went stumbling back into the kitchen.
The city men were standing. Strauss nodded in Safi’s direction, setting Bernold in motion. He closed the distance in two great strid
es and took her by the back of the neck. Her entire body trembled with fright as he guided her towards the cottage door.
“Um—wait—excuse me—where are you—”
“Stop fussing!” Bernold said, giving her a single shake before dragging her outside. Strauss followed behind them and yanked the cottage door shut.
She would have screamed at what she saw outside, had she not been so frightened. Waiting at the roadside was a carriage as tall as her house. It was painted black all over, even its wheels, but carved into the blackness were a thousand beige scars. Two enormous horses stood harnessed in front, larger and healthier than any she’d seen in Ashcroft. Beside them stood a red-haired man in a purple cape.
Safi twisted out from Bernold’s grip and spun towards the men. “What exactly is going on? Sirs.”
The two men glanced at one another, then down at the trembling blonde thing.
“Your mother didn’t tell you?” Bernold said, astonished.
Safi shook her head no.
“You’ve been sold, girl,” Strauss said. “To the Blackpoint Mining Company.”
“That’s not possible!” Safi cried. “Wait till my pa hears about this!”
“What’s it say about the father?” Bernold asked his partner.
Strauss leafed through the stack of paperwork. “Says he’s deceased. A widow selling her only daughter. Nothing surprising here.”
“You’re lying!” Safi turned and ran, but the large Blackpoint recruiter was faster than he looked. Bernold’s hand circled her upper arm entirely. He hauled her shrieking towards the carriage.
“Let her figure it out on the road,” Strauss said. “Get her inside.”
Hanging from the door latch, a large iron padlock was the carriage’s only jewelry. Holding Safi singlehandedly, Bernold fished into one of his belt pouches and produced a thick iron key.
Fear washed over her again, but this time her hands weren’t shaking. It was a different feeling. The urge to run away and escape. She wrapped her fist around the man’s pinkie finger. If the bastard wouldn’t let her go, she would make him. She closed her eyes and held her breath, pulling with all her strength.
Then her eyes went wide. Bernold’s pinkie finger hadn’t budged in the slightest. If the man even noticed, he didn’t show it. He slid the key into the lock and opened it with a clunk.
Safi swallowed. Inside the carriage sat three children. They shielded their eyes from the light and shrank from the doorway. For just how long had they lived in the darkness?
“In you go,” Bernold said, shoving Safi towards the carriage. She went stumbling and banged into the entrance, which was up to her waist off the ground. The strange children watched through squinted eyes. She spotted between them a chain of iron, binding their legs to the floor.
“I’m not going,” she said, turning her back to the wheeled prison.
“…gotta do everything around here,” Bernold grumbled. He collared Safi by the neck with his fingers and tossed her gingerly into the carriage. She landed hard on her side. Pain blossomed to life through her body.
“Better not forget this,” Bernold said, taking her by the foot. He dragged her into place and fastened something cold her around her ankle. “Here’s the rules, half-breed. Do as you’re told and keep your mouth shut. Easy enough?”
Safi nodded, sniffling.
“Good,” Bernold said, shutting the door and sealing out the light of day. Before closing it fully, he spoke through the crack. “More rules later.”
The door slammed shut, and the carriage rocked on its wheels.
Then came the sound of the padlock’s resounding click.
4
The Other Children
Safi lay still in the dark, waiting for the pain to release its hold. She tried to sit up, but felt its fangs in her side once more. So she stayed on the floor with her eyes squeezed shut, covering her face in both hands. Fighting to keep the tears inside.
There was breathing in the carriage. The other children. She raised her head and wiped the hair from her cheek, refusing to be seen in such a state. When her father returned, he would straighten all of this out, give those Blackpoint men a right thrashing. She just had to survive until then.
A small hand came to rest upon Safi's shoulder. She couldn’t bear to look. She tucked her eyes into the crux of her elbow and sobbed as quietly as possible, grateful that the darkness hid some of her shame from the strange children. The hand remained, and when her tears finally ran out, she peeled her face from her sleeve and fluttered open her eyes.
The carriage wasn’t as dark as she’d thought. A beam of light cut through the room, coming from a small window above the door. A ring bolt stuck out of the floor, holding down an iron chain that began at her left foot.
The hand retreated, leaving a spot of warmth on Safi’s shivering body. Sniffling, she looked up at the stranger. A boy? No, a girl. She wore a long-sleeved tunic and stained brown trousers. A mess of short black hair sat atop her head. The green of her eyes shone brilliantly, even in the dark.
“Rough day, huh?” whispered the girl, folding her arms on her knees.
Safi looked away and nodded. She sat up carefully, wincing with each slight movement as she set her back against the carriage door.
“Name’s Raven, from Serren City.” Raven offered her hand. Her fingers felt coarse in Safi’s soft palms. “Well? You got a name or what?”
Safi glanced at the door. “The man said we aren’t supposed to talk”.
Raven shrugged. “I ain’t got caught yet.”
Safi wrapped her arms around her chest, to calm the shivers inside her. She regretted not wearing something warmer, but how could she have known? Peeking across the carriage, she spied a big-eared boy wearing a pair of bent eyeglasses. His head had been shaved clean— if there had ever been hair there at all.
“That’s Goggles,” Raven said. “He don’t talk much.”
Or maybe he doesn’t want to get caught, Safi thought.
Opposite the door, a boy lounged on the floor on his back. His hair was long, matted, and filthy. His gaze lingered on the window, and when he noticed Safi staring, he gave a half-hearted wave and smiled.
“Stiv, of the Kingdom of Berrider. Nice to finally see a pretty face around here—oof!”
Luckily for Raven, Stiv was in punching range. He wasn’t about to go anywhere. “Take my advice and ignore this one,” Raven said, massaging her knuckles for emphasis.
Safi giggled into her fist, then paused, listening to make sure they weren’t caught. She hadn’t heard of Serren, and Berrider was but a shape on one of her father’s maps. Still, one’s home was important, even she knew that.
“My name is Safiyas,” she whispered, “from Ashcroft village.”
Raven scrunched her nose. “Never heard of it.”
“It’s in the Kingdom of Andolas, named after the Siege Titan Ashwalker,” Safi continued. “It passed through here a thousand years ago, and it’s supposed to be all black from marching through a volcano, and—”
“Still your tongue!” Raven said. “I couldn’t give two damns about Siege Titans.”
Safi closed her mouth into a frown.
“You see why I need someone new to talk to?” Stiv teased. At the sight of Raven’s glaring face, he raised his arms in anticipation.
Safi softened her voice, determined to defend her village. “The Titan walked through here a long time ago, and people built the village real long, to follow the Titan’s path. You can still see the shapes of its footprints.”
Raven looked a little impressed now. She glanced up at the window. “Too bad we can’t have a look.”
But Safi was glad for it. She wouldn’t want them to see Ashcroft in its current state, how ruined the homes had become. How the people were always hungry, and how all the good families had moved away.
“What about him?” Safi said, pointing at Goggles.
“Dunno,” Raven said. “Feeling chatty, Gogs?”
“No
,” Goggles said, and buried his face in his arms.
“I shouldn’t be here,” Safi said quietly. “This is all one big mistake.”
Raven raised an eyebrow. “You’re thirteen, ain’t you?” Safi nodded, and the girl continued. “Then you’re of legal selling age, just like the rest of us.”
Safi shook her head, blonde hair swinging. “I’ll be leaving real soon.”
“And how do you plan on that?” asked Stiv.
“My pa will be returning any day now. We’ll have money then, enough to buy food to eat and some horses to ride. Then we’re traveling south, to the Southern Kingdoms. That’s where he’s from, you know.” Safi pointed at herself. “I’m half-Abed.”
Raven touched a finger to her chin. “I thought you might’ve been something, but I couldn’t tell in the dark.”
Stiv kicked out his left foot, rattling the heavy chain across the carriage floor. The sound of iron on wood was sobering. No matter what Safi said or believed, there was still the manacle against her skin. It was a coldness they all shared.
“How exactly does one go from not having enough to eat,” asked Stiv, “to rich?”
Safi glanced at the door, then leaned towards the others, as if telling the secret of secrets. “The miners of my village are off climbing a real Siege Titan.”
Stiv squeezed his lips together, holding in a spat of laughter. Raven smiled too, shaking her head in astonishment, like she’d been told the Titans were made of cheese.
“You’re serious?” Raven whispered, furling her eyebrows tight. “They’re truly off climbing a Titan?”
“They’ve been practicing all year,” Safi said, voice wavering. She glared across the carriage at the snickering boy, but his gaze chased her eyes away. “It’s not funny!”
Stiv threw his hands in the air. “I’m not saying anything.”
“Safi,” Raven began, her voice deep and ominous. “Do you know what all Titan climbers have in common?”
