Child of the Daystar (The Wings of War Book 1)

by Bryce O'Connor

  They had ventured deep today, farther than they’d managed in the past week or so. The street they were progressing along was narrow, less than fifteen feet wide, and lined on both sides with rickety hovels and crumbling mud-brick shacks that gave little more than the illusion of shelter. Bloodshot eyes watched them from the shadows beyond open doors, and almost every beggar they handed money to thanked them with a smile yellowed and diseased from ragroot abuse. Syrah felt a measured mix of fear and alertness whenever they trekked into the slums. They’d been attacked once already by a man so desperate he’d jumped them bare handed.

  Talo had left him in the shade of an alley, unconscious but relatively unhurt, with a whole silver duke in his pocket for when he came to.

  That night at the Ovana, Talo had barely touched his mutton and potato stew. It was only after they’d washed their faces, finished their silent prayers, and blown out the candles that he’d spoken aloud at all.

  “These people need more help than the whole of our order could offer them in a hundred years,” he’d said, then bid Syrah good night.

  The populace in Karth was largely divided into two groups: the inordinately wealthy—those few families and individuals who controlled almost all the coin passing in and out of the city—and the unbelievably poor. Slum towns ringed the city in all directions except directly east, and each area was plagued with its own problems. Murder, rape, and theft were a daily part of these people’s lives. Slavers ignored the laws which rarely served to punish them anyways, stealing through the night to rip men, women, and children alike from their beds. Brothels—legal, illegal, and everything in between—could be found on almost any main road. Twice now the male Priests had been approached by emaciated whores offering services none of them had ever heard of, or at least pretended not to for Syrah’s sake.

  The second girl couldn’t have been older than eleven.

  These pilgrimages south by the Laorin—rare occurrences already since all involved were volunteers—were the only help some of these people would ever receive from complete strangers.

  Syrah looked up from her work, watching a group of children playing in the dust a few yards away. The game was something she’d seen before but had yet to figure out completely. It involved three rocks—two painted red and one white—all passed in a circle while the boys and girls chanted the same verse over and over again:

  Little by little they all fade away. Little by little, as does the day.

  Little by little Her Stars disappear, taking with them all of our fear.

  At that point, whoever was holding the white rock would groan and step out of the circle, and the game would start again. Syrah couldn’t even give a guess as to what the red ones did, but it didn’t matter.

  What mattered was that they were playing in the dirt.

  The dirt… These children who should have been having about with wooden swords or laughing over straw-stuffed dolls. Who should at least have had the right to return home to a decent meal. A few didn’t even have proper clothes. One tiny girl, a small, twig-like figure so thin Syrah couldn’t understand how she could be standing, wasn’t wearing anything at all.

  But it didn’t matter to them. The vulnerability of the girl in her nakedness went by unnoticed. This was what they knew. This was the world they’d been born to and brought up in.

  And all she could do was give them a few measly coppers…

  “Syrah.”

  She started, realizing suddenly that her eyes were wet. Even as she turned she felt a tear escape her hard-fought attempt to hold it back, joining with the trails of sweat along her neck. Thank Laor Talo couldn’t see her through the silks.

  Still, as he looked over her shoulder at the group of children, the fall in her Priest-Mentor’s face spoke of knowing her thoughts all too well.

  “Come. That’s enough for today.”

  Syrah nodded wordlessly, saddened by her helpless relief when the four of them turned to make their way back toward the busier market streets.

  IV

  “With each passing year the Cienbal widens its reach. Thankfully, to the north and south, where a majority of civilized desert culture has taken root, this growth is minimal. To the east and west, however, butting heads with the Emperor’s Ocean and the Crags along the coast of the Dramion Sea, the sands can eat away leagues of richer earths in less than a decade.”

  —exc. “The Cienbal,” by Adolûs Fenn

  “Six dukes? That’s a crown and a half! This roll of rags isn’t worth a third of that!”

  “I’m very sorry, sir, but that’s the price. I’ve already given you a reduction on the Karavyl silk, so it isn’t possible for me to—”

  “If I’d known you expected me to pay that much for cotton I could find in most refuse piles, I wouldn’t have come all the way here to begin with, would I?”

  “It’s not the cotton, sir, it’s the dyes that mark the price. See how they swirl without clashing the colors? It’s a new technique developed in—”

  “Sun burn you, woman. What makes you think I care where you stole this from in the first place to get it? I’m not paying a baron over two silvers, and you’ll sell it to me or—”

  “That’s enough.”

  Prida and her customer both turned. From the cover of the tent, Raz watched Jarden step over from his table of spun-glass jewelry.

  The Arros’ first week in Karth had gone well by any standard. True, the half-hour walks to the markets every day were tedious, especially when they were all loaded down with goods and tables and collapsible overhangs, but it was nothing worth complaining about. Already they’d heard that the “tax” for desert traders holding residence near the markets had been driven up to three crowns a week, half again the previous year’s. By circling their caravan in to the east, the Arros not only avoided this extortion but also managed to steer clear of much of the crime that had grown even more prominent since the previous summer. The Eomons, another trade group, had already been robbed of half their stores by street runners.

  In general, though, commerce was good. Everything was turning a marginal profit, and they’d had few problems with customers until today. It was bad for business to have someone yelling about how unfair the prices were at a particular booth. It meant those individuals nearby in the crowded market who’d been contemplating stopping by the table were much less likely to do so.

  Still, it was worse to let a trim run you down with his bartering. If it got out that a family was selling at cut-costs, it meant two things. First, while everything would likely be sold in days, it would be sold at almost no profit, and the sellers would have less coin to purchase other goods to resell at the next city. Second, the other families would lose business, and bad blood amongst the clans was never a good thing to enter the grueling summer months with.

  Dealing with bullying customers was an essential—if distasteful—part of the life.

  “The price is set,” Jarden said curtly, his gray eyes on the fat man in question. “Either pay, or find somebody else to buy from. You won’t come across cloth this good just anywhere, but you are certainly free to try.”

  “What’s going on?” Mychal asked eagerly, scooting so he, too, could peer out from between the tent flaps. They’d been playing at dice before the shouting started. Ahna sat in the corner, occupying herself as she always did with one of her cloth dolls, unconcerned with things that didn’t involve her little make-believe worlds.

  “Trim thinks he can cause trouble,” Raz answered with a smirk. “Idiot.”

  “Go take a chunk of him,” Mychal laughed, moving back and picking the dice up again. “Day’s worth of cleanup says I get double sevens.”

  “You always get double sevens, you cheat,” Raz said with a snort, not looking away from the scene outside.

  Mychal laughed again, but didn’t say anything back. At twenty-one summers, he had grown into a handsom
e young man. His dark hair was pulled back into a short ponytail like his father’s, and the clean shadow of a beard lined his lower jaw. He was strong, and would have been a great help carrying goods to and from the market if the brown cloth of his left pant leg weren’t pinned back behind his thigh, covering the stump of his missing limb. As it was, though, Mychal was far from useless. He had quick hands and a good head for numbers, and Agais had tasked him with keeping track of the family’s profits while they were in any city. Every night Mychal stayed up well past sunset, counting and separating and tallying the earnings they’d made.

  “Damn he’s loud,” Mychal complained, looking up from his game. Outside the voices had gotten angrier, and even Ahna looked up in alarm, gray eyes suddenly scared.

  “Don’t tell me how to go about my business, you dune-dulled tanny,” the customer spat at Prida, who seemed to be trying to calm him down again. He was short and plump, with a dark-red tunic that spoke of a certain wealth. A wispy black beard curled out from the first of his three chins, carefully combed and styled to a point. Puffing out his chest like a sand toad, he continued haughtily. “Do you know who I am? I am Hodrin Evony, of the Evony family, and…”

  As the man started to spout his titles and the names of his family and what some cousin in Miropa would do to the Arro’s trade if they didn’t cut prices for him, Raz saw the signal. The derogatory slight at the nomads’ tanned skin had done it. Jarden’s right hand curled into a fist, coming to rest on his lower back.

  Raz moved quickly, leaving the tent out the back entrance with only a pause to pat his sister’s head and give her a comforting wink. He was a known figure in the market, and people moved out of his way without question, a few nodding to him but most either glaring or avoiding his eyes altogether. Ignoring them all, he made a short loop through the crowd until he stood directly behind Hodrin Evony, who was still belting about how he could ruin their family with a word.

  “I believe my uncle gave you a choice,” Raz said calmly. His natural voice was a deep, dangerous tenor, frightening to those who didn’t know him. “Pay or leave, Master Evony. Now.”

  Hodrin Evony turned furiously, and the angry flush in his pudgy cheeks blanched to chalk. He looked up, tilting his head almost completely back. He took in Raz’s sharp teeth, golden eyes, and wicked claws with a terrified glance and stumbled backward, knocking into Prida’s table and almost upending the bolts of different-colored cloths that were neatly stacked upon it. The man’s eyes lingered on the crest of blue and orange skin arcing along the back of Raz’s neck, only slightly raised, and he openly stared at the wings partially extended about a foot to either side of powerful scaled arms.

  Then Evony dropped the silk he’d already bought, blubbering incoherent words and stumbling sideways, backside rubbing the table until he was clear of the Arros’ stalls. From there he took off running, disappearing into the crowd, which acted like they hadn’t noticed a thing.

  Raz relaxed, pulling his wings flush to his back again before kneeling down to pick up the Karavyl fabric from the dirt. With a sigh he brushed it off carefully, standing and handing it back to Prida.

  “I’d feel bad, but covered in dust we won’t be able to sell it again for much anyway.”

  “I’m just glad you two were the ones around today,” Prida smirked, accepting the fabric and looking it over. “Tolman would have fed him his fingers.”

  “I would have offered to find him a fork,” Jarden grunted, moving back to the jewelry table as a young couple started examining a necklace strung with tiny glass stars. “They think they know it all, don’t they?”

  “They’re not all bad,” Prida insisted, tucking the dirty bolt under the table so that it wouldn’t get the others dusty. “I’ve met some of the local merchants, and they seem nice enough.”

  “Oh they’re fine, until they realize they’re losing business to us,” Raz muttered, slipping behind the stall and looking out over the crowd.

  Karth’s market was a hot myriad of swirling colors. Capes, shawls, turbans, and even the dyed hair of street dancers all swept together to form a dull, undulating rainbow. Down the street to Raz’s left there was a roar as a fire-breather blew a jet of flames into the air to the crowd’s cheers. To his right, the lumbering form of an elephant plodded its way slowly across the road, towing a massive cart filled with thin yellow and green fruits. All around them people called out to each other and the crowd, some buying, some selling, but all sweating under the brilliant white globe of the Sun high above, framed against a cloudless sky.

  Raz felt constricted. He didn’t like crowds. It was one of those disadvantages that made city life—while appealing—less than perfect. Being surrounded on all sides, elbow to shoulder, bumping into everyone and getting jostled by the current of the pedestrian traffic—it all made him feel tied down and anxious, like he was stuck with nowhere to go. More than once Raz had suppressed the urge to leap straight up, over everyone’s heads, and spread his wings. When he was ringed on all fronts by the pressing throng, it often seemed the only place to go was up.

  Too bad he’d never been able to fly a day in his life.

  It wasn’t for lack of trying, mind you. Once, when he’d been ten summers old, he’d rebroken his wrist jumping off the top of his parent’s cart, trying to fly. Mychal had put him up to it, of course. The boy had been a little fiend in his younger years. Still, despite this accident, it had taken a long time before Raz finally gave up. The Grandmother thought it might be that he needed to be taught by one of his own, if any lived. Tolman had once joked that maybe someone should just shove him off a cliff and see what happened.

  Whatever it was that could spark some life into his wings, though, Raz had yet to puzzle it out. He’d adapted, in the end, though his father wasn’t always the keenest fan of some of his methods of coping.

  The Arros were an earthbound people. Heights were not amongst their chosen interests.

  “Prida, I’ll take over for a bit.” Raz crossed his arms and rested a shoulder against one of the stall’s wooden posts. “Mychal wants someone to gamble his chores away to, and I already owe him a week.”

  “Well he’s not conning me into it,” the woman said with a laugh. “But yes, thank you. It’s getting a little hot for me out here.”

  Raz nodded, watching her tidy up the arrangement of bolts before disappearing into the tent. Absentmindedly he turned to gaze out over the crowd, taking in the bland mélange of movement and colors, glad to be on his feet for a time.

  “Worried Master, his Lordship, and High Ruler of the World might come back?”

  Raz looked around at Jarden’s question, confused.

  “Evony,” his uncle finished with a chuckle, striking a haughty pose and stroking an invisible goatee.

  “What? Oh. No.” Raz shook his head, shifting his attention back to the market. A tall woman in green with thin bangles hanging over her eyes stopped briefly to examine the texture of one of his silks. “I would just rather be standing than seated all cooped up in the tent.”

  “Don’t blame you,” Jarden said with a shrug, the long scars on his left arm, blatantly visible in his sleeveless tunic, warping a little with the motion. “It’s not fun being stuffed up in a hot little room all day. If I had the choice, I’d just as well not stop for more than a week at a time in any one place. Makes me jittery.”

  “Eh,” Raz said, shrugging. “Doesn’t bother me. It’s a nice change from the sands. I just don’t like not being able to spread my wings.”

  Jarden laughed. “Not sure I can really relate to that,” he said with a smirk, his eyes following a tumbler bedecked in green and yellow making his way down the road, balancing and spinning three colored plates on the ends of thin wooden rods. “I feel I’m lacking the necessary appendages to give you fair advice.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  There was a minute before Jarden responded as he gr
eeted a dark-skinned Percian and handed him a set of hammered bracelets reserved the day before.

  “I suppose,” he finally conceded. Then he grinned mischievously. “Go climb the roofs, then.”

  Raz gave him a sharp look, and Jarden laughed again.

  “Oh, I know all about your little nighttime trips. Don’t worry,” he cut in when Raz opened his mouth to say something. “Your father’s still in the dark about it.”

  Raz was quiet. “He thinks it’s dangerous,” he grumbled after a moment. “The last time he caught me up there he yelled for half an hour.”

  “He’s right to think that. You climb higher every time he finds you at it. Not to mention there’s people around here who don’t want strangers snooping around their business. Especially after dark.”

  “But I’m not—”

  Jarden halted the outburst with a raised hand. “I didn’t say you were, but think of how it looks. You running around on the rooftops like some thief, in the middle of a city where there’s a half dozen murders every night.”

  “That’s exaggerating.”

  “Is it really?”

  There was a sullen pause.

  “I’m careful,” Raz said after a time, looking up at the clear sky. “I rarely cross into the deep slums. And I don’t let anyone see me. But what else am I supposed to do? Even Ahna sleeps at least eight hours a night. I barely sleep three.”

  “Take up woodcarving,” Jarden said with a shrug, turning back to face his table. “No. I’m kidding. With those big hands of yours you’d be likely to lose a finger fumbling over the blades. Just watch your back. You’re not a child anymore.”

  Raz nodded slowly, watching a breeze catch the loose corners of his goods, ruffling them slightly. “I’ll stop. I promise.”

  Jarden smirked.

  “Liar.”

  V

  The citizens of Miropa would say he wore a white cloak not to fend off the heat, but rather to symbolized the blaze of the hateful fires that burned within him always…