Page 194 of What Lies Within Masks & Shadows

Dark cobalt skin—like the night sky—shimmered with emerald and dark amethyst when he moved. Silken strandsof straight white hair cascaded over his lean shoulders with striking perfection. Not one piece out of place. Sections of thick braids were woven in locks, flowing down his back. He wore an immaculate night-dark jacket lined with glimmering silver threading that caught the light, and celestial designs glinted on the fastenings crossing the right of his chest. An ethereal radiance emanated from the tall, striking male. He could’ve been mistaken as the source of light that railed against the surrounding gloom.

He didn’t belong in Alynthia. She knew that for certain.

Like the moon himself, those amethyst eyes glowed as he leaned down and collected her dagger. Rotating his palm with it before it laid open, he offered the weapon back to her.

“Do mind where you’re shooting, Evening Star.” He paused. “Wouldn’t want to crash into the wrong hands.” As soon as her hand wrapped around the dagger, he was gone. Disappearing like a burning star across the night sky.

Alora whipped her head around, searching for him.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

But his presence remained in the air, and it alone sent a shudder down her spine.

Childish laughter echoed behind her, catching the attention of a few street roamers who turned their noses up, as if it was nothing, like ignoring the sounds of an inconvenient wind. But she was drawn to it like a beautiful melody that once played from her fingertips across ivory keys. She couldn’t stop her boots from turning, listening for their laughter’s echo.

There in the street, littered with spoiled food, broken crates, and quickly fleeing rodents, three thin younglings played on their knees. The sight of them was enough to make her heart completely break. In the youngest’s eyes, deep brown orbs so big as they beheld the wooden unicorn in her hand, Alora pictured her own face. Inside their filthy clothing and kneeling onexposed knees through ripped, decaying fabric, she saw a young white-haired faeling. Herself.

Memories of her harsh and cruel childhood flooded into her eyes and escaped through the tears dripping down her cheek. That deep longing, an ache she’d forced so far into the depths, crawled back in. And before she realized what happened, she’d taken six more steps and stood behind a gray-haired faeling with green eyes, playing with his own wooden wolf.

“Do you want to play with us?” the adorably thin, brown-eyed female squeaked.

Alora’s heart melted again.

Before her, Brown-eyes held up another wooden animal.

A white lion.

Was she even breathing anymore?

The third, holding a wooden dragon, was a male youngling with membranous wings and night-dark hair. He giggled. “It looks like your hair! Roar!” Little hands mimicked claws. Gritting his teeth in a growl, he thrashed his head around, roaring another giggle before swiping his dragon and flying it through the air.

Alora knelt, too stunned to speak as she held the white lion in her hands. Too stunned to speak even when Brown-eyes giggled, wiggling her white unicorn up Alora’s leg.

Alora snorted. It could’ve been Ghost without the horn.

They played for what seemed like hours. The moon hadn’t changed positions. Everything inside her pleaded to stay. Wanted to bring them with her so they wouldn’t need to live a life of hardship and cruelty such as she did. Orphans rarely survived to half a century old. She’d seen it enough. Watched as her friends had drifted away in their sleep from malnourishment. From the smallest of injury or illness. From imprisonment of simply stealing a bite of rotten apple or molding bread.

With the stars’ blessings, she was lucky to have survived. Her mind replayed one blistering-hot day in Telldaira. She’d worn her shoes so completely thin that the cracked holes blistered the soft skin of her young feet. And even worse, the hunger pains had grown unbearable over three weeks, which inevitably led her to that decrepit booth of spoiled foods in the forbidden markets. She was dirty—so disgusting that her matted hair was a shade of charcoal. A loaf of bread, though stale, sat on the edge of a table as if begging her to thieve it. Smelling of mold and settled in a graying color in the golden sunlight, it still looked and smelled like a royal banquet to her starving belly. Her grimy hands had snatched it and ran, but she didn’t make it far enough when the back of her heel was caught in boots, and she planted face-first into the stones of the street.

She didn’t eat that day. Or the rest of the week.

Shuddering at the memory, Alora pulled out the red velvet coin purse she had snatched from Jade in the tavern. Maybe it was foolish. These younglings might not understand how to stretch the money, what to use it on or how to find themselves what they needed to survive, but she couldn’t simply leave them there.Not like this.

Little Wings’ face perked up at the jingling of the coins. His pretty navy eyes glimmered as he scooted on thin knees close to her. They all did.

“Listen to me.” Not one eye shifted from her as she divided the coins up in her palm. “You are to use this first to eat. Slowly. Start with broth and small bites of bread. Don’t eat meat until you’ve eaten this for a few days. Your bellies will want to eat more, but it won’t hold as much as you think it will.”

Alora handed Little Gray coins. “Buy two pairs of clothing. Wash one set each day, as well as yourself. Being clean will help keep you from falling ill.” Little Wings shuffled closer, and she handed him his coins. “Find work. You’re little, but not forlong. You’re valuable. Deliver correspondence, carry stones for buildings, collect hops for the tavern. Make coin until you can find a place to live—together. You are each other’s strength.”

Brown-eyes never took her eyes off Alora. She gently flipped Brown-eyes’s palm and curled her little fingers around them.

“You are”—tears lined Alora’s eyes—“braver than you think. Stronger than you yet know”—her lips quivered—“because of what you’ve endured.Fight.Live.”

Tiny arms wrapped across her chest and back as Little Wings hugged into her shoulder. Brown-eyes and Little Gray crowded into her just as tight as their voices squeaked a ‘thank you.’

She embraced them, long and tight, tears streaming down her face. Refusing to let go as if this was the only love they ever felt since they were abandoned or introduced too soon to the cruelties of life.

She was lost.Of course she was, becausewhat elsecould she mess up that evening? Somehow, she managed to wander out of the upscale shops and restaurants and found herself amongst dreary busted windows, dry cracking wooden walls, and the smell of something putridly burning. Her traitorous body longed for her tent. Burning legs screamed for her bed. A bath.

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