Page 15 of Blood Red Woes

People huddle on the side of the streets, watching with wide eyes as we walk by. They whisper amongst themselves, clearly distrustful of me. Some point at me, and the children I see cower behind their parents. They’re all filthy, their skin caked in dirt and grime, wrinkled from sun exposure. Even the children, as young as they may be, seem older than what they are. Ten years and under, I bet they’ve seen too much.

It doesn’t even occur to me that I don’t see anyone my own age, or what that could possibly mean that I don’t.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask, but none of the guards answer. I try to ask a few more times as we venture deeper into the city, but I’m met with stony silence.

The deeper into the city you go, the higher up you are. The outer ring, where most of the people are, must be where those people live. The houses and such. Then, after a few flights of stairs, you reach the second part of Laconia: the market and shops and the like. The level is much more wide-open than where we first walked in, and kids are running and giggling, playing some kind of game with each other—though that game halts the moment they see me.

No adults around them, they look… well, they look like orphans. Their clothes are mismatched, patches sewn on here and there, frayed and raggedy. And they’re skinny. Too skinny. Like they have no one to take care of them.

My heart aches for them. I might not know their specific circumstance, but I know how they feel.

I’m brought to a grand set of stone stairs and pulled along even more. Up we go, higher and higher until we reach the pinnacle of the city, a well-kept district that puts the other two to shame. This is clearly where the rich live.

Good to see shit never changes, no matter where you are or what world you’re in, the rich always take care of themselves first. Fuck the little people, even though it’s only because of the little people that the rich are where they are. Without little people starving and killing themselves, without the little people slaving away, the rich would never get richer.

Do I sound bitter? I’m not. Not really. That’s just how the world works. And apparently that’s how this world works, too.

As I’m dragged along, I’m proven right. The few people I spot now are well-dressed, well-fed, and so snobby they turn up their noses to me. More than a few of them wear stupid hats with dramatic feathers and silly frills around their necks. Zero fashion sense.

These people judge me as I walk by with my guards, and I’m sure they whisper about me. I’ll be the hottest gossip for a while, I bet. My clothes, my hair—which I’m sure is a mess after that weird storm and the dragon fight—nothing is off-limits to these people. They’ll judge me for it all.

In the center of the upper district sits a cathedral-like building made of blindingly white stone. It reaches high above the rest, pointing toward the sun. Beautiful, in a whitewashed, gothic sort of way.

Up even more steps we go and I’m pulled right into the cathedral building. It doesn’t have doors; it just has arches, wide open to the inside. We go deep into the cathedral, into a room lit by stained glass windows.

You know how churches are sometimes? With pews and then an altar that’s a few steps higher than the rest? It’s like that, only switched. The pews are higher than the altar, arranged in a circlearound the lower portion. The lower part has a circle etched in the stone floor, and just beyond the circle sits four chairs chiseled from the same stone. They look more like thrones, and each chair has tiny spires pointing to the ceiling, creating a shadowed effect since they sit between the windows and the rest of the circular room.

Me? I’m attached to the floor, right in the center of the circular stonework.

Well, this can’t be good.

I can stand, sit, or… no, that’s about it. I’m essentially chained to the floor, and though I know I can probably use magic to get out of this, I shouldn’t. As far as I know, these are the only people in all of Laconia. What happened in that one village obviously happened right outside the city’s stone walls, since no one was living there. I can’t fight my way out of here, because I wouldn’t know where to go next or what to do.

These people, as much as they don’t trust me, might just be my only hope.

So I wait. A few guards leave, but most of them stay to watch me. They hang around, weapons sheathed but still near, their eyes on me beneath their helmets. I feel like I stand there forever, waiting for something to happen, not quite knowing what to expect.

I have to prove that I’m no danger to these people, but how? Bullshitting is obviously not something I’m great at, otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten fired from my job or told that I’m going to be evicted if I can’t find rent money for Frank.

It’s been, what, two days? I wonder if Frank thinks I up and left. And if that’s the case, then he’ll throw out all of my stuff, even… even the picture of my dad that I left on the bed.

No. He’ll see my wallet and my phone and think something happened. He’ll call the police, right?

I hate that I don’t know. I hate that I can’t get back, that I’m stuck here at the mercy of this world, its weird magic, and its distrustful people.

It’s a while before people funnel into the room. First the seats are filled in the audience—filled by people who all wear their finest clothes, no doubt. The rich assholes of the city. The fuller the room gets, the louder the whispers become. I’d say about fifty people can fit all around the room, and though I’m not counting, I don’t think there’s a single empty seat, save for the four in front of me.

Those seats must be special.

It’s as I think that thought that I wonder if, perhaps, I’m going to meet the empresses. I try to think back, to remember whether Rune ever told me how many empresses there are, but I don’t think he ever explicitly gave me a number. If those chairs are for the empresses, they probably won’t be too happy that Rune is on my arm, that I unknowingly let him out.

Shit.

As I wait, I go over possible things to say. How to plead my case to them, make me sound more believable, more likable, more trustworthy. I know I’m not exactly the nicest or the funniest or even the most social person. I’ve always stuck in my own bubble, tried to make the best out of my situation, and it might be my undoing.

Goddamn it. I don’t know what to do. Nothing in life prepared me for this.

Suddenly everyone’s attention snap to people entering behind me. I turn to watch a group of four people marching in.

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