Page 65 of Blood Red Woes

I hike it into the markets and find the shadowstorm isn’t so thick. It seems to condense more over the slums than here, which is good. Hopefully everyone in the tavern made it to the upper district and are safe from the scourge.

As I walk across the marketplace, to the stairs that separate the lower part of the city from the rich, well-to-do part, I’m in a daze. My arm has gone numb; I don’t feel it anymore. Either my brain has gotten used to the pain or everything else feels just as bad so it doesn’t stick out.

Up the steps that seem to stretch on to infinity. One by one I go up what would be multiple flights of stairs in my world, and when I reach the archway that rests between the stairs between the markets and the rest of the upper city, I find the doors are shut. Big, wooden things, as if that would stop the storm from coming in.

No. If the storm wants to, it will come in whether all their doors are shut and locked or not.

I lean against the door as I fumble for the iron knocker. “It’s Rey,” I shout. “No one else is coming.” I don’t know if guards are inside, if they can hear me, but it’s worth a shot. Otherwise I guess I wait out here until everything either clears or gets worse.

Here’s hoping for the former.

It takes a minute, but eventually the left door creaks open and I’m able to slide in once the guard sees it’s me. He closes it behind me, and the moment I’m through I see people huddled together, people from the tavern. The air is full of wailing and crying, people openly weeping in the shadows of the night.

I don’t want them to look at me. I don’t want them to ask me where so-and-so is or why I couldn’t save them, why I couldn’t stop it from happening, so I shuffle my feet around the crowd and find myself an empty spot to collapse.

I end up stopping along the wall that separates the upper and lower districts. Leaning my back on the wall, my knees give outas exhaustion takes hold. Fuck. I’m so tired. It’s one thing after another. I never have time to rest, time to regroup. Time to catch my fucking breath before the next thing is thrown at me.

The moon is almost directly over Laconia, not a single cloud in the sky. Its silver light illuminates more than it should, and my eyes focus on the ribbon tied on my left wrist. Seeing it, staring at it, I’m forced to reckon with everything.

All this loss. All this death. The pain and the misery. When will it all end? Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier to give up than to fight.

My left hand curls into a fist.But that’s not me.I don’t give up. I don’t stop when things get hard. I keep going, keep pushing myself, and eventually everything works out. I’m not and have never been someone who gives up.

“Rey!” I hear my name being called out, and I work to get to my feet right as Frederick reaches me. I’m seconds from asking him if everyone from the tavern made it up here, but he pulls me in for a hug before I can voice the question.

It’s the opposite of a bad hug, but maybe it’s just one of those nights.

“Thank the empresses you’re safe,” he breathes out, slow to release me. “When I heard you went into the storm, I feared the worst. You didn’t find any survivors?”

I shake my head. “No. I mean… do you know what the scourge does to people?” The way Frederick looks at me is my answer, which shouldn’t be surprising since no one seems to know anything about these woes. “It doesn’t just kill them. It turns them. They’re dead but they’re still walking, and they attack anything that’s not afflicted like them.”

“Oh, my… I’ve only ever heard of it killing, not turning people into the undead.” His gaze falls to my arm. “Is that blood? Are you hurt? Come with me.” He takes my hand, thereby giving me no choice in the matter to refuse, and he leads me through thecrowd. I have no idea where he’s taking me, but at this point, I’m too tired to argue with him and tell him I’m fine.

We end up in a stone building near where the conclave gathers. It’s where they keep their medicine, I guess, and by medicine I mean their herbs and bandages and such. No pain relievers here.

The building only has one floor, an oddity in the upper district. It’s basically one giant, wide-open room with multiple beds and makeshift stretchers. This must be where they took Prim after she got hurt.

They couldn’t save her, though, so what good does a place like this really do?

Frederick brings me to an empty bed, and he sits me down and tells me to wait. He wanders off, which allows me to survey the room. Most other beds are occupied; I don’t know if they’re occupied because of what happened tonight or if they were here before. Torches hang on the walls, lighting the room, but I’m not close enough to the others to see their faces.

When Frederick returns, he carries a small bowl of water, along with a bandage, a rag, and a small satchel of some sort. He sits beside me, by my right arm, and sets everything on the bed next to him other than the bowl. That he keeps on his lap.

“Laconia lost its herbalist a few years ago. I help out when I can. I’ve learned a lot, but… I know there’s a lot of knowledge we’ve lost,” Frederick says as he dips the rag into the bowl of water. “I hate to think of what else we’ve lost. Our history. Our future.”

He brings the rag to my injury and starts to clean it up. I wince the first time I feel that rag touch my tender skin, and I make sure to keep looking away. Anywhere but my arm. Honestly, I’m scared to see how deep the wound actually is.

“All the people,” he whispers. “Friends, family… parents and children. You are the only thing these people have left, Rey.”

Frederick must touch a particularly bad spot on my arm, because a jolt of pain surges through me, reminding me I’m still alive in spite of everything that’s tried to kill me here. I tell him, “I don’t know why. I couldn’t stop the storm.”

“No, but you sensed it coming, which is more than any of us can do. You’re the reason we made it up here.” He dips the rag into the bowl and squeezes excess water out of it before returning his attention to my injury. “Whether you want to be or not, you are a symbol of hope to what’s left of Laconia.”

“I thought killing Gladus would help,” I mutter with a frown.

“I have researched the woes more than anyone else, and I still don’t know where they started or why they suddenly appeared twenty years ago. My father’s journal hints at something, but it’s unclear. I’ll admit, I hoped you defeating Gladus would change things, turn the tide to our favor, but it seems the empresses themselves are not the key to this.”

Fuck, my arm hurts like a bitch. I want to pull my arm away from him, but I resist the urge. Barely. “What if there’s no way to change it? What if this is just how it is forever?”

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