Page 617 of Shadowblood Souls
The biting fire of my magic’s resentment gradually fades away while the merchant berates his gelding. The horse stomps his hooves before finally settling.
An ache lingers in my muscles, my fingers throbbing in their desperate hold. I count out several more thumps of my pulse before deciding it’s safe to lower myself.
The conman’s voice sweetens as he offers apologies to the prospective customers who’ve followed him down the road. While he beckons the curious over again, I release a shaky breath and scan my surroundings for a viable escape route.
There: a narrow lane between two of the shabby wooden buildings. I roll out on the opposite side of the wagon and dart away before my luck runs out.
When you’ve been living on the city’s streets as long as I have, you can always find your way. The lane leads to an alley which ends at a rubbish heap which connects to another alley.
My heel twinges whenever I set the foot I banged down, but I manage to walk steadily and silently. The tight fabric of my hidden pockets squeezes my bounty close and keeps the coins from jingling.
The sooner I can unload my loot, the less chance someone who doesn’t deserve it will make a try for it.
It won’t go straight back into the hands of the people the merchant duped today. I have a cycle of rounds throughout the outer wards so that I’m distributing my spoils evenly. Everyone who needs it gets a share in the end.
I dodge a pool of piss at one corner and skirt a pile of poisoned rat corpses at another. A pungent stink seeps through the rest of the awful smells, welcoming me to my destination.
The neighborhood of Slaughterwell got its name from the slaughterhouses where the farmers bring their livestock, which stand just beyond the nearby city wall. Even at night, the reek never quite fades.
No one lives here unless they can’t find a way to live anywhere else.
As I walk on, the power inside me nibbles at the edges of my awareness with a cajoling tone that reminds me of the fraud merchant.
If I let the magic out, it could wash away the stench. It could carry me straight to my destination without my taking another step.
That might be true, I retort.But what will you ruin in the meantime?
It doesn’t have an answer to that.
Brief nips of pain quiver through my nerves, but nothing I can’t tune out. The magic only really lashes out when I’ve refused a particularly good reason to use it.
The fits of agony only started a year ago… and they’ve become more frequent and intense by the month. I don’t want to think too hard about what that might mean for my future.
I have to keep going forward, one foot at a time, making the most of the days I have.
Around me, the taller wooden buildings give way to smaller but equally lopsided shacks. Here and there, twists of stems and errant leaves poke from gaps where vegetation has merged with the frames.
Every neighborhood has a few eager gardeners who’ve sacrificed a bit of themselves in exchange for a gift of encouraging plants. Trading favors so they’ll coax a sapling or a shrub into patching up a deteriorating building is often cheaper than buying the supplies and skills for a more traditional fix.
Half of these buildings would be heaps of debris if not for the intertwined plants holding them steady.
When I reach the row of houses I’m aiming for, I veer into the dingy back gardens. I’d rather no one can ever identify the person behind my anonymous donations.
At each home, I leave a small stack of coins on a window ledge. Here and there, I glance through the ragged curtains at the signs of life within.
At Marta’s house with the drooping shingles and the tufts of thistledown protruding along the edge of the roof, I hear a familiar grunt. Beyond the bedroom window, the avid lover rocks with some new man. He ruts into her as she arches back against the sheets.
Her eager moan sets off an unwelcome pulse of heat between my legs. She sounds like she’s having a much more thrilling time than any of my hasty roll-abouts have given me.
Of course, I haven’t exactly had a broad selection of potential partners. It’s been a couple of years since the last time I dared get that close to anyone.
I slink on to the next house, shedding the pinch of longing the private image brought. One by one, I leave coins for Bogusi the cook, Anielle the seamstress, and Oska the butcher’s assistant.
These people have never properly met me, but I’ve spent years watching over them. Sharing their joys and sorrows in snippets of conversations overheard.
They’re the closest thing I have to a family now—a very large family, even if they barely know I exist.
At the last house in the row, two little girls scamper around the patchy yard. I crouch by the refuse bin, the previous pinching sensation expanding to squeeze my heart.
