Page 4 of Kingdom of Flames & Flowers
We waited for five minutes, then ten. I counted the number of people around me out of sheer boredom. I wondered if the other girls had brands on their shoulders like I did.
Finally, a small company of four fireguards appeared with five girls in tow. Most had brown hair, but two were blonde. One was perhaps eighteen, with bright blonde hair that made her stand out among the brown hair of everyone else, and the other blonde looked extremely young Thirteen? Twelve? The rest of the girls were around sixteen or seventeen. All younger than me, of course. They stared at me in my filthy clothes and bare feet, but no one dared to say anything.
We crossed into the stone quarter, and I couldn’t help but gawk.
The stone quarter people were great miners, bringing in a wealth of resources for the kingdom. Shava had said the mud people use to mine too, but it was hard to believe. It had been lucky for the stone quarter when a miner had dug down into his own home and found a wealth of jewels. The king gave permission for each family to have a small mine under their houses, as long as they gave a good portion to the crown.
As a result, the houses were large and spacious, and the children here looked happy and well-fed. They ran around with leather sandals and colorful tunics, grasping actual toys in their hands. There were just as many fathers as mothers strewn about. I wondered how different my life would have been if I’d had a father. Maybe mother wouldn’t be so sad all the time if she had someone to share her life with, and help look after her.Mylife would have been much different.
From this quarter they took seven girls, all ranging from ages thirteen to seventeen.Children,I thought with disdain though I knew this would be the likely outcome. Very few girls made it to my age before being taken.
Their hair was all brown except for one who looked older and could be around my age. She sneered at everyone and kept her nose in the air, as if all of this was beneath her. Her hair was white. I gawked a bit, having never seen such a color before. Everyone in the mud quarter had black hair.
Maybe we could be friends if she quit glaring at me.
A few of the younger girls openly sobbed, but most let silent tears fall down their cheeks. All looked hale and healthy.
Did everyone get to eat except the mud quarter?
We walked for a long while until we hit the rock wall of the Seat at the very center of the kingdom. The castle loomed before us, high upon a giant cliff that rose straight up. It hurt my neck to try and look at it.
“Come.”
The fireguards escorted us through an iron gate and into a large shaft that went straight up into the belly of the rock. A giant cage made of iron greeted us with a chain that ran all the way to the top of the stone mountain. Once up top, I knew there were walkways and battlements that reached over the quarters and ran all the way to the wall. It was how the fireguards patrolled and kept us safe.
The only thing left between us and the Seat were the great iron cages.
There were ten spread about at the bottom of the massive shaft. It was the only way to reach the Seat itself. The entire noble quarter lived on top, as well as the castle and the king and queen’s court.
To my despair, the fireguards herded us all into one cage like cats and abandoned us. There were nine more! Couldn’t they space us out?
“There will be more guards at the top,” the familiar guard told us, though his eyes lingered on me. Then, as one unit, the six of them turned and headed back toward the city to patrol.
The older girl with white hair shoved me toward the back and I elbowed her in the face, which was conveniently at eye level, though it was difficult with all of us shoved so closely together. So much for that burgeoning friendship. She quit pushing after that, merely scowling at everyone around her to back off, but there was no room. There were thirteen of us: me from the mud quarter, five from the bread quarter, and seven from the stone quarter. I wondered if they took any girls from the remaining quarters.
We barely fit as it was into the cage, crowded uncomfortably up against iron bars. We all flinched and a few even screamed as the cage made a horrible lurching sound, then began its ascent up the shaft, straight up into the air.
ChapterTwo
It was the most terrifying yet exhilarating thing I’d ever done in my life.
As we came out from the shaft and rose over the kingdom, I set eyes on the remaining two quarters I’d never seen before: the artist’s quarter, which was wedged between the stone and bread quarters, and the noble’s quarter which awaited us high on the Seat. The art quarter was beautiful, a shimmering jewel compared to the dark streets of the mud quarter and the simplicity of the stone and bread. The artist quarter was all the way to the east, the gilded tops of their buildings shining in the sun. I bet they lined their streets with gold too, and beautiful mosaics of every color. Maybe they even shit gold.
I vowed to hate anyone I met from there.
With a loud grinding sound, the cage came to a halt at the top of the cliff, swaying ominously in the mild breeze. Girls screamed all around me and clutched the iron bars as if they would somehow save us should we fall. A fireguard at the top unlatched the cage and held it steady. A second one held out a hand to assist us out onto solid rock. There was a gap between the cage and the ground of about three lengths of my foot.
“Grab my hand and I’ll haul you over.”
This fireguard was younger than the ones who patrolled my quarter, possibly even my age. His black hair marked him as someone who had mud descent like me. Nobles usually guarded desirable characteristics for their bloodlines, like blonde hair—that’s likely why the blonde girl was here despite being so young.
He seemed handsome from what I saw under his helmet, but I didn’t think I had good judgment on that, having only ever seen a handful of men in my life and usually running from any I encountered. He surveyed all of us with silver eyes tinged with green, his face showing interest in us instead of the usual disdain the other fireguards had. All fireguards wore their helmets at all times, so unless their hair was longer, it was hard to make out much more of them.
“Let’s begin. Remain calm.”
Unfortunately, the younger girls took this as their cue to rush the entrance of the cage, each wanting to be the first to take this handsome fireguard’s hand, or just afraid to be swinging in the cage for any longer.
I stumbled and tripped as the cage tilted dangerously, wrapping my hand around an iron bar to keep from tumbling into the pile of girls near the door. Two other fireguards yanked the first man back, but he kept his grip on the lucky girl who’d snagged his hand first. He pulled her with him as he fell, and she landed safely on top of him. The two girls after her weren’t as lucky, slipping into the gap and reaching back to grab the cage too late. If they had committed to going forward and leaped, perhaps they would have made it. As it was, they fell screaming to their deaths far below us.
