Page 4 of A War of Embers

As if I’ll ever want to reconvene on that topic. “Can you go watch them clean up from the other side of the house?” Far away from me.

“Sooner or later I’m going to start believing you actually mean these insults.”

One thing I hate about men in the Royal Guard is how deliberately obtuse they can be. Most women fawn at them or play coy. Very rarely do they run into someone with a brain. The Guards are entirely brainwashed into their loyalty and following of their District representative; it’s nauseating to see. Not to mention they’re entirely unaware of how to cut their losses and move on from an uninterested woman.

I hate this District with an undeniable loathing.

“If you don’t walk across this room and cease talking, I’ll throw you into the Blood Sea myself,” I tell him, forcing as much cold and ice into my voice as I can to drive to point home.

Justin rolls his eyes, but quietly moves towards the other side of the room in an unhurried pace. Maybe he’s not as idiotic as he likes to appear. Self-preservation is a great thing to have; especially around someone like me.

I go back to quietly watching the workers collect every piece of evidence that will show what happened here mere hours ago. I beg for a part of me, any part, to feel bad or something along those lines as the limbs continue to pile up. There’s only a void of emotion. Of carelessness. Of apathy.

Where is the woman who used to stand up for herself and strangers? Who would do anything for others to find peace? It’s as if I exchanged my soul for a lack of respect for mortality. To remain immortal, like Justin thinks. I’m sure he’s not the only one with such beliefs.

He makes a fair point that most people in my shoes find a way to swindle someone else into collecting on their debt. They rave about immortality as if it really is sunshine and magic.

What’s a little murder for a chance at forever?

They don’t think through their lives. How lonely this existence becomes when the days and years begin to bleed together. Forever lost in a loop of the same bullshit everyday. Watching the people and city change over time, the landscape die and be reborn, the sun shine and set.

I still remember the days when irises bloomed on the outskirts of the city leading to the Kyanite and Obsidian Districts. Now the ground is barren. As if the wasteland of Aïdes, where the dead are said to live, is encroaching on our lands from beyond the Blood Sea, killing anything it touches.

It’s absurd. A rumor I’ve heard in town about the decay of life in this port city. We’re poisonous people according to other Districts, which is why our land is dying. Personally, the poison comes from the top and trickles down. The rumor is nothing but rubbish. There’s no dark and twisted magic lurking in the soil, just a crazed proclaimed queen ruining her kingdom.

My eyes harden as I take in the workers, all wearing a smear of red for Lady Gwenyth in the upper left corner of their yellow hazmat suits. A sneer mars my lips as I watch one of them toss an arm appendage carelessly into the tote.

The family merely wanted to remain in their home. A place they’d owned for generations.

She took it for her selfish needs and insensitive mind.

But rarely do people in Cinnabar District go against their self-proclaimed queen. Their god.

I tear my gaze away from the blood-soaked body parts and catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror along the far wall.

My mouth twists into a hateful smirk as I gaze upon myself. There’s not a piece of Keres Anderson left that I recognize. She was snubbed out like the rest of her family upon the Anderson massacre.

I bare my teeth at my reflection, snapping them like a wild animal found in one of the forests separating our Districts in our mountainous region. A sense of uncontrollable hysteria begins to leak into my features, showing the outside world just how crazy the Slayer of Cinnabar truly is. How manic Lady Gwenyth has made me, bound to protect her honor against all. Indentured to her court.

Only I see the snake slithering through the garden as the people worship her name. Watch as they shout their praise and love towards something wicked in disguise. In time, she will be their downfall. But even now, in a house with rotting flesh from her bidding, I can still hear the shouts from the temple built in her honor sitting a few blocks away.

Long live the queen.

The rain and lightning whipping through Cinnabar District is a curse built upon us by the Blood Witch. She probably knows how absolutely insane Lady Gwenyth is and tried to warn her off creating her town on the coastline. Our goddess doesn’t seem to care that the nearly constant storms raging against us might ruin her economy while everyone hides away during the worst of the rain.

I tug the hood on my jacket further over my face and stare at the ground where the rain pools and casts soft glows from the lampposts. A few people run down the road, seeking shelter in restaurants or stores.

Taking a turn down an alleyway, I push open a barren door painted a forest green, and welcome the low murmur of voices from behind.

Hidden in the heart of Cinnabar is Halley’s, a bar few frequent because Franklin Hallsman is a scary fucker no one wants to be within sight of. A previous indentured servant to Lady Gwenyth, I knew him for a brief period of time before he conned some poor schmuck from Kyanite to be immortal and collect his debt. Which is precisely the reason I’m here. Surely, if anyone knows about this rumor of an immortal fleeing into the Blood Sea, it would be him.

I tap my fingers on the wooden bar, soggy in some places where pitchers have previously sat.

A man in his sixties with white hair, a beard to match, and hard brown eyes turns in my direction. For a minute he simply glares at me before he smirks in recognition. “Keres. Long time no see.”

“I don’t come this far into the city for a reason,” I shrug indifferently while slipping onto a stool across from him. “Can I get a pint?”

“Like I’d turn away my favorite customer.”

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