Veldoras
The Kingdom of Thûn
MIRA dug HER hand into the mud, her fingers fastening around a small, round object. The slimy river silt gave up its treasures reluctantly and made an obscene sucking sound as she pulled her find free.
Mira straightened up, her bare feet sinking into the cold mud. She held the caked object aloft, squinting at it in the bright noon light. Disappointment pricked at her when she wiped away the grime to find a smooth, pale-pink surface underneath. It was a seashell, a pretty conch, but not something that would earn her a meal.
The shell wouldn’t even buy her a crumb of bread.
Mira’s stomach growled, reminding her that she needed to find something she could sell or barter for food—enough to take the edge off the hunger that clawed at her belly and made her legs tremble underneath her.
Inhaling deeply, she stuffed the shell into the pocket of her filthy leather vest and looked about her. She stood up to her ankles in sludge, around five feet from the edge of the Brinewater Canal. The sun was glinting on the dark river flats. A hump-backed bridge made of pitted grey stone reared to her left. The Bridge of the North Wind was a good spot for mudlarking, for this was one of the richer areas of the city—and wealthy folk crossing the bridge might accidently drop something valuable into the mud.
Mira glanced about her; she wasn’t alone here. A scattering of other mudlarks—youngsters who combed the riverbed at low-tide looking for treasures—picked through the mud around her. Like her, they were a scrawny, filthy bunch, clad in rags with eyes too big for their thin faces. Some were very young, no older than five or six winters, while others were on the cusp of adulthood. Mira was one of these—having just passed her fourteenth winter.
Mira sighed. Standing here feeling sorry for herself wouldn’t buy her a hot meal. She was about to bend down once more when she spied the roof of a gilded carriage as it rumbled onto the Bridge of the North Wind.
She watched its passage, her gaze tracking it across the bridge’s arch—and when the carriage stopped half-way, a smile stretched across Mira’s face.
A nobleman had come for some easy entertainment.
She watched two individuals—a young man and woman—climb out of the carriage. They made a fine couple. He was tall with long black hair, a dashing cape hanging from his broad shoulders; and she was slender with hair the color of gold, wearing a becoming jade dress.
Mira stared at the woman, transfixed; she looked like a princess from one of the stories her mother had told her. It seemed like a lifetime ago, those nights when Mira’s mother would sit next to her by the fire and tell her tales of ladies and lords, warriors and enchanters, and great adventures. Both Mira’s parents were dead, taken by the Grey Ravage six years earlier. Since then Mira had survived by scavenging a living on the streets and waterways of Veldoras.
The man sauntered to the edge of the bridge and cast a smirk over his shoulder at his companion, beckoning her to him.
Smiling coyly, the young woman approached the walled side of the bridge. She looked down, her gaze sweeping over the collection of urchins picking through the mud below, and her pretty nose wrinkled. The stench of the canal at low-tide—the eye-watering odor of rotting weed and refuse—was a smell that offended many of the citizens of ‘The City of Tides’ as Veldoras was known. However, Mira had lived amongst the stench for so long now that she barely noticed it.
The man dug into the pocket of his jerkin and pulled something forth, before leaning out over the edge of the bridge. “Children,” he cried out, grinning. “Come, give us some sport!”
And with that he flicked the object he held high into the air and watched it plummet toward the muddy flats below.
Mira watched it too and caught the glimmer of yellow that told her he had just thrown a gold talent. Her empty belly contracted.
A gold talent was a fortune, enough to buy her food for a month.
Time slowed. Desperation soared within Mira when she realized that she was not standing where the coin would fall. Rowan, a weedy boy of her own age who had been scavenging directly under the bridge, would catch it. Realizing his good fortune, Rowan let out a whoop and reached out his thin arms toward the coin, his face screwing up in concentration.
Mira dove for him.
Rowan caught the talent an instant before Mira collided with him. The two of them went down in a tangle of limbs.
“No!” Rowan wailed. “It’s mine!”
But Mira ignored him—so deep was her desperation that all she could think about was the hot soup, the fresh bread, and the wedges of salty cheese that gold talent could buy her. She didn’t care about Rowan or about the other mudlarks.
No one needed that money as much as she did.
Rowan fought her, his limbs flailing, but one vicious, bony knee to the belly brought him down. The boy’s breath rushed out of him as he sank into the mud. Then Mira pried the coin out of his hand.
A moment later she was on her feet and running as fast as her trembling legs could carry her. The sucking mud slowed her down, but a few strides took her to the banks of the canal and the row of mildewed stone steps that led up to the embankment above.
Her foot hit the first step, and she heard a howl behind her followed by a string of curses.
Rowan was coming after her.
Mira wasn’t afraid—yet she knew Rowan would not be outrun easily. She bounded up the steps and dove across the road beyond, narrowly avoiding being crushed under the wheels of a passing carriage.
“Idiot girl!” the driver bellowed at her, but Mira paid him no heed. She clutched her precious gold talent tight in her palm and bolted into the tangle of streets beyond.
Getting lost in the backstreets was her only chance of losing Rowan.
Away from the clatter and rumble of carts and wagons on cobblestones, the streets of Veldoras were much quieter. This area was known as The Pashad, a wealthy merchant quarter filled with elegant stone buildings and gated entrances.
The slap of bare feet on cobbles behind her warned Mira that Rowan was still in pursuit—and gaining on her.
Gritting her teeth, Mira forced herself to run faster. She cursed her weak body; it had been a lean last few days and the lack of food had weakened her. Already she felt light-headed, and her ears were starting to ring. Despair surged within her. He would catch her.
Tears of fury pricked her eyes as she pushed herself further still. She wouldn’t give up, not yet. Up ahead, the narrow street she traveled opened out, and Mira spied crowds of well-dressed men and women.
A market. A chance to lose him.
A sob rose in Mira’s chest, and she dove out of the street and into a colorful sea of summer gowns, baskets, and tittering laughter. Another world, one of privilege and finery. One she’d never inhabit.
She’d run four paces when Rowan tackled her from behind.
They crashed to the ground. Mira’s knees collided with the hard cobbles. Her chin hit stone, and she bit into her tongue, blood filling her mouth.
Rowan’s fist slammed into the back of her head, knocking her chin against the cobbles once more.
“Give it to me!” he screamed, incensed now. “It’s mine!”
Yet Mira was not beaten, and she wouldn’t give it up—not unless he knocked her senseless. She twisted like an eel under him and flipped round, so that they were facing each other. Then she curled up and head-butted him in the mouth.
Rowan reared back, blood streaming from his cut lip. With her free hand Mira lashed out and punched him in the eye. She scrambled back to find Rowan sitting on his haunches, clutching at his injured eye with one hand and his bleeding mouth with the other. His face was ashen, and he was shaking. He looked near to tears.
“Thief!’ he choked. “I caught it fair, and you stole it.”
Mira spat blood onto the cobbles. “Quit whining,” she snarled. She then scrambled back from him, readying herself to bolt once more. “It belongs to whoever’s got the guts to fight for it.”
She leaped nimbly to her feet—her pulse thundering in her ears—and pivoted, running straight into a wall of hard muscle and leather.
It was a woman, bigger and stronger than any Mira had ever seen. Built like a warrior, she wasn’t dressed like the others in this market square. Instead of flowing skirts she was cloaked and leather-clad, with braided dark hair and long boots.
Mira bounced off her and would have fled, but the woman grabbed her.
Large hands gripped her by the shoulders and shook her like a dog. “Is this true?” a cold voice demanded. “Did you steal from this lad?”
Mira didn’t answer her. Instead, she twisted, kicked, and punched, doing her best to break free of her captor’s iron grip.
Mocking laughter filled her ears, making her fight all the harder, even as her vision speckled and her blood roared in her ears; she was close to fainting.
“Fights like a canal-cat,” drawled another woman. “She’ll do herself an injury.”
“Still yourself, girl.”
Another female voice cut through the warm air—and unlike the earlier two, this one made Mira take heed. There was a sharpness, an air of superiority that warned her someone of importance was addressing her.
Panting, Mira stopped struggling and looked up through a curtain of dark stringy hair at the female who’d just spoken.
Her breathing hitched.
A tall, slender woman dressed in a fine pale yellow gown, her thick brown hair coiled high upon the crown of her head, stood before her.
Mira looked then, really looked, at the female warrior who’d caught her—noting for the first time that the black cloak hanging from her shoulders was forked at the bottom, and that a silver clasp, shaped as a bird, fastened the cloak at the throat.
She swallowed painfully, dread clawing its way up from her belly.
The Swallow Guard.
Only the royal family were escorted by this elite group of all-female bodyguards.
Rena, Queen of Thûn, stared down at Mira, her green eyes assessing. “Did you steal something from that boy?” she demanded.
Mira held her stare, despair causing her to sag in the grip of the guard who held her. Slowly, she nodded.
“Show me what you took.”
Mira choked back a sob and held out her hand, unfurling her fingers to reveal the gold talent in her palm.
Queen Rena’s gaze narrowed. “Give it back to him.”
It took all Mira’s self-control not to break down then, not to weep and plead. She was so hungry—so desperate. This gold coin was all that stood between her and terrible hunger. Yet she reined her sobs in and tossed the coin at Rowan’s feet. The boy still sat on the cobbles, cradling his injuries. Eyes wild, he leaned forward and grabbed the talent.
Mira hung there, defeated, and closed her eyes. What would happen to her now? Would they beat her? Would they cut off her hand for thieving? Suddenly she didn’t care—she was tired of fighting, tired of scrabbling and clawing a pitiful living. Not for the first time since losing her parents, she wished she had died of the plague with them.
“What shall we do with her, milady?” the woman who still held Mira in a death-grip asked, her tone uninterested. “Give her a whipping to make an example out of her?”
“I would,” the queen replied, “and yet I’ve yet to meet a girl with such fight in her.”
“She’s feral, milady,” one of the other female guards interjected, a warning note in her voice. “I wouldn’t waste any sympathy on such a creature.”
A silence settled over the group then, and Mira became aware that the square around them had gone quiet. The scene had created an unexpected spectacle for the shoppers and vendors.
“Few women are born to be warriors,” the queen replied, “and yet I can see this one has potential. She could learn at your knee, Idra.”
“You can’t train a wild dog, milady,” the woman who held Mira replied. “It’ll only turn on you.”
Mira opened her eyes and stared up at the queen’s haughty face. Rena’s green eyes held a speculative look; a half smile curved her lips. The queen held her gaze for a few moments more before she answered. “Nonsense—you just have to teach a dog its place.”