Asimi left Zeid at the gate. He was too distracted to see which direction she’d gone off in.

  Prasinos had never been . . . pretty, but it had fallen to shambles in the past two years. Vandalism, property destruction, riots . . . There had been a flare-up of violence in 293 P.F. It had been bad, really bad; Zeid remembered watching the ground for shards of glass as he walked.

  But it had been brief. Things had quieted down quickly. Frustrated workers had streamed out, leaving the place a husk of broken, abandoned buildings, and broken, abandoned people.

  The school had been shut down a few months after the Magic Ban; apparently, people hadn’t been paying enough in taxes to keep it running. It hadn’t been a very good school to begin with — the only teacher had been an old veteran who smoked during class and recounted her war memories instead of teaching. There had only been fifteen or so children attending, with greatly varying ages. Prasinos didn’t have a lot of young kids.

  Since taking care of children wasn’t in the teacher’s paycheck, he’d lost track of how many times he’d bandaged up scraped knees or comforted a little kid crying their eyes out. He could still remember the stench of the classroom — the suffocating smell of cigarettes, and her raspy, drawling voice.

  The school had shut down two years ago. It was now abandoned, but he’d still been able to catch the scent lingering on the walls, the times he’d gone into the empty building. Now, it gave him mixed feelings; he hated that smell, hated the way it felt like it clogged up his lungs, and yet it was familiar, almost comforting. The smell said: you are somewhere else now. And you are not safe, but you are safer.

  He glanced at it as he walked past the building. The wilted, yellowed grass was still straining to survive in the patches outside the walls, where the cobblestone receded abruptly to dirt. If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the laughter and the sobbing of the small kids, smell the rubbing alcohol he dabbed into their scrapes and hear himself saying: “This might sting, okay? But don’t think about that. Focus on taking deep breaths and blowing them out, like you’re blowing soap bubbles. Yeah, that’s great.”

  He wondered how they were doing now.

  Badly, probably.

  He glanced at the door, at the dented metal, at the initials someone had painted onto the wall. The grimy windows staring down at him like clouded eyes.

  He put his hands in his pockets and moved on.

  There were a few stores still propped up, clinging mostly to the left fringes of town, mostly run by spouses or family members or caretakers of veterans. There were some stores that had stayed despite the Magic Ban, because their owners had never relied on magic to begin with; like that chocolate shop that had somehow survived in the center of the town.

  There were liquor stores, cigarette stores, gambling casinos that seemed to be thriving, run by some manager employed through some complicated network that eventually led back to a rich merchant or noble looking for some suckers to exploit. There were produce shops and fruit stands and butcher shops set up by farmers who came in once a week to sell, before scuttling out of town again. In the past, he’d always gotten eggs and chicken meat from a basket that appeared at the front door. He’d learned not to question it.

  He went to the bakery clinging to the western side of the wall. Or, at least, that’s what his mother called it — ‘the bakery’. It was more generalized than that. Shelves were stocked with soap and candles and options for mending clothes and tailoring. A sign hung on the wall informing passerby that they could pay to have a letter written, if they were unable to or didn’t feel like writing it themselves. Another sign listed the other services available: plumbing, furniture repair, painting, drywall patch-up, cleaning, laundry.

  It didn’t seem to be a busy day — maybe everyone was home for lunch. The lights were off. Light crystals were rare and expensive these days, and had to be conserved; the summer sun was more than enough to illuminate the room. A small kitchen took up a third of the room, the glossy metal counter and the displays of treats shielded by glass walls. There was a faint stain on the wall where someone had once accidentally broken a half-drunk bottle of wine. The beige tiles on the floor were freshly mopped, judging by the way the light shimmered off the ground.

  A large cake was boxed up on one of the circular tables, suggesting that someone was having a party, or some mildly wealthy person had decided to drop by and order a pastry. He hoped it was the second. Parties ended in brawls.

  Philia Pnevma was boxing up sweets while a familiar elderly lady used the stove in the back — cooking lunch. Customers tended to get the same things, every day, and somehow she’d memorized their orders to avoid the conversation that came when someone came by and said ‘the usual’, before getting mad when ‘the usual’ wasn’t a good description of what they wanted to eat.

  She deserved more than that — catering to the whims of idiot customers, handing out everything she had with no return, saving up for some day when there would be no more debt only to find more and more of her money gambled away and spent by the parasite.

  Maybe he could finally give that to her. Maybe one good thing had come out of being chosen by that stupid rock — he could finally give her a chance for a better life.

  A part of him was scared she’d never take it.

  The money or the chance.

  He shouldn’t have had to, in the first place. He shouldn’t have needed to be chosen by some rock for them to have a chance to leave this cursed town.

  He didn’t really believe the town was cursed, even though it felt like it — the more time he spent at the palace, the more he suspected that the ‘curse’ thing was a rumor spread by the guards or the government to trick people into believing the sorry state of their lives was due to magic. There was nothing you could do about a curse – especially with the Magic Ban in place. Nothing to do but suffer and rot.

  And honestly, what difference did it make? Curse or no curse, it was all the same. There was nothing he could do about it. It was the way things had always been, and the way they’d always be.

  He took a deep breath. He could smell the pastries; that familiar smell of sugar and butter that promised safety and comfort and warmth. But that safety always had a flip side — that safety meant there was something else lurking that warned of danger and pain.

  There was the sound of a box hitting the floor, and he looked up to find his mother staring at him. Her hands crept up to her mouth, before she shook her head and tried to fix her smile. “. . . Look who’s back.”

  “Mom,” Zeid said, not knowing what else to say.

  She picked up the box and set it down on the counter. “Give me a minute, sugar. Ms. Pala, finish your breakfast?”

  “Almost done,” the elderly woman responded cheerfully. She turned off the stove and squinted at Zeid. “Is that your son? He’s taller.” She picked up her plate and stopped in front of Zeid on her way to the door. “Look at those eyes. Just like Zephyr —”

  “Yes, yes, have a wonderful day,” Philia interrupted hastily, as Zeid stared at the lady with a burning resentment.

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  He’d seen her before. She came to the shop regularly — he had a suspicion she’d known his mother for a very, very long time, but he never asked about it. She made this same comment every time, but it always took him off guard.

  He spent so much time avoiding the truth as much as possible — avoiding mirrors and reflective surfaces, which had recently gotten harder in the palace. He hated the government’s stupid system for eye colors, tying him forever to the monster, reminding him what kind of blood ran through his veins.

  Philia shut the door behind the old lady and locked it. She took a deep breath, her smile shifting slightly.

  The shop was silent and still for a moment, before Philia picked up her apron and started moving again.

  “Seems like you’ve been busy,” she commented lightly. “This is the longest you’ve been gone.”

  “Yeah . . .” Zeid said, trying to stamp down the burn in his throat.

  “It was announced last night,” she continued, going behind the counter and carving out a slice of pie. She didn’t look at him. “The guards contacted the palace, and then the paper spread the news about . . . well, you know.” She set the pie down.

  “Yeah,” he repeated, feeling the cold weight of the gem on his chest.

  “It was . . . certainly a day,” she murmured, twisting the ring on her finger. “Lots of chatter. Lots of reactions.”

  “You can leave,” he blurted, tearing his eyes away from that ring. “Today. We’ll leave.”

  She glanced at him, then smiled slightly, sadness in her dark grey gaze. “Where would we go?”

  “Back to the palace — to the capital, somewhere. Anywhere.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I . . . have to oversee the shop. There are people who need food and . . .” She sighed. “. . . I can’t. Enough of that. How are you doing? Taking care of yourself? Eating well? Sleeping well?”

  “Mom —”

  “Such a change, I couldn’t imagine how you’d adapt.”

  “. . . I guess,” he said, cutting the crust to the pie and watching the filling ooze out.

  “You still looked tired.”

  “I’m okay.”

  “The palace has a whole team of healers — are they taking care of you?”

  “Yeah,” he echoed, dimly aware of his consciousness retreating back into that state of numbness.

  “It’s quite a shock, to hear you’ve suddenly been chosen,” she added, her smile intact. “But, that does leave me to wonder . . . why did you go to the Courage Stone to begin with?”

  He stopped. “I wanted to see it,” he responded, not looking at her face. “It is legendary, after all.” He couldn’t quite help the sarcasm that edged onto that.

  “The only thing I told you was that it would kill you if you touched it.”

  “I guess I didn’t listen very well,” he mumbled. “Sorry.”

  “You didn’t listen once in the fifteen years I’ve been repeating it?” she asked.

  “I guess not.”

  “Why,” she asked, her voice dropping. “Why, even if you didn’t know — why would you spend three months planning a trip to the capital to see a stone you knew nothing about? What were you doing there? What was so important that you snuck your way out of the city?”

  “I just wanted to see it —” He stopped as he saw her hands shaking. “I — I was being stupid. I’m sorry. Mom, I —”

  “The ominous notes in your room — your sudden cheerfulness, your whole ‘I’ve figured it all out’ -” She buried her face in her hands. “. . . I’m your mother. The only things you should’ve ever had to lie to me about are broken vases and stolen cookies.” She laughed, before the sound twisted into a sob. “. . . I almost thought you weren’t coming back.”

  “. . . I’m sorry —”

  She took another deep breath, then stood up, walked over, and hugged him tight; like she'd never let him go again, like he was the most precious thing in the world and worth more than gold or happiness or safety.

  The switch flipped.

  The tears came with all the emotions his brain had blocked off.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to fight back what he’d been missing for so long.

  But it soon overwhelmed him, and in that safe space of softness and warmth and the smell of cinnamon, he let himself sob and cry with all the guilt and fear and annoyance and rage and regret that had been building up inside.

  “You,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper, “are the best thing in my life. Don’t you dare take that away.”

  The glass in the windows rattled as someone pounded on the door. "Hey! Open up!”

  "Crepes," Philia cursed. She kissed Zeid on the head and slapped on her customer smile.

  He scrubbed the tear stains off his face with his sleeve, and then wandered out the shop as his mother engaged in the hassle of explaining how she’d followed the details in the order and anything the customer had made up last-minute couldn’t magically be added into the cake.

  He stuck to the walls as he roamed out into the streets. The town was beginning to grow busier as the sun rose higher in the sky, people bustling around to run their daily errands . . . but he was numb again, floating in his own body, a choked emptiness clamping down on his insides.

  He grew wary as eyes glanced towards him. He looked down at the Courage Stone, sparking with light under the sun, and tucked it into the collar of his shirt. He didn’t need that attention, not today. Or the trouble that might come with it.

  He didn’t know where he was going, and he didn’t have the energy to think about it. He wandered around, sticking to the left side of town, near the city gates. He heard a noise, almost like footsteps, coming towards him from above and whipped around to see Asimi drop down from the roof of a building.

  “Yo,” she greeted, holding up a hand. “Have fun?” She paused. "Man, you look really upset."

  "What?" he asked, recovering from the surprise of seeing someone jump down from a building. "No. I'm fine."

  "Mmm, nope, your face is doing a whole frowny thing.” She flicked her finger in the air, like she was tracing a frowny face over his face. “Don't worryyy, I'm not going to be nosy. Here — I'll take you to the place that always cheers me up. Ever heard of Choco Oco?"

  He stared at her. "Uuuh, no, don't think I have."

  "How? You live here!" She sighed. "A travesty. They have the best chocolate I've ever tasted."

  "Ah." Should've seen that coming, he thought with a slight smile.

  "Come on, it's lunchtime and I'm hungry. We can make it there in five minutes if we zoom."

  "You can't just eat chocolate for lunch."

  "Says who?"

  ". . ." Mom. His smile slipped.

  "Ok, ok, fine, if it bothers you that much, I'll have a milkshake with it," she relented, flapping her hand in his face. "Let's go cheer you up."