by Devri Walls
Tybolt snapped the reins. Before the Fracture, the city had wound its way down to the docks on the north side of the island. After the Fracture nothing but rubble remained. King Rowan had ordered the homes rebuilt in a circular pattern around the castle, making it easier to rebuild the wall.
Even with the houses stacked nearly one on top of the other, the wall took years to complete. The bricks were a testimony of their haste—rough, bumpy, and misshapen. The mortar was applied generously to fill in gaps and level rows.
In order for the city to accommodate everyone, the homes were built tall, thin, and close together. Three stories high and so tightly packed that one could pass items from the windows. The small alleys in between were covered in shadow.
They’d paved a path from the entrance all the way to the Hold in carefully constructed cobblestones. But that was before water became too precious a commodity to waste on the making of bricks, so the rest of the streets were dirt.
“It’s quiet today,” Auriella said, looking up at the darkened windows.
“Most are probably closer to the castle, hoping for breakfast.”
As they came closer to the square, the streets began to widen and little carts and shops lined the sides. The lesser vendors were forced to try to do business here while the wealthier ones held the nicer stalls in the square.
People milled about, haggling with shop owners, or sat there wishing they had money to haggle with shop owners. A crowd had also gathered at the east gate to the palace, hoping to procure a bit of the meager supply of food the king allowed to be distributed. Maybe a quarter of the crowd would be lucky enough to grab a heel of bread or a half-rotten apple.
Tybolt refused to watch as the younger Hunters threw food to the crowd, laughing as grown men fought children.
It didn’t take long for the whispers of “wizard” to move through the crowd. Heads popped up and necks craned to get a look at someone they could blame for their misery.
“We’ve been spotted. Let’s move.” Tybolt urged Widow Maker into a trot. The people began shouting slurs, and the first rock arched over his head, slamming into the street on the other side. Auriella whirled around on her horse to find whoever had thrown it.
“Come on,” Tybolt said, “before they send more.”
The growing buzz of the crowd alerted the servants stationed at the Hold. They swung open the two great iron gates on the west side of the palace. Each gate bore meticulously crafted swirls of fire and smoke scrollwork. Such deceptive finery for what lay behind. The gates creaked and groaned under their own weight.
The crowd pushed in behind them, shrieking accusations at the bound wizard.
“Demon spawn!”
“You should rot in hell for what you’ve done to us!”
“We’re starving!”
The gates slammed shut with a bang behind them, separating the Hunters from the mob. The twang of vibrating metal rang high and clear over the shouts. Still, the villagers pushed themselves against the iron, their gaunt features twisted in hate. They wrapped their hands around the bars and continued their tirades.
Tybolt and Auriella dismounted and handed their horses off to two servants. Tybolt undid the knots, freeing the wizard’s legs and torso. He pulled the wizard from the pony and set him on his feet, and Auriella pushed him toward the Hold. The wizard leaned back on his heels.
“After your little stunt in the forest, I would not test me,” Auriella said through clenched teeth. “Walk.” She grabbed one arm and Tybolt took the other, forcefully steering the wizard to the door.
The Hold was a deceptively simple stone outbuilding, long and rectangular. There were no windows, only roof vents where the stale air was slowly exchanged and light could enter. Of course the vents were much too small, which meant the air did not exchange fast enough, and the light was fickle.
A Hunter who was too young to go out on his own stood by the door, his eyes sparkling with excitement. “You got one.”
“We did,” Tybolt said.
“Terric returned an hour ago empty-handed.”
Wonderful. Just what they needed, Terric in a bad mood. “You might not want to repeat that, for your own safety,” Tybolt said. “Terric does not appreciate his failures being announced.” He jerked his head towards the door. “Do you think you could let us in…” He trailed off and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, William. My name is William.” He opened the first door to the Hold, and Tybolt and Auriella pulled the wizard inside.
In between the first door and the second door was a small room lit by a single torch. William shut the first door behind them and locked it. The second door was then unlocked from the other side and swung open. The smell rushed towards them and Tybolt gagged, despite being ready for it. A mixture of human waste, rotting flesh, and death.
The wizard’s knees buckled, and he fell to the ground with a muffled groan.
“Come on,” Tybolt said, jerking him up. “On your feet.”
The aisle between the cells was too narrow for them to walk side by side. Tybolt moved to the front, still firmly gripping the wizard’s arm, and stepped over a stream of urine coming from a cell.
The first stone cells contained gagged wizards sitting on piles of moldy straw. Some laid down, others slept, some stared blankly into space. Only a few bothered to peer at the new arrival through the iron bars.
The captives were not given the privilege of bathing and they reeked. Their hair hung in greasy, lank sections, and the threadbare clothes they wore were stained from excrement, sweat, dirt, and mold. More than half were sick from the filth they were forced to live in. Puss oozed from scabby sores in the corners of their mouths, caused by the constant rubbing of the gag.
The next cells held wizards who’d made the unfortunate decision to slip their gags. A difficult task considering how tightly they were tied. The punishment for that offense bypassed the need for a gag by physically stitching their lips shut using thick black twine. Horrific x’s crisscrossed their lips, leaving only a small hole through which they could eat and drink from a straw. The liquefied food caused diarrhea, the stench of which your nose would not be rid of for hours after you left.
The Hold was laid out from least horrifying to most, with the interrogation hall at the back. It was built that way deliberately—to show the wizards exactly what would happen to them if they didn’t cooperate, or tried to fling spells.
The wizard’s knees buckled again and he whimpered.
“Come on,” Tybolt said. “We’re almost there.”
The last set of cells held the most determined wizards. They’d ripped their stitches from their lips—leaving a mangled, shredded mess. The Hold had been rocked more than once by a wizard who’d pulled their stitches and tried to escape.
Their powers seemed to be diminished from malnourishment, and with so many Hunters in the vicinity, all attempts had failed. Rather than sewing up what was left of their shredded lips, the king ensured the wizard couldn’t speak by cutting out his tongue. These wizards sat defiantly in their own filth, glaring at Auriella and Tybolt as they passed.
The wizard who occupied the cell next to the interrogation room was the only one who had his tongue removed before he’d even been placed in the Hold. Aja was the one who had caused everything, the one whose abuse of power had fractured the world.
Tybolt rarely felt fury, but looking at this wizard made his ears hum and his stomach tie in knots. He still saw his mother in his dreams, heard her shout Aja’s name as she plummeted to her death in a boiling ocean. Because of him, Tybolt had lost everything.
Aja stood as they approached. His shoulders were thrown proudly back, and he curled his fingers around the bars. His steely blue eyes followed their every step until they passed through the door to the interrogation room.
This room was positively sterile compared to what they’d just passed through, but the Hunters who interrogated the new wizards never bothered to clean up the blood they spilt. Brown stains sprayed across the walls, spla
ttered the ceiling, and pooled on the floor—an immediate notification to all wizards of the torture they would endure if they failed to talk.
A single chair sat in the middle of the room, and Tybolt and Auriella forced the wizard to sit, strapping his hands and ankles down. The wizard twisted and turned, pulling violently against his restraints.
Tybolt stood and glanced through the small window on the door, looking for the interrogators. They were on their way, laughing loudly in their excitement for a new prisoner. He didn’t have much time. Infuriated with himself for the incessant pity he felt for all who suffered, Tybolt crouched down in front of the chair and grabbed both the wizard’s arms.
“Listen to me,” he hissed. “If you don’t want the life beaten out of you, stop moving. They are looking for any excuse to use you as a punching bag. Do you understand?”
The wizard became very still, his wide eyes searching Tybolt’s.
“Tybolt,” Auriella warned.
He shoved back from the chair and pushed the door open. Auriella followed. They passed the interrogators just outside.
“Tybolt.” Auriella seethed as they made their way towards the exit. “If your little pity antics earn us an audience with the king, I will never forgive you.”
Tybolt said nothing. If his pity bothered her that much, she would’ve reported him to the king herself. Once outside, he gulped the clean air, trying to rid himself of the putrid odors. They stayed close, waiting for payment.
They split the ten gold pieces between them. Ten gold pieces was a month’s pay for some, two months for most. Tybolt pocketed it, knowing that most of it would be spent by the time the week was out.
Tybolt awoke to the buzz of children screaming with excitement instead of wailing from hunger. That alone should’ve put him in a fine mood. But today was festival…he hated festival. Groaning, he pushed the covers back and sat up.
He forced his heavy eyelids open and looked down at his hands. They were covered in dirt and grime, and his fingernails were caked with black. He hadn’t bothered to bathe last night. The idea of his feather bed was too fine a prospect to delay.
He looked over to the large tub in his room. It was clear a fire had not been lit beneath it since he’d left for the hunt. Had he procured any one of the other servants in the castle, no doubt his bath would’ve been heated and filled. He also would’ve been woken to bathe before it cooled. But he didn’t have the other servants—he’d chosen Malachi. Not because Malachi was good, but because no one else had wanted him.
Tybolt poured some cold water into the small basin on his dresser and splashed it on his face. Using damp hands he smoothed his black, shoulder-length hair and secured it at the base of his neck with a leather tie.
He leaned forward and placed his palms on the dresser, peering into the mirror. His mother had been gone for so long, and all he had left of her was his own reflection. The same oval face, strong nose, and high cheek bones. Marring the mental picture of his mother was his unnatural blue eyes—a constant reminder of a man he’d never met.
When he’d first arrived at the castle to be trained as a Hunter, Hess had warned him that the Hunters would be suspicious of his eyes, so he would need to prove himself. He’d been right. That was the last day Tybolt ever saw Hess.
The night of the Fracture, Hess had inexplicably shown up moments after Tybolt had lost his mother and sister. He so clearly remembered leaning over the edge of the crumbling cliff and screaming down to the ocean as it swallowed everything he loved. Then feeling Hess’s arms pick him up and rush him to a horse. The land continued to crack and crumble behind them, dropping into the sea as they galloped to safety.
Tybolt remembered very little of the rest of that night. They had ridden for what felt like eternity. He still didn’t know if the ride to the small cabin in the woods was really that long or if his grief had dragged the seconds into hours. Hess cared for Tybolt in that cabin for over a year. Then he’d vanished as quickly as he’d appeared, leaving Tybolt once again with no one.
Shaking his head, Tybolt turned away from the mirror. He pulled on a pair of brown pants and a white shirt to attend the first in a long list of activities. Festival began with a play that reenacted the Fracture. Everyone was required to attend, with the exception of the servants. After eight years he could’ve performed it himself. He stuck the gold he’d collected yesterday in one pocket. He then folded up a blank piece of parchment, scrawled Malachi on it, and shoved it in the other pocket.
He walked down the deserted hallway, passing the doors to the other male Hunters’ rooms. The hall opened into a large common room with soaring ceilings and a fireplace on each side large enough to stand in. Rugs of different patterns and colors lay on the floor, anchored by a mismatched variety of chairs and couches. The room was empty, which meant he was late for breakfast.
A large clang sounded and Tybolt jumped, his hand instinctively reaching for his sword. But he’d not strapped it on.
“Sorry, my lord.” Malachi bent to pick up the empty basin of water. His curly brown hair stood nearly three inches off his head and bobbed as he moved. “I was just on my way to your room.”
Tybolt eyed the river of water that ran across the stone, soaking the edge of the wool rug. “I assume that was for my bath?”
“Well, yes.” He perked up. “But I can get more.”
Tybolt rubbed the corners of his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Yes, you can. Although, the double buckets would probably get the job done faster.”
Malachi smiled sheepishly. He grabbed the basin and backed out of the room. “I’ll just…go do that.”
“I’ll be gone most of the morning,” Tybolt shouted after him. “You needn’t hurry.” Hurrying was not in Malachi’s nature. There was a time when Tybolt had always told him to hurry in hopes that something might be done on time. He quickly learned that telling Malachi to hurry was merely a guarantee that the boy would trip on his feet and break something.
Malachi poked his head back around the corner. “I’ll make sure your bath is ready when you return.”
It wasn’t five seconds later before Tybolt heard the basin hit the floor again.
“Sorry!”
“Malachi! It’s no hurry, just…” he trailed off and sighed. “Walk,” Tybolt muttered to himself. “Just walk.”
Tybolt stepped out of the castle’s main gates and into the square. It was packed with people wearing the finest clothes they owned. For many that meant their rags had been cleaned.
Tybolt stopped at his favorite sweet bread cart. “Two, Darcia.”
Darcia’s collar bones jutted out from beneath her dress, and the hollows of her cheeks were pronounced. Although her children were some of the best fed in the village, raised on unsold sweet rolls, their mother looked like the rest of the villagers.
“Skipping breakfast at the palace again, Lord Tybolt?” Darcia pulled two steaming rolls from a large brown basket.
“The palace?” Tybolt scoffed and handed over his coin, plus a little extra. “If the castle cooks could make a sweet roll half as good as yours, they would never get me out of the kitchen.”
Darcia blushed and suppressed a nervous giggle, tucking the coin away.
Tybolt glanced through the crowd to see a little boy ducking behind Pete’s cart, the only fat man in the entire village, and begin digging through his garbage. Tybolt inwardly cringed. “I’m going to need another one of those rolls,” he told Darcia, fishing another coin from his pocket as he kept an eye on the boy. He took the sweet roll from her and darted through the crowd. He slipped behind the cart and grabbed the little boy’s wrist.
The boy looked up, startled. All eyes in his gaunt face.
Tybolt put his mouth next to the boy’s ear. “Pete doesn’t take kindly to thieves, even from his trash.”
The little boy panicked and jerked back, knocking over a crate of turnips in his haste.
Pete turned to find them both crouched between bins of vegetables. His po
rtly cheeks and neck grew red at the sight.
Tybolt stood and pulled the boy up by his bone-thin wrist. “Pete!” He grinned and casually took a bite from his sweet roll. “I was just trying to pick a few of your finest vegetables with the help of my young friend here. It appears we’ve made a mess.”
Pete’s face began to return to its normal color, but his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Lord Tybolt, you know I only keep my most expensive produce behind the stall.”
“I do, I do.” Tybolt handed the second roll over to the boy, who snatched it as if it might disappear at any moment. He ravenously shoved it in his mouth. “Surely you noticed Lady Auriella and I with our catch yesterday.”
Pete broke into a grin and leaned back to tuck in his shirt—and part of his oversized belly—into his pants. “I heard the commotion but didn’t realize who the lucky Hunters were. What can I get for you?”
“Surprise me,” Tybolt said, flipping him a gold coin. “A bag full of your best.”
Pete took a burlap sack and began shoving in fruits and vegetables. “Taking some food out to your family, then?”
“Of course,” Tybolt said, shouldering his sack. “One can’t be too generous with family. Happy festival.”
“Happy festival to you.” Pete pocketed the gold with a satisfied gleam in his eye.
Tybolt steered the boy out of the main square and into one of the tiny alleys between the tightly packed homes. He knelt and looked him over. The child was in worse condition than he’d originally thought—skin and bones. His eyes were too big for his face, and his shirt hung on him like it would on a scarecrow.
“Blue-eyed Hunter,” the boy whispered. His eyes grew even wider.
“Listen, if you’re going to rummage through garbage, you must steer clear of Pete. He’s sent men to prison for less, and he’ll have no mercy on boys. Do you understand?”
The boy nodded.
“Who do you belong to, anyway?”
The boy looked away and shrugged. “Ma died last week. I haven’t seen Pa in two days.”