YEAR 1017 - SINCE HAMINO’S PROMISE

KINGDOM OF ARDANIA

RIMLY TEMPLE

Those standing on the Rimly Dais were the next to die. Stripped of their clothing and their humanity, the four men and women were condemned for their defects. Seen or unseen, Mageia couldn’t tell from where she stood, but their whimpering sent sharp pains through her heart.

The announcer ascended with his parchment. “Hail Fairs of Ardania! Today we shall please the Diviine Six, who spoke so many years ago to cure our hearts and our land from the defected and the weak by means of sacrifice. They may be our friends, or a family member, but the Law is the law, and the Crown and the Diviines has spoken.”

Mageia Unknown clenched the hilt of her sword as the crowd cheered for the sight of blood. Her purple eyes glared from her cloak’s hood, scolding the Ferry Priest in his black robes with trims of green stitches of boats, reciting a prayer for the souls. The families of the lost wept as they moved closer to the dais, shouting their goodbyes and pleas for mercy, which fell on deaf ears.

 “These men and women are guilty of blasphemy and associating with the dangerous rebels, the Blesseds,” the announcer continued. “They are enemies to our sacred kingdom and have been chosen by our anointed Priesthood and the Diviine Six to be sacrificed for the beginning of our holy ceremony. May the gods accept their sacrifice and bless the Kingdom of Ardania.”

“Holy Dawnis have mercy,” Mageia muttered. She hoped the fire god of life, death, and justice was not as merciless as the priests portrayed him to be.

She saw why these condemned Strange decided to switch their beliefs towards the Ordained rather than the Diviine Six. The six gods were known to be kind and pleasant only when they’ve drunken enough Strange blood to display it. One scar, disease, deformity, or crime marked any person in Ardania to be a bad soul and possibly the next one to meet the executioner. At least that’s how the priests preached and taught it.

However, the five nameless Ordained were said to have been chosen by the Old God Hamino to possess his power of justice, unity, peace, and love. Passed down throughout the eras, the stories spoke on how these gods were born human then transformed into living gods to be rulers over Royals and the Diviine Six. Hence why the Crown hated these people.

For Mageia, she wavered in between both deities, not knowing who to trust or which teachings to believe. One thing was for sure, neither had decided to put an end to Ardania’s heartless traditions.

The guards on the dais’ emerald-green platform forced the first man to the beam and strapped him down so he couldn’t move. The executioner stepped forward, prepared his sword, and, with one swift motion, severed the man’s head from his body. Blood squirted everywhere. Its metallic odor clung to the spring breeze whipping across the cobblestone courtyard of the Rimly Temple. Mageia’s stomach curled. She hated working during executions, but it was the best time to collect from the pockets of those who found these proceedings pleasing and holy.

“Blessed be!” some shouted, eyes flickering to the sky, lips moving in silent prayers.

A hand tugged her sleeve. She caught eyes with Faebrin, a teen member of her family who didn’t need to cover his face. The 15-year-old’s birth defect dwelled on his ears, sharply pointed and screaming he was an Elf. And though being born an Elf seemed normal to the world outside Ardania, the Markers gave him a Crescent Mark tattooed to the side of his neck to claim him an outsider. The burn in his narrowed sky-blue eyes reminded her of what they came to the Rimly Dais to do. When she nodded, he slipped away into the crowd.

Swift and with years of great skill, Mageia pick-pocketed coins, purses, timepieces, fancy pipes, and anything her sticky fingers touched. Within her cloak, the sack attached to her waist grew heavy but not heavy enough to weigh down her silent feet. She was of a woman’s average, law-enforced height, about five feet by six inches, that would not make her stand out. Many, like her, wore cloaks or robes with their hoods flopped onto their heads to block the angry sun. So, she weaved through the rowdy crowd undetected.

Midlaan soldiers and guards in their greens and black chuckled at the horror taking place on the platform. They were unaware of the many thieving fingers doing what they knew best right under their noses. It always amused Mageia how the priests from the Rimly Temple refused to triple security around their favorite execution spot. But as usual, the courtyard was packed with people, especially on a special day as this one. 

The temple guards grabbed the second Strange, who gave a heart-wrenching scream as they forced her into place. The Ferry Priest muttered his prayers to the Diviines as the woman whimpered sorely. The crowd’s ruckus heightened. Mageia averted her eyes as the sword came down. Past images of standing on the dais of the Diviine Temple made her chest tighten. She hated when this happened while she worked.

I need to get out of here, she scoffed, wishing she could run on the platform and cease this evil act.

She decided to finish up early and made her way through her section, head low and hands prying into men and women’s clothing and purses. Then someone bumped into her from behind the same time her hand dug into her next victim’s vest for a timepiece hanging from a silver chain.

“Hey, watch it, lady,” the man snorted, only for his eyes to widen, feeling her hand in a place it shouldn’t be. They caught eyes, and fear crawled onto his face as he screamed. “Purple Thief!”

She gasped but did not hesitate to sprint through the crowd, pushing people out the way.

“Stop her!” She heard the man shout.  

Not today, she thought as she broke free and headed eastward through the Rimly Marketplace. People squealed and jumped out the way in fright of her Strange eyes. The guards and soldiers nearby snapped into pursuit. She remembered the many escape routes that could lose her pursuers and their heavy armor. She scanned the Mideri Wall trailing behind the stalls on her right. With calm assurance and much practice, Mageia repositioned her bag of stolen valuables and climbed onto a man’s smelly onion stall.

“Oh gods, get off!” he screamed.

Ignoring him, she climbed the stall’s wooden poles onto the roof, the only sturdy roof she had taken notice of weeks ago. With careful footing, she tiptoed to the other side, jumped, and latched onto the wall’s protruding stones and began to climb with reptilian speed.

Her pursuers below were frantic. One tried to repeat what she had done. The idiot failed, tipping over and crashing into the seller’s stall. His companions rerouted themselves, running towards the stairs of a wall post. The two lone guards inside the post scurried onto their feet and began running towards her.

Unfortunately, for them she was too far away. She climbed over to the other side of the wall into the neighboring city of Strana and climbed down to the thick vines of overgrown trees. They shouted above her as she switched to the tree limbs, climbed down, and disappeared into the woods. Laughing to her core, she ran through the clutter of trees and exited into the shadows of an alley. She stayed close to the buildings and weaved into Hamala Marketplace. Barely out of breath, she glanced up at the wall where the guards scanned anxiously below. Mageia chuckled. She had outwitted them again.

Strolling with her head casted down, she went eastward towards the Hillside. The marketplace gradually turned into the upper northside neighborhoods for the middle classes of Strana. The houses were joined in rows, with the occasional single home or store mixed into them. Some of the neighborhoods appeared as if they were a lost part of lower Midlaan with their clean grassy lawns, bright colors, and everything seemingly in place and in order, while the others wore its struggles.

Every so often, Mageia would walk through the neighborhoods, imagining herself living in one where everyone treated her as equal. But in this Kingdom of Ardania, division was the air they breathed. So, her fantasies were always cut short. She spotted a farmer riding a horse-drawn wagon full of hay and easily climbed it and sat inside without his notice. She repositioned her aching feet, pulled her hood very low over her eyes, and leaned back as if she had fallen asleep.

But she stole calm glances at the area around her as the farmer turned onto a street, crossing into the Hillside. The Hillside trailed Ardania’s entire eastside from north to south, with hills of trees and countless farmlands and estates. Mageia sucked in the air, damp with cattle odor and the sweat of slaves tilling the ground, and her heart grew heavy. The crowds of people had reduced drastically, but she didn’t dare take off her hood. No one could be trusted, not even the slaves.

She dreaded this part of the journey home. For thirty hardened minutes, she passed by slaves at work. People known as Strange, considered defected, cursed, and unwanted by the gods, condemned to a life of servitude until exonerated by their masters or the Crown or by death. If she were ever caught for her sticky fingers, this could be her life. But the risk was important to feed her growing family.

Then suddenly, the farmer’s wagon turned onto an adjoined street towards another section of farmlands and estates, which was her cue to continue the next hour on foot. She slipped off easily, wiped herself off, and continued down the main street until the trees of the Old Forest swallowed her. She passed the last of the small homes within the forest’s entry and found the hidden path leading to her home.

Once the ground began to rise beneath her feet, she felt comfortable taking off her hood and walked confidently into the Dauntless Mountains. It was known that people would rather die than enter the Dauntless, said to be cursed by the gods. Filled with stacks of treacherous, rocky mountains, mirroring one another to the point of sending one walking in circles. It was rumored to have magic still lingering deep in its roots. But for someone who grew up in these mountains, she knew exactly where to go and the dangers to look out for.

Checking for unlikely followers or straggling members of her family, she entered a hidden cave draped with curtains of yellow flowered vines. A dark and dry tunnel scaled through the mountains where she let her feet guide her under familiar archways and turns until she spotted light ahead.

Mageia halted and gave a short whistle sequence. She waited, ears straining for the callback signal to enter. An owl’s hoot responded. She smirked and continued towards the end of the tunnel to a gated entry and entered her home with a peaceful smile.