Ashtium: City of Sun
The Courtyard

ENOCH

Now that we’re shrouded in the light of the city, I can see her hair isn’t actually black like I initially thought. I think it’s just an ashy blonde. At the roots, it’s a greyish tone. Stemming out from the messy part in her hair, the rest of the strands are pale and speckled with the dark sands of the black desert.

Her skin is covered in soot making it appear greyish. Her irises are so light blue they almost look white reminding me of someone I loathe.

She reeks of death and is need of a bath badly. It’s a miracle I found her alive and alone. She can’t be older than me. I don’t even know how she got in here without getting herself killed! I knew she had stolen a horse. I’m not surprised it brought her back here. The court horses are trained to return to our city with or without their riders.

I still can’t believe I’m staring face to face with a real live Krexbin. She looks so pathetic and almost otherworldly. The moment she opens her mouth she will be ridiculed...and targeted. I’m sure people have already spotted her. The Krexbin were thought to be extinct. To the naive, she probably looks like a dirty slave.

I nudge her back behind a marble statue. “You can’t stand out here in the open! You need to hide,” I warn her.

She needs to get out of the line of sight of Urdmin and my father’s guards watching the slaves work below us on the streets. She was just a few feet from stepping into my father’s temple. If I hadn’t came a second sooner, she would have made it inside and been found out immediately by the palace guards.

It’s very hard for me to look into her pale eyes. They remind me so much of my father’s. Luckily, she can’t look into mine. As a Krexbin, she wouldn’t be able to even if she wanted to. I push and prod her around the temple while she openly gazes around the sacred building. Little does she know she’s looking in awe over the work of thousands of beaten and whipped slaves who have died over its creation.

Funny how she doesn’t seem so afraid of me now. I wonder if she can see any better at all in here? This must be the first time she’s seen a modern civilization. She’s probably still in shock.

“My name is Greta,” she tells me.

So, the Krexbin speaks.

I was expecting her voice to sound much softer, but it’s raspy and huskier than I imagined. I lean in hearing her mumble something else, but her voice is too quiet.

Greta digs her feet into the ground when we end up many yards beyond the temple near the courtyard. The Krexbin grips my arms and I wince feeling her jagged, unkept nails dig into my bicep as she looks up with freight. My mother’s statue stares down at us and the Krexbin sits down on the ledge with a black toothy smile as she scoops up a handful of water. A second ago she looked petrified by mother’s statue, and now, she looks content peering down into the murky water in her cupped hands.

Before I can blink, she’s downed the liquid and dipping her hands for another scoop. The water is brown and covered in grime, but she doesn’t know any better. Still, it’s kind of disgusting to watch her drink it. The slaves don’t clean out the fountain much anymore now that they’re working on the city streets.

“Don’t drink that,” I mumble uneasily.

She already looks malnutritioned. Drinking that water won’t do her any good. It makes me feel guilty for thinking her best suited to live with our slaves. I can’t keep her in the palace though. Urdmin would throw a fit and my mother would probably kill her in her sleep.

Where else is there for her stay? More importantly, why do I even feel responsible for her? She’s an adult and a Krexbin at that. She survived out in the desert long enough on her own. She should be fine living here now in our city without my help.

Who am I kidding? Someone’s going to see her and either throw her back out in the desert or beat her until she’s broken into a slave.

I look around the courtyard once more. Neatly trimmed tall hedge bushes form around us in a long rectangle, but other than that...it’s an open area full of plants and blossoming flower bushes as well as the overgrown statues of our city’s founders.

The palace is way across the city, but the only people who come back here to the courtyard are the occasional peasants tossing coins in the fountain. The only ones allowed back in the temple are my family and my father’s appointed leaders. The city dwellers are always clustered around it at noontime, but in the late afternoon, like it is now, it’s usually less congested.

The empirical court usually meets in the palace anyway, but the temple is like father’s second home. He likes sitting in there listening to our people pray to him outside for his blessing. Someday I’ll burn down that temple, but not while he’s here.

“You have to stay here.”

Greta’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Stay here...” she repeats.

I can’t help staring at her black greasy looking teeth when she talks. They look atrocious, but now I understand why the elders called them desert demons. Her teeth and pale unhealthy greyish complexion really does make her look demonic.

I hand her the sharp carved dagger I found her with. “Yes and keep your mouth closed until I return with food. I’ll bring you clean water. Here, take this. It’s yours.”

With a curious look, I back away slowly watching her inspect it. She’ll probably still be looking it over by the time I get back. She nods her head slowly in understanding. If anyone happens to see her they’ll think her a slave by her clothing of rags and dirty appearance. It looks like she rolled around in ashes and gobbled down a gallon of tar.

She looks up from her small silly weapon and over in my direction. “Enoch.”

A pleasing feeling blooms within me hearing her mention my name. Her voice doesn’t sound so throaty.

“I won’t be long,” I assure her.

Not wasting another moment, I run back the way we came. Once I make it out of the courtyard, I sprint all the way back over to father’s temple and down the staircase leading up to it. Urdmin gives me a small wave when I pass by him heading into the market. The slaves are still hitting away at the pavement and breaking down the boulders.

After I buy some food and other things, I hurry back through the market and to the steps leading up to the temple. I rush around the ridiculously big temple and head behind it as I make my way over to the courtyard. I dare say I only left her alone for ten minutes.

Averting my gaze, I hand her the clean tunic when I replace her by the fountain still where I left her. “For you. You should change into it.”

I turn around giving her privacy. Something light lands on my shoulder and I jump turning around seeing her standing right behind me with her knife cautiously pointed at my neck. She does look lovely in her new tunic. It’s a light green tone. Common folk are not to wear white like me. The color is reserved for the empirical family only.

I know she doesn’t trust me completely, but I could easily swat the knife from her hand. At least, she is somewhat cleaner looking now. I quite like how her tunic drapes over her figure. Her hair is almost completely free of the ash too. She must have washed it out in the fountain somewhat because her hair still looks damp from the dirty water. It clings to her face.

She hugs her arms gazing down at the new cloth cascading down the length of her body.

“Enoch? Enoch! Has your father returned?”

“Hide!” I tell her, hearing mother calling for me.

Greta’s eyes go wide hearing the sound of the emperor’s wife -- my mother. She gets on her hands and knees like the street mutts and I watch a little bemused as she crawls behind a large bush behind me. She has plenty of time to hide though. From the distance mother’s voice calls from, I’m guessing she’s still all the way at the front of the courtyard.

It takes her a few minutes to follow my voice when I call back helping her replace me.

Eventually, the empress approaches me under one of the many crumbling stone archways back here. She leans casually against the stone wall near a chipped lantern that a vine wraps around. She picks at the plant and then looks appreciatively at her fountain father had made for her.

“Hello, mother.”

“Why did you not come to tell me?”

I guide her around the bush and away from the hiding Krexbin. “Sorry. I got a little carried away.”

“With what?” she asks innocently.

I walk with her nervous for the woman I’m leaving behind in the courtyard. I itch to turn away from mother, but she is quick to catch on to things. I do not wish to raise her suspicions for Greta’s sake.

“Well, I’m sure you’ve heard talk of spies. We think we found one out in the desert.”

We finally leave the courtyard together and mother guides me around father’s temple. She peers inside the opening to his throne room and must not see him because her face turns sour.

“From where?”

“We are uncertain,” I answer as we descend the staircase to the city streets below.

We pass the line of slaves and mother’s guards follow in line behind us. Warily, I glance up the steps seeing the emperor watching us from the shadows of the entrance to his temple blending in with the statues clustered around him.

Mother elbows me playfully while picking up a piece of cake from a street vendor as we enter the market. “And what does this spy have to do with you not coming to tell me of your arrival?”

“I think they’ve made it here. I was trying to replace them.”

“Leave it to the guards, my dearest. A grand meal awaits us back in the dining hall. I hope you are hungry. You and your father must have worked up an appetite in the desert!”

I laugh along with her, but inside my mind is racing knowing I’ve made a lie and now will have to keep up with it until I can do the impossible – replace Greta somewhere she can live here.