“The lighter purples in your eyes. They’re…more noticeable.”
“It’s the lighting.”
But there was no light. It was beginning to grow dark outside, and the wall torches had yet to be lit.
When I returned to my room minutes later, I looked in the mirror to find colors the same as always: swirls of lilacs and purples, bleeding into gold toward the pupil.
If anything, the only oddity was how those foreign irises almost felt familiar.
Chapter 6
The following day brought the beginnings of normalcy. After an unsurprisingly restless night, I rose at dawn to practice my kicks, jabs, and other maneuvers. Breakfast came, and Callen arrived soon after to resume the training we’d started before I’d gone to Koerlyn.
Little more than a week ago, we’d bet on whether I’d be able to knock him out of place within a month of sessions. If he won, everyone would have to address me asFish Eyes.But that morning, neither of us brought up the bet. It was too unserious a matter to be relevant now. When people were being slaughtered, when Jac would soon be executed, I couldn’t find it in myself to care about silly names and stupid wagers.
The exertion effectively occupied my mind, and I welcomed it, so much so that I made Stefano continue my training once Callen was done. During our practice, Ana had knocked on the door, but I’d used my training as an excuse to avoid her. I spent the afternoon in the garden, pouring over maps with Stefano until dinner came.
Thus far, today had been exactly the same. A hint of routine, perhaps. Just after the sun rose, Callen exhausted my body with more repetitions and exercises, this time with a blunt, wooden dagger—my first weapons training. I wound up stabbing myselfnine times and accidentally catapulting the tool from my hand seven.
A promising start…for a five-year-old, maybe.
Now, muscles still trembling with expended effort, I sat beneath gray skies in the garden once more. Yesterday, I’d found myself fixated on First Territory’s borders, so today, a detailed diagram of its land was spread across my lap.
The six Territories formed something of a circle around the Domus. Each was a similar size, their curved coastlines rather monotonous. First Territory, however, was an exception. It occupied a narrow, disproportionately long piece of land, one-third of its domain jutting into the sea to form a jagged peninsula. It made an aggressive break in the geological pattern.
The effect was…unsettling.
Or maybe that effect came from the swath of primitive markings that covered nearly every inch of space within those borders. On the left, where First bordered Sixth, sharp triangles indicated the mountain range Stefano had told me about. It lay along the border, stretching from a valley near the Domus to the tip of that peninsula. To the right, toward the Territory’s center, lay a small open space and a dot for the city center. The rest was covered in diagonal lines, river symbols, and sporadic circles rimmed in red. The diagonal lines I knew as woodland, but the red circles were unknown. They were also the only color-marked signs on the weathered paper, suggesting they’d been added after the map was made.
“The red circles,” I said to Stefano, who sat against the wall. “Are those cities and villages?”
“Dots with names usually mark cities,” he replied without looking, his attention on the garden. No one had entered since we’d arrived. The day was still too young to harvest and prep for dinner.
“What if this map uses different symbols?”
“It wouldn’t. Maps have been made with the same symbols since before Donon was king. Otherwise, they’re too confusing to read.”
I counted the mysterious symbols, finding thirty altogether, though some were clustered. “Lakes, maybe?” I guessed.
Apparently eager to strike down all of my thoughts, Stefano countered, “Maybe, but all lakes now are pretty dried up.”
Woodlands, rivers, and mountains were already illustrated by other symbols. These shapes were too small to indicate valleys, and if they weren’t cities or towns or major bodies of water, then…
I drew a blank, wishing that whoever had drawn on the map had at least added their symbols to the legend. I mean, that was thepointof a legend.
“Is there a different map of First? Because this is entirely unhelpful.”
“I know First.”
I jolted at the young, high-pitched voice, my head knocking against the wall. Stefano, meanwhile, remained relaxed, like he’d known the looter boy was watching all along.
The boy stood, revealing his hiding place behind a squash plant two rows in front of me. He wrung his hands, looking very unsure of his decision to speak to us.
I stared at him in surprise for a little too long, and Stefano elbowed me.
Speaking slowly so I didn’t startle him away, I asked, “Do you think you might be able to help us figure out what these symbols mean?”
He did nothing for a minute. Just watched us.
