And Jesenia stood among them with her shawl drawn tightly around her shoulders, as the first rays of the sun touched the ash-streaked ruins of her city.
TWO
Though the firesof her home had vanished behind them two nights ago, the smell of smoke and suffering still clung to Jesenia’s shawl. The silver-threaded hem was dulled with soot and dirt.
Before her, the road to the Golden City of Solmiris stretched endlessly beneath a gloom-filled sky. She looked upward, praying to the skies in hopes that it did not rain on her people and wash away the remainder of their fragile hope.
There were so few of them left. She hadn’t counted, but Jesenia thought it couldn’t be more than one hundred of them that had made it out. Most of them were women and small children, and they walked in silence. A line of sorrowful figures carrying nothing but the clothes on their backs.
There was no song now. No festival drums. No smell of saffron and jasmine on the wind.
Jesenia walked last, trailing behind the uneven line of weary bodies to make sure none of the children or elderly were left behind. Her thin sandals had worn through at the heel, and her feet were aching with each painful step, but she didn’t let herself slow.
In front of her, a small boy’s trembling legs finally gave out, and he stumbled as he clutched the hem of his grandmother’s skirt. The woman looked dreadful, knowing she was in no state to carry the boy, so Jesenia knelt beside them.
“Come, little one,” she murmured softly to the boy, scooping him into her already tired arms. His cheek pressed into her shoulder and his breath was shallow against her neck. “Just a little farther, hm?”
He didn’t answer, already half asleep and his weight slack against Jesenia’s weak body.
The old woman choked back a sob. “Blessings to you, girl.”
Jesenia kept walking, not acknowledging the woman. She was close to breaking herself and didn’t want anyone to see her cry. Her people were broken, hungry, and exhausted in ways she had never seen before.
Many of them still had open wounds and untreated burns from Korvath’s raid. They had lost twenty people already on the road who succumbed to their injuries, and others looked like they might drop at any moment.
The Lunarethians had always been pacifists, careful to avoid conflict and war. Jesenia’s people simply didn’t believe in violence, even out of defense, and that was surely why there were so few of them left.
By midday on the third day, the hills began to rise. Soft slopes unfurled into ridges dotted with wildflowers and freshwater lakes. Beyond it all, Jesenia caught her first glimpse of the Golden City of Solmiris.
It almost didn’t look real. Built high up into the cliffside, the walls of white stone protected the largest city any of the Lunarethians had ever seen. Golden spires, gilded cathedrals, and at the very top of the cliff, at the highest point in the city, a beautiful domed citadel sat overlooking the streets below.
It was so bright. So clean. So untouched. So perfect.
Around her, murmurs of hope and relief spread between dry, cracked lips.
The boy in her arms shifted. “What if the gates don’t open?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
Jesenia smoothed his hair. “Oh, don’t say such things. Of course they will open.”
Though she cooed the reassurance to the boy, Jesenia wasn’t sure she believed it herself. Just because the city was beautiful and wealthy didn’t mean that her people would be welcomed.
But if they did not open the gates…they would have nowhere else to go.
Only when they were close enough to speak to the guardsmen at the gates did her people slow. Silence settled thick over them, laced with exhaustion, fear and fragile hope.
The gates themselves were taller than any story dared to tell. Pale stone veined with gold, each door etched with feathered wings so intricate they needed only a strong gust to take flight. The gates protected a city of silk, gold, and marble untouched by the ruin that pushed the Lunarethians there.
At the front of the group, one of the elders rasped to the sky. “Please. We have been forced from our homes. We are wounded and sick. We have children that have not eaten in days. I beg for the mercy of the great Angel-King.”
The guards atop the wall stood unmoving, halberds upright, their gold-etched, crimson-plumed helms glinting in the sunlight.
“Solmiris’s walls do not open forforeigners.”
The disdain in his voice made Jesenia cower. It was true that the capital cities of Korvath and Seraveth were not known for allowing outsiders within their walls, but could they not see how desperate Jesenia’s people were? How the elders had dropped to their knees to beg for a small mercy?
“Please,” Jesenia whispered, a single tear falling from her eye. Her silver-threaded shawl was caught between her fingers as she looked at the men atop the walls.
The sun climbed higher, hot and burning against the backs of weary necks. More soldiers had come to stare, joined even by a few citizens. Beside Jesenia, a young mother cried when she tried to feed her infant only to find she had no milk left to give.
