Short Stories

A Thief With Morals

In the city of Asenoth, the wind raged and the rain pelted the thin boards that were set across the small openings in the walls that served as windows. Trees bowed and drops the size of coins fell at a nearly parallel angle to the ground. Those that claimed the streets as their beds, normally strangely isolated, stood huddled in bundles, crowding together around the children and hunching their backs against the onslaught of Mother Nature. Whatever you could say about the people of this desolate place, you couldn't deny the fact that they were loyal, and that they knew where their priorities rested.

Although Aella had taken up residence in the corner that was furthest away from the opening in her cell, she did not mind the weather. She had grown used to the frequent tempests when she was raised on the coast, but she knew that such violent storms were not common in Asenoth this time of year.

Many strange things had been happening in the ecosystems of Horatia, as if the very land they stood upon was at war with herself. Most residents of the more secluded villages would say that Horatia was a living being, a remnant of Mother Gaia, conscious and waiting to be awoken. The people in the more modern towns scoffed at the idea of the land they had claimed as their own being a living, breathing creature, but in her time with the Rebellion, Aella had learnt that it was always best to keep an open mind, especially in a world where nightmares could become solid forms, and kings grew wings.

Whether or not the Earth was a being that could be woken, Aella's mother had drummed the fact that the earth was alive and deserved to be treated with respect into her head ever since Aella could understand entire sentences.

That was why she had joined the rebellion. She had seen men from the countries army trample and abuse the ground that gave them food and a place to rest. The men couldn't care less about the lives of the people they uprooted when they destroyed harvest and came knocking to take away what little money the Horatians could earn.

They take our homes and our gold, and then they mock us when we take to the streets, Aella thought in disgust, shaking her head.

She had been trying to steal food for a family when she was caught, and unfortunately the city guards knew her face; she had caused them trouble for several years, and had thrown their ranks into chaos with the three assassinations she had to carry out. She was not ashamed of what she had done. The men she had been ordered to kill were evil and vile; they preyed on woman and girls, and stole food from the peasants, and she had not made them suffer, though she wanted to. She slit their throats while they were asleep, lying with swollen bellies next to their rake-like wives that sported several bruises up and down their arms and legs. Them, Aella had left alone. The women had done nothing wrong; they had just been bargained off to the wrong men.

Aella had never had such a problem. The man her father had chosen for her was good, and she had fallen head over heels in love with Damian the second her father introduced. Aella sighed in sadness. She only wished that her father had lived long enough to see the two of them wed. Aella shook her head and banished awful nightmares that had consumed the space where her childhood memories once were. Now, whenever she looked back, all she saw were flashes of steel that were tainted red, smoke filling her lungs, their house being burned to ashes and the screams -

The sound of keys jangling in a lock snapped her out of her stupor. Aella berated herself for allowing her mind to distract her from the current threat she was facing.

Her execution.

A harsh-looking man opened and stepped into her cell, motioning for her to stand up. She did so with only slight reluctance. She would need to think of a plan quickly, but her brain seemed to have stopped working.