Broken Souls (Book 1 of Seasons of the Cycle)

Chapter 2: Lura Syllana

Another day in Tent City...

I let out a silent sigh as I climb up the wall, moving my hands and feet to the little divots and indents that act like a ladder for me to climb. I finally reach a narrow, cracked hole in the wall wide enough for me to squeeze through.

With a hood covering my face, I weave through the crowd of elves of Low Town as I head through the sandy main street on my way to the market. Every now and again, I'll bump into someone and, purely by coincidence, my pocket becomes a little heavier after my clumsiness. I do not look at what is in my pocket, I just continue while the weight of my pocket grows.

I reach the market and use the little trick I learned to move objects from a distance. Of course, it's magic, but it's not enough to be traced by the enforcers. Just a trickle. My uncle taught it to me among other things. As Zeeno scrambles to pick up his fruit that, for some strange reason, falls from his stall, I sneak underneath and start piling my bag full of his fruit.

He calls his Stall, Zeeno's Ripe Fruits and Vegetables, ripe being an understatement. Most are squishy and don't smell right. Suddenly, Zeno's thick, chubby, enormous nose and face with shabby eyebrows and rotting teeth ducks under the stall. My eyes go wide and I drop the tazzle fruit in my hand. His long, pointy, elven ears seem to droop on him. "Hey! You lousy kid. Give me those!"

I bolt out of there with the bag of fruit, darting down alleyways and zipping through the people. "You bastard! Wait until I get my hands on you."

Even as I run away, my pocket still grows heavier as I bump into people. I bolt down an alleyway, only to cut back the opposite way. I climb up a pillar and jump on a ledge. Then I jump from building to building. I leap a distance longer than I'm comfortable with and barely grab the ledge, but I slip and hit the wooden balcony beneath it with a groan. The air feels like it's been knocked out of my lungs. I roll onto my hands and knees, pushing myself forward as I scramble back up to the roof. A little dazed, but okay.

I jump and land on a cart of hay before sliding down and sprinting to the gap. I make it through and climb down the wall. Now that I'm in Tent City, I relax a bit and walk casually through the pathways between tents. I slip through Glimmer Alley, where all the glimmer zombies beg and plead for another hit of that poison. They look like skeletons with splotchy skin clinging to their bones.

After zig-zagging through the streets and alleys between tents, I slip into our tent. Father's tinkering with some contraption he salvaged. He can get a few sand pieces for the parts, but those don't last. Can't even buy rotten fruit with that. That's the problem; everything is overpriced. My mother is grounding up some kind of moss. Most people come to her for the tonics and tinctures she makes with what little herbs she can find. Most of the time, she trades her tinctures for other goods and that's usually how we eat. But not tonight.

"You'll never guess what I got!" I open my bag and I want to cry. All my fruit is smashed.

"What's that, hun?" mother asks as she finally looks up.

"My fruit. It's... It's smashed. It's all mushy," I say as tears flood my cheeks.

"Here, let me take a look," she says and I hand her the bag.

"Oh, we can make a nice little jam with that, and since tomorrow is your special day, we can use the jam to make a little something nice to celebrate with. You'll finally be an adult tomorrow," my mother says as she takes the smashed fruit out, dumping it into a wooden bowl.

"How did you pay for the fruit, Lura?" my father asks as he looks up at me with his gaunt face. His cheeks seem to cave into his face, and that truly saddens me. My family and I have been living in this arsehole slum for my entire life, all twenty-nine cycles of it so far. I'm a day short of becoming an adult. "Zeno was generous today."