"See them, Terran?" The King perched with him on the edge of a rooftop, balanced perfectly on the corner of the adobe roof in the Naa'a district. His slender finger pointed down into the street below at the nobles that were walking leisurely throughout the city. Terran's stomach turned as he thought of how little it would take to send The King tumbling off the edge of the building and into the street below. The three-story fall would no doubt result in his death. The King had made Terran climb up the side of the building rather than using the stairs like regular people. Terran had never climbed anything in his life; not a tree, not a fence. Nothing. The wooden support beams from inside the houses jutted out the sides of the dried stucco and those the two had used to get up onto the roof, one ledge at a time. The climb had been torture, but now that they were at the top, the view, at least, was extremely rewarding.
The Naa'a district was one of the most beautiful portions of the city because it had the funds to be. Each district contained approximately a thousand citizens, all from the far-flung corners of the region, the last survivors of the area. The city of Segeno was a symbol of hope to those who had nothing. One glorious mother of pearl spire jutted up from the desert, glistening in the sun, and wanderers from other settlements would see the Segeno Embassy Palace before anything else. A beacon of hope in a desolate world.
The palace rose from the heart of the city like a great crystal, tall and geometric, and the apex of it pierced the sky like a dagger. Blue, translucent windows reflected the burning sun. The surrounding, white adobe buildings clustered around the courtyard of the palace like matchsticks in a box. The palace was one of the only buildings in the city that had glass, salvaged from a great pyramid from the ancient times (or so it was said), and the Embassy researchers were hard at work building a new factory to turn sand into the substance again based on ancient manuscripts.
Much knowledge was lost during the Great War. The humans that survived had lived underground in safe havens to protect themselves from the stars that fell from the sky like meteors, blasting away everything the world had. The wastes that surrounded Segeno were one of the only things that left the city untouched; humans had not lived in the desert in the ancient times, so there had been no need to send stars there. Humans took as many knowledgeable books as they could with them into the havens, but they were unable to save everything. Scientists with valuable knowledge perished from starvation or disease in the underground, leaving those who survived to fight for mankind. That knowledge was enough, and Segeno had then been built from the ground up with the finest ancient technology that the world had left. The Naa'a district was the pinnacle of modern technology, hope for the future, and a beacon for those wandering lost.
The Naa'a district was walled in, a large, silver gate keeping the working class out, and housed the richest citizens. The houses of those related to the members of the Embassy, the rulers of Segeno, butted up against the palace courtyard and allowed easy access to council sessions. Far below the edge of The King's boots and the corner of the roof, patrons wandered the streets. A few rode mammoths, descendants of once great creatures that used to be hunted for their ivory and trained for entertainment, and the beasts' blue-gray hide complemented the colors of the Naa'a district. The white of the stone path and the flowers that grew in planters matched perfectly with the clothes of the citizens. Everything was always beautiful and clean, bright and pure, as blue as a cloudless sky and as white as sandstone.
As Terran looked over the edge of the roof, his stomach turning and flipping out of fear of the fall, his eye caught the toe of his shoe. He looked down at his own clothing, a scowl on his face. A few weeks ago, they had been a perfect white, washed by a maid he had never spoken to. Now, they were a patchy cream in some places, brown in others. Even his fingernails were dirty. He was ashamed of the way he looked and missed the comforts of Embassy life.
YOU ARE READING
Court of Snakes: This Desert Cage
FantasiSome time in the distant future... In the city of Segeno, it's eat or be eaten. Someone has to rule the masses. A boy has lost his birthright. His parents killed. Dead and gone. A girl has lost her father. She means nothing to him now. The city of...
