The Rising Dawn

Chapter Eleven - The Emptiness Inside

The Raven watched the world through half-closed eyes. People came in and out of Nika’s headquarters all the time, a never-ceasing parade of subjects before the queen. It amused him to study them.

 Nika had converted the underclasses of her segment wholly to her side. The thieves and beggars, the prostitutes and down-trodden underlings, the law-benders, the forgers, the craftsmen of other people’s crafts…they all flocked to her with complaints, with reports, with questions, but mostly just with respect.

 Aono took them over when Nika was busy. He was calm and competent dealing with the endless string of payments, of complaints, of pleas. The Raven watched his patience with a smile that didn’t show on his face.

 The Raven found the world a curiously dissatisfying place. No matter what he took from it, no matter what desires he fulfilled or indulgencies he allowed himself, regardless of the pleasures he had pursued, he remained empty. There was a void inside of him that sucked joy deep into it.

  The Raven wasn’t a modest person. He had known from an early age that he could pass for beautiful (the story of how he had known this was darker than you might expect) and he knew that he was brave, he was clever, he was ruthless and talented and creative.

 It was no surprise to the Raven that girls insisted on swooning at him, sighing over him, longing for him from a distance. In earlier years, he had exploited their affections. It was a guiltless activity for him but also rewardless. He abandoned it.

 Yet the Raven was uncomfortably aware of his own weaknesses. They consumed him, gnawing away at the inside of his stomach. It was a black feeling. He was almost fearless but the fears he had…they were fears that were dangerous. Fears that threatened him.

 It was no concern of his if people hated him. It didn’t bother him when they cried or pleaded or screamed. He wondered what was missing inside of him that meant the pain of others had no effect.

Emotionless.

Cold.

The Raven had a goal in life. It was a goal that even he would not truly admit to. It burned in the back of his mind, a tiny fire driving him on and on towards his end. The Raven had something he was fighting for, an undercurrent to his life.

 He wouldn’t say it even in the privacy of his own head. He wouldn’t think the words or the idea. It was too dangerous, too much of a threat, too illogical and damaging to dwell on it.

 It was too closely wrapped up in his real name.

It was the anniversary and that meant Tricks was crying. She cried every year, just to be sure that the tears were still there. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted them to be or wished they were gone. It was too tangled.

 The anniversary was marked by nobody else. It was a day like any other. In the segments, people worked and fought and cooked and loved and argued like they always would. In the Silent Streets, silence was still key.

 That was why she came here, why she knew this part of the city like nobody else did. It didn’t feel like a threat to Tricks. It was a sanctuary, an escape. Away from the crowds and the watching eyes and the expectation that she would always be carefree, wild Tricks Cadaver, without fear or pain, she could cry in peace.

 On this day, exactly nine years ago, Tricks had watched her parents die. It had been the worst thing she had ever seen, and she had seen some terrible things.

 Tricks’s parents had run a small apothecary deep inside Second. They catered to the people who come to the back door: those too afraid, too poor, too hunted to use conventional doctors. The kind of people who, incidentally, require results.