Her Cinder Throne (Completed)

Chapter 1

Cole's eyes still hadn't adjusted from the pitch black of the Sparkstone mines. She squinted against the summer sun and swiped at the rivulets of sweat running down the side of her face as she waited among the crowd for the royal family's procession to clear the street. Their golden palanquins glinted like fire in the road, moving slowly and forcing the citizens of Soma to fidget in place and respectfully cast their gaze downward. Cole, thinking herself far enough away that they wouldn't notice her staring at their passing, kept her squinted eyes trained on one of the palanquins set with sapphires. One of the men from work said he used to work in a precious stone mine until he'd angered the foreman and found himself arriving at Hell's own gates-- the pits where Sparkstone was lifted from the bowels of the earth. The sapphires reminded her of him. He'd died in a cave-in a few days past. 

Cole rolled her shoulders, still feeling the movement of swinging her pickax in her muscles, even though she'd left the mine an hour ago. Still, after a sixteen-hour workday, she wondered if she'd ever not feel the tension in her arms and the ache in her back. She glanced down at her hands, sighing in frustration that her callouses had worn down and burst open. She'd have to be careful to not let them go septic, and they would make tomorrow's work painful. She clenched her hands to stem the blood, and when she looked up again to the royal family's procession, she met the dark brown eyes of Prince Bastian.

Shock fizzed through Cole's veins at the idea that he had found her gaze among all the hundreds of people bottlenecked at this street, yet there he was, watching her from his palanquin. His face, with sharp cheekbones and full lips, considered handsome by most of the girls in Soma, was cast in cool shadows and he didn't seem to be sweating at all under his thin silk robes. His dark hair was tied up neatly away from his neck, and he had a plate of grapes near his elbow. Nothing about the prince spoke of weariness or the heat. Meanwhile, Cole knew she was covered head-to-toe in the black dust of Sparkstone, save for where her sweat had cleared sticky paths for her pale skin to peek through. Her hair, shorn nearly down to her scalp, was so covered in sweat she knew it must be glinting in the sunshine. Perhaps there had been a reason that Prince Bastian's eyes had settled on her after all.

As she stared at him, his eyebrows furrowed and he cocked his head. His lips parted and he began to mouth a question to her, but their distance was too great for her to hear him. The guards, however, were well within earshot. They glanced around, trying to find who he was speaking to, their hard gaze boring into anyone who looked like they might dare be out of place. Whatever Prince Bastian wanted with Cole, it probably would not be good. Citizens were not allowed to look the royals in the eyes, and she would be punished if she was caught.

Swallowing her pride, she finally dipped her own eyes, showing him the respect the palace demanded from citizens. When she dared to glance back up a few seconds later, his palanquin had moved on and the last of the procession was following up behind him. She let out a breath and her shoulders relaxed.

As soon as the guard's horses had cleared the streets, the people spilled back into them, setting up their tents for selling wares or passing by on the way to or from work. Cole stepped onto the cobblestones and headed down the road for home. It would be another ten minutes until she reached her dwelling, but after walking an hour in the hot sun across the dusty fields that separated the city from the mines, a brisk stroll in the shade of the buildings was nothing.

She only paused once, when she passed by a tent selling potatoes cooked and steaming in their skins. Her mouth watered and she felt the always present pit in her stomach that seemed to never be filled. But she knew the few coins she'd made couldn't be spent on potatoes. She had to turn them over to Helene. Every single one.

Pulling herself away from the fragrance of food, Cole cut through an alley and arrived at the block of dwellings where she lived. The row of shacks, made of rotting wood and mud, leaned at awkward angles along the road. Their doors were little more than molding fabric, with dirty and skeleton-like children toddling in and out as they tried to find something to do in the trash-filled streets. Cole passed by one, ruffling his hair before realizing that her split palm had left a bloody smear across his tangled curls. He didn't react at all and merely squatted down in the road, staring at a rat that scurried through a pile of human waste on the side of the road.