Islands in the Sky

Chapter 2.1

Cassa stood behind her bedroom door, waiting. It was her wedding day, and the first light of dawn was pale in the eastern sky, and she was waiting for whoever first came into the room, to kill them where they stood.

She had woken before dawn, and slipped out of bed, and walked barefoot, across the soft carpet, to the window. She lived high in one of the ancient towers, far above the city. A tower ancient enough that it had windows which were sealed closed. Here, it was quieter and warmer than most other buildings. Here, she was isolated from the city.

She stood at the window, and put her hand on the slippery smooth metal frame, and looked out at the city that ought to have been hers.

There was a great haze of smoke over Anew-Hame, as thousands of cooking fires smouldered in their hearths. There was noise, even though the glass, shouts and hammering and clattering as the day’s work began far below. Most of all, there was light, light everywhere she looked. The wonder-light of the ancients, glowing without flame or smoke, and more mundane lights as well, torches and lanterns, sputtering and flickering and shedding showers of sparks as they blazed.

The city was so bright that it washed out the surface-glow from below, that vile dull redness always at the edges of the sky, cast from the world’s surface far beneath, a constant reminder of what the ancients and the gods had done to one another, long ago. The surface-glow was dimmed by the brightness of night in Anew-Hame, dimmed until it couldn’t be seen at all, and that had always made Cassa proud. The city was so bright, so alive and wonder-filled, it could shadow even the evil light of the burning surface beneath them. Anew-Hame was said to be the only place in all the world where that was true.

Cassa had stood there for a moment, looking at the city. At the city which could perhaps have been hers, one day. At the city which had been with her family for generations, through all the ages almost back to the God’s War. Not solely her family’s, not theirs alone, but her family mattered here, and always had. Her family had always been part of the great game of power all people played, whether they knew they played or not. And Cassa’s family had always known.

But now, that would end, she had thought. It would end with her. She could do this no longer. Not after today.

She had turned away from the window, then, as the dawn began to break, and had taken up a dagger, the one she left on the bed-side table every night as she slept. She had taken up the dagger, and had gone and stood behind the door.

Then, she had waited.

Today someone had to die, because she didn’t want to marry the man her family had chosen for her, and since she had no choice but to marry him, this was the only way she could think of to prevent it. She would kill the first person through the door, and create such a scandal that the wedding would be called off. It was a cruel thing to do to whoever she murdered, but murder was almost her birthright so she had steeled herself to do it. And besides, she had no choice.

She would kill whoever next came through the door.

She had no choice about it at all.