Ashtium: City of Sun

GRETA

“I don’t like it here,” I tell Enoch.

“This is just temporary, Greta. Until your vision improves you can’t be out living on your own here. The sisters will take good care of you.”

Enoch told me earlier I would be able to work here after my sight heals. He told me they take in injured empirical soldiers and wealthy citizens with long term illnesses.

“She’s to watch this every morning,” Enoch begins to tell someone. Hands guide me to a cushiony bed and help me lay down. “You can leave it there maybe. Greta, I’m putting your optic box on the windowsill,” he continues.

“Okay.”

The smell of something strong lingers in the air in here. It reminds me of the flowers in the emperor’s courtyard. I wonder when my god will return...

“Are you hungry?” Enoch asks me in a bright voice.

“I’m not tired,” I say while sitting up. Surely, it is still only morning. I do not understand why I am being made to stay in this bed. “Or sick...” I add wondering if that’s what the women around us are talking about.

One of them speaks above the whispers of the others, “We are your sisters now. You will become a sister too. You must say your prayers every morning as we will begin shortly. Prince Enoch tells us you are from the desert. Do not be alarmed, one of the rules of our home here is to keep the empirical family’s secrets.”

“I do not understand.”

“They worship my father like you,” Enoch explains, but he does not sound happy about it. He hands me a pile of hard-shelled bugs. “Here are some of those bugs you like. I do not have anywhere else I know you will be protected right now. Just do what they say and you’ll be able to move out as soon as you earn your keep.”

“You’re leaving me in their care? Enoch, I want to live on my own. This is not what we talked about on the way here.”

The same woman speaks again, “Dear sister Greta, you will be safe in our shelter. There are others here like you who are hindered physically. Don’t you want to help them too as well as yourself?”

“She’s not staying here that long,” Enoch says while holding my hand between his own.

Something cold falls in my lap. My gaze finds its shiny surface. Enoch makes a happy sound and my new sisters around me start clapping when I look into each of their faces, Enoch’s included. The strange glass prism is glowing! It must be the light coming in from the window now.

I can see its miraculous light radiate around my lap.

“I can see!” I shout in wonder.

Enoch stands up. His face is more rounder than Adler’s. His eyes sparkle with warmth and joy. It’s a nice difference from my god’s piercing stare. It makes me feel more at ease when I don’t feel like my soul is being stared into and held captive.

I can relax around Enoch.

He seems to have a much more boyish air about him that makes him...happier. I can’t help grinning at my first real sight of him.

A word drifts through my mind. Innocent perhaps. He seems more gentle than I imagined going off his stature and voice alone.

It is a pleasant surprise.

Enoch laughs at my prolonged stare. “Of course you can. My father made it. It’s an optical lense of some sort. The light reflects off of it. When you look at it from the right angle, it can really damage your sight. Since your eyes are already damaged it works as a temporary fix. It’s sort of like staring into the sun..if we had one.”

I can see the forms of the women standing around us as my vision sharpens even more thanks to the strange device my god gave me. The “sisters” wear tunics like Enoch and I. One of them parts from their group and begins knotting my hair up. I scrunch my eyebrows together, tempted to swat her hands away.

“She’s just putting your hair up,” Enoch assures me. “I have to be off to work now. I’ll be back to check on you tonight.”

The “sister” tugs my hair sharply against my scalp. “Alright,” I say with a grimace.

Several more painful tugs after Enoch left, my hair was finally finished.

My room is shared with all my other new sisters. The other rooms in this place are filled with the terminally ill and horribly injured people of Ashtium as my sisters told me.

Most of the women are wrinkled with age. They move about the halls like silent bugs. Each room is open with an arched doorway and they all enter in and out of them without a peep.

I learned quickly from just a few hours that the sisters do more work than talk. No one is allowed to raise their voice here or run down the halls. Right after Enoch left, they told me I would be given the job of delivering meals to the sickly.

The richer people staying here have beaded entrances and bigger beds. My sisters tell me more often than not that those staying here will die here. It is not a very happy or sad place, but it is better than hiding in Enoch’s room all day.

It is starting to feel like each new person I’ve encountered since entering this city makes me dress differently.

Now is no different.

My sisters have long tunics. Mine drags on the ground and threatens to make me trip with each step. They made me wear a long veil over my face too because apparently they do not know if some of the sick here have a contagious disease or not.

I don’t see how it will do any good since it’s thin enough to see through.

Nothing could be as terrible as wearing the slynk so I cannot complain.

Both people I delivered bowls of food to were very old citizens. In the afternoon, my sisters and I prayed some like we did right after Enoch left. By the time prayer was done, we traveled to the community bathing pool together and took our baths. In the market, the sisters made me walk along quickly.

I do not think they enjoy going out in public, but we all traveled further to Adler’s temple and said more prayers to our god there. The rather peaceful day ended when we returned to the building and found the noisy false god in our very sleeping chamber.

“Stop the bleeding!” the old man screeches out impatiently.

I would recognise his voice anywhere for it haunts half of my dreams. What is the false god doing in my bed?

His chest is all bloodied and his eyes clamped shut. Surely, everything will be stained and dirtied.

Some of the sisters must have moved him here while the rest of us were away. His crown does not glow so brightly when I hide my god’s gift behind my back. I can see well enough without it now.

I think my outfit hides my identity well enough from him.

My hands shake at my sides as I quickly step forward. One of my sisters puts her arm out and blocks me from getting closer.

“Calm yourself, sister. He is an emprical advisor and in critical condition. He needs to be under more than one set of eyes constantly.”

“But he’s in my bed,” I whisper back furiously.

***

ENOCH

Suddenly, the doors to my room open. Mother bursts in with her personal guards in short pursuit.

Father can’t be back already.

“What is the matter?” I ask while setting down my satchel.

I was just about to leave for Greta. Of course she chooses to come now.

“Urdmin was attacked by one his slaves. He has been severely wounded and put in the hospice,” she rushes out with a worried frown.

A shame they couldn’t finish the deed for me.

“Mother, this is not the first time-”

“He is older now, Enoch! My love cannot withstand such savage wounds this day and age! You will escort me to the hospice, now,” the empress insists.

I guess I’ll be seeing Greta after all. With my luck, mother will figure out she’s living there now.

I pick up my things trying to sound somber because if I don’t I’ll just get more of an earful.

“Yes, mother,” I oblige while following her out. My personal guards follow along with me as we depart from my room. I can’t hide my curiosity, “Did they find the slave?” I ask.

“No, but Urdmin tells me it was a woman.”

Bitterness swells within me toward her and the old advisee. It threatens to pop when I see some of her courtmaidens tagging along with us when we pass the courthouse.