In Her Shadow
Sally Beth Boyle
Prologue
The city was never this bright at night, and the scent wafting up from the sea was burning wood, not old fish. The girl wanted to stand and watch the sparks fly up into the sky like fireflies at dusk, but her mother clutched her hand and dragged her through the empty streets.
No one was out tonight. The mother could remember when the city was filled with life. People came and went at all hours – especially after sunset. Ankshara and its people belonged to the night; they swore fealty to the shroud of darkness that had always defended them.
Not anymore. Ankshara's fleet, trapped by foreign ships, burned in the harbor, and all the city's sailors rested at the bottom of the sea.
They were lucky.
The little girl stumbled. Barely clothed, dirty, stomach bulging from prolonged hunger, the mother hated seeing her child in such a desperate state. A year ago, the girl would have cried, but now she lacked the energy to do anything but sit in the mud and stare at the scrape on her knee.
"You must get up," the mother said. She stretched a hand down to the girl who neither moved nor reacted. Somewhere in the distance, back towards the harbor, the sound of screams rose in the air. "Please, baby. You can't give up."
"I'm tired, momma."
"I know, baby."
The girl stuck her arms out, wanting to be carried. The mother looked down at her own spindly arms. Once strong from weaving nets for fishermen, they had been whittled to bone by the knife of starvation – a knife that continuously stabbed her in the gut. She was tired too. Every joint ached and her gums bled. Even walking this short distance had been torture. But she hadn't let that stop her, and she wouldn't let it stop her now. She bent down and scooped the little girl up. The girl was so light, a little bundle of kindling, not a child. The soldiers could use her to start their fires, the mother thought as she straightened up, daughter tucked safely in her arms.
The world spun around her. She felt like all the blood inside her had drained out. The Regnal devils knew what they were doing when it came to starving a population into submission. The mother had been on the walls that day, part of the crowd looking down on the imperial delegation as it arrived. Their leader, the admiral now setting the city's wharf aflame, had stood below them, a scroll unwound in his hand, his wreathed head high as he shouted his warning: "Ankshara will be gutted like a fish. We will overturn the altars of your goddess and bring light to the darkness. Surrender and all can stay the same. Fight and be destroyed."
The city had chosen to fight. In response, the Regnals had endeavored to keep their promise. They laid siege. For a year, the Regnal navy kept the Anksharan fleet under interdict. All the fish in the harbor had been eaten, and all the stores used up. Now, everyone was hungry all the time. The only people with food were the wealthy magnates, smugglers, and the priestesshood of the city.
That's where the mother carried the girl now, up the hill to the abbey overlooking the city. Step-by-step, foot-by-foot, she forced herself to keep going, motivated only by sheer willpower, by sheer love. If it had been anyone else, the mother might have let them die. Not her little girl, though. Not hers. She had to get her baby there. The priestesses could feed her little girl, give her shelter. Maybe, just maybe, the Regnal forces would have mercy and leave the abbey alone despite their promise otherwise. What other choice did she have? Ankshara had fallen. The city was lost. She either stayed at home and waited for the soldiers to loot, slave or whatever other terrible things conquering soldiers got up to, or find a safe place for her daughter.
Safer.
If this worked, if the priestesses took the girl, she was confining her daughter to a life of. . .
The mother shook the doubts from her mind. Even if the priestesses made her little one a divine escort, at least she'd be alive. What was worse? Prostitution for the Goddess, or a lingering death at the hands of the Regnal Empire?
She wanted to tell the girl she was sorry for signing her life away like this, but there was no other choice. Even so, she didn't have the energy to do anything but keep trudging forward up the hill. She didn't even have the energy to look over her shoulder as the screams behind her grew louder, the smell of burning stronger. All she could do, would do, was push forward until, at last, she came to the foot of the path leading up to the building.
"Almost there," she said to the girl whose only reply was a glassy stare. The mother stopped at the first step and looked up at the abbey towering over her. It was dark, silent, mysterious as the Goddess Herself and all the things She hid within Her. Usually, this time of night, there would be people on the balconies of the twisting spire that rose out of the abbey like a horn. Men and women would be coming and going – sailors, merchants, drunken revelers, thieves, and priestesses. Now it sat quiet and holy as the night it was meant to symbolize.
The mother wanted to sit under it, rest in its protective shadow. But she couldn't, not yet. Not with the sounds of boots clomping in the distance behind her, or screams on the wind.
She pulled the girl tighter to her chest. The girl shivered and the mother shivered. There wasn't enough meat on either to warm them, no blood to pump fire through their veins. The mother took a step forward, then another, struggling against the weight of the boney talons she'd once called feet. Part of her wanted to give up. A small voice inside told her it was okay to lie down and die. Surely, if she set the girl down this close to the abbey door, the priestesses would take her in. Surely.