.png)
The city is burning.
Tears of fire stream down the cheeks of the statue of Aroden looming over the city from high atop the Arodennama. Smaller fires have been burning across the city since the previous day, centered around the smoke-belching crater that was once the mayoral palace. Screams of revolution and riot ring out across the city, and the former capital of Cheliax thrashes in its final death throes, as a new and free capital takes its first gasping breaths.
The city is burning and it smells like liberty.
___________________
Seven Months Later
Westcrown Cheliax
Erastus 17
4711 AR
___________________
The city is burning in the fires of revolution. Though the literal flames were quenched months ago, the metaphorical fire has only grown brighter. Standards bearing the symbol of a gilded crown on a field of red fly from the crumbling walls of Westcrown where the black and red banners of House Thrune once hung. Below them, scattered tents and vardo of a growing refugee settlement serve as a reminder of who pays the blood price for such change.
From atop his horse, Jalid Al-Harain watches a group of refugee children from the town of Vilmair playing with wooden swords while their harrowed parents look on from the shelter of a makeshift lean-to. Babies cry out in the evening air, singing a song of a revolution they have been born into. More than a thousand people have been displaced by the fighting and the fledgling libertine government of Westcrown has no plan for what to do with them.
Jalid stops his horse, sliding off the saddle to splash boots down in the muddy road. He retrieves a loaf of bread and a jar of honey from his saddlebags and brings them to the family, passing well-wishes on to them while discreetly mending the injuries they'd been hiding from their children as food exchanges hands. But the moment he is down in the thick of it with the refugees, he has sworn more than a few moments of his time. Compelled by the rampant suffering on display, Jalid moves from tent to tent, treating injuries, relieving diseases, and spreading words of hope and comfort where supernatural balms fail.
The sun has set by the time Jalid has worked his way through the camp, and there are hundreds upon hundreds yet he has not seen. But the horn blast from the wall indicates the city's western gate is soon to close, and Jalid knows he must cross that checkpoint before they shut. The rebels are thorough in their search of his belongings, questioning his intentions, his place of origin, and his loyalties. A show of faith and divine magic is enough even in these times of heightened paranoia to earn him passage.
On the other side of ancient, crumbling walls, Westcrown is little better off than the refugee camps. The once glorious copper-plated roofs of Parego Regicona are blackened with soot and the hilly island at the center of the city looks more like a charnel house than the opulent, debauched heart of Westcrown he had heard of in tales. Parego Spera, the district Jalid enters into, has not fared much better. Evidence of riots and fires are everywhere and most residents of the city stay indoors with their windows shuttered. The bodies of seven men hang by the neck from a stone arch just past the gatehouse, each of them painted with the symbol of House Thrune. A warning to diabolist sympathizers: the revolution is coming for you.
Old broadsheets and bills are plastered to the sides of buildings on the way to the market, announcing the end of the "Shadow Plague", the death of the mayor, a quarantine in Rego Crua, the formation of the "Flooded District" and numerous other events that have transpired over the years, layered atop one-another like scales on an ancient dragon. The guards that patrol the streets adorn themselves with roses and red fabric, the livery of Milani, Goddess of Revolution. "Knights of the Bleeding Rose" he heard they were called. Appropriate, then, that Milani's symbol is a rose blooming from blood-soaked cobblestones. Jalid can almost feel it slick under his feet.
The inns in Westcrown are struggling to get by. Many are packed with refugees who were first to enter the city and the revolutionary government halting all taxation has made that pill easier for innkeepers to swallow. But it means Jalid has a harder time finding safe harbor for the night. After his sixth failed attempt to find room and board, Jalid settles in a camp of homeless on the banks of the Southrun. He shares their fire in exchange for stories and songs from Qadira and the last rations he has in his pack. Security, too, feels like an exchange. He being the lone among them with proper weapons and armor. In return, Jalid hears their hopes for the future. Hopes that Westcrown can pull itself out of the mire of the past, of the oppressive regime of House Thrune, and into the bright future promised by the Bleeding Rose. It is a hope Jalid fosters, even if he questions the reality of it based on everything that he has been foretold.
Come morning Jalid leaves the camp to make his way north into Raego Sacreo, following leads on his true mission. He has not been in a city as sprawling as Westcrown in more than a decade and the miles of city street he rides to reach his destination show him a city of ancient, lost wealth drowning in poverty. He is stunned by the dozens of abandoned and derelict churches in a district so ironically named "Priest's Sector." Had he come here last night, he would have had his pick of the litter of forgotten gods to ask for shelter. But Jalid is not searching for shelter. He is searching for a grave.
A half mile east of the abandoned Pathfinder Lodge of Westcrown there is a copse of trees in an overgrown park. There, under the boughs of an ash tree, Jalid finds a single fresh grave without a headstone. Instead, memorial was carved into the trunk of the tree. Dismounting his horse, he walks up the length of grassy park and retrieves a scroll that cost him a future's fortune to acquire. In solemn silence, Jalid kneels beside the grave and lays a hand on the hard-packed dirt, then looks up at the inscription on the tree. His hand tightens around the scroll case, cracking the thin wood.
"I don't usually see visitors here." Someone startles Jalid and he whips around, spotting a dark-haired woman in a red and brown uniform standing a few feet away. She'd crept up on him without even his horse noticing.
"My apologies," Jalid says with the obvious revolutionary, pressing a hand to his chest. "I am here to pay my respects to the dead."
The revolutionary tilts her head to the side, glancing between Jalid and the tree. "Did you know him?"
Jalid looks at the inscription.
My beloved. I will always ask myself, "what would you do?" And I will never be certain of the answer. But I can only hope what I choose honors your memory.
"Who—" Jalid starts to ask, but the words are caught in his throat. The revolutionary steps closer, a warm if curious smile crossing her lips.
"Baru." Her words send icewater chill through Jalid's veins. He nods. It is all he can manage. The revolutionary smiles and takes a knee at the foot of the grave, offering out a hand. "Then, allow me to introduce myself..." "My name is Risa Pontecorvo."
Comments