Chapter 2: The Taste of Saj’falToday was a cloudless day, and even in the shade Miz’ri could hear the obese, screaming deity that was the sun in every breath. Miz'ri squinted through her dark dwarven goggles as she moved deeper into Saj'fal , a city built on the kind of desperate, dusty commerce that happened when the field people met the civilized world. The cobbled streets were irregurly set, polished slick by centuries of traffic, yet still dusted in a fine, ochre powder that felt gritty against the thin leather soles of her boots. The buildings were densely packed, their upper stories leaning in, yet the canyon-like alleys still focused the relentless sun into blinding vertical shafts of light that made the air shimmer.

  Every sound—the cnging of a bcksmith, the shouts of vendors, the endless, grinding foot traffic—was amplified, a frantic, chaotic noise that scratched at the empty space in her head. Always so loud , she thought, pulling the colr of her bck tunic higher to ward off the alien feeling of the dry, hot air on her skin.

  She tried three different stalls for wine. The moment she stepped into the crowded nes, the noise didn't stop, but the rhythm of the crowd broke. A fishwife selling silver scale dropped her basket with a gasp, scattering her wares onto the stones, then snatched her skirts back as if Miz'ri’s presence was a physical contamination.

  At the first stop, the human vendor slid his hand across the counter and muttered, "You dark things pay double, or you pay with something else." At the second, she was told she could buy "fresh spring water, like the one your kind poisons." Children, not yet old enough to be properly afraid, simply pointed and giggled at her obsidian skin and stark white hair, until their mothers yanked them back, covering the children’s eyes.

  Her temper, always a low-burning wick, fred, but she cmped down on it. Violence here was expensive; it attracted attention. The noise of the silence became deafening. She had one st straw before her composure broke.

  She spotted a tavern, The Broken Cart. It was dark, smelled of stale beer, and had a clientele of men with faces like scraped knuckles. The floorboards groaned under her weight, slick with old spills and sawdust. A single, soot-covered ntern hung precariously from a beam, casting long, distorted shadows that barely touched the corners of the room. Perfect.

  She entered, and the low chatter stuttered to a halt. Every eye, sticky and slow, nded on her : the tall, obsidian-skinned woman with hair like bleached snow, wrapped in the wrong kind of leather and wearing the wrong color. Her hand, encased in the expensive red leather glove rested on the hilt of her dagger. It felt like the only real thing in the room.

  A man at the bar, rge and loose with drink, pushed off his stool and swaggered over. He leered, his eyes moving up and down her frame like he was checking the price of meat. "Well now," Burl slurred, breath sour, "look what the sewer dragged up. A real mean shade, eh? Didn't know you lot came this far north."

  He grabbed her arm—a terrible, fatal mistake. Miz'ri didn't pull away. She leaned into the contact, tilting her head with a deceptive, slow smile. "Mean? Only if you like it, darling. Come closer. Tell me what a savage you think I am."

  Sensing cheap, easy conquest, he leaned in, his face close to hers. The moment his ear was inches from her mouth, she moved. Her left hand cmped onto his jaw, not to hold, but to create a momentary stiffness in his neck. The right hand, barely moving from the dagger hilt, drew the bde, and with a swift, surgically precise flick, the cold steel cut through skin and cartige.

  The sound was a wet, sickening snip before Burl could even register pain. He screamed—a high, confused noise—as a spout of hot, coppery blood painted the floor. He staggered backward against the rough-hewn wooden bar, his weight sending a cascade of cheap gss tumblers shattering to the floor with a loud, attention-grabbing ctter.

  The awful silence in Miz'ri's head shattered, repced by the beautiful, intoxicating sound of violent control entering her world. His two companions, shocked but driven by tribal loyalty, lunged. Miz'ri was a blur. The first companion got a knee to the sor plexus, knocking the wind out of him, sending him folding over the bar. The second fumbled for a club; Miz'ri darted under the swing, punching the human square in the neck, forcing him to drop everything as all his nerves seized up. He fell to the ground beneath her and she put the heel of her boot into his cheek and dug in.

  “Anyone else?” she roared to the room. Wide eyes and fear ced every face in the crowd. Disabling them was a lovely rush but it would not st. She grabbed one of the man’s heavy coin pouches off the bar, her red glove fshing in the dim light , and vaulted over the counter, running for the back door. The counter was sticky and worn, and the brief push-off gave her the momentum to clear the narrow workspace, kicking over a bucket of dishwater that provided a brief, slippery distraction for her pursuers.

  The distant cry of "Guard!" was music to her ears. She ran for several blocks, enjoying the burn in her lungs and the cold, delicious certainty of her escape. The streets outside the tavern were a byrinth of uneven fgstones and narrow, winding turns, forcing her pursuers to break their stride and making her shadow-like speed difficult to track.

  She peeled off into a dead-end alleyway, leaning on a discarded barrel. The adrenaline slowly receded, leaving her trembling not with fear, but with the quiet exhaustion of a successfully averted crisis.

  Worthless coin, but earned honestly, for honest work. She pulled the pouch open, examining the clunky copper and silver. This belongs to me. This means I survive another night without begging. It was a lie, a rotten justification for her self-hatred, but in the afterglow of the violence, it felt true. Enough to keep the silence at bay.

  But then, the noise of the city was pierced by a high-pitched, desperate sound : not a cry for help, but a plea of terror.

  "Please! You have no right! It is sacred property!" It was a melodic, familiar Julisian voice.

  Miz'ri paused, her thumb running over the smooth leather of her glove. She should leave. Survival dictated it. But still, she approached the commotion in the nearby temple district. This district was elevated on a series of broad, clean, granite steps, making it an isnd of order in the chaotic city center.

  Two Saj'fal guards held Talisa, whose heavy purple-and-bck robes were dusty. The lead guard shoved the young woman to the ground, smming her against the cobbles. Talisa gasped, eyes wide and filled with silent, pure terror. The travois y tipped over. The coffin was open and empty.

  "Empty! Fraud! Where is the body you stole?" shouted the lead guard, kicking the coffin. "She must have already sold it. This is grave robbery!"

  "Look, there!" screamed a nearby citizen, pointing a greasy finger at Miz'ri. The finger trembled, an almost religious disgust twisting the man's face. "There's the dark girl she came in with!"

  The Saj'fal guards spun, confused. But Miz'ri’s moment of hesitation cost her everything. Just as she tensed to spring, two strong, calloused hands—the pursuit from the tavern—cmped onto her arms from behind. They were breathless and reeked of cheap beer, their clothes torn from scrambling over the market stalls she had dodged. "We got her!"

  Miz'ri fought hard—a short, brutal burst of speed and strength—but she was pinned by the combined weight of two separate squads. Her fury was not fear, but pure, incandescent annoyance that her control had been ruined by this clumsy, provincial city. "Let go, you pathetic, sun-crawling filth!" she spat, her voice tight with rage. "You'll lose more than an ear if you even scratch my armor!!"

  She was forced forward, her body rigid with contempt, toward the frightened, sobbing girl on the ground. They were cuffed and dragged together, their elbows occasionally bumping as they were forced down the cobbled street toward the stockade.

  As they were shoved, side-by-side, into the darkness towards whatever lock-up they had prepared , Talisa looked up at her, her face a mask of overwhelmed confusion and fear. Miz'ri returned the look with a cold, predatory sneer, settling into the moment with chilling finality. Talisa tried her best to mouth some words as stealthfully as she could. Miz’ri made out enough ‘I don't know where he is’, obviously the walking skeleton was ying low somewhere, clearly with more brains than either of them. The high was gone, but the thrill of a new game had begun.

  "You've made a mess, Julisian," Miz'ri commanded, her voice low and dangerous. "Now, let's see what kind of noise we can make getting out of it."