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Theocratic-Monarchy: SunSide
22nd Day of Month 6, Year 1628 DG
Death came for both the Ambassador and the storm. Unisa sits on the flat roof of Saila’s home, arms around her knees, braids wrapped. She should be shivering, but the numbness keeps her still.
Ona’s light falls from clear blue skies. It’s as if the storm never happened, as if the world has been reborn and Death has erased all traces of what once was.
The sun’s natural light descends into the skylight window, a square pane of glass next to Unisa. It lands in the second-floor hallway where the angi watched Alba fight for her life.
The hallway where Death took Alba, bloodied and broken.
Alba’s maps sit next to her, as well. Other than the clothes on her back, it’s all that Unisa has left. All of her belongings, everything that was important to her, had to be left behind.
As did Alba.
Bravers killed her. Unisa’s eyebrows cling to each other as she tries to draw a reason as to why SunSide’s military would assassinate a peaceful diplomat. This was an act of war. Of evil and barbarism.
If it weren’t for Alba, the Gatekeeper would’ve been bloodied and broken in the same hallway. Small polyps of anger spring into her chest. At the Bravers, at Alba, and at whatever force governs the wanton movements of fate—be it the Mega’s Four, the Doruh’s Twins, or any other almighty being.
Unisa’s gaze rises to the inching Ona and she realizes she’s been sitting in this one position for hours. Yells capture her attention. Angry, distressed voices that she attempts to ignore until they build into the riotous roar of a crowd screaming obscenities.
She rises to her feet and stretches her wings, then steps forth, crouched and concealed, to the ledge that envelops the perimeter of the roof and peers over. Braver’s stand guard behind an ore-chain fence barricading the front yard of Saila’s home. Searing bile rises into Unisa’s throat at the sight of them.
The crowd beyond the fence grows angrier and more violent as the moments pass.
“Is Member Saila safe? Why haven’t you given us any information?”
“Who did this? We demand justice! This is treason!”
A Doruh man speaks up next, standing in front of an amber-skinned faerie with narrowing eyes.
“Don’t believe the Bravers! They know who did this and are hiding the truth!”
“Be quiet! The Bravers put their lives on the line every day to protect you scum!”
“Watch it, faerie! The Bravers come into our neighborhoods and antagonize us. This has their fingerprints all over it.”
“Perhaps if you all didn’t resist—”
“What did you say?!”
Insults and taunts continue until the crowd dissolves into fisticuffs and chaos. The Bravers discharge weapons into the crowd in an attempt to contain the melee as they usher the faerie away and brutally arrest the Doruh.
With the Bravers distracted, Unisa turns on her heels, seizes the maps, and launches herself into the rear yard of the home with a few cursory flaps.
She’s lost almost immediately, wandering from one alleyway to the next. The crowded streets of Larso, and the unpredictability of the riots breaking out around her, drive panic through her bones.
She’s pushed and shoved and knocked to the ground, but she gets back up every time and keeps moving. There’s no clear destination. Alba instructed her to return to the Library, but paranoia keeps her wings strapped to her back. The less attention she attracts, the better.
It’s too late. From the corner of her eye, she spots two Bravers whispering and pointing in her direction. She hops laterally into an alleyway between two tall buildings and continues her escape, until she finds another Braver watching her and is forced to change direction yet again.
She reaches a street with a Braver on each end and only one alleyway—the one through which she came. The warriors begin to move in on her. Unisa looks up at the sky and realizes her only escape would be upward, whether she likes it or not. Her wings slowly begin to extend until a gentle hand lands on her shoulder.
“You don’t want to do that,” says a young Doruh woman Unisa hadn’t noticed standing next to her.
“I don’t have a choice,” Unisa responds. This is the first time she’s spoken since the night before. Her throat is dry and her voice is hoarse.
“You do,” the Doruh assures her, gesturing to the alleyway behind them.
“I just came through there, it leads to another street with more Bravers.”
The Doruh shakes her head. “Not the alley.”
She gestures again and Unisa realizes she’s talking about a small wooden panel at the foot of a wide, ore building. “Tunnels under the city that the Bravers don’t know about.”
She takes Unisa’s hand and, reluctantly, the angi follows. The Doruh removes the wooden panel, revealing a staircase leading underground.
“Enter, quickly,” the Doruh urges.
Unisa hesitates. “I don’t know you.”
The Doruh glances over her shoulder with urgency in her eyes. “The Bravers are looking for a young female angi Librarian. You may not have a tunic, but you check most of those boxes. I promise you, you’re safer with me than on the streets.”
Unisa’s heart drums against her chest as she tries to reconcile following a stranger into a dark underground staircase with the danger on the streets.
The Doruh sighs and continues. “You cannot fight or fly your way out of this situation. You have to change—adapt. When fists fail you, change will be your champion.”
Her words remind Unisa of Alba’s final statement.
Do whatever is necessary.
Unisa’s been playing by the rules and following a script her entire life. Her survival hinges on her ability to change—to do anything necessary.
She nods and steps down the cold, dark staircase into a tunnel lit by torchlight, and the Doruh joins her after closing the wooden panel.
“Why are you helping me?” Unisa asks, before they continue.
“Because you’re not the only one the Bravers are looking for. They’re after my sister and me, as well. We have to stay together.”
“What’s your name?” Unisa wonders.
The Doruh smiles. “Salessa.”