Author’s Note: This chapter marks the end of our time in Gem! I’m excited by how much more of the world we got to see here and to give Kalara a chance to shine as a character rather than an observer. I hope you enjoyed the new material as much as I have enjoyed creating it! Gem is an amazing setting and I hope to revisit it in a future short story sometime.
I’ll be taking a break to ruminate on how all of these small changes I’ve made in Gem will affect the rest of this tale and to give new Beta Readers a chance to catch up. Plus, now that we’ll be entering a different location, I’ll be creating a new visual guide for Chiaroscuro to help wrap my brain around all of the locale’s subtleties and how I want to envision it for this story. (If you missed my visual guide to Gem, you can check it out here!)
My gratitude to everyone who has made it this far in the story! Your thoughts and feedback have really helped it improved with every iteration.
RATING: PG
- Mature setting.
Reading Alternatives:
- You can comment over on Google Drive instead. You can save this chapter in an ebook file format for any ereader at the link. Click File>Download As to download in your favorite format.
- Access the entire Google Drive version of Beta chapters here.
And thus on Plentimon’s Day did the dice roll again. When Kalara returned that evening in a rush, she was prepared to make several excuses as to her tardiness, not to find Farook at home with an unfamiliar man seated at his table.
“Ah here she is!” Farook rose to greet her with enthusiasm she’d never seen before, a strange exaggerated tone in his voice. “You see? She is as clean and presentable as promised!” She flinched as Farook took the bags from her hands and set them aside. “Girl! Where have you been? Honor our esteemed guest, Lord Varia of House Cynis!” She’d never heard Farook speak so urgently before.
Stunned at the title of ‘lord’, she did what she had been taught to do, kneeling in obeisance beside their guest with her forehead pressed to the floor and her fingertips touching.
“M’lord, we are honored!” She managed even as her mind raced. Why was he here? Why was Farook acting so strangely?
“Kalara was it?” His voice was slurred and she could tell from the smell of raisin and date wine that they’d both been drinking, “Come let the girl up, Farook. No need to scare her!” He spoke with barely accented Firetongue, which was impressive enough for a foreigner. Most visiting nobles from the Realm didn’t seem to care for their language.
Kalara dared to raise her head, taking in the sight of this guest. His white skin glowed pink with drink from the night’s festivities, his black straight hair pulled into a topknot crowned with a gold loop modeled with clouds and scales, a sign of his standing. Dragon-blooded! The hint of dragon in his gold motif marked him so, his silk tunic showing his House standard for all to see with the brown and green wood sign of House Cynis. A life of pleasantries had left his otherwise fit figure with a hint of a drinker’s belly.
Noticing her inquisitive gaze, Lord Cynis raised a brow, smiling as he took another sip of his drink and casually waved her closer.
Kalara reluctantly scooted closer after a brief scolding glare from Farook for her hesitation.
“Forgive her, lord. I have let her have many freedoms in this household, she is quite slow at times. I was not expecting your visit to this esteemed Iblan workshop after tonight’s festivities-”
Lord Cynis waved his hand and that was enough to silence Farook. “Tell me, Kalara.” He leaned in close, whispering near her ear as if he were plotting. “Is Farook’s game face as obvious as the Despot’s love of oversized palaces?”
She stared for a moment. Was a noble of the Realm truly asking such a question?
“Our great Despot is famed for his love of large palaces, just as my master is skilled at goldsmithing moreso than games...m’lord.” It was the most diplomatic answer she could think of with Farook sitting right there sweating a river and boring holes into the back of her with his eyes. For a moment, she felt herself entranced by this man’s charm, his eyes bright, cheerful, and leaf green even in their low lit dwelling.
“Ha!” Lord Cynis slapped his thigh, amused at the answer. “And she has a sense of humor as well. My wife will enjoy that. You’ve lost a good one in that game of Gateway, Farook! Have her ready for travel first thing tomorrow. My manservant will make the arrangements.” With that, he downed the remainder of his drink, rose, and turned to leave, Farook quickly falling in tow to mutter assurances.
Kalara sat on her haunches, frozen as she processed his words. Farook had been gambling tonight, as was his custom during Plentimon’s Day. So blinded was she by Djali’s propositions that she had never even considered the chance that her contract would be lost again during Plentimon’s Day, just as it had before when Spinel had lost her to Farook. She could almost laugh at the irony, considering just yesterday she had been scared of staying in Farook’s household for fear of his terrible son.
“Wait…!” Kalara managed to blurt out something, anything. “I…if you would, m’lord. Please allow me to honor my former master with one final breakfast in the morning. He has treated me kindly. I would return his kindness one last time!” She bowed in their direction with as much sincerity as she could muster.
While it wasn’t a complete lie, the time she was buying wasn’t meant for Farook. She needed time to process, to figure out a plan.
Lord Cynis only shrugged and nodded before making his way out the door, not really seeming to care one way or the other as long as she was delivered.
Once Farook had said his farewells to their guest, he clasped her hands and patted them briefly, surprised by her sudden affection. “Such is life, girl. Plentimon was not with me today. Such is life. Such is life. You will make a fine slave in a fine household.”
Kalara only nodded, reminded once again at the value her life represented in the grand scheme of things. For what it was worth, Farook had been as good a master as any slave could hope for. She could give him no more, no less. She helped Farook Iblan into bed that night, the poor man still stumbling from drink. She guided him out of his robes and into his night clothes, brought him water and tucked his sheets as if he were her own elderly father. She gave him his nightly medicines and wondered just briefly what would this hapless man do when he was left with no one to cook his meals, run his errands, and deal with his scheming son?
It didn’t matter anymore. She was a silly piece of paper, a contract, a mere token to be gambled away in a drunken haze.
As soon as he was sound asleep, she quickened her pace to her quarters, gathering her meager possessions into one place. Under her bed roll, she’d hidden a small growing collection of money from her marketplace skimmings, a bit of perishable food, and her tiny hopes of escape that had started to grow once more in the fallow ground of Djali’s absence. It was an all too familiar scene. The night beckoned her and so did the path that led to Djali.
The morning their caravan exited the palace’s grand avenue was a quiet one. Festival trash littered the streets, most citizens still too hungover to be awake yet. A sole priest performed the blessings of travel at the head of the caravan, the leader’s songs echoing back to the rest, all the way back to where even the slaves rode in a barebones wagon pulled by oxen and shaded by thick carpets.
Kalara sat among them watching the city go by, the joy of the caravan’s songs of good fortune lost on her.
That morning, she’d prepared a breakfast of Farook’s favorite cheeses and fruits, her master never knowing of her scandalous intent. She’d spent most of her money paying a courier at the marketplace early that morning to transcribe a message that would be delivered to Djali via Old Lady’s Tehsun’s stall, along with a small pouch that contained the rest of her savings and a lock of her hair she’d hastily fashioned into a bracelet with twine and leather.
She ran the message through her mind over and over, hoping it would be enough.
Djali,
I have been sold to a new master and am bound for Chiaroscuro immediately. I’ve left you something to remember me by. Our lives could not end any other way. Don’t waste yours finding creative ways to die. Do not look for me. I will not come with you.
Consider this money a deposit towards your freedom. Leave Gem. Make a better place for yourself!
Kallie
Kalara couldn’t bear to have the letter signed with any terms of endearment. This part of her life was over. She would not see anyone else die because they had the foolish notion of upturning the order of the world around them. The sun would rise in the east and set in the west, as it always did, and they would always be slaves or worse, for no kind god of luck and providence ever looked her way except to show her that her life could always be worse if she tried to change it.
Now, she would be a slave to a Dragon, the embodiment of perfection on earth, the embodiment of what she could only ever hope to be in her next life, or so her Auntie had always told her. She would rather see that path than another one where Djali might die risking himself to run away with her or scheme his stupid schemes that would get him killed sooner or later.
Wherever she went now, she would comfort herself with the fact that maybe there was the smallest chance in wide Creation that he would take her money and leave Gem where no one would ever find out his crimes against the Despot.
The light of the sun fell across her eyes, blinding her as the wagon passed through Gem’s main gate, the caravan emerging from the mountain and onto the main trade route beyond. Thus began the months’ long journey to the glass city of Chiaroscuro.
Kalara had thought that she might cry at leaving everything she knew and loved behind, but she found herself too empty, already parched in mind, body, and spirit before they had even set foot in the desert that spread out before the caravan in a blinding path of black sand that merged into gold on the horizon.
The city of Gem, the great caldera metropolis that existed as south as people dared to live near the pole of Fire, fell away, slowly, but surely, becoming no more than a black spire in the mountains that rose around them. Battered by blinding light and heat and emptiness, she leaned away from the window letting the carpet slide back into place.
Kalara let herself doze away to the lull hoofbeats on sand and hoped no dreams would find her ever again.
Reader Questions
- Congratulations! You made it through Gem! For those who read the Alpha draft, did you find this new material in Gem to be a good addition? The most common feedback I received in the earlier draft was that readers were not invested in Kalara's journey from the start because she was more of a passive observer and her life in Gem was very glossed over.
Does this new material make you feel more invested in the story and that she plays a more active role? - Personally, I feel like the first two chapters drag, but I'm not sure how to fix them. Do they need more interesting interactions so they don't drag as much or do I need to cut them entirely?
I've pondered adding more scenes with Asha earlier on during their time with Auntie, as Asha is a mirror for Kalara's would-be fate with the Sahlak's. Having more of an emotional attachment would make Asha's scene at the brothel more impactful. I am open to suggestions!
The beginning of this story was always the most difficult part to write and I fear that it shows! - Do Kalara's motives to break things off and leave make sense (even if we might not agree with them)?
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