A Girl Named Calamity by Danielle Lori

CHAPTER EIGHT

DISCOVERY OF THE BREEZE

It was early morning, and the sun beat down hard. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like midday, but I was thankful for my new ensemble. I was glad Weston had destroyed my clothes so that I could blame him if my grandmother happened to see me in this outfit. Of course, I had extra clothes with all the material still attached, but that was neither here nor there.

The grass grew sparser as we traveled, dirt overtaking it. Dust blew in the wind and stung my eyes, so I walked on the side of Gallant, using him as a shield. We started to pass some travelers, and I examined them. They dressed differently than Algerians. The men didn’t wear shirts, but left their top-half bare and darkly tanned. I didn’t see any women travelers and that had worry gnawing at me.

I was undoubtedly a female, and many eyes glinting with interest landed on me while I walked beside Gallant. They would look at me, then up at Weston, and then look down and keep walking. I had the feeling that if Weston wasn’t with me, I wouldn’t have gotten down the trail so easily. Maybe the assassin had been a good idea, even if his sense of humor was disturbing.

If any man saw me dressed like this in Alger, he would have probably assumed I was a prostitute. If any woman saw me, she would have probably fainted on the spot.

I wasn’t a bashful girl, not at all, but my entire life I had been taught that this wasn’t appropriate, and I felt a little uncomfortable under the scrutiny of the first man who saw me like this. Then I realized he wasn’t the first. Weston was.

Moot point, since I was sure he saw me as a child.

“Weston?” I asked, looking up at him.

He narrowed his eyes without even glancing at me as if he didn’t like me using his name. What was I supposed to call him, then? Oh, that’s right, I wasn’t supposed to talk to him at all. I snorted. I wouldn’t take a vow of silence for a month. It’d be impossible, anyway.

“Are you a Titan?” I asked. Today, he only wore his sleeveless jerkin without a shirt underneath, and I saw the Titan brand on his forearm. It was a series of black rings and lines with a T in the middle. It matched his brother’s, but Weston’s had one red line circling his forearm.

“Was,” he drawled.

I brightened and was pleased that I had learned something about him so I pushed for more. “I thought Titans weren’t allowed to leave,” I mused. He didn’t answer my question. Well, technically, it was a prompt, but he still ignored it. Nothing new.

I rolled the new information around. Him being a Titan was almost more intimidating than him being an assassin.

Titan was close to the sea. Far from Alger, that I’d never learned much besides legends and stories from villagers.

From what I had heard, Titans went through extensive training as soon as they could walk.

They tested out at a certain age, and if they weren’t warrior material, they became servants. They had harsh training as children, and once they were adults, they had to fight for a position in Titan. Only the strongest men got to hold the high positions. They had stringent laws, and if disobeyed, they were killed on the spot. The strangest thing that I had learned about them was the women got to choose who they wanted to conceive their child.

Even if they were married, they could still pick a stronger warrior to be the father; they chose based off skill and strength. Many high-ranking warriors had an uncountable amount of children. Grandmother didn’t like me to talk about them; she had always said they were vulgar. Little did she know I had one as an escort.

I wondered if Weston had any children out there. I looked at him, trying to ascertain his age, finding his eyes already on me. “Do you—”

“Stop wondering about things that do not concern you,” he cut me off.

I blinked. How did he know what I was thinking? There was no way he could have known I was thinking about him, unless . . . “Can you read my mind?” I asked, my eyes wide. He was awfully perceptive.

“No, I wouldn’t need to. Your face is an open book.”

I frowned, not sure if I believed him. But maybe Titans learned how to be so perceptive? Or maybe I would just tell myself that because I didn’t like the other option.

“What does the red ring mean? Your brother didn’t have one,” I asked.

He glanced at me. “I’ve killed more people than him.”

I swallowed. “Oh . . . that’s a lovely accomplishment.” I should have known it wouldn’t have been for winning a daisy-picking competition.

I wanted to ask more about what happened at the inn with his brother, but I knew he would just give me a look that said, Seriously? Why waste your breath? So, I bit my tongue. I didn’t like being ignored, and he’d most assuredly do that if I asked.

I looked away from him when I noticed something in the distance. It appeared to be people standing still in a perfect line on each side of the path ahead. The small brown trail we were on came together with another one and created a large dusty road.

As we got closer, I saw that was exactly what it was. Each person had a hand on a tall rod-like rock in front of them. The rocks sprouted out of the ground in all kinds of different shapes as if they were already here and not man-made. The people’s tanned skin was even darker from the smudged dust on their faces and bodies. They wore white scraps for clothes that fluttered in the dusty breeze. But they were as still as death. A shudder went through me when I saw one person blink.

“What is this?” I asked Weston in a horrified whisper.

“It’s a form of punishment,” he answered, now walking beside his horse as well. I was surprised that he heard my question since it had been so quiet.

“How?”

“They are being kept like statues by the magic rocks they are touching. They are aware of everything going on. Endless torture of being kept still but aware. Some have been here for years, I’m sure.”

I could see the entrance to the city ahead. A large white arch, which looked as if made from clay, had large writing on it that said, ‘Sylvia.’

I looked around me with a pit in my stomach. This was their welcome to their city?

“What have they done?” I asked.

“Some, probably not much. The city we’re entering has slavery. Just being an annoyance could get them sent out here,” he told me.

My skin crawled as I looked around while we walked down the path. My disgust grew to a nausea I could hardly stand when I saw shorter rocks . . . with shorter people. Children. How could I walk past this? How could anyone do this to a child?

I forced down a sick feeling while I let Gallant’s reins go and walked towards a little girl. She had black hair that was almost as long as she was tall, and her skin and clothes were so filthy that her eyes were a bright blue against the smudged brown on her face. I couldn’t tell whether the tears running down her cheeks were from the dust blowing in her eyes or of terror and sadness.

I didn’t know what I was doing. Didn’t know why. But I itched to walk up to the girl and rest my hand on hers. Maybe comfort her for a moment, and maybe free her.

Free her. Free her. Free her.The thought repeated itself in my mind and took my nausea to a crescendo.

“How do you free them?” I asked him.

“The rocks are unbreakable, and only the one who placed their hand on the rock can remove it.”

I wanted to smash the rock. I wanted to scream, and I wanted to do terrible things to the people who did this to the little girl. I wanted to put their hand on the rock.

I almost walked away, wanting to get far away so the sickness I felt would go away. But I couldn’t, couldn’t stop myself from resting my hand on her grimy one. Her blue eyes met mine and begged me to save her. Begged me.

Her hand was chilled, and a tear ran down my cheek before I took my hand away. I couldn’t torture myself anymore. I couldn’t save her, and I couldn’t stand to see this anymore.

I turned around but then heard a cry behind me. I spun back around, but Weston was already there catching the little girl before she fell to the ground.

My mouth dropped open.

A fearful shiver went down my spine. And it took me a few minutes to understand why while the girl sobbed into Weston’s arms, and he looked at me as if I were a Red Forest creature.

My chest tightened with unease because I was much more than a farm girl from Alger.

And now I had proof. That thought was terrifying in itself. But the thing that scared me the most wasn’t that.

No. It was because I had no idea who I was.

The little girl squirmed in Weston’s arms. He put her down, and we watched her run down the path and over to a woman. I didn’t hesitate to follow her and touch each person’s hand on the way.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Weston said from behind me.

I turned around. “Why not?”

“You have no idea who these people are. They could be murderers.”

“You’re a murderer,” I retorted.

He gave me a frosty look. “Save their sad souls, then. Whatever they end up doing, that’s on you.”

They could be murderers, but what if they weren’t?

I touched forty-two hands in all. The woman was the child’s mother. She wrapped her grimy arms around me and thanked me before they headed back into the city.

My eyes filled with confusion and I stopped her to ask why they would go back to the people who had condemned them. She told me it was all they knew; why would they go anywhere else? The majority headed back into the city, only a few deciding to go in a different direction.

As I stood in the middle of the barren magical rocks, a breeze rustled the trees and headed straight for me. It spun around me like the crows flew around the turret at Cameron Castle.

I shivered as I recognized the breeze wasn’t fast moving air; that was just its facade. It was solid and made up of things too indiscernible to comprehend.

It brushed my skin with such familiarity as if it had been around me my entire life.

Goose bumps appeared on my skin as it whispered one word to me.

“Alyria . . .”