They say life moves up and down like the wind, lifting some people and knocking others aside. I've learned that for most of us, nothing really changes. Days pass, seasons shift, new king rises while the old one fall, and yet people like me stay exactly where we are. Starved, cold and lonely. That is how Skiópolis works.
The city rises tall and dark, built of cold stone that blots out the sun and traps shadows between its walls. It is hard to believe that it once thrived like no other, long before the terrible sickness spread through its streets and was never cured, before prayers to the gods were answered only with silence.
At least, that is what the old stories claim. Some say the gods abandoned us when we stopped believing. Others insist we turned away first, weary of prayers that went unanswered. I don't know which is true. I only know that no one prays anymore. The temples lie in ruins, their symbols stripped away, their halls converted into storehouses and guard posts. Whatever faith once lived here has faded into dust. The only temple left standing is dedicated to the old and new kings, now worshipped as our faith.
The only beings that still linger in belief are those who thrive on bargains. Some call them evil creatures, closer to demons than anything mortal. They should be feared, for they can take any form. Some appear beautiful, irresistible, drawing their victims in with impossible allure. Others appear monstrous, and their presence alone fills you with dread. It all depends on what they want from you. At least, that is what the old stories claim.
However the glorious gods who once favored us have long since forgotten we exist which was something I have learned to accept.
Being forgotten is something I'm used to.
My father couldn't even remember the last time I stopped being five. My stepmother forgot that hunger did not spare me, even as she filled her daughters' bowls again and again. Rice steamed before them, plentiful and warm, while mine was measured carefully, if it was filled at all. The bitter truth was that I earned the money for that food. I walked the streets, worked the kitchens, carried the weight of other people's comfort on my back while they remained inside, warm and waiting.
Loneliness settles deep here, heavier than the city's stone. There is no one who cares enough to make space for me, even something as simple as a place to sleep. The last person I ever expected to care for me was my mother, who died few years later. There is a bitter irony in that. Some days, this life feels less like living and more like a curse I was born to carry.
I weaved between the tables, carrying trays of steaming food, though my mind had already drifted far away. Memories of empty bowls and being overlooked crowded in, and for a moment, I almost lost my footing on the uneven wooden floor. The tray wobbled dangerously.
"Watch it!" Ava's sharp voice cut through my thoughts, snapping me back. Her eyes narrowed as she gestured sharply. "Don't spill another plate, or you'll regret it!"
I gripped the tray tighter and started setting the plates down, carefully saving each bowl from tipping over, my heart pounding from the near slip. The men at the tables were already sloppy with drink, and a few reached out, leering, trying to grab me as I passed.
"Oi, what's this? A little beauty walking past?" one slurred.
Another laughed. "Nah, this one isn't a beauty at all. Too bony with nothing to grab."
I kept my head down, forcing myself to ignore them, though my hands shook slightly from the effort of balancing the food and holding back the anger that burned inside me. The words shouldn't have mattered, but they did. Not a beauty. I felt them settle heavy in my chest because I already knew it was true. Too thin, too sharp with no charm at all. Their laughter didn't sting with cruelty, it stung because it was what I had always believed about myself.
At the far end of the tavern, voices rose suddenly.
"Did you hear?" one man said. "They executed another one this morning."
A chair scraped. "The rebel?"
"The one who shouted at the gates," another added. "Said the common folk starve while the king eats like a god."
A bitter laugh followed. "Fool deserved it. You don't speak like that anymore."
"Not since the new king took the throne," someone muttered. "He wants us afraid."
The new king had ruled for only a year, yet the city had already begun to change beneath his hand. Public humiliations, often followed swiftly by executions, had become common. He claimed that suffering proved devotion, that pain purified the weak and hardened the loyal. Like the kings before him, he declared himself divine.
Once, long ago, the gods ruled Skiópolis. Six of them, they say, with the Sun and Moon at their head. People looked to them for guidance, for protection, for something they could not give themselves.
Then came a young man, barely in his twenties, who carried an elixir that promised what the gods could not. He brought it to the city and, for a time, people believed he could change their lives. He offered them hope in a way the gods had never seemed to care for.
But the elixir was as much a tool as it was a gift. The young man used it to win favor, to place himself above the divine. People began to worship him instead, leaving the gods behind.
Not long after, the young man was crowned the first king of Skiópolis. His line followed, one ruler after another, teaching the people that obedience to a mortal was more reliable than faith in the divine. And so the city changed forever.
Ava's voice cut through the thoughts that had carried me away.
"Adora! Stop daydreaming and start on the dishes!" Ava barked, jabbing a finger toward the corner of the kitchen where dirty plates and pots had been stacked since the morning. "I've been telling you all day, and now they're piling up! Move!"
I blinked, the weight of my own distraction sinking back into me. The tavern noise faded into the background as I set down the last tray, the clatter of dishes finally replaced by the quiet scrape of my hands against porcelain.
Today had dragged on endlessly, and I found myself wishing it would be over, just like every other day.
****
It was finally time to close the tavern. The last patrons had stumbled out, their laughter loud and sloppy, leaving behind the smell of spilled ale and smoke. I sighed, rubbing my sore shoulders, and started washing the dishes, the warm water comforting my tired hands. I scraped the leftover scraps from the tables and ate a small piece of bread, cold and dry, but better than nothing.
Once the tavern was quiet and the floor clean, I stepped outside.
Winter had taken the streets, frost crunching under my boots and biting at my cheeks. My breath came out in clouds, and the wind cut through my thin coat. My back ached, my stomach growled, and yet I kept walking toward the house I called home, though it hardly felt like mine.
When I finally arrived, the house was silent. Everyone was already asleep, the fire long since gone out, and the dinner table was full and untouched by me, as always. My stepmother and her daughter had eaten, leaving me with nothing.
Before I could even set my bag down, my stepmother appeared. Her eyes narrowed as she snatched the coins. "Is this all you made today?" she snapped.
I tried to keep my voice steady. "We didn't have many customers today..."
She scoffed. "That's your excuse every day. Do you hide the rest somewhere for yourself? Greedy, aren't you?"
I stayed silent, letting her words sting, and she stalked off to her own room, leaving me in the dim light of the hallway. I climbed into my small corner on the thin mat that served as my bed, pulling the rough blanket around me. The house was quiet, too quiet, and the cold crept in through the walls.
I reached for the small necklace hidden under my clothes, a simple thing, delicate and warm against my fingers.
My mother had given me this necklace when I was little. I remembered her kneeling in front of me, fastening it around my neck, telling me it would protect me. I didn't ask from what. I was six. I just believed her.
As I grew older, it was hard to see how it had protected me at all. It hadn't kept bad luck away. It hadn't stopped the hunger, the cold, or the way people treated me. If it was meant to guard me from something, I had never known what.
Still, I kept it.
Now, holding it in my hand, I wondered if protection didn't always mean safety. Maybe it just meant surviving. Maybe it meant lasting long enough to face whatever was coming next.
Even if it hadn't saved me from misfortune, it was the last thing she left me—and that had to mean something.
I curled up, listening to the faint crackle of the dying fire, and for a moment, let myself remember that somewhere, even if only in this tiny keepsake, someone had once cared.
***
I was already moving through the shadows before I realized I was dreaming. The ground beneath my feet was soft, almost too soft, and every step seemed to sink a little deeper into the cold earth.
The air pressed down on me, heavy and damp, carrying the faint scent of rain and something older, something that smelled of forgotten places. Everything felt unreal, as if the world had been drained of color, of warmth, of sound.
Even the sky seemed distant, a pale gray dome stretching endlessly above me. I didn't know where I was going, only that I kept moving, drawn forward by a silence that seemed alive, whispering to me in ways I could not name.
And then I saw it.
My own body lay on the ground, pale and fragile, stiff against the wet earth. My chest tightened at the sight, but I felt no fear, only a hollow ache, as though the absence of life itself weighed on me. No one had come. No one had even looked in my direction.
Not a single tear had been shed, no hand reached out to me, no whispered name cut through the heavy air. Typical, isn't it? The world had always forgotten me. Now it had forgotten even my death.
Only one figure stood there. At first, he was nothing more than a shadow at the edge of my vision, and I could not look at him directly without a strange unease curling through my chest.
But as he stepped closer, the air seemed to bend around him, folding in on itself like the world had been reshaped by his presence. His form was human, yet somehow it was not. There was a weight to him that grounded the earth beneath him, a presence that seemed too vast, too eternal to belong to this world.
His movements were deliberate, slow, and filled with a gravitas I could feel in my bones. He was not a man. He was not human. And yet, it seemed as if he felt more than anyone was capable of.
He knelt beside me, and I noticed in his hands a small bouquet of white roses, delicate and perfect, their petals glistening with rain. Without a word, he placed them gently into my arms. I wanted to reach for him, to ask who he was, to demand a name, but I could not.
I could only watch as he sank fully to his knees, the shadow of his bowed face hidden beneath a hood of darkness, his grief radiating outward like a weight pressing down on the entire field.
Then came the sound, a low, trembling cry, deep and endless, as if it had been held back for centuries. It was not a human cry, it had no warmth or softness, only the raw pull of despair. He raised his head as his voice broke through the storm.
"You promised... you promised you would heal her... and instead you cursed her! I would have given you anything, anything at all!"
I did not know who he was, or why he mourned me with such intensity. I only knew that his grief was vast, stretching across something far larger than the world I had known, and yet somehow, impossibly, it included me.
I woke with a start, my chest heaving and my heart hammering in my ears. The dream had felt so real that, for a moment, I almost forgot it was only a dream. The sun had already risen, spilling through the rolled-up curtains, which meant I had slept far too late. Normally, my stepmother would have been at my side by now, complaining about how much I slept, her voice sharp and impatient.
I sat up, rubbing my face, and my hands shot forward, reaching for the small comfort I always carried—the necklace. I had felt it in my fingers just moments ago, warm and steady, a tiny anchor in the strange, endless darkness of the dream. But when my fingers closed around the spot where it should have been, there was nothing.
The necklace was gone.