Date: The Night of the 2nd Day of the Month of Blossoms, Year 1107 of the Imperial Calendar.
Location: The Refuse Heap, Outside the Southern Wall of the Imperial Palace.
The rain in Aethelgard did not wash away sins. It only made the mud deeper.
Aanya woke to the sound of thunder that shook the ground beneath her cheek. For a disoriented second, she thought it was the applause of the nobles in the Throne Room. She expected to open her eyes and see the golden chandeliers, the velvet curtains, the adoring face of King Darius.
She opened her eyes.
She saw a rotting cabbage leaf.
Reality didn't return in a wave; it crashed down like a falling ceiling. The smell hit her first—a thick, suffocating stench of fish guts, wet ash, and decaying vegetables. She was lying face-down in the palace midden heap.
She tried to inhale, but her lungs were seized by the cold. It wasn't just a chill; it was a violent, invading frost that had already seeped through the rough burlap sack she was wearing.
"Nnnh..."
Aanya tried to push herself up. Her hands sank into the slime. The mud oozed between her fingers, cold and gritty.
She gasped, pulling her hands back, wiping them frantically on the burlap. But the sack was worse. It was soaked through, heavy as a coat of mail, and coarse as sandpaper.
She was Aanya of House Kael. Her skin had been bathed in milk since she was seven. She had slept on sheets of the finest cotton.
Now, the rough jute fibers of the potato sack chafed against her neck and arms. Every shiver—and she was shivering uncontrollably—sent a fresh wave of abrasion across her delicate skin. She could feel the raw sting where the fabric had already rubbed her collarbone raw.
But the pain in her body was a whisper compared to the scream of her face.
Aanya reached up with a trembling hand to touch her right cheek.
It was sticky.
The Golden Lotus Oil had broken the chemical bond of the resin, turning the expensive "porcelain skin" into a viscous, gray sludge. But the rain hadn't washed it all away.
Patches of the dissolved glue still clung to her face, trapping the dirt and ash from the trash heap against her raw, scarred flesh. It felt like her face was covered in a layer of burning tar. The chemicals, now reacting with the filthy water, were stinging the sensitive nerve endings of the old burn.
She clawed at it.
"Get off," she whimpered, her voice a broken croak. "Get off me."
She scraped a glob of gray goo from her jaw. It came away with a sucking sound, pulling at the skin. She wiped it on the mud. She scraped again.
It was everywhere. In her hair. In her ear. The "mask" that had made her a queen was now a parasite clinging to her ruin.
I have to move, she told herself. I can't die in the garbage.
She planted her hands and forced her knees under her. Her legs felt like hollow reeds. She pushed up, swaying.
She stood for exactly one second before her knees buckled.
She collapsed again, landing hard on her shoulder in a puddle of brown water.
"Get up!" she screamed at her own legs. "You walked for the Emperor! Walk for yourself!"
But her body refused. The shock of the rejection, the freezing rain, and the lack of food were shutting her down.
She looked at the massive stone wall towering above her. It was fifty feet of sheer, unclimbable granite. At the top, gargoyles peered down, spewing rainwater from their stone mouths like they were spitting on her.
The guards, she thought, a spike of fear piercing the fog in her mind. What if they come back?
Darius had said to throw her out. But what if he changed his mind? What if he decided he wanted her head on a spike after all?
She couldn't stay here. She was a sitting duck in the trash pile.
She couldn't walk. So she crawled.
Aanya dug her elbows into the filth. She dragged her body forward, inch by painful inch. The sharp stones hidden in the mud cut her knees. Glass shards from broken wine bottles sliced her palms.
She didn't feel the cuts. The cold had numbed her extremities. She was just a machine of survival now, fueled by terror.
Drag. Breathe. Drag. Breathe.
She made it ten feet. Then twenty. She reached the edge of the midden heap, where the cobblestone road began.
She collapsed against a stone mile-marker, exhausted. Her breath came in white puffs of steam that vanished instantly in the gale.
She rolled onto her back, looking up at the palace she had just been ejected from.
From this angle, she could see the high windows of the Grand Hall.
They were glowing.
Warm, golden light spilled from the stained glass, cutting through the darkness of the storm. She could see the silhouettes of people moving inside. She could imagine the warmth of the fireplaces—the same fireplaces that had melted her face.
Inside that hall, the music was still playing. The wine was still flowing.
They were toasting.
To the Emperor, they would be shouting.
To the new Consort, they would be cheering.
Aanya closed her eyes, and she could almost see it. She could see Riya standing where she had stood. Riya in the blue dress. Riya, terrified but whole. Riya, the "real" daughter.
And her parents...
She saw Kael raising a glass, his face flushed with relief. She saw Elara laughing, adjusting Riya's hair, already forgetting the daughter they had dragged out by the heels.
They replaced me, Aanya realized. The thought was colder than the rain. It didn't even take an hour.
She wasn't just cast out; she was overwritten. The world had simply erased the smudge that was Aanya and drawn a new picture with Riya.
A sob built in her chest, massive and suffocating.
"I'm here!" she wanted to scream at the glowing windows. "I'm down here in the mud! I'm cold! Does anyone care that I'm cold?"
But she knew the answer.
The windows were high. The walls were thick. And the music was loud enough to drown out the whimpers of a broken girl in the dark.
She watched the light for a long time, the rain mingling with the hot tears tracking through the sludge on her face.
Finally, the light in the Grand Hall dimmed. The party was moving deeper into the palace.
Aanya turned her head away.
She looked down the dark, winding road that led away from the palace and back toward the city. It was a black throat waiting to swallow her.
She had no shoes. She had no money. She had a face that frightened children.
But she had a heartbeat.
"I won't die here," she whispered to the wet stones. "I won't let you find my body in the trash, Father. I won't give you that satisfaction."
With a groan of effort that tore at her throat, Aanya forced herself up to her knees, then to her feet. She swayed, clutching the mile-marker for support.
She took one step. Then another.
Leaving the golden light behind, the Scarred Girl walked into the long, terrible night.