Date: The Night of the 2nd Day of the Month of Blossoms, Year 1107 of the Imperial Calendar.
Location: An Alleyway near the River District.
Adrenaline is a loan taken out against the body's future energy. And now, the debt collectors had come.
Aanya stumbled away from the shattered tailor's window, clutching her bleeding hand. She made it two blocks before her legs simply stopped receiving commands. She collapsed into the mouth of a dark, narrow alleyway, landing hard on the wet stones.
The terror of the mob was gone. The rage that had driven her to smash the glass was gone.
All that remained was the hollow, scraping emptiness of hunger.
She hadn't eaten since the morning fruit plate—a few cubes of melon, carefully chewed so as not to crack the mask. That was over twenty-four hours ago. Since then, she had danced, panicked, stood in a steam bath, been beaten, and walked miles in the freezing rain.
Her stomach wasn't growling; it was cramping, twisting in on itself like a wringed-out cloth.
Aanya lay on her side, her cheek pressed against the mud. Her vision swam with black spots.
I need to eat, she thought sluggishly. If I don't eat, the cold will win.
Her eyes focused on a shape in the gutter a few feet away.
It was a piece of bread. A heel of a loaf, discarded by a tavern, sodden with rainwater and speckled with green mold. A rat had chewed one corner.
Yesterday, Aanya would have fainted at the sight of it. Yesterday, she dined on roasted quail and honeyed figs.
Today, it looked like salvation.
She crawled toward it. She ignored the smell of sewage rising from the grate nearby. She reached out with her uncut hand and grabbed the soggy crust.
It felt slimy.
She brought it to her lips. Her body revolted, her throat closing up in disgust. Don't, her instincts screamed. It's poison.
It's fuel, her survival brain countered.
She shoved the bread into her mouth. She didn't chew; she just swallowed the wet, molding lump.
It hit her stomach like a stone.
For a moment, there was relief. Then, a violent wave of nausea surged upward. Her stomach, conditioned by years of refined, delicate foods, rejected the filth instantly.
Aanya retched. She dragged herself to the side and vomited up the bread, along with clear bile and stomach acid.
She gasped, coughing, tears streaming from her eyes. The effort left her trembling so hard her teeth clattered together.
She was emptier than before. She was weaker.
"I can't..." she whimpered, curling into a fetal position. "I can't do this."
The fever began to set in.
The cut on her hand, the raw skin of her face, the hypothermia—it all combined into a hazy, burning delirium. The cold rain didn't feel cold anymore. It felt warm.
The alleyway began to spin. The darkness seemed to breathe.
Aanya rolled onto her back. She looked up at the sky. The storm clouds were breaking, revealing a sliver of the moon.
And then, she smelled it.
It cut through the stench of vomit and rain. It was crisp. It was sweet. It was floral.
Apples.
Aanya blinked. The smell was so strong she could taste it.
She looked up at the roofline of the building above her.
A figure was sitting there.
It was a boy. He had messy black hair that stuck up in every direction. He was wearing a ragged tunic held together by rope. He was swinging his legs over the edge, grinning down at her with a chipped tooth.
"Veer?" Aanya whispered.
The figure didn't speak. He just held out his hand. In his palm was a bright red apple—a Red Sun.
Aanya reached up, her fingers grasping at the rain.
"Veer... I'm hungry."
She remembered the taste. That night, seven years ago. The crunch. The juice running down her chin. The way he had looked at her—not like a princess, but like a girl who needed a friend.
"You said you'd come back," she mumbled to the hallucination. "You said climbing was good exercise."
The phantom boy on the roof faded. It was just a chimney stack against the moon. The smell of apples vanished, replaced by the smell of wet rot.
Aanya let her hand fall back into the mud.
She closed her eyes. The loneliness washed over her, more painful than the hunger.
In the Golden Cage of her parents' house, she had food, silk, and warmth. But she had been starving for love.
In the Palace, she had admiration and power. But she had been starving for truth.
Now, she had nothing. No food. No silk. No power.
But she remembered the apple.
Veer is real, she thought, holding onto that thought like a lifeline in a hurricane. He isn't a lie. He isn't a mask. He stole for me.
She opened her eyes. The delirium cleared for a singular, lucid moment.
If she stayed here, in the rich part of the city, she would die. The guards would find her, or the cold would take her.
But somewhere, across the river, in the place where the maps stopped and the shadows began, there was a thief.
He probably hated her. He probably thought she was the Queen now. He probably wouldn't recognize the monster she had become.
But he knows hunger, Aanya thought. He understands what it means to be empty.
She pushed herself up. Her limbs felt like lead, but her spirit had found a direction. Not North, back to the manor. Not East, to the palace.
South.
To the Lower District. To the Slums.
"I'm coming, Veer," she rasped, stumbling out of the alley. "I'm coming."
She began to walk. It was a desperate, blind pilgrimage. She was a fallen angel dragging her broken wings toward the only hell that might have a spark of warmth left.
She walked toward the river bridge, leaving a trail of blood and vomit behind her, guided only by the ghost of a fruit that had been eaten seven years ago.