Chương 23: Chapter 22: Shadows of the Coral Tree

Selena remained silent for a long minute. The faces of Kaela and Rolus hung suspended before her two very different expressions: the trained patience of the tanner and the childish curiosity of the messenger, but both equally expectant. When the thought finally finished its course, when the conclusion settled in her chest like a stone at the bottom of a well, she looked at them directly and gave the order in a low, measured, controlled voice: —Let's move. And let's get out of here before the guards spot us.

Rolus nodded without questioning. He was a child of the streets, and street children learn early on that questions are a luxury they cannot always afford. He set off without hesitation, his small figure familiar with every nook, every shortcut, and every favorable shadow. He guided them back toward the West District, leaving behind the North Hills with their prosperity of carved stone and their coral trees that seemed to burn beneath the sun.

The change was gradual, as always, but Selena felt it this time with an almost painful clarity. The cobbled streets turned back into packed earth. The facades of well-wrought stone gave way to cracked adobe, rotting thatch roofs, and walls that served as maps of misery. The air lost its floral sweetness and regained that familiar stench: trash, excrement, woodsmoke the raspy breath of poverty. And yet, as she inhaled it, Selena felt something akin to relief. This was her territory now.

The territory of the edges, of the shadows, of those who learn to survive in the cracks. When the houses had definitively transformed into the usual squalor, Selena spoke again, and this time her voice had a different nuance, something that reached for normalcy, for the everyday, an attempt to anchor herself in the simple after the storm. —Right. Let's get some lunch. —She smiled, and the smile, though small, was genuine.

She looked at Kaela, searching for her weathered face for that support that was already becoming indispensable to her— My friend knows where to buy it. Kaela held her gaze for a moment. In her dark eyes, Selena saw something pass evaluation, yes, but also a spark of something warmer, a tacit acceptance of that "my friend" that had floated in the air like an offering. —Of course— Kaela said, her voice sounded as it always did, practical and direct, but with a distinct edge. —Come with us.

Kaela led them without wavering, as if she had been waiting for that invitation, as if she knew by heart the paths that led not only to food, but to small oases of normalcy in the middle of the desert. She led them to an old woman hunched over a fire, stirring the inside of a massive black iron pot with a wooden spoon. The steam rising from it smelled of spices, boiling vegetables, and something solid and comforting that contrasted with the diet of bread and porridge from the last few days.

—Selena— Kaela said, her tone is that of someone presenting an option, not an imposition, —it's tanner's soup. It's a bit expensive compared to the bread we ate yesterday. Still, it's worth it. She looked at her, waiting. In her eyes, there was no pressure, only sparse information, the knowledge of someone who knew the value of every bite. Selena nodded without hesitation. —That's fine. I'll pay. A few seconds later, her fingers extracted one of the bronze crowns from the hidden compartment of her bag.

The coin glinted dully under the mid-afternoon sun as she handed it to the old woman. The crone took it with gnarled hands, examining it with the speed of someone who had handled money all her life, and then, with slow but precise movements, counted out seventeen hard pence into Selena's outstretched palm. The metal jingled as it fell, a small but solid sound, the echo of a fair transaction. They ate sitting on stumps that served as chairs in front of the old woman's small stall.

The wooden bowls, worn but clean, steamed in their hands. Selena brought the spoon to her lips, and the flavor hit her with unexpected intensity: vegetables boiled to just the right softness, shredded bits of meat that melted on her tongue, melted cheese that added creaminess, and an undertone of spices she didn't recognize but that warmed her stomach from within. It was a moment of stolen peace, a brief ceasefire in the war of her mind.

For a second, just a second, the questions, the fears, the tangle of conspiracies, deaths, and foreign bodies dissolved into the taste of the soup. She closed her eyes and chewed, letting the warmth fill her mouth and chest. They had barely finished, with the bowls empty and the meat bones piled in a small heap, when Selena fulfilled her word. She took out the pence and paid Rolus his two hard pence, seeing the boy's eyes light up as he received them.

Then, carefully, she poured the contents of the old woman's pot into a small clay jar she bought for an additional soft penny and handed it to the boy. —For Lykos— she said, her voice carrying a hint of tenderness that surprised even herself. —As I promised. Rolus nodded with a wide grin that once again showed the gap in his teeth.

He gave his thanks with the effusiveness of a little bird and ran off, his small figure disappearing among the alleys with a speed that spoke of years spent dodging dangers and seizing opportunities. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Selena turned to Kaela. She extended her hand and, without a word, let the ten agreed-upon hard pence drop into her palm. The coins clinked against the tanner's calloused skin.

Kaela looked at them for an instant and then tucked them into her bag with a quick, definitive motion. Together, as the sun began to decline into the mid-afternoon, they walked back along the bank of the stream. The vegetation closed in on both sides, a green and brown tunnel that smelled of damp earth and decaying life. Birds of varied colors cobalt blues, sulfur yellows, ember-like reds crossed the sky in bursts of feathers and song.

Small mice scurried among the bushes, their gray bodies barely a flash among the leaves. A rabbit, fat and long eared, watched them for a moment from the safety of a burrow and then vanished. a ghost of fur and fear. Selena let herself fall into the shadow of one of those trees that looked like crimson coral, the same ones that were a symbol of prosperity in the North Hills, but here, on the riverbank, grew wild yet just as beautiful.

The sprawling canopy filtered the sunlight, creating a tapestry of shadows and glints on the ground. She leaned her back against the rough trunk and, finally, sighed. It wasn't a sigh of relief. It was a heavy, deep sigh, loaded with the weight of everything she had to do and the absolute uncertainty of how to proceed. She was in an unknown, different, hostile world. A world that had killed the original owner of this body and thrown her into this borrowed existence.

A world of brutal hierarchies, of pyres for heretics, of silences bought with silver crowns. She closed her eyes, letting the darkness behind her eyelids offer a moment of truce, a breath before the next battle. —Deeply lost, aren't you? Kaela's voice pulled her from her brooding. The tanner took a seat beside her with the naturalness of someone sharing territory and stretched her legs out over the grass with a sigh of pure physical exhaustion, not the metaphysical weight crushing Selena.

—Truly, I wonder who Selena is— Kaela continued, her voice holding that mixture of curiosity and cold evaluation so characteristic of her. —Yesterday, a cloth merchant's daughter. Today, a girl with the resources to find answers. She shook her head, a slow, almost tired movement. —You're too obvious about some things. About others, it's clear you know nothing at all. I notice all your lies, Selena. You know? The question floated in the warm afternoon air.

Selena felt it settle on her chest like a bird looking for a nest. Who was she? It was the question she asked herself every moment, the one that echoed in her skull during the quiet times, the one that woke her in the cold early hours of the communal dormitory. The dysphoric mind, that uncomfortable consciousness that reminded her at every turn that this world was strange and distant, that this body was a prison of soft flesh and alien curves. Then, the words spilled out.

She didn't think of them, didn't measure them, didn't filter them through the carefully woven lie that had been her shield. They came out on their own, following a resigned sigh heavy with everything she had lived through that day. —A human being full of misfortunes— Her voice was low but firm. —That is the answer to who I am, Kaela. She paused, letting the words settle in the space between them, finding their weight and meaning.

Then, pointing to herself and then to Kaela with a trembling finger, she added: —In a world so cruel it leaves us like this. Both you and me. Kaela didn't respond immediately. Her eyes rested on the horizon, where the stream shimmered like a ribbon of dirty silver under the declining sun. When she spoke, her voice had a different texture, softer, more human. —I don't blame you— she said. —Lying is a way to survive. But even at that, you aren't convincing.

She shook her head, and this time the gesture wasn't one of judgment, but of something dangerously close to tenderness. —Drowning in your own self-pity won't solve anything. It was a reminder. A reminder of the truth of Terracanto, of the truth of this world: inaction was a death sentence, self-pity a luxury no one could afford. Kaela's words were harsh, but Selena felt in them the edge of someone who had learned to survive by never giving up.

—It's true— Selena said, and although her eyes grew moist, although a shimmering veil began to cloud her vision, her voice remained steady. —We can't change what happens. We can only look for other solutions. She sighed, the breath coming out jagged, broken by the emotion fighting to escape. —Thank you for not judging me, despite everything— she whispered. —You are the balm that makes everything more bearable. This time, there were no tears in Kaela's eyes.

There was none of the silent weeping Selena had witnessed before, when her clumsy words had opened a floodgate of contained emotion. Instead, something new, something Selena had not seen before on that face weathered by years of hard work and disappointment, slowly emerged. A sincere smile. It transformed her face completely.

The lines of fatigue seemed to soften, her dark eyes lost their usual hardness, and for that moment, Kaela was simply a young girl of sixteen, with her whole life ahead of her and the weight of the world on her shoulders yet smiling. She moved closer to Selena, shifting over the grass with that natural grace she had for everything, and wrapped her arms around her. —We can't always be strong— she murmured against her shoulder.

And then the crying, the crying Selena had suppressed for hours, for days perhaps, during this entire stolen and terrifying existence, was born from her like a river finally finding its channel. It wasn't a clean cry, the kind that relieves. It was a torrent of contained sobs, of unexpressed fears, of the desperation to inhabit a stranger's body in a hostile world without knowing who she was or why she was there. She didn't say a word. She didn't need to.

The chest of her friend of Kaela, of this woman of this world who had crossed her own tragedies and yet still had arms to hold another, offered her more comfort than any answer she could have found from Bjorn, the Nimora Inn, or all the clues she had left to follow. The shadow of the coral tree, its crimson leaves swaying gently in the breeze from the stream, was their silent witness. The murmur of the water, the distant song of the birds, the screech of insects beginning to wake with the twilight...

all were witnesses to that moment of pure sorority, of shared humanity in the midst of the world's inhumanity.