Fates Unbound: Across The All-Realm

Chapter 2: A Dying Thirst

The mood in the carriage was tense. Jessa nervously wrung together her index fingers, her eyes staring out the window at the ever-changing scene. The small town they'd rarely left was now a speck out of the rearview. Alden sat silently across from Jessa, staring into the pages of a book his mother packed in his sack. Though his furrowed brows and steady finger gave the appearance that he was engrossed in the story, he hadn't turned a page since he'd opened the book; his brows were knitted together with threads of worry.
Would he get a good assignment? Maybe he'd get to squire some knights of the north kingdom.  Maybe he'd be assigned to apprentice a blacksmith. Yes, they often went to war, but most times, they rarely left the battle camp. If lucky, you'd be stationed in the Capitol, where you worked the under-forge, thousands of arrowheads, battle axes, and swords, repairing the armor of the king's guard. Those were the cushier placements you could get, especially as a male.

But for the women-

Alden's gaze left the page momentarily, looking at his little sister's face. She'd come back from the kitchen that morning a different person, a stern look on her face. She didn't protest their mother's decision like he had. He'd fought like hell to change his mother's mind. Offered to double his time in servitude, but nothing helped. He shouted and cried, pounded his fist against the door frame, leaving his knuckles peppered with lavender bruises. In contrast to the whole debacle, Jessa's expression could have frozen water in the midst of summer. He'd never seen her so composed.

"You should have run, you know," Alden spoke to his still rigidly sitting sister. "I would have helped you. You complete idiot, don't you know what you've gotten yourself into? Women aren't good for the Culling. You could have stayed home and married one of those stupid Dobbins boys for all I care. Why would you do this, Jess?"

His ranting went unanswered. Jessa glanced over at Alden; her eyes glossed over with an emptiness before returning to the window. It was like she was stuck.

"You stupid-" Before he could start again into her, the carriage began to slow. They approached a port town, Hevins. "I think this is it, Jessa," Alden spoke quietly as he peered from the window to take in their surroundings. Their arrival seemed to shake Jessa from her daze.
Their carriage clunked along the road roughly, the crowds surging alongside the road traffic. Every uneven or missing cobblestone brick in the road sent vibrations through the carriage and into their bones. "I've been here a few times with Pa when I was little. It's where we'd come to pick up the fish orders." As though the town had heard his narration, the pungent scent of this morning's catch wafted into the open windows. Jessa's nose crinkled for a moment before adjusting to its surroundings.

The carriage passed residences, mud-dirtied swine standing in their pens chewing on scraps of vegetation and meat, and children chasing each other in circles in a patchy field. They passed the meat market, a burly butcher hauling a newly freed leg of mutton upon a hook in the window. Then, the dark roadways brightened as they neared the port. The sights and sounds were almost overwhelming for Jessa, who spent most of her time lending her mother a hand around the house, strolling through the woods with her siblings, and reading childish stories of fairy tales and princesses.

A bell tolled in the near distance aboard a ship at the end of the docks. Slowly, they came to a stop, and then their uncle pulled the door open. "Alden, come on, boy." He motioned him forward, his brown eyes avoiding Alden's green glossy gaze.

Alden climbed from the carriage and followed his uncle toward the ship, where a line of men, most likely those given for the Culling, began to form. Alden couldn't help glancing back every moment or so to see his sister peeking from the window. The stubborn hairs that had come loose from her braid waved at him in the breeze.