The Savior's Throne

Chapter Six

I can't believe what my eyes are seeing. I stand in the Eastern Society with Arlo by my side. I'm gaping at the view, but Arlo doesn't even seem to notice it. The grass is impossibly green and flowers decorate every available surface. In the North everything was so crowded, but here everything is spaced out and even. The beauty is breathtaking in more ways than one. Its outer beauty stalled my breath, but its inner cruelty completely took my breath away and not in a good way. Adults mill around chatting with each other, laughing as if what they are doing is completely normal. Almost every adult has a leash and connected to that leash is a child. Even from across the city I can see their glowing, emerald eyes. My hand finds Arlo's shoulder for stability as my feet start to sway. The adults occasionally stop their conversations to bark orders at the child cowering at the end of their leash. Each emerald-eyed child is skinny beyond belief and dirty stains decorate their faces and clothes. Where everything else is beyond clean and pretty, the unnatural green-eyed children are just the opposite.

"There's so many of them," I whisper. I thought there would be only a few, never would I have thought of this number. There are over a hundred people walking in the city today and more than half have an ungifted child on a leash.

One adult yanks particularly hard on the leash, choking the child. I take a step forward, but Arlo stops me. "We have to be careful, we can't save everyone."

"So what do we do?" I watch the people in the crowd and several mishandle the ungifted children. They slap their faces and pull at their hair and yank on their leashes. A few extremely cruel individuals replaced leather leashes with metal chains. "We have to help them," I tell him.

"We wait and watch. If there's an execution today, it could provide a useful distraction."

"Did you really just spin an execution to benefit you?"

"I never waste an opportunity." Arlo's voice is remote and I wish to hear some type of emotion-anger, sadness, guilt-anything to prove that he's capable of feeling something.

Arlo drags me behind a city building and we fade into the dark alley. My eyes are covered by sunglasses and I'm covered head to toe in black. The only thing visible from the alley is my ivory skin. Arlo is dressed very similar to me-all black and sunglasses. He covers his icy blond hair with a black hat. When he knocked on my door this morning wearing that beanie I remarked that he should wear hats more often. He didn't like that very much, but I was simply stating that they framed his face very well. When I said that, his frown deepened even more.

With the black shadows covering us, I almost feel invisible. I try to imagine myself as a veil-how wondrous it must be to have a gift. I think people don't appreciate their gifts as much as they should. I also think that if I could choose what kind of gift I could have, I would choose the gift of flight. I've always been a little envious of racers and their ability to fly. In the palace I would watch them as they soared, effortlessly in the sky, and they always looked so free. I've convinced myself that flying must be a sort of freedom unattainable by those bound to land.

A tap on my shoulder has me shoving any thoughts of flight out of my head. I look at Arlo who is gesturing for me to be quiet and follow him. All my life I have followed people, so it comes naturally to me now. I slip alongside Arlo as we make our way deeper into the cities. The alley provides perfect cover and we make it to the heart of the city unnoticed.

A huge crowd gathers around something, but I'm not sure what. If I have to guess, I'd say today is an execution day. To check my guess, I ask Arlo. "Yes," he says. "It looks to be a public execution."