The Ashen Wrath (Watty's SHORTLIST recipient 2018) CHAPTERED VERSION

*53

I awoke to rhythmic pounding. My mouth was clamped closed beneath a plank of steel, denying my screams. The stilt strider's foreclaws squeezed me against its frigid thorax, barely allowing me to take a full breath. The ground blurred beneath me—I was traveling fast. Daun, where are you?

I could only see a portion of my surroundings through the whirring legs of the stilt strider. A stone road. Green grass. Then a haze of gleaming stone; smooth as a still winter lake. I realized I was en route to The Walled City.

The landscape became ethereal and otherworldly as we breached the great gates. Everything was pure white. The road, the grass, even the trees and their star-shaped leaves. I ogled in astonishment at hundreds of cylindrical towers rising to scrape the clouds, their spine-topped battlements etching a jagged pattern in the sky.

Denizens of the city stopped to stare as the stilt strider carried me deeper through the streets. Every Privus wore flowing robes of white silk, identical except for a few embroidered flourishes. The men were barely distinguishable from the women. All of them were beautiful—at least superficially—with deep blue eyes and long blonde hair. Perhaps their most striking similarity was the look of disgust on their faces when they saw me.

The stilt strider came to an abrupt stop in front of an immense, bulbous dome at the base of the city's central tower. Two guards sank their wide scimitars into their scabbards and marched closer. They were covered in shining blue armor from head to toe—a jarring shift in color.

I searched for a breath as the stilt strider released its claws and dumped me onto the ground. The guards grabbed my arms and started wrapping my face in blue cloth. My lungs burned as the air thinned. I passed out before panic could overtake me.