Herald of Steel

When her elder sister died, Seelima was still too young to understand much of the intricacies of living… more accurately surviving in that cruel city.

She knew the very basics, but much of the finer details were either borne by her elder sister, so she had no experience or she was simply too young and immature to contemplate on them in the first place.

For instance, the young girl never understood why she had to move every few nights to a new spot to sleep.

She hated having to move just as she had gotten used to the new place and after finding the most comfortable way to sleep there.

Yet now, she would be asked to once again move, sleeping clutching her thin, ragged sack that served as her mattress as well as her pillow, its ends being rolled up to provide whatever cushion it could for her tiny head.

Now there was of course behind the Queen Mother’s elder sister for doing this… she did this to avoid prying eyes… so that no greedy eyes would linger on these two defenseless girls for too long.

By the time any malicious thoughts had entered any man, and he finished ‘scoping out the joint’ and planning how to take advantage of them, the girls would be gone.

In the same way, even if some of the night patrols spotted them, usually the men would be kind enough to bear with the poor urchins for a few days.

Most of them were corrupt but not utterly heartless.

They understood these little kids had nowhere to go, forced to spend the night under rain, hail or snow. Who could stay in such abject conditions unless utterly forced to?

Hence they usually showed some leniency.

But the girls also had to be careful about not overstaying welcome or else the men beat them up, thinking they were being taken advantage of.

These guards also had their superiors to answer to and so even if they wished, they could only blind eyes to the existing law for so long… no matter if it was fair or unfair.

Hence the girls had to play a delicate game of constantly meeting new guards and hoping they were magnanimous enough to let them stay on their turf for a few days.

But if they were unlucky and met a particularly cruel group of guards…. well then their next morning would be very difficult as they would get little to no sleep the night before.

As a matter of fact, this was one of the reasons behind the Queen Mother’s sudden blinding outburst that day. They had not eaten in two days and were then beaten out of their sleep the prior night by a group of guards, leaving red and bluish marks of their heavy sticks glowing brightly on the orphan girls’ arms and legs.

And here, they were in fact very lucky that they got away with only that… that something did not break inside them… that would have been all too easy given their soft developing bones.

If that happened, it would have been disastrous…. perhaps even more disastrous than death.

At least in death, one sister would not drag the other down.

But with a broken bone… a pair of hands would then have to feed two mouths. Both sisters would have probably starved.

Hence at first both of the girls rejoiced at this great boon, praising one of the daughters of Elie.

And then, as if to reward them for their piety, their Lord increased their happiness even more as by a great stroke of luck the pair spotted a particularly vulnerable caravan, coming into the city to sell bread baked from the outskirts.

These peddlers were a common occurrence there… they would buy bread in bulk from many of the surrounding villages, letting the men and women there earn some extra money, and then sell them to either the various shops in the city or even set up a stall themselves.

According to the Queen Mother’s elder sister’s analysis, the target they chose was a relatively young man, who seemed like he had little experience in dealing with many of their tricks.

She determined this by the man’s apparent body language and the lack of precaution he took to safeguard the goods in his caravan.

And the elder sister’s judgement would indeed prove to be correct as their theft would go smoothly without a hitch.

The Queen Mother would approach her target barefooted in rags, and as she extended her tiny hands for some change, she would receive a feisty curse of neglect, shouting her to scram.

In fact, his attitude was in fact so bad, that too with a poor orphan, that it was hard to sympathize with his loss.

Anyway, Queen Mother’s appearance would distract him just long enough for the elder sister to sneak around and grab something right from the very corner of the caravan.

And by the time the man took notice and turned his head to curse at her, both sisters were already running in opposite directions, confusing the man so much that he did not know who to give chase.

Ultimately he would choose to let it go because he could not risk leaving his caravan unattended. Perhaps then… once he returned with his one loaf of bread, we would find this entire stock had been robbed. That city was not an easy place to live in… it required a lot of perseverance from every strata of the society.

That was also why most experienced merchants usually put the least valuable of his produce around the sides… which acted as a sort of ‘wall’ against such efforts.

Whereas this man had not only done but instead decorated the sides with great, fluffy, juicy loaves. Being a newbie around here… he thought he needed to stand out, so he advertised his ‘wares’ as such, hoping to attract customers.

That was his way of thinking.

Who knew his first ‘sale’ of the day would come like this?

While the sisters, upon rendezvousing at their promised location were ecstatic over their booty, their eyes sparklng with glee.

They had only ever seen such bread in the shops but never dared to even imagine they would get to taste it, much less actually possess it in their hands.

In their day to day life, whatever scraps they got from begging all day would only afford them the lowest of the lowest bread, one that was more mud and stone than made of actual grain.

And sometimes, such as during rainy days or freezing hailstorms, not even that would be possible as the people would choose to stay in their homes…so with no income, the girls would then have to chew on the leftover scraps and crumbs.

In this way, the girls were quite similar to the dogs and cats of the city, sometimes even worse, as many times they had to fight over those animals over thrown out trash.

Perhaps this was another reason why the Queen Mother had lost her mind after being deprived of her fair share of the bread.

If it had been the usual kind, she might have simply let it go as the portion rightfully belonging to her eldest sister.

However the young girl did not think she was going to taste that fluffy bread ever again. So, given it was her once in a lifetime opportunity when she denied even just a little bit, greed momentarily took over.

Just like Seelima’s elder sister wanted to zealously take a few more bites, the Queen Mother also wanted a few more nibbles.

And all it needed was that small, tiny avarice to turn all the joy the two had for such a huge catch into the bleakest of tragedy… all within the blink of an eye.

It was so fast that the young Seelima did not even understand what had happened for a while.

Once her elder sister hit the wall and stopped moving, the Queen Mother had called out to her a few times, thinking she was playing a prank.

And then once she realized what she had done… well for the next few days, everything was like a haze for the shocked, young girl.

Seelima had simply left her sister’s body there in the alleyway, afraid of what the guards might do if they caught her.

Even if she was not executed, which was the usual punishment for murder, regardless of the age of the perpetrator, surely they would be caught for stealing the bread.

Then she would be beaten to the point she would wish she was dead.

Hence she ran away and simply hid in the darkest corners of one of the allies, crying there with whimpered sobs until it felt like her tears would drown the entire city.

She did not eat or drink for the whole day… even the bread she had fought her sister over, suddenly tasted like choking firewood, too thorny to even go past her throne.

Her throat felt like it was being squeezed shut by an invisible hand of guilt and whatever bits of morsel did manage to slip into her stomach… the girl involuntarily retched, spitting them back.

What should have tasted divine now tasted like fiery coal, and her stomach churned with disgust at what she had done.

And the girl stayed in this state for a few days… going back to sleep in her place at night and then aimlessly coming back to this ally to cry and wander aimlessly, letting her legs take her wherever they wished.

And the slaves

She was

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