A Girl Named Calamity (Alyria 1)

“They are being kept like statues by the magic rocks they are touching. They are aware of everything going on. Endless torture of being kept still but aware. Some have been here for years, I’m sure.”

I could see the entrance to the city ahead. A large white arch, which looked as if made from clay, had large writing on it that said, ‘Sylvia.’

I looked around me with a pit in my stomach. This was their welcome to their city?

“What have they done?” I asked.

“Some, probably not much. The city we’re entering has slavery. Just being an annoyance could get them sent out here,” he told me.

My skin crawled as I looked around while we walked down the path. My disgust grew to a nausea I could hardly stand when I saw shorter rocks . . . with shorter people. Children. How could I walk past this? How could anyone do this to a child?

I forced down a sick feeling while I let Gallant’s reins go and walked towards a little girl. She had black hair that was almost as long as she was tall, and her skin and clothes were so filthy that her eyes were a bright blue against the smudged brown on her face. I couldn’t tell whether the tears running down her cheeks were from the dust blowing in her eyes or of terror and sadness.

I didn’t know what I was doing. Didn’t know why. But I itched to walk up to the girl and rest my hand on hers. Maybe comfort her for a moment, and maybe free her.

Free her. Free her. Free her. The thought repeated itself in my mind and took my nausea to a crescendo.

“How do you free them?” I asked him.

“The rocks are unbreakable, and only the one who placed their hand on the rock can remove it.”

I wanted to smash the rock. I wanted to scream, and I wanted to do terrible things to the people who did this to the little girl. I wanted to put their hand on the rock.

I almost walked away, wanting to get far away so the sickness I felt would go away. But I couldn’t, couldn’t stop myself from resting my hand on her grimy one. Her blue eyes met mine and begged me to save her. Begged me.

Her hand was chilled, and a tear ran down my cheek before I took my hand away. I couldn’t torture myself anymore. I couldn’t save her, and I couldn’t stand to see this anymore.

I turned around but then heard a cry behind me. I spun back around, but Weston was already there catching the little girl before she fell to the ground.

My mouth dropped open.

A fearful shiver went down my spine. And it took me a few minutes to understand why while the girl sobbed into Weston’s arms, and he looked at me as if I were a Red Forest creature.

My chest tightened with unease because I was much more than a farm girl from Alger.

And now I had proof. That thought was terrifying in itself. But the thing that scared me the most wasn’t that.

No. It was because I had no idea who I was.

The little girl squirmed in Weston’s arms. He put her down, and we watched her run down the path and over to a woman. I didn’t hesitate to follow her and touch each person’s hand on the way.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” W

eston said from behind me.

I turned around. “Why not?”

“You have no idea who these people are. They could be murderers.”

“You’re a murderer,” I retorted.

He gave me a frosty look. “Save their sad souls, then. Whatever they end up doing, that’s on you.”

They could be murderers, but what if they weren’t?

I touched forty-two hands in all. The woman was the child’s mother. She wrapped her grimy arms around me and thanked me before they headed back into the city.

My eyes filled with confusion and I stopped her to ask why they would go back to the people who had condemned them. She told me it was all they knew; why would they go anywhere else? The majority headed back into the city, only a few deciding to go in a different direction.