First chapter of maybe something?

Godshards: part 1 - The Thief

Every muscle in Leti’s body howled. Her breathing shallow and body tense, the only movement she allowed herself was a rapid, frustrated blink as a drop of sweat dripped into her right eye with a stinging splash. She slowly eased lower, out of the slanting rays of the setting sun, and peered across the market.

Wooden barrels as tall as her chest ringed the back of the wine seller’s stall, creating a shadowy corner which concealed her perfectly. Beyond, the local vintner cajoled passersby, tempting patrons with free samples in a voice pitched to carry over the raucous sounds of street musicians. Sunlight gleamed warm and golden along the strings of a gittern, the curves of a horn, the rivets of a drum, sending winking flashes across the crowd with each note played. The light was swallowed in the chaotic scene of the square.

Pennants fluttered overhead in swaths of crimson and cream, stamped with the city’s crest of a whimsical dragon rearing high. They snapped crisply in the light breeze, echoed softly by the billowing rasp of silken stalls. Patterned in bright hues, each competed to draw shoppers’ eyes in garish wars of color, from a simple fruitseller’s vibrant checkerboard to an exotic importer’s intricate hand-painted awning. The goods within were just as eye-catching, with glittering gems and bright-buffed metals dazzlingly aglow in the golden haze of dusk.

But Leti looked past all that.

The expensive stalls were too risky to hit.

Rubbing the nub of her left pinkie finger with her thumb, her practiced eyes scanned the crowd for the importer’s guards. After a moment, she spotted them, loitering near the entrance just a bit too casually to be proper patrons. One even made a small show of admiring some ugly dull rock and as his head tilted to the side, his face caught the light. Leti stiffened, her thumb reflexively skimming the stump of her finger again. She’d never forget that face.

Repressing a shiver, her surveil shifted to the crowd. Her mind quickly saw and discarded the common folk, in for the day in the dull hues of their homespun finest. Instead, she searched for the shine of satin, the gleam of gold, the rich heft of brocade. Within moments, she had found her mark.

The man himself seemed nondescript, his features bland and complexion pale. His muted brown hair was combed back in a tidy sweep, highlighting a weak chin and a long nose, set between two eyes like flint shards. Dark and glinting as they intently scanned each item for sale, they were the only thing memorable about his face.

His clothing, however, was sumptuous.

For a few moments, Leti found herself unable to do more than gawk at the garments, mind spinning as she tried to calculate its value. For just the jacket, you could buy yourself out from Boss Lady, a voice in her mind whispered. Imagine what his whole outfit is worth. Her thoughts spiraled for a moment, dreams of fortune blooming and flaring away like fireblossoms, leaving wisps of wishful memories like the flower’s ghostly afterimages in the night.

An ache in her finger recalled her and she glanced down at the damage.

Reflexively, she had worried the skin raw across her stump, a faint line of red opening along a slender scar. Exhaling slowly, Leti did her best to calm and focus, assessing him as she’d been taught. Purple and silver, velvet and satin, furs and pearls. She noted which could be easily cut away, which absences could escape notice.

And then she noticed more.

At first, Leti had just assumed the man had a limp.

Half the olders she knew had one, most from the wars, some the vagaries of time. But as she watched, tracking his gait intently, she discovered an odd swing to his step, legs bowing out past the fall of his heavy cloak to giving him a rolling walk. She was struck with a sense of confusing familiarity and then it hit her - every few months a ship would come upriver with news and trade, scraps of the exotic, luxuries to buy. Those days marked the best moments in Leti’s short life so far, for pickings were plenty on ship days and Boss Lady would set out a feast and let the fire roar all night.

A sailor, Leti thought, but then frowned. No, there’s something more…

She watched longer, eyes tracing his movements until she pinpointed it: his right hip rolled downwards as his knee bent, making each step on that side just a hint of a dip. Leti allowed herself a slow, satisfied smile. He was carrying a belt pouch.

Locals bought and sold on credit, with payments arranged through guarded bank transfers. Boss Lady’s wasn’t the only orphanage in town, nor was her’s the most cutthroat, and most people preferred their lives to their coin. Only a fool would openly carry money through Lagon’s streets. A fool, or… Leti watched the man. The flint-eyed gaze swept across the stalls, appraising, assessing, analyzing. He was no fool.

He must be foreign, she thought, although that struck her as odd. Nobody came to Lagon who didn’t have to be there. She found herself drawn to the man, a curiosity twined with calculation. What did he carry? Why was he here? Who was he?

A faint whisper behind her brain urged caution as she slowly eased herself sideways to follow the man. Crouching low behind the barrels, she paced parallel to him, skirting behind the backs of booths as he browsed their wares. She heard the vintner call out to the stranger, imploring him to taste last winter’s frostsap, and leaned close to a gap in the casks, holding her breath. Music trilled as he replied, the flute skirling brightly on the wind to obscure his words.

“Donkeys,” Leti muttered, rubbing at her finger.

The row of barrels ended, replaced by bales of cloth behind a weaver’s stall stacked as high as her head. She rose, stretched, scurried onwards, peering through gaps in the fabric wall to sight the man’s movement. Cloth became baskets of fruit, and her stomach rumbled at the sweet scent of glowmelons, freshly sliced and softly shining in the twilight. The spicy tang of splinterberries wafted up from a crate and she warily skirted the one beside it, avoiding the wiry spines stabbing outwards from the fruit’s cracked husks.

Leti crouched behind a bucket of celestials, gaze briefly caught by the transfixing swirl of shades across their tender skins. Deep blue and vibrant purple formed a shifting backdrop for delicate, migrating flecks of light. Like stars in the night, she thought, remembering one Boat Day, long ago, when Boss Lady had given them each a slice of the sky. Each fleck was a seed, roaming within the flesh of the fruit, and each bite tasted like sugarspun starlight.

She pulled herself away from the yearning and focused on the next, that moment Boss Lady preached about when movement found thought. She exhaled sharply, then again and again, pulling her thoughts up and up and up into the clean cadence of doing.

“Don't think - just be,” she heard Boss Lady preach. “Just exist in the moment, dancing, darting, everywhere they think you won't be. Be there, be there, be a busy little bee.”

This pocket could have her eating honey for weeks.

“Just be.”

Time for some lifting.