In the Dragon's Shadow

The first time I saw the fireguards, I was only a year old.

According to my mother, I had been a squalling infant with a bald head and crying constantly. The guard had frowned at me as we stood in line with my older brother and everyone on my street, his red and gold armor flashing like liquid fire in the sunlight. He had made a tick on his scroll to mark my existence, and another guard had stepped forward to put the brand on my shoulder-MM3-and went on his way.

Mother said I screamed for days afterwards as it healed.

The second time I saw the fireguards, I'd been six. I'd started asking questions by then and had heard stories and rumors. Not from my mother, of course, but from the other girls who ran the dirty streets with me. All my mother would say was that the fireguards were doing their duty; every five years they must take a census of all the children in the kingdom. It was for our safety and the overall wellness of our people to know which women were the most beautiful, the most fit, the most likely to bear many children ... and which ones weren't. In addition, they were looking for which boys would make suitable pupils for the Seat, and which ones would be condemned to stay forever in the mud quarter. The girls deemed not good enough had to stay here for the rest of their lives, prey to the fireguards that roamed the alleys and the men who hadn't been deemed good enough either. Those men were angry and mean, and they liked to grab girls and haul them away to their huts. You had to be quick if you wanted to stay safe from them. The boys weren't much better: the teenagers who roamed the streets and took in the younger boys who'd also been kicked out of the Seat for a deficiency of some kind. Together, they formed awful gangs that bullied their way into taking what they could from others.

As we raced between the alleys and nooks of the twelve dirty streets that made up the mud quarter, the girls whispered to me about the ones lucky enough to make it out.

The girls were wives of nobles who wore jewels and ate so much that they grew fat and lazy.

The girls served the king himself, and went to sleep each night on a real bed with a warm blanket.

The girls were companions of the queen and got to travel beyond the wall.

Beyond the wall.

I lifted my eyes to the gargantuan stone and mortar barrier to my left. The wall went one hundred feet up, and was wide enough at the top to allow the fireguards to patrol at all hours. There was only a small gap above their heads before the great dome started-our enormous shield made of iron, steel, and a newer metal called dragonsbane. It was necessary to keep us safe from the dragon, of course.

"Quick, to the market. It's almost time for rations." Shava pointed ahead, easily outstripping the rest of us as the oldest girl with the longest legs. Shava was tough and kept our little gang of girls safe. I'd seen her beat boys and even a grown man bloody once for cornering another girl and trying to touch her.

Most days Shava felt like my real mother. Mothers fought for and protected their kids. They didn't hide away in a mud hut, huddled into corners. And yet, I couldn't hate my mother. I knew she was just sad. Like everyone else.

We raced under the large, faded canopies thrown up between each cramped, squashed, little hut. Rain never reached us because of the dome, but water always rose from the ground, occasionally turning the alleys into dangerous cesspits of mud and muck. It covered everyone who lived here in the dirt and grime. Clean water was only accessible from the large communal well, guarded constantly by a fireguard.

"Wait for me!" I cried out, one of the youngest out of our prowling group. If I didn't get there in time, there wouldn't be any food. Mother didn't care to get any for herself or me, so if I wanted something, I had to take it.

Mother had been sad ever since they'd taken my brother. It was up to me to care for her.

Luckily, I made it with time to spare. I was small, but I was fast.

"And what would the little flower want today?"

My favorite fireguard stood in front of the crates from the Seat, in charge of distribution for today. He was older, but he was always kind to me and called me 'flower.' It made me feel special. And he always snuck me an extra bit for my mother.

I gazed up at him hopefully, my eyes darting between the bread and fruit. Mud girls weren't allowed to talk to the fireguards. I'd seen a girl whipped for doing so before.

A gray eyebrow rose. "No meat today?" he asked quietly so that no one around us heard.

I shrugged. If I asked for meat, I wouldn't be able to get as much of the other foods. Bread filled you up the best, after all.

"One chicken, a loaf of bread, a wedge of cheese, and two pieces of fruit," he proclaimed loudly, and a younger fireguard handed them down to me, wrapped in a cloth.

I didn't wait to see the reaction of the other girls. If I didn't get going quickly I'd get mugged in the streets. This was enough to last for almost a week if my mom and I were careful! I took off running down the streets, my prizes in hand. I wished I was a boy. They were at least allowed to travel between quarters for trade and messages, or they were allowed to until they surrendered to the Seat.

That happened when they turned five. At the Seat they began their education and training, and found their purpose in service of the king and queen. Well, unless they were found unworthy. Then they were stuck in the mud quarter with no other choices than joining a gang. My mother had broken the day they'd forced my brother from her. At least, that's what the other girls had told me, and that was what their mothers had told them. I had only been two, so I had no real memory of him or that day. All I knew was that my mother was sad and nothing helped.

My brother never came back so that meant he'd been found worthy.

Whatever worthy means.

Men in the mud quarter were divided into two groups; the fireguards who fed us and protected us, and the rejected men who tried to hurt us and steal from us.

Luckily, today the bad men were far away since there were so many fireguards, and my run home was safe. I had a feast of food in my arms, but Mother didn't react when I brought it home. She never did. I tried not to let it bother me.

A week later, when the fireguards came for the census, I was angry and not speaking to Shava, who'd said the fireguards called every girl 'flower,' and that I was just another dirty mud rat like her. She said I wasn't special. When I started crying, she relented and gave me a few nuts from her store. That's how I knew she wasn't trying to be mean; she was just miserable like the rest of us.

I was angry because deep down, I knew she was right. 'Flower' was a stupid name, anyway. Why couldn't I be called a 'flame' like the boys were?

Flowers were weak and died easily. You couldn't eat them without gagging. Shava claimed the royal family had an entire garden of them up at the castle, just for looking at and smelling. It was wasteful; that was space we could use to grow crops.

...

To be continued