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With a flick of a golden pen, Fabulosa carried out her capital punishment, signing overtop the documents, cutting out Mestibes and inking in Ondocis.
Swish.
Swish.
Swish.
Each swipe was a cut to Teigra’s throat. This couldn’t be happening. Not her... Gods above! Of all the people!
Not her!
The fire that had sustained her these last few hours was extinguished entirely, a cold pail of water sizzling over now darkened coals.
Everything was gone.
All her hopes.
All her dreams.
And the one person she thought might be different...
Fabulosa turned like the world was moving at quarter speed. There was no remorse in her eyes, no apology on her lips. Instead, her first reaction on realizing that she’d been overheard was to smile.
“Well, well. Look who we have here!”
Teigra didn’t have a chance to respond over the screams and curses—led first by the powerful and influential Gyges, then followed closely behind by the other stallholders. And through it all was the face of Fabulosa, who walked right up to her with that same, nasty little smile.
She leaned in as she passed. “No hard feelings, dear. It’s just business, after all.”
The pain came from nowhere.
The smack knocked her to the ground, dazing her into a world of stars. Dragging herself to all fours, she looked over at the apple, half disintegrated on the ground beside her.
“Scum!” said Sara Arit, the apple seller, grabbing another fist-sized fruit and lining up her next shot. “You got some nerve showing your face here!”
On cue, the rest of the barrage came—oranges and pears, olives and nuts, smashing over her in wet smacks and awful scrapes.
Teigra picked herself up from the mud, slipping on the food underfoot, and ran.
Just when she thought she was away, the other apple smacked right into the back of her head, sending her crashing into a table of yogurt, the thick goo pouring over her hair and face.
Tears streaming, she dragged herself up again, scooping the muck from her eyes and sprinting through the crowd, past shoppers and horses and stalls. It wasn’t until she finally reached the docks, alongside the long row of ships, that she realized no one was chasing her.
She could barely breathe. Everything felt distant.
Failing to fight back tears, she kneeled before the salty water, doing her best to remove the worst of the filth. Her hair was stuck fast to her head. Her clothing was a mess of stains and congealed stickiness.
She kept rinsing long after the last of the goat’s milk slime had washed away. The now cloudy water below reflected the pathetic, broken body of the girl who had failed everything and everyone.
For there wasn’t anyone left in all the world now that cared for her.
She had no one.
Not a single person.
After a long time, she set to walking. There was no direction. She didn’t have anywhere to go. She knew this with a heaviness that would have brought her to tears, if she had any left to cry.
She didn’t have a home anymore.
