I've been writing this story when I need a break from working on Love at First Gear and have finally passed the 50,000 mark on this one. I intend to keep going and write at least 50-100k more, but thought I'd like to see what people think of this story before I continue. - Ava
ONE - Hanna
I'll never forget the day we found out the fae were real. I was still too young to understand some of the things that would come later, but I, like everyone else, was caught off guard by the realities of living alongside them.
They had always known about us, of course, but we only knew them from stories and legends. When news first began to spread about contact we anticipated the Seelie court in their finery, with their dancing and enchanted food. But it wasn't the Seelie court who reached out to us.
When they invaded the city we heard it was monsters from the forest at first, golems of stone, living trees, creatures like werewolves and banshees that screamed ceaselessly for weeks. Our peaceful city, fraught with class struggles though it may have been, became a Hell on Earth. The cobblestones, once the light sandy color of the desert they were quarried in, were now stained with blood, the tracks of war indelibly pressed into the streets and walls of our once-vibrant city.
We couldn't escape them. With magick they unlocked every door, burned homes, smoked us out of underground shelters, detected us wherever we tried to hide. Some of us were killed, some captured, but the city quickly fell to the invaders. Our army wasn't prepared to fight things they couldn't see. There was no way to match sword against magick. The few soldiers who could actually see their magick, see them for what they really were, were conscripted for their half-fae blood. Their families never heard from them again.
The conflict never reached the steps of the Dyers' District, where my family lived. Our city government collapsed under the strain and with no army to defend us we weren't prepared to put up any kind of a fight. The fae installed a governor of their choice and overnight the laws of our city had changed.
Life went on in the Dyers' District. Both of my parents were dyers, and my elder brothers followed in their footsteps. I showed promise in making designs and found myself apprenticed to a master cartographer in the military quarter. I was still considered a child then at 16 years of age, and I looked like a child too, so I proceeded unbothered on my daily commute from the Dyers' District to the military quarter. It was a long walk but I knew that becoming a cartographer would lift me out of the working class, and I would have a considerably easier life than my parents had been able to eke out among the vats of turmeric and indigo-colored dye.
The conflict was over by the time I started my apprenticeship and although the city bore the marks of her invasion everything else was routine. I assumed the Unseelie had invaded us in search of resources or land, something they'd run out of. I didn't understand what was happening around me until a fae officer entered the cartographer's office on a clear summer morning one year into my apprenticeship.
"There is a girl that works here, yes?" he asked the master cartographer, who nodded and gestured to me. The officer approached me at my desk, and I stood to bow, but he ignored me as he fumbled in a satchel at his hip. With some effort he finally produced a handful of different colored ribbons and a long pin. "What district do you live in?" he barked. "The Dyers' District," I answered, slightly shaken. The officer looked to my master for confirmation, and he nodded solemnly. With a shrug, the officer skewered an embroidered purple ribbon on the pin first. Even he knew I was working out of my class for a girl from the dye vats. He next asked, "how old are you?"
My eyes darted to my master for some sort of explanation, but he only nodded to indicate I must answer.
"Seventeen," I said, quietly.
"Hmm," the officer said thoughtfully as he skewered a black ribbon on the pin next, followed by a sage green ribbon. "You must wear this every day. Where is your coat?" he demanded, and I lifted it from my chair. "Put it on, hurry up," he barked, and I scrambled to put it on as quickly as I could. Without warning he snatched the lapel of my coat and pulled me closer to him, then roughly skewered the pin through the lapel and fastened it in place.
"What is it for?" I asked in confusion, trying to maintain my balance as he tugged on my outerwear.
"It's so we know who you are at a glance. You live in the Dyers' District," he stabbed his finger painfully into my chest as he pointed at the ribbon embroidered with the dyers' guild's talisman, "you work in the military district," he stabbed at the green one now, grinning as I winced, "and this one," he dug his finger painfully into the black ribbon, "means you're underage."
"Underage?" I asked, my voice barely more than a squeak.
"Yeah, so you can't be conscripted, or fucked. Yet." His grin widened at my obvious discomfort. Suddenly he turned on his heel and marched out of the office without another word. My master and I stood in stunned silence, although he knew it was coming, and I did not.
I spent the next year memorizing tunnels and other hidden ways to get around the city. I learned to get around using the rooftops and other structures the soldiers often didn't bother with now that the war was definitely settled business. I stayed in the shadows and my daily goal was to walk to work without anyone noticing me. I think I got pretty good at it, too. Most days no one even looked my direction. I dressed plainly and hid my long hair beneath a cap. In the past I had wished I looked more feminine, but my short stature and plain clothing helped me to look more like a young boy, and I embraced it now. It was my camouflage.
The day I turned 18 another officer came to the cartographer's office. I had wondered when it would happen, or how. Would I have to report somewhere voluntarily and get my new pin? What if I didn't - would I get in trouble then? He spoke to the master for a few minutes before I overheard my name.
"...an apprentice named Hanna..."
My blood ran cold, but I stood and walked around the corner, standing on the edge of the platform where my little corner of the cartographer's office started.
"Here, sir," I said, as calmly as I could.
Instead of grabbing me and yanking on my coat like the last officer had, he motioned with one finger for me to approach. I brought my coat, I knew what he was there for and there was no point in annoying him by taking too long. I put the coat on and stood facing him.
"Remove your pin," he said, to my surprise. I had expected him to unfasten it from my coat just as the last officer had fastened it himself. I removed it and presented it to him and watched as he removed the green and black ribbon, then skewered a white ribbon and the green one back on it, pocketing the black ribbon before handing me my altered pin.
"You're of conscription and marriage age. Congratulations, and happy birthday."
He bowed to me and my master both, then left the office. My master exhaled sharply as soon as the door closed behind the officer.
"At least he was more polite than the brute that showed up last time," he plopped into his chair heavily and suddenly looked very, very old. Had Shadeem always been so wrinkled and tired-looking? Or had the last few years taken more from him than I had realized?
"Well," Shadeem continued, "one more year and you'll be a cartographer. You must stay hidden, like we talked about. Wear a scarf or something, cover that pin." He leaned back and lifted his feet onto a small ottoman upholstered with a piece of silk that probably cost more than my family's home. "You are almost there, Hanna, and I cannot lose you now." He groaned as he leaned over and poured some water into the crystal glass that always rested on his desk. "I can't start all over training a new apprentice, I want to retire soon."
I barely heard his words. My legs were shaking as the adrenaline left my system, and I collapsed onto the edge of the platform, hitting it with my butt first and then flopping over onto my back, arms outstretched on the luxurious carpet that I walked on every day. It probably cost more than my house
and
the house next door, together. I don't know what I expected. For the officer to change my ribbon and then bend me over the master's desk? Or conscript me to draw maps for the fae warriors - maybe both?
"What if they conscript me?" my voice was barely more than a whisper.
Shadeem laughed. "They won't conscript you. You might be talented but you are still just a woman to them. They don't have enough women, you know that's what this was all about. They aren't going to send one to the frontlines of whatever war they're waging somewhere else." He chuckled a little more. "No, Hanna dear, one more year and you'll get this office and your artisan pin. You must stay hidden," he trailed off now as he started to repeat himself and sipped loudly on his water.
"Let's see," he said as I collected myself from the floor, "nearly three in the afternoon, I think that's enough for me. You stay a few hours longer and work on that cistern map the city ordered. Yes, that would be good."
I made myself comfortable behind my desk as he cleaned off his desk and collected his belongings. I bade him good afternoon and he left, locking the door to the cartographer's office behind him. At least in there I was safe. As the days grew shorter I would have an easier time getting home in the darkness, and I was tempted to stay late enough that night would aid my commute. Even though I knew the day would come that I would lose my black ribbon of protection I suddenly felt like I had a target on my back, and all of my clandestine practices bore new weight.
I worked on my own orders for an hour or so, then went to his desk and collected the cistern map. My master's work had started to decline, but I would clean it up every evening and say nothing. His hands had begun to shake and the straight lines he could freehand when I first took up my post were now jagged and ran at odd angles. I enjoyed my work and easily lost myself in it, and didn't notice the growing darkness until I could barely see the desk in front of me.
Looking up through the wall of windows along the back of our office I saw the crescent moon rising over the rooftops of the nearby military offices. It gave a little shine to the waxed tents that housed the majority of our invaders, although I couldn't see much more than the tops of the tents between the olive bushes and pomegranate trees that filled the little courtyard behind the cartographer's office. The cartographer's office was a beautiful oasis in the military quarter, which was otherwise filled with cold stone buildings, carts laden with supplies, and various other implements of war.
Shadeem had been kind enough to allow me to collect plants, and now I tipped out the rest of his drinking water into their little saucers, pulling loose a dead leaf and squashing bugs as I made my way down the row of little pots beneath the windows. I returned his beloved decanter to his desk and put on my coat, carefully wound my hair into my cap, and then slung my bag over my shoulder, covering the ribbons with the strap of my bag as I did so. I would get in a lot of trouble if I was ever caught hiding the ribbons, so I couldn't allow myself to be caught.
I tried to take a slightly different route each day, and this night I took one of my favorites. I passed through a darkened alley, then climbed up a forgotten ladder against a garden wall. I ran along the top of the wall, the scent of oleander bushes filling my nostrils and clinging to my clothes before I dropped into another alley. Zigging and zagging through the city I made my way to the Dyers' District, stopping at a market stall and purchasing a kebab with some of the small daily stipend I received for my work as an apprentice. I stood in a darkened niche behind the stall and ate my kebab in silence, then ran on, the scents of rose and nettle dye baths welcoming me home.
