Ashtium: City of Sun

GRETA

After the slavemasters bring us to my god’s temple, they are made to leave. The other slaves walk away with their paired guards to be trained. I’m waiting to be assigned someone to show me out, but my god has yet to give me someone to go with.

“Why won’t you look at me, Keon?”

I don’t mean to not look at him, but I can’t see his face anymore even if I squint. The silver blur of his figure moves from the big chair and around the blazing white flames of the fire pit.

His icy hand grabs mine. He brings it to his face.

“Can you see me?” he asks.

“No.”

My god traces a cold finger down my throat until it clings onto the fabric of my tunic. He pulls it back to look down inside it.

Adler’s voice may be light, but beneath, it’s laced with something malevolent, “What has he done to you?”

“I am a man now,” I tell him firmly.

“No, little pearl-”

“You hurt those people in your wife’s new temple. I will not forgive you after witnessing your cruelty myself. You are just like your wife,” I explain with a racing heart. “That is why you hate each other. You two are exactly the same. You are not my god anymore. Enoch was right about you. I am...I am n-not your little pearl anymore either.”

He speaks in a waver, “You can be a man if you want to, Keon, but you’ll always be my little pearl, even if you decide to change into a man.”

Adler guides me away from the fire pit and to his chair. The seat is actually a lid. When he slides it open, he pulls out a head-shaped item. It smells awful as he dangles it by the hair between us.

“I killed him, but Femke doesn’t know yet,” Adler whispers. Silently, he drops Urdmin’s head back into the hidden compartment and closes it back up. A moment later, he’s seated back on top of it.

My stomach grumbles. The next thing I know, I’m peeled over wretching right in front of his feet.

Something twists inside me again. Deep below my stomach, it pulls tighter into an angry knot. It loosens causing a dark liquid to travel between my legs.

“You are oozing like a ripened baargi fruit. If you want to be a man, you mustn’t let anyone see an accident like this. You need more rags for your cycle, don’t you?”

Embarrassed, I twist my legs together with a nod.

“I know I’ve scared you, Keon. I will respect your boundaries, but you can’t do anything with your hands clamped together.”

I hurry over to him the best I can, weak and lightheaded.

He undoes a strange contraption on my wrist clamps and then pulls me onto his lap. My blood gets all over his tunic as I struggle to sit on his leg with my tunic stuck to me because of the smelly liquid. It’s awful I have to get this close to him. Surely, his clothes are going to be stained.

“I can do it myself,” I say after watching him begin to reach for the hem of my tunic. “I am not a child,” I mumble.

“I’m sorry Greta-”

“My name is Keon,” I pout.

“Keon,” he laughs. “I just want to make sure Urdmin hasn’t ruined anything...else. Is it okay if I check? I could have you sent the hospice too if you don’t want me to look.”

“Urdmin didn’t touch me there.”

“Good, that does bring me great relief. I’m sure you would have killed him yourself if he tried anyway,” he coos while tickling my neck. “Now, time to get you cleaned up. We can’t have you walking around in your own bloody tunic.”

I leap off his leg. “I’m going to the community bathing pool.”

He walks around me when I pause near the column walls inside his temple. Usually, his guards stand in the way of the entrances, but I don’t see any guards here now.

“Oh, I was thinking...” he trails off. I could walk away now if I wanted because I don’t like where this conversation is headed. Enoch has been right about Adler time and time again. There is a violent side to him. I’m not going to pretend there isn’t anymore. “You could come to my bath since you’re here already. If you’re a man now, you shouldn’t have a reason to let down such an offer. My guards are already inside the pool too.”

Even though I know I shouldn’t, I do really like his bath a lot. The water in the community pool isn’t as luxurious as his and I have a lot of icky blood on me. Agreeing, I hold onto the sleeve of his tunic so he can lead us to the hidden door in the wall of black.

He slides the stone door open. When we make it to the bathing pool, he stops by the edge.

“Go ahead in,” he encourages.

Dark shapes wade around in the bath’s center. “Who are they?” I whisper.

“My personal guards, Greta, I mean...Keon. They won’t bother you.”

Can’t he see them watching us now?

“But they can see me!” I panic.

“They need their baths too,” he explains gently while helping me out of my soiled tunic. Holding onto his arm, I step into the waist-deep area of the water. My other hand doesn’t leave the side of the pool.

“Just stay near this edge and they won’t mind you. You’ve been in the community bathhouse before. This is not much different. Will you be okay bathing on your own now?”

I nod my head rapidly. Gathering from what I can see, he intends to get his own bath too. New voices approach me when I turn around hearing the material of his own tunic hit the ground. Maybe this is too much so soon. I may want to be a man, but I am not used to being around so many of them in a private place like this.

Adler doesn’t turn them away. In the community bathing pool everyone minded their own business. Why is here any different?

The water splashes behind me when Adler jumps in creating a wave that sends me off my feet and under the warm bath water.

My breath catches feeling him grip my hips. He lifts me rapidly upward until I catch my balance.

Even though the wrap covers my chest, the water won’t hide my lower half from the eyes of these strangers as they wade around us now. Adler steps to the side and begins bathing himself while talking to his guards. They aren’t really paying attention to me at all actually as they appear to be carried away in their discussions and roughhousing.

They splash and fight just like the children in the community bathing pool.

The only difference is they seem genuinely angry at each other.

Adler moves back in front of me watching the chaos unfold in front of us. To think he and all his guards are naked. Have they no decency?

I can feel him watching me wade further away.

“They are only fooling around,” he assures me while dumping warm water over my head. “The water is going to get cold soon if you don’t wash up. Greta? Where are you going, little pearl?”

I place both hands on the bathing pool’s edge when my feet no longer reach the bottom.

“I want to be called Keon,” I remind him feeling shy. “I’m going out,” I add in a quieter voice feeling the water ripple behind me.

A warm hand grabs my naked waist. I tense up sensing my god right behind me. The heat of his body radiates onto mine making me rethink my decision to walk away from him.

“It’s a long walk to the other side. Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, thank you.”

He starts to rub my shoulders. “I’m sorry I’ve upset you. I didn’t think you would mind, but I’ve forgotten your sight has greatly improved. I suppose you didn’t know we had company during your first bath too.”

“Oh...o-oh!” I gasp feeling something pop in my right shoulder. “My sight has returned to blurs again.”

He lifts me, depriving me of the warm bath as he hauls me up and out with him.

“A shame, but we must keep trying. Don’t sound so hopeless. Are you getting sleepy? How tiny and precious you are!”

An embarrassing image flashes across my imagination at the idea of him feeding me in an intimate place like this. A pleasant fever spreads over my skin imagining Enoch in here instead of his father. Enoch massaging my tired shoulders and swimming around with me...not my distorted god.

I don’t hold back, “Why do you baby me? Please do not ask me if I want a nap. I am not tired,” I tell him feeling nervous to admit my discomfort of the idea.

But I really don’t understand why he treats me like a child. Adults like Enoch don’t talk about taking naps together or speak in baby voices like Adler does to me. Telling him I’m a man now I thought would change all that.

The ground meets my feet. Adler walks me over to the wall and hands me a tunic without a word. He puts his own on too. After I finish getting dressed, I wait in uncomfortable silence for him to finish putting his tunic on by the pool’s edge.

What was I thinking talking to him like that?

He may not be my ideal god, but no one is perfect. How would I even know what ‘perfect’ is when I’ve spent my life isolated from this city. He healed my sight so much and now I am just angry because I lost his optic lense and am blind again.

“Don’t cry. You’ve done enough of that. If you don’t want a nap you don’t need to take one,” he says lightly while sitting down on the edge of the pool beside me. He hands me a cup of dark liquid. “You don’t have to do anything if you don’t wish to. I’m just glad you’re here.”

“You are not what I thought you’d be.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Both, but there is much I don’t understand.”

A cough escapes me as I take a sip of the bitter drink. “W-what is this?”

“Urdmin’s life.”

With a shaky hand, I set the heavy cup down between us. Adler laughs and I furrow my brows.

“I’m only joking! It’s just wine, Keon. You are just too precious, but quite malicious might I dare say. You will make a good guard. Tomorrow, I’ll have you shown around their facilities.”

“I want to be Enoch’s guard! Can I?” I ask with new excitement.

Adler sips his own wine, watching the guards still wrestling each other in the water.

“You can do whatever you want, little pearl. Just tell me first so Enoch and I don’t have to worry.”

The tips of my toes tap across the water’s surface. “Do you think he’ll still like me when I look like this?” I ask with a curious smile.

“Like what?”

“A baby.”

The blur of Adler’s face turns back in my direction. He combs through the thin layer of my hair.

“I’m sure Enoch will. You are stunning,” he says carefully. His tone is so gentle it makes me cling onto every word.

My heart swells feeling full inside for once, but I avert my stare as I feel his unspoken sadness settle over me like a dark thick cloud.

I reach up and touch his face to try and get a better read of his mood.

“Someday you’ll find someone too.”

“I have come to think I am better off alone,” he explains. His hand curls around my own, bringing it onto his lap as he holds onto it.

“Alone?”

He sounds certain, “Yes.”

“You don’t want to be alone,” I whisper. “Why are you saying this?”

“Because I can’t have what I want. I’ve been stuck in a horrible relationship for just about a century and there’s nothing I can do about it. My happiness is out of the question at this point. I just want my son to be ready to take care of things when I pass.”

I grab the sleeve of his tunic in disagreement. “You are not that old yet! You need to get out of your marriage. Don’t worry about the effects. Just do it or else you’ll turn out as awful as her. Enoch will understand. He knows there’s something wrong with her.”

“But Femke-”

“You only live one life. My god, why must I be the one to tell you this? Leave her and do it quickly. What do you really have to lose? If she despises you as you say...she may even agree to separate from you.”

Adler sets down his wine.

He sounds elated, “You’re right, little pearl. She needs to go. In fact, I’m going to the palace right now to discuss this with my advisors. I’ve never felt so sure about anything. This is more exciting than our marriage day! I should have done this years ago!”

Abruptly, he jumps up and tugs me with him.