The days of the week lined up like buckets, ready to catch whatever fell in. Just dribbles at first, rumors and best guesses, barely enough to dampen the soles of our boots. I dipped my cup in pail after pail. I filled my head with names and my mouth with the taste of ash, until the buckets overflowed and nobody saw it but me.
They will say I caused this, that the city burns because of me and in a way, this is true. It was my hand that set the flame. But the sky was already raining metal before I made my choice, and it is raining still. There is nowhere left for the ships to land.
From my vantage high over Verdure, the city is almost beautiful. Smoke wreathes the silent fountains, igniting stone and steel and leaving trails of blue-green luminescence where water once pooled. I can hear footsteps on the stair below. I wonder if my children are safe. I wonder if they will tell me, if I ask, before they take me away.
If you liked this, you might like my Jade Dragon stories. This piece is not consecutive, and falls outside the larger story, but provides some context from another point of view…
