Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127026 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“Where exactly are we going?” she asked as they stalked through the shadows of the Row and toward Central.
“There’s a Red Masks meeting tonight. I only got wind of it about an hour ago. We’re notorious for short notice. The less time anyone is told about them, the less likely there’s a leak.”
We. Kerrigan sometimes forgot that Valia was a Red Mask. She had been her friend first. If innocent little Valia could be one of them, then anyone could.
“You don’t think it will be suspicious that you’re bringing me?”
“We won’t go in together. I’ll report to the Father.”
Kerrigan shivered. Valia was a daughter to the Father of the Red Masks. Just like Isa, another one of his assassins that he’d sent to kill her. Isa hadn’t decided to pardon her. She just had never gotten lucky enough to finish the job.
“Okay. How big is this meeting? Because I am rather recognizable. If anyone makes me take my hood down …”
“The last one I went to had a few hundred Fae,” she said, casually upturning Kerrigan’s life.
“A few hundred?”
Valia frowned. “Minimum.”
“So many.”
“Not everyone is doing as well as those Fae on the Row. They might not be in the Dregs, like humans and half-Fae, but they feel as if they deserve more than they are getting. They idolize those on top and punch down to those on the bottom because that is what they are most afraid of.” Valia sighed heavily. “They might look like a group of hardened killers, but they’re not. They’ve been told that they are exceptional and if they work hard enough, then they can have the dream of the rich. When they don’t achieve what is nearly impossible to achieve, then they look for someone to blame.”
“And it’s easier to blame us than to look at themselves,” Kerrigan said.
Valia nodded. “Or the system that created these divides between us. It might look like an accident that half-Fae and humans are put at the bottom of the system and treated this way, but the system is working the way it was designed.”
“That’s depressing.”
“I’ve been doing research in the library about the foundations of the Society. Humans were in Alandria first. They were in this valley before the Fae ever arrived, before Irena ever made her bargain to partner with the dragons, before all of it. They slaughtered most of the humans and enslaved the rest. When Fae and humans began to interbreed, the half-Fae were seen as chattel. Any drop of human in them was a mark against them. And the Guard,” she said with distaste, “began as human and half-Fae slave traffickers. They were never there to protect all the people. Just the Fae.”
“And the records say this? If it’s all readily available, then why doesn’t anyone believe me when I speak out?”
“No one wants to look at themselves, Kerrigan. No one wants to do any work or see how they’re part of the problem. They’re too busy claiming not to be prejudice against anyone to see that they already are.”
It was a sobering thought. An upward battle that made Kerrigan feel like the tiniest cog in the machine. Clearing out one problem was going to cascade a whole new world of them. This would be her life’s work—to correct even an ounce of the pain done upon those the Fae deemed lesser.
“One step at a time,” Valia said, touching her shoulder. “It took a deep dive into the mountain for me to realize that I was a product of what the Father had made me. But I can be so much more and do so much better. You taught me that. And it all starts with one person.”
It would be so easy to get bogged down in the immensity of what she was trying to accomplish. But Valia was right. One person at a time. If Valia could turn, then anyone could.
“This way,” Valia said as they headed north out of the main body of Central and toward the Dregs.
Kinkadia was divided into six main districts with Draco Mountain and the Row along the eastern bowl of the valley. Central made up the majority of the center of the bowl, including the Square and much of the commerce. Directly south of Central was Artisan Village with its little Painter’s Row, the Opera house, local bookstores, and Parris’ dress shop. Along the South River was Riverfront, a wealthy district full of people who couldn’t afford property on the Row. And the rest of Kinkadia, nearly everything to the west and north, was the Dregs, where humans and half-Fae lived like ants.
Kerrigan couldn’t imagine the Red Masks having a presence in the Dregs. That was the wrong clientele for their propaganda. But they stopped right before they reached the unofficial dividing line. A large huddle of people stood before the entrance to a ballroom in a mismatch of workers’ attire and cloaks. Kerrigan didn’t see a single person in nice clothing. She understood why Valia had given her a plain cloak.