This can’t be real.
I scramble to my feet and run for my life.
It’s much too literal, my legs pumping as hard as they can, and I can’t bear looking behind me, for fear of seeing him prowling after me. I expect him to follow but I at least need to try.
Then I see it—a small opening in the maze.
My laugh is crazed. I don’t dare slow down.
He let me go.
He let me go.
I repeat the words over and over again as I run and run and run, successfully escaping my fate.
1
VEIL
One Month Later
I’ve been waiting for over an hour for the proper mark. My stomach is growling, tight with hunger, but I don’t dare leave my spot. Tucked into the mouth of a small alleyway, I have the perfect vantage point to study the outside market.
It’s late afternoon, and the area is bustling with people, the kiosks bursting with bright colors and titillating flavors.
The market only opens on weekends, and I’ve been waiting all week for the chance to snatch some unlucky elite’s wallet. No one else from the city can afford to shop here anyhow. Luxurious furs, garish jewels, and mouthwatering food that I myself could only ever imagine purchasing.
I would leave this city if I godsdamned could.
It was the first thing I tried to do after the night of the Feast of Fools. But I realized very quickly that I was unable to.
Physically, I couldn’t escape, as if something was keeping me bound to the city of Pravitia. Try as I might, I could neverreach the city borders. Streets would become endless, or I would find myself walking in circles. The city limits no longer existed. I could never pierce whatever—force?—keeping me locked inside.
When my fate finally dawned on me, just as comforting as cellophane wrapped tightly around my face, I nearly went into a catatonic state.
I might have escaped the maze, but I was imprisoned nonetheless. Since then, I’ve wondered if the force keeping me here is the same one that pulled me to Pravitia in the first place.
My gaze continues to sweep the market, the crowd of oblivious upper crust taking leisurely strolls from one kiosk to the next, enjoying the rarity of a sunny winter day.
I’m growing impatient, chewing on the inside of my cheek as I track them one by one, my simmering repulsion for them burning incessantly inside of me.
I hate them.
I hate them all.
The ruling families especially.
Even though I’m rather new to the city, the social order of Pravitia is all too familiar to me.
The city I left behind was disturbingly similar.
Ruling families.
Gods.
The mad elite.
Although I don’t recall anything as ruthless as the maze hunt. Then again, I never had thepleasureof being as close to the inner circle as I was that night.
