By the time Meya had hoisted her aching buttocks up to the topmost terrace of the Falls, earlier climbers had already formed two loose, ragged circles around the glinting chough statue, chemises and undershirts of all states of use and disuse fluttering gingerly in the hushed murmurs and light breeze.

Meya's feet gravitated to the magnetic pull of the crowd. She then spotted a shock of curly black hair peeking out at the fringes, over to the right. Tightening her grip on Lady Agnes's hand, she tiptoed behind the line of onlookers along the brink of the terrace.

As she approached, she recognized little Lord Frenix and Lady Amara in their colorful masks, and Lady Heloise. Like the rest of the gathering, their eyes were fixed upon the chough statue. Its head was partially obscured by the tousled hair of the tallest men. Its polished jet facets flashed fiercely back at the high noon sunshine. The jewel in its beak glowed warmly in a familiar acid-green.

Despite—or perhaps because of—the foreboding feeling stirring in the back of her mind, Meya didn't linger. She glanced between the similarly transfixed Frenix and Heloise, amused.

"Haven't you said you'd race to the top and down, your graces?"

Amara whipped around and acknowledged her for about as long as it took to blink; before Meya could trap her in conversation, she turned back to the statue, her plump wee fingers twisting deeper into the linen of Heloise's chemise.

Frantic whispers slithered back and forth between supposed strangers. Horror and disgust gushed through the metal grille over their mouths, unhindered even by their various Latakian accents.

"Whose is tha'?"

"What in ze zree lands are zey zinking?"

"Horrid taste of decor!"

"Musta been fairly recent. Dun recall seein' nuthin' last year."

As Meya scanned the crowd, trying to pinpoint the source of each piece of gossip, a shadow swooped over the terrace from a cloud that had drifted before the sun. Agnes snatched her arm, gripping so tightly she felt her blood,

"Oh, Goodly Freda! The beak! In the beak!" She gasped, jabbing a trembling finger at the statue. Meya peered up at the troublesome sculpture once more, and this time, the sight knocked her knees from beneath her like a whack from a blacksmith's hammer.

The sun's blinding white glare had been blotted out, revealing a metallic sphere rippling with rainbow shimmers and marked with intricate carvings. At the front face of the ball was a sliver of white, almond-shaped sclera. And, in the center, a ring of glowing green iris, with a heart of shiny black nothingness.

For the briefest second, Meya thought she was staring at her own eye.

There was no mistaking it. That was a Greeneye's eye—a dragon's eye. Taken from a Greeneye. Dead or alive, she didn't know. By force or willing, she was sure it was the former. Simply to be slotted into a statue, like a fallen enemy's head on display.

Fury, grief and humiliation bled from Meya's heart into her pumping blood, diffusing like poison into her limbs, inundating the tips of her digits, sending them trembling with burning agony.

It spread into her stomach and invaded her skull, and the nausea she had tried to temper surged. Her knees buckled. Her feet faltered under the weight of her head. As the lone eye bore into hers, shock numbed her other senses. She could barely feel Agnes's hands on her arms, keeping her from plummeting down to the rocks below.

"Tis a gum farmer's boy, guardsman here's sayin'."

Through the ringing buzz in her ears, she heard a man nearby offering his two latts to the pool of unverified folk wisdom. As dozens of faces snapped around to his, the tourist jerked his head towards a burly man a little way away. Judging from the light brown skin around his mouth, he was a Jaisian local. Instead of a chemise, he concealed himself in the signature black Jaise cloak. A pained sigh funneled through the metal grille of his mask. He shook his head.

"Poor boy. His rotten father lost big at the gamble-house. Owed the Falls' landlord all his worth, so he pawned off his son's eye to wriggle out."

Several gasps rented the air from middle-aged women. A petite Aquarian woman with olive skin and straight black hair in a pinned bun raised a shaking fist.

"We've never much cared for Greeneyes back where I came from, but this is outrageous!" She cried in protest, "I wouldn't sell the smallest toe of my girls, no conditions! I say that father goes straight to the Lake!"

A chorus of murmurs and nods rose up in agreement across the terrace. Then came a challenge,

"Aw, my dear woman. Take it easy on yer poor heart." The elderly man lowered the brush-broom he had been scrubbing the chough statue with, and leaned his veined, knobby arm upon its handle. He met the southern woman's taut lips with a sagging grin and a dismissive flap of his hand.

"The boy still has one eye left. He can see fine. Didn't hurt when they took it out of him neither. Popped straight out with nary a drop of blood or tear. I was there when they did it. That socket is pure silver metal, lady!"

"But still, putting it on show? Where's the decorum? How do you expect us to bathe with that staring down at us?"

Another woman—a blonde westerner, objected, jabbing a pudgy finger at the eye. Hearty laughter and a handclap exploded from the other end of the crowd from a heavy-set Jaisian woman with copious locks of shiny black hair flowing to her knees.

"Agh, outsiders. There's a lucky charm, ain't it? Our glassblowers and blacksmiths wear them around their necks. Protect them from burns, see. Hang one from your doorframe, and not a tongue of fire will ever cross over the threshold."

"Oh, for Goodly Freda's sake. You're on a waterfall. What d'you need charms against fire for?" A pale, hulking Icemeet man called out,

"Well, of course, there's more than that." The old statue-cleaner interjected again, and all eyes swiveled back to him—except for the one on the statue, of course. Though Meya fervently hoped it would, if only to relieve these foul Jaisians of some of their cocky cheer.

The man's grin could only seem to stretch wider; he was relishing the attention folk of his station rarely enjoy from the affluent tourists—at the expense of Greeneyes like Meya,

"You westerners and southerners and northerners bury your dead, don't you? Well, in the middle and the east, we burn them, see. Dun have that much land to spare. And those Greeneyes when they die, you should've seen the pyres..."

The old man leaned forth, and the enthralled tourists mirrored him. Meya resisted the urge. From the way her brain was oscillating around in her skull, she felt sure she would spill her guts on the redhead in front if she did.

"Takes a lot to properly burn a Greeneye. First, the undertaker has to bleed them out. Their blood will put out the fire, see. Curst hard to set alight. Fetch good gold in the market, though. Best fireproof paint ever. But once you got the flame going, it's bright green like their eyes. And when the fire dies, that's when the crowd rushes in."

"For what?" A young man blurted out, breathless as Coris after staggering up the Keep stairs to his room. The old man threw his head back and cackled,

"The bones and the eyes, of course!" Meya felt Agnes's fingernails digging deeper into her flesh, and heard her frantic hisses of "Meya!", and realized she must have staggered another step closer to the edge. Her head was swirling so badly, the old man's foul voice was a mere tinny echo in her ears by now,

"Their bones are metal, lad! And those eyes, they never burn. They never dim. They never rot. For hundreds and hundreds of years! The smart Greeneyes? They'd tell their children to pluck out their eyes first. Else the undertaker might keep them for himself!"

The astounding revelations barreled towards Meya, dealing a staggering blow to her battered heart one after another. Perhaps, if all these had been unearthed by a fellow Greeneye, or a sympathetic ally, with Meya to witness it firsthand, it would have come as less of a shock, or even become a source of wonder and delight.

But here, delivered callously for fleeting entertainment. To learn that the flesh, blood and bone of her kind were mere resources to be harvested. Lucky charms. Fireproof polish. Metal to feed furnaces. How long had this monstrosity been going on in this town? And the whole of Latakia? Would she be walking into the glowing eyes of her brethren mounted on an arch over a doorway in Safyre? or on her way to Easthaven, too?

"And those desert men. The obsidian and Borax pickers, they go trekking far out into the Sands, and they find glowing green eyeballs all the time. Buried under the rubble of the scree. Rolling about the dry lake bed. Shining bright as when them beasts were alive. They're magic, they are. You give those eyeballs to the blind, they can even see again!"

"Now that's a heap of horse dung."

"It ain't! Even the Lady Jaise loves them. Them desert men give Her Grace a new pair every year. Paid for their concession, it did."

Lady Jaise.

The word chilled Meya to the bone. Lady Jaise. The Winter's Joy. The woman ruler she had assumed to be just and compassionate. An avid collector of dragon eyes. And Coris was at this very moment having an amicable audience with her.

It was far beyond what she could stomach. Meya tore through the crowd towards the pine woods behind the statue, barely registering the bewildered stares and angry protests of those she had left behind or batted aside.

The solid brown of a tree trunk hurtled towards her. She slammed the flat of her hand against it. The feel of its jagged surface carving welts into her palm was a grounding sensation. The sour tang of acid mingled with the bitterness of bile as her lunch squeezed itself out of her belly, then poured out of her mouth onto the moist soil at her unsteady feet.

A sharp stab of pain, like her head was splitting in half, sped up her face. Meya flipped around then slumped heavily against the tree, shaking feet scrabbling at loose earth and fallen leaves to keep herself standing.

"Meya!"

Agnes's scream pierced through her ear to join the turmoil in her head. Meya groaned as she flapped a feeble hand to ward off her concerns.

"I'm fine, Haselle, I'm fine. Don't bother." She panted, eyes still closed. The mere effort it took to speak sent her head spiraling once more. She gritted her teeth and pressed down on her lunch—whatever was left of it, keeping it where it belonged.

Heloise's flowery perfume flooded her nose as the lady reached around her head and extracted her mask, then took off her Lattis medallion. Gusts of chilling wind lambasted her cheeks; someone was fanning her with what she guessed was a hat.

A bottle of salmiac hovered under her nose, like a honeybee drunk on fresh nectar. Hands fussed about her, throwing her braid off to the back, tugging at the collar of her chemise, lowering her down against another tree.

Having been an elder sister ever since she could remember, and impregnable to the runs and fevers her human siblings occasionally came down with, Meya rarely enjoyed this kind of mothering. Even as a babe, she wasn't nursed. On any normal day, the tender attention would have greatly touched her. But now, the burden on her oversensitive nerves only added to her misery.

"I'm fine. Just leave me be for a moment. I need air." She grumbled, swatting blindly at the hustle and bustle around her, and they obligingly provided her space to breathe. She heard rustling; someone had slumped onto the ground beside her. Judging from size and body heat, it was Lord Frenix.

"You may be, but I'm not." The young lord retorted, not to be fooled. His voice sounded further then, directed to the others spread out before them,

"So, what next? We'll go down for a hot bath and leave that eye there?" He challenged, his voice harsh. Meya felt his tremors waving the hairs on her bare arm. He turned to the only other Greeneye in the party, "Eh, Lo?"

Frenix's call echoed away into silence. Having achieved some order in her head, Meya creaked open her eyes.

Lady Heloise's mask dangled from her neck. Her downcast, ashen face thrown in shadow by the meager sunlight trickling through the close-knitted pine needle canopy. She held her hat at her lap, her fingers twisting its wide brim until her knuckles shone bone white. Her beautiful countenance, so similar to Lady Agnes's, was wracked with anguish.

"We—we can't be rash, Frenix." She strangled out soothingly, placatingly, even as her voice shook. Frenix bristled. Flinching, she soldiered on,

"We don't know the laws of this land, or how much influence the landlord has—the Pearly Falls is a significant source of income for Jaise. And we're here as Lord Hadrian's retinue. Whatever trouble we cause goes right back to Coris."

Frenix turned pointedly and spat on the ground near him, sending Amara scurrying to hide behind Agnes's legs. Young Lord Pearlwater sprang up to this feet, fists balled at his sides.

"You're pathetic, Lo." He seethed through teeth tightly clenched as his hands, then yelled, "Always! The boldest and loudest of the pack. Always! Except when it counts!"

Heloise faltered, cheeks blanching, then flushing with shame and ire. Meya could only watch dumbly; too shocked by the happy-go-lucky Frenix's outburst to be annoyed with Heloise, and too drained to join in. Amara curled into a ball behind Agnes, who seemed dangerously close to screeching out in frustration, torn between stepping in to shield Heloise and keeping her cover intact.

"All we need to do—" Frenix prowled the no man's land between them, waving his arms wildly as he acted out his scheme, "—is pluck it out when no-one's looking, and swap it with some glass orb. We'd be halfway through the Sands by the time they noticed. And even then, they'd be none the wiser who did it anyway."

"And what next?" Heloise retorted, a mocking sneer twisting her lips. She hadn't taken off her Lattis bracelet, yet her emerald eyes glinted malevolently. Frenix froze, blinking profusely as Heloise loomed tall and dark over his faltering stand.

"We don't know who to return it to. And we can't ask around either or it'll look suspicious. Worse case scenario? The landlord would suspect the boy's father and go after him! Who's the pathetic one, now, eh, Frenix?"

Heloise hissed, low and threatening as a serpent's growl, her nose an inch from Frenix's. The boy chomped on his lower lip to vent his frustration. As much as it galled her, Meya had to admit Heloise was right. There was not going to be a simple way out of this.

Meya peered through the trees. The old man with the broom was still posing by the statue, chatting animatedly. More spectators summitted the Falls and coagulated around him, plugging up the gaps where disenchanted listeners had vacated, as she watched and seethed in helplessness. She'd dealt with Nostran dragons, for Freda's sake! Wasn't there anything she could do for that poor one-eyed boy?

Sensing the charges in the air had dissipated, Lady Amara edged out from behind her human shield. Still gripping Agnes's dress, she glanced warily between the three Greeneyes,

"C-C-Can't we just b-buy it from the landlord? H-H-How much would it be?" She stammered.

Of course! It was the most obvious solution ever. How had she not thought of it?

Her languid legs rejuvenated by a sudden influx of heated blood, Meya propelled herself to her feet. Agnes and Heloise reached out, as if expecting her to sway and fall, but Meya only had eyes for the little Lady Hyacinth.

"You're right, Lady Amara." She gave the small girl a taut smile, then glared at Heloise and Agnes, "I'm Lady Hadrian. I could write him a bill under Coris's name. I don't care how much that debt is. I'll give up my whole allowance if I have to."

She snatched her mask and Lattis medallion from Agnes's slack hand, and strode off towards open terrain. Sure enough, harried footsteps pounded the ground after her.

"Meya!" A hand snatched her sleeve. It was Lady Agnes. Meya didn't slow, but the lady didn't retreat, either.

"Meya, wait—Meya!"

"Let go, Haselle." Meya spared a breath for an icy warning. One whiff of that look and that voice, and her brothers would have known her well enough to back off. But Agnes wasn't yet acquainted enough to be cowed.

"You just need—to calm—down!"

She cut across Meya then pinned her against a tree. Meya heard Heloise and the two kids coming to a halt around them, but it seemed Agnes couldn't care less. She tugged off her mask, revealing her mangled left half. Amara let out a squeal as Frenix hurriedly shushed her. Heloise, however, was gaping at Agnes's good eye, now flaring and locked with Meya's in a battle of wills.

Meya gazed deep into that mesmerizing ocean-blue, and felt the raging world around her settling into serenity. Agnes's gaze exuded the same calming influence as Coris's. It compelled her to pause, listen and contemplate.

"If a usurer is willing to throw away the gold he is owed for something, it must hold considerable value for him. Commercial or sentimental—we don't know." Agnes shook her head, her voice level yet willful, her grip tightening,

"Depending on how you approach him, he could call for a much higher price or trick you into a contract you can't get out of. This man isn't like Gillian. It's already clear he has no principle, qualm nor scruple. He has an eye for weakness, and he would try to wheedle as much gold out of you as he could. You mustn't lose your composure. You must be careful."

Agnes shook her arms, whispers becoming hisses. Tamping down a sudden wave of fear, Meya pursed her lips and gave a jerking nod. Agnes's lone eye lingered, searching her face for signs of recklessness. Satisfied, she finally let go and moved back.

"There's also the boy's father." Heloise's quiet voice interjected, "If we return the boy's eye to him, how could we be sure his father wouldn't just pawn it off to fund his gambling habits again?"

That was the underlying issue they were well aware of in the back of their minds. How to give the boy back his eye, and protect him from his own father? They needed a permanent solve, as they wouldn't be here to bail his eye out every time his father fell short on gold.

Meya propped her arms on her hips and paced, admiring the pine needle-strewn ground as she plodded to and fro. Though immersed in her thoughts, she felt the three-and-a-half pairs of eyes keeping vigil, searching her face, hoping for a glow of sudden inspiration. Their trust was a warm balm of dawning sun on her shoulders. The skeleton of a scheme assembled in her head.

Meya spun around to Lord Pearlwater. Frenix had never bothered with Lattis, and his green eyes glowed, unapologetic, as he earnestly awaited her command.

"Lord Frenix, are you sure you could pull off the swap?"

Frenix's complexion lit up as if hit by sunlight. He smirked, restless with anticipation.

"I have an idea for a distraction. All I need is a marble and some paint."

Meya forced out a smile, even as beads of sweat oozed out in her jittery hands at the thought of the reckless, elaborate scheme she was about to set in motion—and how poor Coris would react.

"You wouldn't be needing those."

⏳