64th day of Winter, 509 AV
Thick clouds mottled in grey and black hung low over the seaside city. The water that lapped against the sides of ships moored in Sunberth harbor was dark, cold and sharp as steel. Icy winds had been swirling off the coast for days, and were beginning to pierce the narrow alleyways and crumbling homes of the anarchist town. The chilled airs that rushed down the streets picked up flurries of long settled snow. From the tops of drifts and banks the outer crust of snow, blackened with the filth of the city, was brushed off by Zulrav’s breath.
Feet dragged as they moved through the frozen streets, churning the snow into the dirt of the roads to create a brown slurry that sank into the seams of boots and froze around unlucky toes. Those unfortunate few who had business requiring they leave the relative warmth of their homes moved with heads tucked down against the frigid air. Fingers and hands were kept close to the body, wrapped in cloaks and crossed arms, hidden away from the pinching frost. People hurried from home to work, eager to enter warm walls and reluctant to leave again.
Those who had no homes to return to moved less. If there seemed to be some hope of respite the vagabonds of Sunberth shuffled about in the grey snow. Hands up, palms out, they offered fingers red and swollen to passersby, as if supplication might be enough return warm blood to the frozen extremities. These beggars were the lively ones; the weak were still, and crouched in culverts or behind discarded items that were large enough to break the wind. Beneath their bottoms was hard packed dirt, whose chill seeped up through the rags that covered the unfortunate skin of the homeless. Their clothing was never dry, but always soaked through with snow that had melted by leeching away a body’s warmth. The wet cloth itself seemed to open up to the blustery wind and invite Morwen’s cold to settle itself against shuddering flesh.
A young girl clutched the fraying edges of a blanket to her shoulders. She could feel the sharp edges of her shoulder bones moving against her clenched knuckles as she walked. Zulrav’s winds danced in the holes of her baggy clothes, plucking them away from her skin and running freely across her belly, neck and arms. Where he touched her, pale hairs lifted from her skin, covering her thin body in rough goose bumps. She shrugged the blanket closer, careful not to let the small loaf of bread tucked beneath her arm fall into the mucky snow that soaked her boots.
Eleanor was moving quickly away from Castle Commons, hurrying toward the small building where she lived, squatting with several other teenagers.