Renna.

Green City of Water. 

City of fire.

City of Five Winds.

Renna, the city where Fiira lay dying on a bed of fine camel hair. 

The city that knew no winter, though Fiira shivered beneath the warmest blankets that could be found. She was always cold. Far from home and left behind, she was dying. Her death was inevitable. She had lived a long life. Now, she slipped away unnoticed by the man who sat quietly beside the bed, long beard tucked against his chest. He was worn out from waiting. For full sixty years and more, he had lived and breathed solely for her. Not from love or loyalty, but for want of the strength to break his word. A simple contract, etched into his blood while he’d had no choice in the matter: serve, guard, keep. And so he had. He’d watched a sullen girl blossom into a determined woman, become a wife and mother and widow. Now, she sunk into decay.

His own, aged, countenance was as nothing next to her sunken cheeks and risen bones. Her sallow skin sagged under its own weight. Spit crept through the wrinkles on her chin and stretched in a string towards the pillow. Her hair was thinned to wisps. Greyed before its time, it had then proceeded to abandon her. She’d found dignity elsewhere, but death did not care for reputation. When he woke with a start, jerked out of his doze by gravity, the man stared tiredly before he broke the stillness with a creak of old joints to lean forward and wipe the spit away. Her last breath, he realised belatedly, had come and gone while he was sleeping. 

He sighed, finding it difficult, after so long a wait, to stand and set the wheels in motion. Promised to a stranger in a strange city, she’d died as she’d lived, yearning for her home, alone but for the Jinni coerced to care. He had never quite learned how to make that care real, but Curdle had found empathy in her lonely existence. They had reached an understanding in these later years and he’d honour her final request. She’d known what she was asking. She’d given no order, but he’d promised, and was as bound by his word now as he’d been when they were both young. Renna tradition called for her body to be cleaned and prepared by a woman, then taken to the catacombs dug into the rock beneath the city. But she had not wanted to be locked away from the light, so when the maid knocked on the door, he wouldn’t let her in and asked only for some water for their mistress. 

He cleaned her body himself, straightening her limbs and brushing her hair, dressing her in her family colours, remembering the young lady she’d been as he did. His hands were gentle, sometimes steady, sometimes not. But though emotion tugged at his mind, he had no tears for her. She had become the daughter he’d learned to forget, the wife he’d lost, the mother he’d been unable to care for. Through her, he was saying goodbye to them all. She had asked for an honour he was not sure she deserved, but he would give it to her, if only because she had asked. 

It took him the day to restore to her some semblance of her old self, before age and disease had taken their toll. When he stepped back, her eyes, left open by his own tradition, stared back at him, filmed over and dark. There should have been a line of family and friends waiting to follow him into her gaze before they let her leave this world, but her only son had not come to visit in years. Her relatives were far away, and every one of them would have objected to this charade. So, Curdle took his time settling her image into his mind, and, when he was finished, he brushed his knuckles against her cooled cheek.

One last breath before he gathered his strength and let his hand drift above her body. Beneath the skin, traceries of veins began to glow, faint then sharp, rushing deeper and spreading from her breast through her limbs until her chest collapsed and the rest followed suit. The rustle of settling cloth seemed to him like a sigh as she left her body behind, and he carefully gathered the edges of her bed sheet to collect the finer than ash left over residue in a small urn. Nondescript, it would give nothing away if someone saw him with it, which was good, the longer he could escape notice, the farther he could walk before someone realised he was missing. 

A glance out the window told him it was too late to leave now, so he called for Fiira’s dinner and ate the watered down soup himself when it arrived. Not much of a meal, but better than nothing, and all she’d had appetite for during the past few months. His cot was in an adjacent room, much less grand, though comfortable enough, but he settled back in his chair instead, in case any enterprising servants grew curious or wanted to offer some help and slept there, chin against chest, wheezing when he finally drifted off. 

It was late morning when he woke with a start to a knock at the door. This once, as he hauled himself up, he thanked Fiira’s love of privacy that meant they wouldn’t open the door unless it was an emergency. It was only her breakfast though, and he thanked the woman who’d brought it while she tutted at his sleepy befuddlement of the time. Well, he’d meant to be away earlier, but at least the market would be busy now, full of other distractions. He took the food and replaced it with the empty dinner tray before closing the door on her. He ate quickly and was still wiping at his beard to get rid of the crumbs when he left. 

No one questioned his leaving, he’d been going to the market every day for a month, but the guards around the square did ask after the lady. With the urn weighing down his bag, Curdle answered somewhat truthfully that she had grown worse and accepted their well wishes, genuine or not, with as much patience as he could muster before breaking away to wander between the stalls. In the crowds, even his horned head wasn’t worth much notice, though Jinn were not as plentiful here as in other cities, he was far from the only one. Unfortunately, that alone could not make him anonymous. He had served Fiira too long to be just another face. So now, though he was not looking to buy any of the produce being sold, he *was* looking for something specific. And beneath an awning set up to protect customers from the bright sun, he thought he might have found it.

He needed a stranger. Someone who would not wonder why the Lady Gerun’s personal Jinni wanted to leave the city. Better yet would have been a foreigner who would not think it strange that he had no wooden card giving him permission to leave. But it was expecting too much to ask for such a miracle. So he settled for watching the woman haggling prices with sellswords and tried to slip closer unobtrusively to hear if she was asking for caravan guards or for someone to watch her goods here. If she wanted them for a caravan, chances were good she would be leaving today or tomorrow. Tomorrow was no good to him. It would mean another night of risking being caught. So, he listened and he watched, trying not to make his interest too obvious.