5. Towers

~Quinx~

It was around noon, when the sun’s glare was sharp and the markets were at their peak. Crowds of people—tens of hundreds—had gathered in the most famous city in Sylvalore: Arcane. Parades marched proudly along the streets as sellers advertised their goods with enthusiasm.

Stalls filled the city from the farthest corners to the center, and despite the overall mood of excitement, angry yells occasionally cut through the usual hum of the crowd.

“Damn you, Ghostfoot! Get her!” a shopkeeper screamed, just as a wild-haired girl tumbled out from under a table. She slipped on her sandals and took off running.

Her skin was tanned, but as she sprinted away, it grew paler. Her long brown hair shortened and darkened, and her orangey eyes shifted to a cold blue. The streets were still crowded. “Hopefully no one saw where I ran off to…” she mumbled, inwardly praising herself for the disguise.

More screams echoed from the direction she’d fled, and she whispered a silent prayer under her breath.

She glanced back, eyes scanning from head to head.

Then her gaze rose—and she froze.

She looked around, unsure if she was seeing things. But everyone else had either stopped cold or was visibly shaking.

From the top of a five-story tower—one of the most well-known noble towers in all of Arcane—a boy leapt from a window. 

He wore a cape and expensive pajamas.

Quinx started shake herself. This one only something she's read in her fictious scrolls. 

And in every scroll, it all ended the same way.