A group of guards escorted Kael, Tuck, and the Soulless through the streets.
This area of the city was an absolute dump, to Kael's surprise. He'd thought of the Capitol as a clean, regal place.
But this?
The smell hit first. Not the blood or metal he was used to in the mines, but the rot. Weeks-old garbage, spoiled food, unwashed skin, and feces.
Buildings slumped like drunkards, crumbling under the weight of time and neglect.
Cracks webbed across the stone streets. Open sewers ran between the homes, steaming under the heat.
Children with sallow eyes watched from the shadows, some crouched beside makeshift fires, others clinging to alley walls like ghosts.
Kael saw a dead dog in the gutter. No one had touched it. No one cared.
"Gods," Tuck muttered under his breath. "I thought the mines were bad."
He was right. Some of these people were living worse than he had in the mines. They needed freedom just as much as anyone else.
