Chapter 16. The Grits

The Grits

Year of the Lilies

Torrid Season

Unknown Place

Altsas

Isla 

I WAKE UP ON THE MAT I WAS GIVEN to sleep on the previous night. My arm aches and throbs with dull pain, reminding me of why and how I got here. I was bought by a goldsmith, he's a short wiry man. He was rather curt with me but he managed to ask his wife to spared me a bowl of onion gruel. I ate the awfully bland food and ran outside to throw up. His wife — a tall, overweight woman followed me outside with fear that I might run away but she covered her nose with her hand and went back inside the hut. 

Their huts are built differently from ours at Kintil. Theirs is built from stone or sunbaked bricks while ours were molded from mud. 

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