[Lauchenoiria]

Princess Leila of Zargothrax, now 13, had spent the last year catching rats for money. This was hardly a fit occupation for a princess; and indeed, has generally been the avenue of orphaned street children for the past several centuries – if not millennia.

Her difficulty, of course, was that not only could she not admit to being a princess; she had to actively hide it. Samara Island had a tiny population, and if she wanted to keep away from the Kerlians, she had to do something unexpected. Rat-catching had the benefit of being so far outside of the comfort zone of a member of the royal family that not even a Kerlian would guess.

Also, Leila’s previous work experience with the Salad Land Lizard Capture Service involved similar skills.

She’d taken to living with the actual street orphans in a ruin to the south of Samara City. The ruin had once upon a time been a castle belonging to a pre-House Zargo warlord who had once taken control of the island. Zargothrax, and consequently its Samaran offshoot, had not yet entered the era of turning ruins into tourist attractions; instead leaving them to homeless people to occupy as they saw fit.

The children, who did similar odd jobs around the city, had turned what was once (probably) an armoury into their home by spreading tarpaulin over the two-and-a-half remaining walls and hiring a guard to prevent outsiders gaining access. The guard in question was a three-year-old boy with a tendency to bite strangers. He was unfailing in his ability to recognise a stranger, and quick to attack.

It was this small, barely-past-toddlerhood “guard” who first became aware of the threat that night.

The children had been sleeping, when he woke with his ears pricked up like a puppy. Skinny, Leila’s hairless cat, also woke. The pair looked towards the entrance, sensing something out of the ordinary. When a shadow crossed the makeshift doorway, the cat arched its back and hissed. The young boy leaped towards the shadow teeth first; and the cat yowled loud enough to wake the others.

His teeth hit their target, and a woman yelled out loud in pain.

“Shit!” she shouted, in English.

Leila, the only one of the children to understand a word of English, froze. The others gathered sticks and stones; expecting thieves. They did not know what language the woman had spoken; not one of them had ever been to a school or used a computer.

“What’s the matter?” a second adult woman appeared in the doorway.

“Damned males are a problem at any age,” the first one said, picking up the three-year-old by the scruff of his ragged shirt and holding him away from her as he tried to bite her again.

The kids eyed each other, finally recognising that this was a language rarely spoken in the area. Something was off. Adult thieves were generally men, and if they did not speak Arabic like the children, they tended to speak Persian.

“Let him go!” the oldest child, a fourteen-year-old boy, shouted in Arabic.

“Give us Leila,” the first woman demanded, lifting the toddler higher. He had stopped trying to bite and instead was beginning to get distressed by the situation.

“Who?” the eldest boy said.

“That one,” the woman said, pointing at Leila, who was in the process of trying to squeeze through an arrow slit. Despite having become underweight from the year of living on the streets; she was not quite small enough to rival an arrow.

The children turned to look at Leila. She laughed nervously as the boy grabbed her and shoved her towards the women. Solidarity did not exist here. It was one for all; and they would work together only as long as it benefited themselves.

“Princess Leila,” the Kerlian said in English, smirking. “How far you’ve fallen. Why did you run? We were going to rescue you.”

“No, you weren’t!” Leila replied in the same language. “You’re not with Project Belle! You just want to get to my father!”

“Well,” the woman shrugged, “you’re partly right. No, we’re not with Project Belle. But your father? Well, he matters less and less with every passing minute.”

“Then what do you want? And who do you work for?” Leila asked as they grabbed her and dragged her back through the ruins.

“I’ll take you to the boss, Princess. She will explain everything. It’s almost time, after all.”