It was only a forty minute cart ride from the base of the Tower to the Imperium marketplace, but for the twenty girls crammed in the back like cattle, it felt infinitely longer. With nothing except a low, wooden panel corralling them in, they were easy targets for the eyes and mouths of morning pedestrians. Some whispered and pointed, while others turned away, trying to pretend they didn’t see. Most simply shook their heads in pity. This was a monthly occurrence in the Imperium city - sending these useless girls to be sold – and for the bustling world around them, just a slight interruption to an otherwise normal day.

“Momma, where do all those girls go when they leave the Tower?” asked a child, no more than five or six, the only bystander showing obvious interest in the cart.

“They are leaving the city, dear.” Her mother seemed anxious and attempted to pull her daughter close, as if it was wrong to pay them any attention. “Come now, stop staring.”

Fighting against her mother, the child’s curiosity drove her to follow the cart down the street. “But where do they go after?”

“We can talk about this when we get home,” her mother chided, roughly tugging her arm. “Now come along like a good girl.” The child finally stopped resisting and walked back up the sidewalk, her innocent gaze fixed on the cart as it rolled away.

A’nallia felt warm tears flow down her cheeks but kept silent. A few younger girls, no more than eleven or twelve, whimpered and trembled around her. The oldest in the group tried stroking the hair of the youngest seated next to her, but it only made the crying louder. Turning away, A’nallia tried to block out the sound, grateful to have been pushed to the far back so she could look out and away from the rest of the merchandise.

Behind them, sixty stories high, a tower of smooth obsidian soared into the sky. It had a name – Ra’zuraen Tower - named after the first Witch General. She was the first witch to sit on the Imperium Council and the original advocate for all existing witch protection laws. But the title Ra’zuraen was never spoken outside the ruling class. Even the women living within its dark, desolate walls rarely used the name. Instead, it was called the Tower, for simplicity, or the Black Tower, out of disdain. It was designed to be intimidating, a citadel constructed directly into the base of the Taryn Mountains. With one road in and out, and a winding hill of stairs leading to a single entrance, it was a marvel of human engineering. Built centuries ago, the Tower was ancient, and to current city residents, it seemed as if it had always been part of the landscape, just another jagged peak in the endless mountain range.

The Taryn Mountains themselves reached high up into the clouds, disappearing into the sky, and spread out to each side, like massive, menacing arms wrapping around the city. The morning sunlight barely rose above its eastern ridge, leaving the world covered in an almost constant shadow. Only for a brief moment at midday did the sunlight touch every part of the Imperium. Those colossal mountains looming over a windowless, black tower, both keeping watch over the dark city, created a constant uneasiness in residents and visitors alike.

Any part of the city not protected by nature was closed off behind a tall, stone wall and patrolled at all times by Imperium guards, turning an already bleak city into both fortress and prison. There were only two ways in and out; one leading to the east marketplace just outside the wall and one leading west toward an’Taryn village.

Through the Tower’s gate, the cart had passed by the barracks and training centers, then through the courtyard, filled with the city’s governors and magistrates, and the domed chambers where the Imperium Council lived and met. It was where fate was decided for most of the continent, all surrounded by their own guarded stone walls.

A sanctuary for maintaining peace, they say. More like a stronghold always ready for war. A’nallia could only sigh at the thought. But war created peace, at least in Taryn’nati, and as the name showed, the Imperium held absolute power over peace, so it was useless to argue the difference.

Past the final courtyard gate, the cold, unnerving structures of government gave way to houses - first large, noble houses with small, private gardens, then smaller, merchant houses, one brushing the next. After that, food and shops lined the streets, with one room homes crammed into the second and third stories above. Finally, along the outer rim would be the workhouses and slums.

The tears had stopped now and as the cart rattled out of the market district, A’nallia closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see any more, instead feeling the wind against her face, a few strands of hair swirling and tickling her nose. The city was built as if a wave had washed the poorest of citizens away from the richest, making sure everyone stayed in their proper place. Set snuggly into the foothills, the city sloped downward, ensuring that even the rain and waste in the gutters flowed to the wall.

A’nallia shook away a quick flash of a childhood memory and opened her eyes to look at the sky. It didn’t matter. None of it really mattered. Life was simply moving from one confined existence to another. She didn’t really belong anywhere, so why would it matter where she ended up?

The cart slowed and panic set in for some of the girls. They wringed their hands, chewed their lips, picked at a fingernail, pulled at loose threads in their dress - anything to distract them from what they knew was coming. The back opened and A’nallia took a deep breath, stepping out onto the cobblestones.