Jenna’s Backstory

  The streets of Candibaru are the only home I've truly known. When I close my eyes at night, I can sometimes glimpse fragments of memories—warm hands, gentle voices, the scent of lavender—but they fade like mist in morning light. What lingers most persistently is a nightmare: a dark figure with eyes like dying stars standing over my parents. I've often wondered if this haunting image is memory or something my mind created to fill the void of not knowing.

  I was around seven when fate intervened in the form of a girl named Jacey. By then, I'd been "apprenticed" to a chimneysweep called Dolenn—a harsh man with calloused hands that were quick to strike and a heart that seemed just as hardened. Those days were painted in shades of gray and brown—ash in my lungs, dirt beneath my fingernails, and hunger gnawing at my insides. Yet even then, I found unexpected solace in those quiet moments alone inside the chimneys, where darkness felt more like an embrace than something to fear. I imagined elaborate stories in those sooty passages—tales where I was someone important, someone loved.

  "Psst, hey you there—chimney girl."

  The voice seemed to come from nowhere that day as I trudged back from Dolenn's errands, clutching meager supplies against my chest. I looked around, seeing no one, and continued on my way, already lost in thoughts of what worlds might exist beyond Candibaru's crowded streets.

  "Chimney girl. Ya got a name? I'm Jacey."

  Turning back, I spotted her perched in a tree like some woodland spirit from the stories I'd overheard in taverns—blonde hair catching sunlight despite the dirt that marked us both as children of the streets. Something about her eyes seemed to understand things I couldn't yet name.

  "I'm Jennalin," I answered softly, feeling strangely vulnerable sharing my full name. "But most folks just call me Jenna."

  "Well, Jenna," she said with a smile that seemed to know secrets, "It doesn't look like that chimneysweep takes very good care of you. In fact, you look kind of hungry. Would you like a honeycake?" She extended her offering like it was the most natural thing in the world.

  My stomach clenched with longing, but my heart had already learned caution. Nothing came without cost in Candibaru. "What'll that cake cost me?" I asked, wishing my voice didn't betray my hunger. "I ain't got no money o' my own."

  "I ain't chargin' fer it," she assured me, her eyes flickering with something like recognition. "I seen ya clamberin' aroun' on t' roofs, and ye move real well. I reckon I knows some'n who kin put a girl o' yer talents ta work, an' who'll feed ye a lot better ta boot."

  I couldn't help but feel a flutter of hope, quickly smothered by experience. How many times had I dreamed of rescue only to wake to the same cold reality? "Ain't no'ne ta speak fer me," I explained, the weight of rejection familiar on my tongue. "Ain't no honest folk willing' ta 'ire some'n wif no'n ta refer 'em. I'mma too dirty fer 'em."

  But something in her easy confidence made me want to believe. Perhaps it was the way she saw something in me beyond the soot and rags—something I'd always felt existed beneath my circumstances but couldn't name.

  "Bein' clean and 'avin' some'n ta speak fer ye doan matter," she countered. "All 'at matters is that yer quick."

  Curiosity—my eternal weakness—took hold. "D'ye work for this person, too?"

  "I do," she nodded. "Ye'd come on for a trial an' if me boss takes a shine ta ye, ye'd get all t' food ye kin tuck in."

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  The honeycake landed in my hands before I could protest further, and I devoured it with embarrassing speed, savoring each crumb as it melted on my tongue. It tasted like possibility.

  "What'll I do if yer boss doan like me?" The question escaped before I could stop it, revealing the fear beneath my hope. "I ain't sure ol' Dolenn'll have me back, if ye know what I mean."

  "I ain't ne'er seen 'im turn down a kid wit' t' talent ye already gots," she reassured me. "Seems ta me ye ain't got naught ta lose."

  In that moment, standing beneath a tree with honeycake sweetness still on my lips, I felt the universe offering a doorway. Not perhaps to salvation, but to something different—something with the potential for more. "Guess t'at be true," I admitted. "I ain't overly fond o' Dolenn. W'en d'ye want me? Where do I go?"

  "Best ye leave in t' middle o' t' night," Jacey advised. "Think ye kin manage 'at?"

  "Yeah, round ‘bout two bells," I agreed, already imagining my escape.

  "I'll come both tonight an' tomorrow night. But if ye ain't here, t' deal's off. Ol' Kildan doan like folks what reneges."

  "Re-niggs?" The unfamiliar word tumbled awkwardly from my mouth.

  Jacey's laugh held no cruelty, only the casual superiority of greater knowledge. "It means breakin' yer promise ta be w'ere ye said, ye dimglow."

  "I ain't breakin' me promise," I vowed with unexpected intensity. The thought of disappointing this girl who had offered me kindness felt unbearable. "I'll be..." I hesitated, realizing I didn't know where to meet her.

  "'Ow 'bouts right 'ere?" she suggested.

  "Fine. Right 'ere. I'll see ye tonight."

  That night, I slipped away from Dolenn's like a shadow separating from darkness. I took nothing but myself and the dreams I carried within. Perhaps I should have felt more fear, but instead, I felt the strange lightness of freedom—as if I'd been carrying chains so long I'd forgotten their weight until they fell away.

  Jacey became more than a friend in those early days—she was my guide, my confidante, my sister in all ways that mattered. Under Kildan's stern tutelage, I learned to move like water through crowds, to read people's habits and weaknesses, to take what wasn't freely given. I won't pretend there weren't moments when my conscience whispered protests, especially when we lifted coins from those who seemed nearly as desperate as we once were. But hunger is a powerful silencer of moral qualms, and Kildan didn't tolerate failure.

  Yet even in that world of shadows and survival, I found unexpected beauty. There was poetry in the way moonlight transformed ordinary streets into silver pathways. There was magic in discovering hidden corners of the city where wildflowers somehow pushed through cobblestones, defiant and perfect. I collected these moments like others might gather gold, storing them away in my heart for nights when existence felt too heavy.

  Kildan died when I was seventeen, felled not by justice but by an unexpected fever that ravaged his body in mere days. His passing left a void that the various members of our little "family" filled in different ways. Jacey, with her easy charm and striking beauty, gravitated toward the glittering world of courtesans—finding power in making men desire her while keeping her true self carefully guarded.

  We drifted apart after that, though not from any quarrel. Our paths simply wound in different directions. I couldn't follow her into that world of artifice and performance. While I've never judged her choices—each of us does what we must to survive—I couldn't bear the thought of pretending affection for people whose touch made my skin crawl, no matter how richly they might reward such deception.

  I've had my share of lovers over the years—some passionate, some tender, some merely convenient. But I've always retreated before anything could grow too deep. Perhaps it's cowardice, but I've seen how easily love becomes a weapon. Each time someone seemed to peer too closely at my soul, I withdrew, afraid of what they might find there or how they might use it against me. A part of me—the part that still weaves stories in quiet moments—yearns for someone who would see all of me and stay anyway, but experience has taught me such connections exist primarily in bards' tales.

  Instead, I've poured myself into mastering my craft. There's a certain pride in becoming so adept with blade and shadow that I can navigate the most precarious situations. I've developed a particular fascination with poisons and elixirs—the subtle alchemy of substances that can heal or harm with mere drops. There's something almost magical in their transformation, in understanding the hidden properties of plants and minerals that most overlook.

  Yet on nights when the moon hangs full and heavy above Candibaru's spires, my thoughts still drift to those fragmented memories of my parents. Who were they? What forces tore them from me? Was it circumstance, choice, or something darker—perhaps connected to that shadowy figure with glowing eyes that haunts my oldest nightmares?

  I don't know if finding those answers would heal something broken within me or simply open old wounds best left scarred over. But the questions pull at me like an invisible tide, growing stronger with each passing year. Someday, I'll follow where they lead, though I'm not certain what version of myself I'll discover at the journey's end.

  For now, I remain Jenna Adthar—thief, poisoner, survivor. A collector of moments and possibilities. A seeker of truths in a world of shadows.