Chapter Thirty Three

Holiness! That's what they talked about, it was like a chant in her head. They had to wear suffocating clothes in the name of holiness; they had a long scroll of scriptures that they had to abide by in the temple. Six 'o' clock in the morning and evening every citizen of Dash had to be assembled in the temple to pray and recite the five hundred rules that were inscribed into the scroll supported by the two pillars at the fore front of the altar where incense would be burned before they could pray but Yisroel noticed one thing, she didn't fit in any aspect. Yes, she could recite the first hundred rules or scripture as they would call it off-hand but she had a problem with that religion and that's one of the reason she was on the run. The rule was that in order to memorize the whole five hundred rules, after the morning prayers and recitation, another thirty had to be learnt to add to the number of rules known but the pressure was more on children who had to learn fifty before the age of twelve so now it had been turned into competition, parents wanting to brag about their kids knowing the first twelve at an early age.

After the morning prayers, chant, recitation, sermon and then prayer again, everyone could disperse to do their daily task but travelers, merchants, lapidary and jeweler and swordsmith were more than the other businesses going on in Dash. It was a bustling state although heavily guarded especially at the border where a Marquess was the head of the guards to check the goods going out and coming in. Dash was one of the states of Sodalite; all together Sodalite ruled and owned twenty states with lower authorities in charge of each state. Although Dash was below the 10th ranked states, lawlessness wasn't tolerated unlike Sodalite the central city and country that's why Dash was known popularly as the 'Holiness State' rather than the original name 'Dash'. Her father had been a swordsmith, upcoming in popularity and because she was a female child, he didn't want her to get meddled in the art of bladesmithing but being the heady and only child, he had given into her wish to learn from him after much persuasion. He had been contracted by different states to make weapons and because his work was so good, he had slowly started to make a name for himself but sadly every good thing had to come to an end and here she was running from the rules following her from Dash; all in all, she was a wanted criminal all because she couldn't abide by the choking rules.

All these cracked open from memory lane all because of one question from this demented Butler, 'What did you do to me?' and that's why she was asking herself the same question now, what had she done wrong? Not everyone could follow some certain rules that seemed stupid to them. She could swear on her great grandmother that a bounty had been placed on her head and that's one of the reason the Cleaners were after her; as expected of Dash. Who would have known that the Cleaners establishment didn't only sweep the streets for slaves but also carried out taxes of hunting down said criminals with a huge bounty on their head. 

Chuckle.

As expected from Dash a knight ruled state and there they called holiness all because one rebelled against a rule that they called scripture or tried to expose the evil deeds of the state, they resulted to silencing. Citizens had been warned never to expose any sensitive information they came across and as usual, anyone who didn't adhere was silenced altogether their family members because they didn't want a generation coming after them for revenge on behalf of their ancestors