“When? How do you know this?”
Hassa shrugged. Everyone knows it, some people just aren’t seeing it. “A bad season,” they say. “It’ll pass.” But the tidewind takes and takes, and soon it will take us all.
“When?”
Maybe six mooncycles, maybe even a year. We don’t know.
“Who is ‘we’ in this story? Hassa, can you just tell me the truth?”
The elders don’t want me to. After all, I am just a watcher.Hassa looked at the sky and squinted at the nearly full moon, which despite the time of day, sat side by side with the sun. Another mooncycle gone, another story to be told.
“You’re a watcher?” Sylah thought of Fayl, Loot’s watcher in the Dredge who guided guests down to the Belly and gathered information. “You’re a watcher for the Ghostings? Is that how you found the map? Is that how you know things?”
Sylah waited as Hassa shifted her toes in the sand, wrestling with her loyalties in her mind.
Be careful, Sylah, the Sandstorm want you dead. I came to warn you. You should stay in tonight, go back to the Keep. I will come for you tomorrow.
Sylah didn’t call after Hassa’s retreating form, awestruck as she was.
In the end, the warning from Hassa was Sylah’s downfall. She was struck dumb, not because of imminent death or the truth about the tidewind, but because of the words that had only just sunk in: it is a role to be the forgotten, to be a ghost in your own land. Haunting the stolen.
The Wardens’ Empire was the Ghostings’ land?The thought rattled her.
So when one of Loot’s Gummers approached Sylah’s stoic form, it was easy for him to slip the drug-soaked rag against Sylah’s nose and mouth. She bucked once, twice. Then she was still.
—
Fayl’s sad eyes were the first thing she saw when she came around. The bloodink tattoos on his neck seemed to swirl as his throat bobbed. He handed her a glass of water to rinse her mouth out from the bitter vapors of the sleeping drug. She took it, spitting the liquid onto the floor at his feet, her eyes not once leaving his.
“Where are we?” she croaked. The cloying humidity indicated they were below the city, but it wasn’t the Belly, that was for sure. A single runelamp flickered in Fayl’s hand, but the walls were bare of books.
“I tried to warn you, Sylah, I told you not to enter a contract with him.”
She considered tackling him, but she still felt woozy from the drug they’d given her. Better to bide her time, learn what Loot wanted from her first.
“I had no choice, Fayl.” She sighed, crossing her legs and settling into the damp ground.
“You always have a choice.” He looked so sad. Sentimental bastard. Suddenly he straightened. “He’s coming.”
A speck in the distance was getting brighter, confirming to Sylah they were in the tunnels below the city. Just from the sway of the light Sylah recognized the swagger.
“Hello there, Sylah.” Loot’s teeth shone like pieces of the moon in a night’s sky.
“Loot. Was this really necessary?”
“Necessary? No. Fun? Certainly.” He swung his hand lamp toward Fayl. “It was fun, wasn’t it, Fayl?”
“Yes, Warden.” His tone was lifeless.
Loot stuck out his bottom lip. “Oh, that wasn’t quite the enthusiasm I was looking for, husband.” He kneeled down by Sylah and ran a finger down her cheek. “Fayl likes you, you see. But no one will stop my fun. I like my fun. Ever since you defied me in the Ring I’ve waited for this moment. I knew you’d be mine in the end.”
Sylah could smell the cinnamon on his breath.
“Can we quit the dramatics? Tell me what you want me to do. I have somewhere to be.”
Anger blossomed in his eyes, and then he laughed. A booming, ear-cringing laugh that rang out in the hollow room.
“Of course, the winners’ banquet. How could I forget?” He peered into the darkness behind him. “Maybe you could use a partner?”