Fareen. Fareen. Fareen.
Fareen with her gray eyes like Uka’s, Fareen with the big heart and the even bigger smile. Fareen who had taken a runebullet to the head.
Is this what it felt like?
—
Hassa found Sylah standing outside the tower with a sword across her knee. The tidewind had ended; the Sandstorm would be there soon. Sylah looked vacant but defiant. A pot determined to boil with no heat.
They found you?Hassa said as she sat down.
“Yes, they found me.”
Sylah, you have to hide, the Sandstorm will want you dead just as much as Anoor. Lock yourself in with her.
“I can’t, not when she looks at me like…Maiden’s tits, how has it all come to this?” Sylah slumped forward and rested her head on the cool metal of the sword in front of her. Weapon against weapon.
“Hassa, how much do you know?”
More than you could ever guess.Hassa smiled.
“Today, I found out I’m no one. I have nothing, I am nothing.”
Hassa searched Sylah’s dark eyes.
“What?”
I’m looking for the Sylah I used to know.
“What are you talking about?”
This. Hassa waved her arm at Sylah’s wilting form. You’re pathetic. Pathetic and soon to be dead. At least when you were taking the joba seeds you were in control of the slow death you were heading toward. Now you’re just letting it happen to you.
Sylah straightened at that, a spark of anger flickering across her features.
“I need to protect her, I can’t leave, they’ll be here any minute.” A sharp laugh burst out of Sylah. “Papa always said that our mission is bigger than one person, that the final battle is where the most sacrifices will be made. He’d be ashamed to see me throwing it away for one person, one Duster. Against the Sandstorm.”
Sylah turned to Hassa, and there were tears in her eyes. It startled Hassa to see it.
“But she’s my one person. Don’t you see? I can’t let them kill her.”
Hassa watched the tear roll out of Sylah’s eyes, wetting the lashes and slipping down the side of her nose toward her mouth. The tears dripped over her large lips and over to her chin, pooling in her collarbone. One by one they fell.
Eventually Hassa said, Azim was wrong, if we forget the individual, we forget ourselves. Come, my friends are waiting.
Sylah frowned but let herself be led by Hassa toward the edges of the clearing. There were nearly fifty of them, all told. There weren’t many Ghostings left in the city, and of those who were, few wanted to help an Ember, or even a Duster. But Hassa had brought everyone she could think of.
“Sylah!” Anoor’s chief of chambers broke away from the gathering servants when she spotted Sylah.
“Gorn, what are you doing here? What’s going on?” Sylah looked past the big woman and saw a group of Ghostings.
When I saw you had both left the great veranda, I was worried the worst had happened. That I had been too late in my warning. I recognized Anoor’s chief of chambers and tried to convey the danger.Hassa frowned as another person who wasn’t a Ghosting appeared. But it seems she hasn’t come alone.
“Kwame?”
“Sylah, what’s going on? Gorn said Anoor is in trouble?”
“What did you tell them?” Sylah asked Hassa.