“We keep going.” I raise my voice so he and Izzi can hear. “A delay now could mean a difference of weeks later if the snows come early or the northern passes are closed.”
“Here.” Elias pulls a stack of kerchiefs from his pack and hands them to me. As I dole them out, he cuts a length of rope into ten-foot sections. Another shudder ripples across his shoulders, and he clenches his teeth, battling against it. Don’t give in. I give him a pointed look as Izzi huddles closer. Now is not the time. He binds Izzi to himself and is about to bind me to Izzi when she shakes her head.
“Laia on your other side.” Her gaze flits to Keenan so swiftly that I’m not sure I even saw it. I wonder if she heard Keenan imploring me to leave with him last night.
My body shakes with the effort of standing in one spot. The winds scream around us, as violent as a chorus of funeral shrieks. The sound makes me think of the wraiths in the desert outside Serra, and I wonder if fey creatures haunt this desert too.
“Keep the rope taut”—Elias’s hands brush mine, and his skin is fevered—“or I won’t know if we’ve been separated.” Fear stabs at me, but he drops his face close to mine.
“Don’t be afraid. I grew up in this desert. I’ll get us to Nur.”
We move east, our heads bowed against the onslaught of the storm. The dust blots out the stars, and the dunes shift beneath us so fast that we’re staggering, fighting for every step. There’s sand in my teeth, my eyes, my nose—I can’t breathe.
The rope between Elias and me tightens as he pulls me onward. On his other side, Izzi curves her reedlike body against the wind, clutching her scarf to her face. A scream echoes, and I falter—Izzi? Just the wind.
Then Keenan, who I thought was behind me, jerks on the rope from my left. The force of it pulls me down, and my body sinks into deep, soft sand. I fight to get back to my feet, but the wind is like a great, pressing fist.
I yank hard on the rope that I know connects me to Elias. He must realize I’ve fallen. Any second, I’ll feel his hands pulling me closer, lifting me to my feet. I scream his name into the storm, my voice useless against its rage. The rope jerks between us once.
Then it goes horribly slack, and when I pull it in, there is nothing at the end of it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Elias
One second, I am using every ounce of strength I have to battle the winds and pull Laia and Izzi forward.
The next, the rope between Laia and me falls limp. I pull it in, staggered when it ends after only three feet. No Laia.
I lunge back toward where I hope she’ll be. Nothing. Ten hells. I tied the knots too quickly—one of them must have come undone. Doesn’t matter, my mind howls. Find her!
The wind screams, and I remember the sand efrits I fought during the Trials. A manlike shape rears in front of me, its eyes glowing with unrestrained malice. I stagger back in surprise—where the hells did it come from—then reach into my memory. Efrit, efrit of the sand, a song is more than he can stand. The old rhyme comes back to me, and I sing it out. Work, work, please work. The eyes narrow, and for a second, I think the rhyme is useless. Then the eyes fade.
But Laia—and Keenan—are still out here, defenseless. We should have waited out the sandstorm. The damned rebel was right. If Laia is buried in the sands—if she dies out here because I needed that accursed Tellis …
She fell just before we were separated. I drop to my knees and sweep out with my arms. I catch a scrap of cloth, then a patch of warm skin. Relief washes over me, and I pull. It’s her—I can tell from the shape and weight of her body. I draw her close and catch a flash of her face beneath the scarf, terrified as she wraps her arms around me.
“I’ve got you,” I say, though I don’t think she hears me. On one side, I feel Izzi jostle me, and then a flare of red hair—Keenan, still roped to Laia, bent over as he coughs the sand from his lungs.
I refasten the rope, my hands shaking. In my head, I hear Izzi telling me to bind Laia to myself. The knots were tight. The rope was whole and unblemished. It shouldn’t have come undone.
Forget that now. Move.
Soon, the ground hardens from treacherous sand to the dry cobbles of the oasis. I graze a tree with my shoulders, and light flickers dimly through the sand. At my side, Izzi falls, clawing at her good eye. I lift her into my arms and push forward. Her body shakes as she coughs uncontrollably.
One light turns to two and then a dozen—a street. My arms shake, and I nearly drop Izzi. Not yet!
The hulking shadow of a rounded Tribal wagon looms out of the darkness, and I fight my way toward it. I hope to the skies that it’s empty, mostly because I don’t think I have the energy to knock anyone senseless right now.
I wrench the door open, undo the knot binding me to Izzi, and push her inside. Keenan bounds up after her, and I half lift, half shove Laia in last. I swiftly untie the rope between us, but as I untangle the knot, I notice that the rope has no frayed ends. The place where it broke apart is smooth.
As if it were cut.
Izzi? No, she was next to me. And Laia wouldn’t do it. Keenan? Was he that desperate to get Laia away from me? My vision fades, and I wag my head. When I look back at the rope, it’s as frayed as an aging trawler’s hawser.
Hallucinations. Get to an apothecary, Elias. Now.
“Tend to Izzi,” I shout at Laia. “Wash out her eye—she’s sand blind. I’ll bring something from the apothecary to help.”
I slam the wagon door shut and turn back into the storm. A tremor takes me. I can almost hear the Soul Catcher. Come back, Elias.
The thick-walled buildings of Nur block enough of the sand that I can make out the street signs. I move carefully, keeping an eye out for soldiers. Tribesmen aren’t crazy enough to be out in such a storm, but Martials will patrol no matter what the weather.
As I turn a corner, I notice a poster on one of the walls. When I get closer, I curse.
BY ORDER OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY
EMPEROR MARCUS FARRAR
WANTED ALIVE:
ELIAS VETURIUS
MURDERER, RESISTANCE COLLABORATOR,
TRAITOR TO THE EMPIRE
REWARD: 60,000 MARKS
LAST SEEN:
TRAVELING EAST THROUGH THE EMPIRE
IN THE COMPANY OF LAIA OF SERRA,
RESISTANCE REBEL AND SPY
I tear the sign down, crumple it, and release it into the wind—only to see another a few feet away—and another. I step back. The entire bleeding wall is papered with them, as is the wall at my back. They’re everywhere.
Get the Tellis.
I stumble away like a Fiver after his first kill. It takes twenty minutes to find an apothecary, an agonizingly clumsy five minutes to pick the lock on the door. I light a lamp with shaking hands and thank the skies when I see that this particular apothecary has alphabetized his remedies. I’m panting like a water-starved animal by the time I find the Tellis extract, but as soon as I gulp it down, relief sweeps through me.
As does clarity. Everything rushes in—the storm, Izzi’s sand blindness, the wagon where I left the others. And the posters. Bleeding hells, the “wanted” posters. My face, Laia’s face, everywhere. If there were dozens on one wall, then who knows how many there are throughout the city?
Their existence means one thing: The Empire suspects we’re here. So the Martial presence in Nur will be far greater than what I expected. Damn it all to the hells.
By now Laia will be frantic, but she and the others will have to wait. I swipe the apothecary’s entire stock of Tellis, along with an unguent that will ease Izzi’s eye pain. In minutes I am back in Nur’s sand-scoured streets, recalling the time I spent here as a Fiver, spying on the Tribesmen and reporting my findings at the Martial garrison.
I take to the roofs to get to the garrison, wincing against the onslaught of the storm. It is still powerful enough to keep sane people inside but not nearly as bad as when we arrived in the city.