An Ember in the Ashes

Not human and not friendly. The Augurs have already unleashed one supernatural terror on us. It isn’t much of a stretch to assume that they’d trot out another.

I reach for the ropes, now hopelessly tangled. The pain in my thigh explodes, and I look down to see the arrow being slowly pulled through my flesh by a sandy hand. The laughter echoes again as I hurriedly break off the arrowhead—I’ll be crippled for life if it’s dragged through my leg.
Sand buffets my face, biting at my skin before solidifying into another creature. This one looms over us, a miniature mountain, and although his features are poorly defined, I can still make out his wolf’s smile.
I smother my disbelief and try to think back to Mamie Rila’s stories. We’ve already dealt with wraiths, and this thing is big—not like a wight or a ghul.
Efrits are supposed to be shy, but jinn are vicious and cunning...
“It’s a jinn!” I shout over the wind. The sand creature laughs as delightedly as if I’m juggling and pulling faces.
“Jinn are dead, little Aspirant.” His screams are like a wind out of the north.
Then he swoops in close, eyes narrowing. His other brethren form up behind him, dancing and somersaulting with the zeal of acrobats at a carnival. “Destroyed by your kind long ago, in a great war. I am Rowan Goldgale, king of the sand efrits. I will claim your souls as mine.”
“Why would a king of efrits concern himself with mere humans?” Helene plays for time as I frantically untangle the ropes and straighten the descender.
“Mere humans!” The efrits behind the king hoot with laughter. “You are Aspirants. Your footsteps echo in the sand and the stars. To own souls such as yours is a great honor. You will serve me well.”
“What’s he talking about?” Helene asks me in an undertone.
“No idea,” I say. “Keep him distracted.”
“Why enslave us?” Helene asks. “When we would—ah—serve you willingly?”
“Stupid girl! In these sacks of flesh, your souls are useless. I must awaken and tame them. Only then can you serve me. Only then—”
His voice is lost in a whoosh of wind as we drop away. The efrits shriek and streak after us, surrounding and blinding us, tearing my hands from the ropes once more.
“Take them,” Rowan bays at his cohort. Helene’s grip on me loosens as an efrit works his way between us. Another pries the scim from her hand and the bow from her back, shrieking in elation as the weapons drop to the dunes.
Yet another efrit saws at our rope with a sharp rock. I draw my scim and shove it through the creature, twisting, hoping steel will kill the thing. The efrit howls—in pain or anger, I can’t tell. I try to take off its head, but it flits up out of reach, cackling nastily.
Think, Elias! The shadow-assassins had a weakness. The efrits must too.
Mamie Rila told tales about them, I know she did. But I can’t bleeding remember any of them.
“Ahhhh!” Helene’s arms jerk free of me, and she holds on with only her legs. The efrits ululate, doubling their efforts to pull her away. Rowan puts his hands on either side of her face and squeezes, imbuing her with an otherworldly gold light.
“Mine!” the efrit says. “Mine. Mine. Mine.”
The rope frays. Blood pours from the wound on my thigh. The efrits rip Helene away, and as they do, I spot a niche in the cliff that runs all the way down to the desert floor. Mamie Rila’s face appears in my head, illuminated by the campfire as she chants:
Efrit, efrit of the wind, kill him with a star-steel pin.
Efrit, efrit of the sea, light a fire to make him flee.
Efrit, efrit of the sand, a song is more than he can stand.
I hurl my scim up at the efrit sawing at the ropes and swing forward, plucking Helene from the grip of the efrits and shoving her into the niche, all the while ignoring her yell of surprise and the angry, tearing hands at my back.
“Sing, Hel! Sing!”
She opens her mouth, to shout or sing, I don’t know, because the rope finally gives way and I plummet. Helene’s pale face fades away above me. Then the world goes quiet and white, and I know no more.
XXIII: Laia
Izzi finds me after I leave the kitchen, still shaken by Cook’s warning. The girl offers me a sheaf of papers—the Commandant’s specs for Teluman.
“I offered to take them,” she says. “But she—she didn’t like that idea.”
No one pays me heed as I make my way through Serra to Teluman’s forge.
No one can see the raw, bloody K beneath the cloak I wear. As I stumble along, it’s clear I’m not the only injured slave. Some Scholar slaves have bruises. Some have whip marks. Others walk as if injured inside, hunched and limping.
While still in the Illustrian Quarter, I pass a large glass display of saddles and bridles and stop short, startled at my own reflection, at the haunted, hollow-eyed creature looking back at me. Sweat soaks my skin, half from fever, half from the unabating heat. My dress clings to my body, my skirt bunching and tangling around my legs.
It’s for Darin. I keep walking. Whatever you’re suffering, he’s suffering worse.
As I near the Weapons Quarter, my feet slow. I remember the Commandant’s words from last night. You’re lucky I want a Teluman blade, girl. You’re lucky he wants a taste of you. I loiter near the smithy door for long minutes before entering. Surely Teluman won’t want to come near me when my skin is the color of whey and I’m sweating buckets.
The shop is as quiet as it was the first time I visited, but the smith is here.
I know it. Sure enough, within seconds of me opening the door, I hear the whisper of footsteps, and Teluman appears from the back room.
He takes one look at me and disappears, returning seconds later with a dripping glass of cool water and a chair. I drop into the seat and drain the water, not stopping to consider if it might be poisoned.
The forge is cool, the water cooler, and for a second, my fevered shaking slows. Then Spiro Teluman slips past me to the forge door.