“Waiting near the tunnel entrance.” He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Come look at this.”
Asha didn’t want to look. She was here for one thing, and she needed to get it over with. Breathing deeply, Asha stepped across the threshold and moved toward the center of the sanctum, where a star with nine points had long ago been cut into the floor. Asha crouched over it, setting the lantern down. She unhooked the clasp and reached into the bright light within. Cupping her hands around the cool, stone-like heart, Asha drew the flame out.
The whispers filled her mind, louder and stronger than before. A powerful energy pulsed through her, setting her whole body tingling from the soles of her feet to the palms of her hands. It surged so powerfully, it made her head throb and her teeth ache.
Quickly, she set the flame inside the star.
The Old One’s sacred flame blazed up so brightly, the cave around them glistened. Golden words shone in the darkness, written on the walls, the ceiling, the floor. Stories burned like fire all around her. Hundreds of them.
Asha knew them all.
Her fingers reached to touch the words. Her mouth ached to read them aloud. A spark flared within her, growing into a thirsty blaze.
On the wall behind Torwin was the colorful mosaic of the man who’d visited her three times in the past four days. She would know that smile anywhere. It said: Look at the trouble I’ve gotten you in now.
Asha now stood face-to-face with Elorma’s portrait. Elorma, the first of seven Namsaras—sacred heroes who rose up in times of trouble. The Old One’s holy flames, burning in the night. As she stared into those dark eyes, the voices returned. Only this time, they weren’t telling stories.
Namsara, they whispered, like the wind sighing across the sand.
Torwin grabbed her arm, swinging her around to face him. “Someone’s coming.”
The moment broke like a severed string. Asha looked back the way she’d come to see a light farther up the crypt, dim but growing.
Asha grabbed Torwin’s hand. They ran back through the caves, leaving the sacred flame behind to burn in its rightful place.
“It’s a dead end,” said a voice in the distance. “And your soldats are everywhere. If she were here, she would have been seen.”
The closer Asha and Torwin came to the outer cave entrance, the closer the torchlight came to them. They couldn’t reach her secret tunnel in time. So Asha stopped at the narrow lip of a small fissure and shoved Torwin inside. When he realized what she was doing, he seized her wrist, to pull her in after him. But there wasn’t enough room for two. The light of the torch would flicker in, illuminating Asha, and they’d both be caught.
She shook her head, trying to wrench away.
Torwin’s arm came around her waist, pulling her into him. Their hips collided, sealing up the space between them as the light of Jarek’s torch filtered past her shoulder and onto the rock wall beyond.
Torwin’s hand cupped her head, tucking it beneath his chin. Asha squeezed her eyes shut, her thoughts a flurry of curses.
Jarek’s voice drew nearer, then quieted. With her temple pressed against Torwin’s throat, Asha tried to imagine what the commandant saw. The sacred caves, yawning open. The blazing brightness that was the Old One’s holy flame burning the stories into his mind.
Asha’s heart hammered in her ears. Torwin must have heard it, because he stroked the back of her head, trying to soothe her. When his thumb brushed her ear, disfigured from Kozu’s fire, he paused.
I know, she thought. It’s hideous.
But instead of dropping in disgust, his fingers continued on, tracing its bumps the same way his eyes liked to trace her scar—with gentle curiosity.
Asha relaxed against him.
How can I be growing accustomed to the touch of a slave?
More than accustomed. Her body lit up at the feel of his arm securely around her, keeping her pressed against him. Asha breathed in the smell of him. All salt and sand. All boy and earth.
Was it possible to love the smell of someone so much, you wanted to taste them just to see if it was the same?
You are corrupted, said a voice in her head. Look at you, lusting after a slave.
Asha should have pulled away right then. She should have listened to that voice.
Instead, with danger lurking just beyond the darkness, she slid her arms around Torwin’s waist, pressing him tighter against her. His tracing fingers stopped. He went completely still. After several heartbeats, he tilted his face to hers.
Ever so slowly, he dragged the bridge of his nose along her cheekbone, asking a silent question. Sparks skittered through her. Her blood turned to fire. She arched her neck in answer, brushing her cheek across his.
He turned, leaning his forehead against hers. Their noses touched as his hands slid through her hair, cradling her face.
“She’s here,” Jarek’s voice rang out.
Torwin went rigid. Asha’s arms tightened around him.
“See the lantern? She’s hiding somewhere. Get me some kindling.”
“Yes, commandant.” The sound of booted footsteps echoed off the walls.
“If she wants to play with fire,” muttered Jarek, “I’ll beat her at her own game.”
He’s going to smoke us out, Asha realized.
She couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let Torwin get caught. If Jarek found him, he was as good as dead. Maybe worse than dead.
There was only one way out of this.
Breaking Torwin’s grip on her, Asha pushed herself up onto her toes and whispered against his cheek, “I’ll come for you at nightfall. Be ready to fly.”
Before he could stop her, she took a deep breath and stepped out of the fissure, into the light of Jarek’s torch.
Twenty-Six
Cool air rushed against her skin, its chill replacing Torwin’s warmth. Jarek stood at the entrance to the caves, his back to her, as if afraid to set foot inside.
“Your thief is right here,” she said.
Jarek spun. His eyes narrowed as he took in her mantle, her unbraided hair.
“You’ve committed a crime against the king,” he said. “Against your own father. Why?”
Footsteps echoed through the caves. They belonged to one of his soldats, carrying a bundle of kindling in both arms. The soldat stopped, staring into the inner sanctum. “The sacred flame,” he whispered, eyes widening.
Jarek’s eyes sliced into Asha, waiting for the answer to his question. When she didn’t supply it, he grabbed her arm and marched her through the narrow crypt passages, toward the vaulted stairway that led up into the temple.
Asha didn’t fight him. The sooner he dragged her out of here, the sooner Torwin could get to the tunnel and escape.
Jarek searched her for weapons and found none, so he took her mantle instead. In the archway of the throne room, his fingers yanked at the tassels around her throat. He stripped it off her and threw Asha to the cold stone floor before the pedestal holding the empty basin.
The floor connected with her knees and she bit down an angry cry.
“What is this?” Her father’s slippered footsteps echoed softly through the room.