Passenger (Passenger #1) - Alexandra Bracken Page 0,158
nostrils. “Can’t you be more specific?”
Etta narrowed her eyes.
The other girl was all impatience and nerves as she moved toward the guardians, consulting with them in rapid Arabic. Sophia had been in a mood from the moment they left the caravanserai that morning; Etta had dismissed it then as the product of too little sleep and too much saddle soreness, but now that she was watching her again, some worry crept in. Frustration might lead her to do something rash.
More than that, thought Etta. She had been watching the guides, her ears tuned in to what few conversations they had, to see if they’d mention the Thorns again. When she’d tried to suggest that they might leave the guardians, or send them back once the city came into view, Sophia had simply snapped her whip and sent her camel into a trot ahead of Etta’s.
Daisy spat, rearing her head back, grumbling something in her own peculiar language. Etta leaned forward and patted her neck. She knew the feeling.
As Hasan had said, there were still people living on the outskirts of the city, most of them in tents and smaller, more temporary structures that looked like they were made mostly of dried mud. They kept to themselves as their party moved down what once must have been a breathtaking colonnade, but Etta felt their eyes tracking her progress.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Fadi claims there is a valley of tombs just beyond the city,” Sophia said stiffly.
“So you do know their names,” Etta muttered, watching the backs of the men’s heads as they rode steadily in front of them, looking a thousand times more at ease on their camels.
“Of course I do,” Sophia snapped. “I’m not as heartless as everyone would make me out to be. Besides, I had to know their names to find them and to pay them, to keep my little adventure—coming after you—away from Grandfather’s ears.”
“It must have been a real novelty,” Etta began coldly, “to make a decision to do something without him ordering it. To actually pull one over on him. It’s nice to have a little freedom, isn’t it? Think of what you could have had if you’d actually taken my advice and left the family behind.”
Sophia’s expression shadowed, but she didn’t disagree. Etta heard the girl’s hands tightening around the leather reins. They plodded forward through the ruins in a silence as oppressive as the heat.
THE VALLEY OF TOMBS WAS LOCATED PAST WHAT HAD LIKELY BEEN the vibrant, beating heart of Palmyra’s city center, tucked into the city’s shadows. Had they been alone, without the knowledge of the guardians, Etta wasn’t sure she would have ever thought to investigate the buildings. They’d passed right by them on the way in, and she hadn’t given them a second look. They seemed almost like defense posts, or watchtowers.
Despite the grand name, the valley consisted of little more than these towers sticking out of the sand like slightly crooked fingers; some of the tombs weren’t towers at all, but instead carved out of the earthen hills. If there had been other, more elaborate tombs, they were long gone or buried beneath a thousand years of sandstorms.
They dismounted from the camels and left them tied to a nearby crop of pillars that had fallen onto themselves.
“You think it’s safe to go inside?” Etta asked, eyeing the first one. The comparison to fingers hadn’t been a bad one—some of the towers were short, only a story high, and wide, the way you’d expect a thumb to be. Others stretched up several dozen feet higher, casting long shadows onto the loose sand and dirt. One looked as though there might have been a balcony of some kind attached to it. Small slits had been left in their imposing sides, likely to allow air and light inside of them.
Still…they were tombs. And as eager as Etta was to finish this, just as much anxiety raced through her. She was never going to feel right about trespassing.
“Does it matter?” Sophia snapped with her usual sensitivity. “Let’s go get this over with. It’s blazing hot out here.”
They began with one of the less imposing tombs at the far left; this one was built into the side of the hill, its entrance half buried in the sand. Sophia scattered the sand with her foot as she ducked inside, searching the stone beneath it for something. A sign that there was something buried, maybe?