A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,26

stalls are filled with slab after slab of crumbling, sticky ghas, while others have firepowder barrels packed together in a dangerously haphazard fashion.

An arrow zings by my ear, and I’ve bolted ten steps before I realize it isn’t intended for me. A group of fur-clad Barbarians stand beside an arms dealer, testing out bows by casually firing arrows every which way. A fight breaks out and I try to shove past, but a crowd gathers, and it’s impossible to move. At this rate, I’ll never find an apothecary.

“—sixty-thousand-mark bounty, they say. Never heard of a mark that big—”

“Emperor doesn’t want to look a fool. Veturius was his first execution, and he botched it. Who’s the girl with him? Why would he travel with a Scholar?”

“Maybe he’s joining the revolution. Scholars know the secret of Serric steel, I hear. Spiro Teluman himself taught a Scholar lad. Maybe Veturius is as sick of the Empire as Teluman is.”

Bleeding skies. I make myself walk on, though I desperately wish to keep listening. How did the information about Teluman and Darin get out? And what does it mean for my brother?

That he might have less time than you think. Move.

The drums have clearly carried my and Elias’s descriptions far. I move swiftly now, scanning the myriad stalls for an apothecary. The longer I linger, the more danger we are in. The bounty on our heads is massive enough that I doubt there’s a soul in this place who hasn’t heard about it.

Finally, in an alley off the main thoroughfare, I spot a shack with a mortar and pestle carved into the door. As I turn toward it, I pass a group of Tribesmen sharing steaming cups of tea beneath a tarp with a pair of Mariners.

“—like monsters out of the hells.” One of the Tribesmen, a thin-lipped, scar-faced man, speaks in a low voice. “Didn’t matter how much we fought. Kept coming back. Wraiths. Bleeding wraiths.”

I nearly halt in my tracks, but continue on slowly at the last moment. So others have seen the fey creatures too. My curiosity gets the better of me, and I lean down to fiddle with my bootlaces, straining to hear the conversation.

“Another Ayanese frigate went down a week ago off Isle South,” one of the Mariners says. She takes a sip of tea and shivers. “Thought it was corsairs, but the only survivor raved about sea efrits. I wouldn’t have believed him, but now …”

“And ghuls here in the Roost,” the scar-faced Tribesman says. “I’m not the only one who’s seen them—”

I glance over, unable to help myself, and as if I’ve drawn him with my gaze, the Tribesman flicks his eyes toward me and away. Then he jerks them back again.

I step right into a puddle and slip. My hood falls from my head. Damn it. I scramble to my feet, yanking the hood over my eyes and glancing over my shoulder as I do. The Tribesman still watches, dark eyes narrowed.

Get out of here, Laia! I hurry away, turning down one alley and then another before chancing a look over my shoulder. No Tribesman. I sigh in relief.

The rain thickens, and I circle back to the apothecary. I peek out of the alley I’m in to see if the Tribesman and his friends are still at the tea stall. But they appear to have left. Before they can return—and before anyone else sees me—I duck into the shop.

The smell of herbs washes over me, tinged by something dark and bitter. The roof is so low I nearly hit my head. Traditional Tribal lamps hang from the ceiling, their intricate floral glow in sharp contrast to the earthy darkness of the shop.

“Epkah kesiah meda karun?”

A Tribal child of about ten years addresses me from behind the counter. Herbs hang in bunches over her head. The vials that line the walls behind her gleam. I eye them, searching for anything familiar. The girl clears her throat.

“Epkah Keeya Necheya?”

For all I know, she could be telling me I reek like a horse. But I do not have time to puzzle it out, so I pitch my voice low and hope she understands me.

“Tellis.”

The girl nods and rummages through a drawer or two before shaking her head, coming around the counter, and scanning the shelves. She scratches her chin, holds up a finger to me as if to tell me to wait, and slips through a back door. I glimpse a windowed storage room before the door swings shut.

A minute

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