A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,51

and reach for my mother’s armlet. Strength. “Please.”

Keenan hesitates, then takes my hands as I curl them into fists.

“I’m sorry.” For once, his gaze is unguarded. “You’ve been through the hells, and I’m sitting here making you feel worse. I won’t mention it again. If this is what you want, then this is what we’ll do. I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

A sigh of relief escapes me, and I nod. He traces the K on my chest—the mark the Commandant carved into me when I was her slave. It is a pale scar now. His fingers drift up to my collarbone, my face. “I missed you,” he says. “Isn’t that strange? Three months ago, I’d never even met you.”

I study his strong jaw, the way his brilliant hair spills across his forehead, the muscles bunched in his arm. I sigh at his scent, lemon and woodsmoke, so familiar to me now. How did he come to mean so much to me? We hardly know each other, and yet at his proximity, my body goes still. I lean into his touch involuntarily, the warmth of his hand drawing me closer.

The door opens, and I jump back, reaching for my dagger. But it’s Elias. He glances between Keenan and me. His skin, so sickly when he left us in the wagon, is back to its usual gold hue.

“We have a problem.” He climbs into the wagon and unfolds a sheet of paper: a “wanted” poster with frighteningly accurate depictions of Elias and me.

“How in the skies did they know?” Izzi asks. “Did they track us?”

Elias looks down at the wagon floor, swirling the dust there with his boot. “Helene Aquilla is here.” His voice is oddly neutral. “I saw her at the Martial garrison. She must have worked out where we were going. She’s got a cordon around Tribe Saif, and hundreds of soldiers here to help search for us.”

I find Keenan’s eyes. Just being in his presence is a risk. Maybe coming into Nur was a bad idea.

“We need to get to your friend,” I say, “so we can leave with the rest of the Tribes. How do we do it?”

“I was going to suggest we wait for night again and then use disguises. But that’s what Aquilla would expect. So we do the opposite. We hide in plain sight.”

“How are we supposed to hide a Scholar rebel, two former slaves, and a fugitive in plain sight?” Keenan asks.

Elias reaches into his bag and pulls out a set of manacles. “I have an idea,” he says. “But you’re not going to like it.”

«««

“Your ideas,” I hiss at Elias as I trail him through the stiflingly packed streets of Nur, “are almost as deadly as mine.”

“Quiet, slave.” He nods at a squad of Martials marching lockstep through an adjacent street.

I press my lips together, and the manacles weighing down my ankles and wrists clink. Elias was wrong. I don’t just dislike this plan. I hate it.

He wears a red slaver’s shirt and holds a chain that connects to an iron collar around my neck. My hair hangs in my face, mussed and tangled. Izzi, her eye still bandaged, trails me. Three feet of chain stretch between us, and she relies on my whispered directions to keep from tripping. Keenan follows her, sweat beading on his face. I know how he feels: as if we’re actually being led to auction.

We follow Elias in an obedient row, heads down, bodies defeated, as Scholar slaves are expected to look. Memories of the Commandant flood my head: her pale eyes as she carved her initial into my chest with such sadistic care; the blows she delivered as casually as if casting pennies to beggars.

“Keep it together.” Elias glances back at me, perhaps sensing my rising panic. “We’ve still got to get across the city.”

Like the dozens of other slavers we’ve seen here in Nur, Elias leads us with a confident disdain, barking out the occasional order. He mutters at the dust in the air and looks down on the Tribesmen as if they are cockroaches.

With a scarf covering the lower half of his face, I can see only his eyes, almost colorless in the morning light. His slaver’s shirt fits more loosely than it would have a few weeks ago. The battle against the Commandant’s poison has stripped him of his bulk, and he is all edges and angles now. The sharpness heightens his beauty, but it seems almost like I’m looking at his shadow