The Final Strife

It is my fervent belief that severing the hands and tongues of Ghostings benefits their well-being. Those whose wounds fester are weeded out young, their frail countenance discarded before they become a nuisance to their masters. Those who survive understand the power of pain and the importance of subservience.

—Journal entry by Aveed, Disciple of Duty

The Day of Descent and Ascent were two of the few holidays Dusters and Ghostings were given. The Dredge would be emptying soon; everyone making their way up to the Keep to watch the four wardens abdicate to their disciples, their seconds-in-command. Sylah didn’t care for it. One Ember was the same as the next, no matter who ruled. The ceremony would bring the wardens’ decade-long reign to an end and start the reign of the new wardens. The other holiday was the Day of Ascent, in six mooncycles, once the new disciples were determined through a set of trials. At least on that holiday Sylah could make some money betting on who’d win.

She hawked, her phlegm carrying the husk of the seed she had been chewing. Her last one. The ecstasy from the joba seed now slid into a feeling of deep emptiness that was like stepping backward from a fire: you could see and smell the flames, but their warmth was a mere memory cooling on your skin.

Sylah needed to find something to trade, and quick. Not having any seeds in reserve put her nerves on edge. Hassa was wrong. She wasn’t having too much.

There was only one place in Nar-Ruta for Sylah to find something to barter: the empty villas that lined the outer streets of the Dredge. The villas had once been full of Ghosting families, but they now stood empty as a disease known as the sleeping sickness decimated the Ghostings’ numbers. The illness seemed only to affect those with translucent blood, stopping their hearts in their sleep. Dusters, not to forgo an opportunity—you had to take them where you could in the Wardens’ Empire—had begun to occupy the Ghosting villas they left behind.

And so the district that had once been known as the Ghosting Quarter became the Dredge: an amalgamation of the two blood colors and yet somehow less than both. It was rare to find a business there that didn’t trade in sex, alcohol, or drugs.

The houses in the Dredge were made of limestone, cheaper and less robust than whitestone, which was the only substance used in the Wardens’ Keep and the Ember Quarter south of the Ruta River. The tidewind had sanded most of the unoccupied villas down to the bare bones of their foundations. Their skeletal remains lined the street as if it were a Ghosting graveyard.

But Sylah knew it for what it really was, a treasure trove.

Sylah entered the first villa on her right, stepping lightly over a crumbling doorframe into a common room thick with blue sand from the Farsai Desert and the night’s tidewind. Pushing around the rubble, wood, and debris, all she could find was a rusty old spoon. She pocketed it just in case.

The next villa was painted with the black cross of the sleeping sickness. Sylah reached out and touched it, her finger coming away black.

“Still wet.” Whoever had lived there had died of the disease that morning, and now no one could enter. The disease was said to be so contagious that their bodies had to be burned within moments of them dying, even though it was a holiday. Sylah looked at the horizon where smoke curled up to the sky beyond the city’s walls—a pyre.

Sylah sighed and swirled her tongue around her mouth. The seed’s bitter juice had waned completely, leaving her with an aching gap between her teeth. The effect was fading faster and faster these days.

She took extra care searching the next villa, which, with more than three rooms, was bigger than most. It was once the home of a rich Ghosting, though a rich Ghosting was still poor compared to a Duster and utterly deprived by Ember standards.

“Ah!” In the third room, a picture frame nestled in the corner. Blue sand had burrowed into its furrows, but when she turned it over the painting was still intact.

A young family looked back at her. They were Ghostings, their gray-brown complexions captured in paint. But something was…different.

“One, two, three sets of hands…even the baby.” That meant the painting had been made before the Siege of the Silent. The picture was nearly four hundred years old, before the Ghostings started paying penance for an uprising against the wardens. They had lain siege to the Keep for two mooncycles, rebelling against the wardens’ rule. It took time, but in the end the wardens recruited a squadron of ten thousand soldiers, forming the first warden army, led by the Warden of Strength.

Though the rebellion had happened centuries ago, the Ghostings still suffered for the deeds of their ancestors.

Sylah’s fingertips ran up and over the strokes of paint until they found the corner of the canvas, and then she slipped her finger under the painting’s lip and pulled down, ripping it from the frame. Sylah surveyed her prize. The frame looked like oak, a tree that was hard to cultivate in the harsh weather of the empire. If it was, it would be worth a lot.

Sylah smiled. Today was a good day.

As she got up to leave, Sylah stooped to pick up an aged piece of parchment next to her that had slipped out from behind the frame.

The parchment was old, but sturdy, the wording archaic and decorative. Her heart soared at the thought of more treasure but sunk just as quickly when she saw the words “Marion Sea.” It was just a map of the empire.

Sylah splayed her hand across the illustration of the Wardens’ Empire. There it was, in the palm of her hand: the whole world. The capital city of Nar-Ruta lay to the south, its four quarters divided by the blue line of the Ruta River. A spiderweb of trade routes spread northward from the capital to the other twelve cities. Sylah traced her finger northward past the coal mines of Jin-Kutan and the salt flats of Ood-Lopah. Up, up her dirty fingernail went, to the northwest of the continent to the village of Ood-Zaynib, where she grew up.

“The Sanctuary,” she whispered. The Sanctuary was where she was raised.

Though the map didn’t show it, she could see the Sanctuary’s whitestone building ringed with sand dunes and fields of rubber trees.

The Marion Sea surrounded the empire. The sea was a death trap, and the map captured its dangers with jagged blue and black waves churning around the island. But Sylah had to laugh when she saw the gray drawing of the Tannin; the mythical sea creature was the subject of many children’s nightmares but few grown-ups believed in it.

And then her fingers ran along the jagged edge of one side. Half of the map had been torn away.

But there in the top right corner, was that the swirl of another letter? The smudge of another land?

No, it couldn’t be, there was no more land beyond the empire. The island was all that was left. Everything else had been consumed by the Ending Fire.

Sylah snorted. So not only was the map torn, it was inaccurate too. She rolled it up and added it to her satchel. Maybe she could paint over the corner and trade it.