Sylah complied for the moment, following the throng of Dusters and Ghostings until she found an opportunity to slip away.
“Get out of the way! Move!” The driver’s shout was unnecessary. Everyone could hear the carriage thundering down the middle of the bridge, pulled by a jade-colored eru.
Fifty handspans long and at least ten handspans wide, the large lizards were the main mode of transport in the empire. The more experienced riders could saddle the big animals and ride them, but Sylah was not one of those. She hated traveling by eru, as she’d never mastered the skill to manipulate the large beast with reins or words. Most Embers, like this out-of-towner, preferred the comfort of drawn carriages strapped to the lizard’s hindquarters.
The jade eru’s tail hooked under the carriage as it scurried through the street, black claws tapping on the metal floor of the Tongue.
Sylah watched it amble off the bridge, the carriage bouncing on the cobblestones. Silver filigree wrapped around the roof of the carriage in ostentatious swirls. Sylah spotted a kente flag of green and yellow weave, flapping maniacally from a pole on the driver’s platform. She recognized the pattern of the imir of Jin-Sukar. Imirs were the Ember leaders that governed the twelve districts north of the capital. Despite some of the areas being many weeks’ ride away, the imir’s puppet strings were long, the warden’s rule absolute.
As the carriage drew level with the platoon of officers, she took the opportunity to slip away into a side street.
Pristine white villas sprawled along the road, the domed roofs sending shadows across immaculate courtyards. Sylah breathed in and scowled at the clean air. When she looked back, she couldn’t even see the plantation fields.
How nice it is to be so blinded by your own riches that you can’t see whose back your home is built upon,she thought.
Every villa had a joba tree growing in a small fenced patch of sand. The large trees were thought to be a conduit to the God Anyme, tall and high in the sky as they were. The taller the tree, the higher the family’s status—the age of the tree being an indicator of generational wealth. Of course, the wardens were the first to settle in the Keep, so their tree was the largest and grandest. In the Duster Quarter you’d be happy with a six-handspans bush. Sylah’s mother had managed to coax theirs to seven handspans.
Sylah clasped her trembling hands behind her and looked up past the white bark and wide, spindly arms to the canopy, looking for the red fruit the trees produced during the sixth mooncycle, knowing that there wouldn’t be any, but hoping anyway.
The fences that surrounded each of the joba trees varied in size and opulence. Some were even locked to prevent thieves from stealing the decoration that dangled from the branches. Some Dredge-dwellers placed sad little sticks in front of their doors in poor replicas, like wealth would come to them if they manifested it through imitation.
As she weaved through the cobbled lanes, her palms began to sweat. If she had to watch the Descent, she’d do it from familiar ground, not within the walls of the enemy, but it had been a long time since she’d been to the water tower.
It was haunted for her by the ghouls of her past.
Her feet knew the way even though it had been years since she’d last been there. Scouting the street one last time, she ducked behind one of the larger villas and found her way to the bottom of the steps.
The tower was the only ugly thing in the Ember Quarter. It had been abandoned after the Warden of Duty implemented a new irrigation system. Sylah spat out a joba seed. Dusters and Ghostings still had to haul their water from wells. She was surprised they hadn’t torn it down: Embers hated unsightly things. It was why Dusters and Ghostings lived across the river.
She looked up from the bottom of the steps, worn smooth from exposure to the tidewind. A chant from her childhood limped out of her mouth.
“Stolen, sharpened, the hidden key,
We’ll destroy the empire and set you free,
Churned up from the shadows to tear it apart,
A dancer’s grace, a killer’s instinct, an Ember’s blood, a Duster’s heart.”
For a moment she saw Jond’s smiling face.
“Come on, no one will know we took a break.”
“But Papa, he told us to go right back. We should saddle Huda and go meet him.”
“She’s right, Jond. We’ve got the books he asked us to get.” Fareen was frowning, the expression so rare on her usually carefree face.
“Eeyah, Fareen, stop copying everything Sylah does. Here, grab my hand, I’ll help you up. The view will be worth it, I promise.”
Jond held out his hand, and Sylah clasped it. Firm and warm, it was calloused like hers. He winked at her as he held hers for a second longer than was really required.
Fareen followed not far behind.
She sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. They were both dead. Just Lio and her left, and even then Sylah often wondered if her mother really wanted her. She probably wished another child had survived.
She popped a joba seed in her mouth and bit down. Two left.
The drug floated her up the dusty steps to her memory of the view above. When she reached the top, she steadied herself on the stone wall. The joba seed turned the cheers of the crowd into a liquid frenzy in her veins.