The Final Strife

“In the joba tree, of course! I’ll make a tree house bigger and better than your chambers.”

“Remember when I said I was going to live in the joba tree?” It had been six years, but Jond still had the uncanny ability to know what she was thinking.

Sylah tried to laugh, but instead her lips drooped in a poor replica of a smile. She didn’t want to talk about the Sandstorm anymore. There was no changing this world. It had taken the Sandstorm’s deaths for her to realize it. She was better off chasing oblivion. She was good at it too.

Her hands shook as she balled them into fists. Damn, she needed another joba seed.

Her eyes darted to Jond’s. He scrutinized her until she looked back to the scene below.

Submissions for the Aktibar had opened as they always did after the ceremony. A line of Embers began to snake its way around the courtyard as they queued to enter their name into one of the four trials: strength, duty, knowledge, and truth. Submissions would end on the morrow.

Jond put a hand on her shoulder as he followed her gaze down the line. “Enter the Aktibar with me.”

She had been waiting for those words. Hoping for them, maybe?

“Sylah, we trained for years for this, it’s in our blood. It’s what Papa Azim wanted us to do.” She could hear the smile in the tone of his voice.

Sylah hawked and spat over the edge, pressing her shaking hands into the stone wall. “I gave up that dream, Jond. When I realized I was just the tool and had no idea how to wield it.” She couldn’t take it anymore. She was taking a joba seed.

Jond watched her as she crunched the seed and tucked it between the gap in her front teeth. That was better. That was much better. It was easier not to think, easier just to feel. A slow moan escaped her as the ecstasy was released into her bloodstream.

Only one left.

Sylah’s head lolled forward, her lips going slack as she vibrated with the blissful energy the joba seeds gave her. This was what she was born for.

She laughed.

“What’s funny?” Jond asked, but she had already forgotten. He was still watching her.

“Are you crying?” Sylah had never seen Jond cry, but there he was crying. Tears dripping down his cheeks like pearls. She wondered if she could string them together and gift them to him. Her fingers reached for them, and he let her touch the wetness on his rough cheeks. “You are, you’re crying.” With each drip she collected, the euphoria lessened.

“I’m sorry, Sylah.”

“What for?” She cocked her head at him.

Jond cleared his throat, but his voice still came out husky. “For not coming sooner.”

Sylah took a step back, but she was unsteady on her feet. The drug-induced dizziness would last for a little while longer. Jond reached for her, but she backed up to the crumbling wall of the water tower. Sylah fought the fogginess in her mind for a moment of clarity.

“How long have you known I was alive?” The question crept in between the folds of silence.

“I had to prepare—”

“How long, Jond?”

He looked at her, his response quiet. “Two years.”

“Two years?” She clenched and released her fist by her side.

“I wasn’t here, Sylah, I was training, you don’t understand, let me explain.”

“Two fucking years you knew I was alive.”

“I only came to Nar-Ruta yesterday, to sign up for the Aktibar. They wouldn’t let me—”

The blow gave him a matching bruise on the other side of his jaw. They grappled in the sand that had, moments before, danced in their embrace. Sylah clutched Jond’s shirt in her fist and felt it tear.

“Peace, Sylah, peace.”