She hissed through her teeth at him, and he peered forward to get a closer look.
“What has happened to you, Sylah?” He had seen the red stains.
“Nothing, not a damn thing.” She forced a smile, and it was as raw as the two sides of an open wound. “It’s been six years of bliss.”
She launched herself off the water tower, stumbled across to the barn roof and over to the street beyond. She felt the ghost of her memories laughing at her.
The two of them used to do that jump together.
—
Sylah consumed her last joba seed and moved on to firerum, which flowed thick and fast in the Maroon. But it didn’t quite fill the gap between her teeth. The patriotic spirit had followed the revelers back from the Keep, and the energy in the tavern buzzed around Sylah as she hunched over her drink by the bar.
We cannot be unmade.
Jond’s words infiltrated her thoughts, and she scowled. How dare he raise his sorry ass back up from the dead? Even if it was a very fine ass. And now he wanted to act like nothing had changed, that they were right back to the plan that had been set for them.
But Sylah had long veered off course, and she was content with the life she led. Besides, she had other things to concentrate on, like making her money back for Maiden Turin.
Three strikes had passed since sundown, and she was going to be late for the Ring. But she couldn’t leave yet; she had just stolen half a bottle of firerum and no one had noticed.
“It is curious how they forget the wardens’ tyranny.” The voice was as deep and as cavernous as the coal mines of Jin-Hidal. “In the light of the new day it’ll strike them harder than the overseer’s whip. You and I cannot begrudge them their happiness. Brief as it is.”
Sylah looked at the speaker. Beads hung around his neck and down from his ears, and patterned silks swept back his braids, which were dusted gray. He was as decorated as a joba tree in the Ember Quarter.
“Hello, Griot.” Sylah leaned forward and clinked her stolen treasure against his glass. She didn’t notice the mess her unsteady hand made. “Aren’t you paid to be happy?”
“Today, I mourn.” He growled into his glass, his thick lips a straight line of pain.
“Oh yes, the griot who died in the square.”
He nodded. “When a griot dies, so do his stories.”
“Not really,” Sylah countered. “Not if he told them right. People remember.”
“Do they?” Sylah noticed his teeth were perfectly straight, like dice lined up. “Or is that my job? To remember for them?” His eyebrows quivered upward, pulling his wrinkles into the start of a smile.
“How do you become a griot, anyway?” She eyed the trinket box by his hip. Maybe being a griot paid more than the Ring.
“Those who know tell. Those who tell are griots.”
“But where do you get your stories from? You just make them all up?”
“A curious Duster you are.”
“No, I’m not—” She nearly corrected him. But the Maroon wasn’t the place to announce her identity. Not ever. Not unless she wanted the warden army knocking on her door, and a one-way trip to the rack for being one of the Sandstorm.
When it was clear she wasn’t finishing her sentence, he continued, “Griots tell no lies, child. A griot looks at the truth and pulls it tight.” He twisted his arthritic hands in front of his face. “So tight it oozes with adventure, weeps with romance, and bleeds with horror.”
Sylah picked between her teeth with her finger, hoping to find the shell of a joba seed she’d missed. “Nice words. You should be a griot.”
He snorted, his smile spreading.
“You know,”—Sylah flicked back her hair and nearly fell off her stool—“I thought I was going to rule them all and make things better. Because I have a Duster’s heart, a dancer’s grace, and one more thing…”
“Indeed?”
“Yeah.”