The Final Strife

“She won’t mind me asking after her, you see we’re friends, she and I.”

“Friends?”

He jumped as if spooked. “Oh, well, yes.”

“She doesn’t have any friends.” Anoor being friends with a servant was ludicrous. “What do you do around here?”

“I’m the baker.”

“Great. Can you get me some more bread?”

He nearly rose from his seat. “I’m not your servant.” He laughed.

He should have been. Sylah put down her spoon.

“Kwame, can I ask, how does an Ember like yourself end up a servant in the Keep?”

He frowned, making his wide brow look even wider. “I chose duty and got assigned here.”

“What are you, twenty-two, twenty-three? Why haven’t you risen through the ranks?”

“Ah…” His eyes flickered left and right, looking for an exit.

“Oh, I see, you’re incompetent.”

That rattled him; he pushed his chest higher, his chin tilted back. “No, I just wasn’t born into an imir family.”

The answer confused Sylah. She’d never really considered wealth to be a decisive factor in an Ember’s life. They had all seemed so powerful to her; certainly they were all wealthier than Dusters. Papa ingrained in them that every single Ember was part of an infection that riddled the body of the empire. And when a limb grows rotten and gangrenous, what must you do? Amputate.

They might have luxury, but did they truly have freedom?she thought as she chewed the last piece of bread with her mouth open.

“Besides, I like being a baker. But it does make me wonder why you’re a chambermaid, though.” He looked her up and down as he stood. “Perhaps you’re incompetent?” He stepped over the bench and was gone.

Sylah snorted at his retreating back. She liked him after all.