The Final Strife

Anoor watched the blood ooze from the slash across his spine. It dribbled like the white latex they harvested, sluggish and thick. The skin across his back was no longer a deep brown, but a silvered gray. A shantra board of scars.

“Every day the Embers beat the backs of those below them. Still, he stands. Still, he works. That is power.”

Anoor caught the old man’s eyes, and she saw resentment there—but also a fierceness that hadn’t dimmed in his old age. He stood up straighter under her stare, the blood pouring down his back into his pantaloons.

“Why doesn’t he wear a shirt?” Anoor asked.

“Why, when it’ll only get ripped?”

He broke Anoor’s gaze and moved back to the bark he was hacking. Up and down his gnarled hands moved. Each swing of his scythe ripping the wound open just a little more.

Anoor let the tears fall.

—

Sylah was quiet as they made their way back to the Keep.

Anoor had the missing journal.

It had been there the whole time, a few handspans from where Sylah slept. Now that she thought about it, she’d seen Anoor remove it the one time she grew dizzy from bloodwerk, but her memory was hazy. Besides, she never considered that Anoor would ever steal something.

Sylah rubbed her arms, her muscles twinging. She hadn’t had a verd leaf tea that morning, and she needed one. For the first time in a long while, she craved the ecstasy of a joba seed more than anything else.

More than rejoining the Sandstorm.

She repeated their conversation in the Maroon over and over in her mind. That was the moment to tell Anoor the truth. That had been her opening, but Sylah had let it pass by.

She rolled the joba seed in her pocket, the action helping to dampen the craving she felt.

“Are you okay?” Anoor asked as they stepped off the Tongue and into the Ember Quarter.

Sylah should be asking her that question, not the other way around.

“I’m fine, just…you know.”

Anoor nodded. “Let’s stop by at the kitchens and get you a verd leaf tea.”

“Thank you. Not just for that, but for telling me the truth.”

Anoor smiled, her eyes still puffy from crying. Sylah had held her for some time as they watched the plantation workers toil.

“What would you do, Sylah, if you were warden?”

Sylah faltered in her step.

“I would want to help the Dusters and the Ghostings, raise them up. Level the ranks.”

“But how? How would you help them?”

By killing every single Ember. The words in her mind were said in Jond’s voice, but they felt wrong to her.

“I would hold the Embers accountable.”

“With violence?”

Sylah didn’t respond, but the set of her jaw told Anoor all she needed to know.

“I would raise taxes,” Anoor said. “I would set up a proper education system that benefited everyone, I would abolish blood scours and ensure equal opportunities across all guilds. No more brandings. I would close every Ghosting abattoir in the empire and pardon them for the crimes of their ancestors; they’ve suffered enough. I would stop the rippings and improve working conditions across the plantations. I would encourage bloodwerk inventions to mechanize some of the labor and melt down every weapon.”