That was his first question?
Sylah took a deep breath and shared the second secret that had been simmering beneath her skin.
“It doesn’t matter. Look, Jond, there’s something else. We’ve found evidence that there’s more land beyond the empire…”
“How long ago,” he repeated through clenched teeth.
“Jond, did you just hear me? Anoor and I found evidence of land beyond the empire.”
He waited.
“I learned the journal was there a few weeks ago.”
Jond stood, his mug crashing down on the table.
“Do you think this is a game, Sylah? Do you understand what your task was? Have you forgotten the enemy here?”
She couldn’t believe this was what he was upset about.
“Jond, this is so much bigger than anything the Sandstorm…”
“You’re wrong, there is nothing more important than the Final Strife. The Embers must be eliminated,” he growled at her.
“The Final Strife? We are not those three words, we are more than that. Jond, listen to yourself.”
His eyes bulged, like he couldn’t believe what she was saying.
“Do you know how much I have lied for you? Every day I report back to the master as if it’s come from you, I’ve watched and waited and spied and followed.” His voice was hoarse. “Every day I begged for the Sandstorm to welcome you back, even though you were the one who caused their deaths, even after you managed to miss the sign-up and get yourself captured. They wanted to kill you, Sylah…” His voice was pained. “And I couldn’t let them kill you, I couldn’t.” His eyes filled with tears, and he reached for her, despite his next words striking her like a whip. “Everything is your fucking fault, Sylah.”
She took a step back, her thoughts a jumble.
“They wanted to kill me?” she whispered.
He nodded.
They sat in silence for some time, until Sylah spoke.
“All this time I thought I needed the purpose of the Sandstorm to sustain me. And when…when I caused their deaths as you rightfully point out, I lost that purpose, and joba seeds found me. Then there was you.” Sylah’s face softened as she looked at her Akoma. “And you came back with the promise of that purpose again. But I don’t think I was ever meant to be that grain of sand among the Sandstorm. I was meant to be forged through fire and flame into glass.”
Sylah felt the freedom in her words. The severing of her ties to an organization she had never willingly joined. She closed her eyes for a blissful moment.
Jond spoke, his voice rough, his lopsided grin a ghost of an expression, trying to hide the pain in her words. “Sylah, will you go everywhere with me?”
She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. She inclined her head.
“No, Jond.” Sylah smiled sadly, even though each word made an invisible wound in his side. “You are my Akoma, I grant you that, but you are not my heart.”
She turned on her heel and left.
—
Sylah sat in the courtyard beneath the sprawling joba tree and fondled the seed in her pocket. The sun had just set, and the tidewind would be here soon. There was grief in her freedom from the Sandstorm, and she didn’t want Anoor to see it.
Part of her wondered if this was where it was always supposed to end, at the bottom of the joba tree, her body fertilizing the roots of the addiction that had destroyed her. At least the tidewind would be quick. It had claimed more and more lives in the last few weeks, its ferocity stronger than ever.
“We thank thee for what you give us, we praise thee for where you lead us. We serve thee for how you punish us. The blood, the power, the life.” The murmuring came from her left. Sylah was surprised the Abosom was out so close to the coming of the tidewind.
Sylah circled the trunk of the tree to find a young woman bent in prayer. Her white cowl was wrapped tightly around her face, but with her head tipped back Sylah recognized her as the same woman she had seen here before.