The Final Strife

“I remember thinking it was raining, I tilted my head to the sky, waiting for the water to touch my face…but it didn’t.” Her hand went to the scar at the base of her neck where the bullet had skimmed her skin. “I was lucky. Or unlucky. I’m never sure.”

“Fareen…” A low moan emanated with her name, and Sylah couldn’t continue for a moment.

The rain shower of bullets took her. Sylah was there, holding Fareen’s hand, running with her to shelter. But then she dropped, and still Sylah dragged her along. She pulled her lifeless body all the way to the barn, refusing to see her spirit had left her. Lio tried to pry Sylah’s fingers off her stiffened corpse, before she could get her onto Huda, the eru.

“Everyone died. Everyone except me and my mother. Your mother.”

“Jond?” The question was quiet. Fierce.

“I didn’t know until earlier this year that he survived, that the Sandstorm didn’t truly die with my family but lived on through a different leader, the person who was the true leader all along…the Warden of Crime.”

Anoor shifted her feet but said nothing.

“Jond found me, told me the truth. I was going to rejoin, sign up for the Aktibar and win.” Sylah’s smile was wry. “But no one accounted for you. Least of all me.”

“The deal we struck? The bloodwerk, was that…to teach Jond?”

Sylah nodded. “He gave me purpose again. The Sandstorm gave me purpose.”

“Purpose?” The word rolled off Anoor’s mouth with malice.

“The task was simple, learn how to bloodwerk and in exchange I teach you. Then they asked me to steal the journals.”

“What?”

Shame dried her mouth, and Sylah coughed. “I…I stole some journals and gave them to the Sandstorm…including the one in your bedside cabinet.”

Anoor laughed, a brittle, painful sound.

Sylah sat against the wall like a broken doll. Her limbs still ached with the aftershocks of the seizure. “Then you said you love me and I—”

“Don’t you dare say those words to me.” Anoor’s words sliced through the air with the sharpness of a whip. “I can never trust you. I don’t want to see you ever again.” She got up to leave, but when she reached the tower door it was locked. “What have you done?”

Sylah reached for the sword hanging on the wall and stood.