He points to my armlet. "It's beautiful."

"My mother gave it to me. Just before she died."

"The pattern. I feel like I've seen it before." Elias tilts his head. "May I?"

I reach up to take off the armlet but stop, a peculiar reluctance coming over me. Don't be ridiculous, Laia. He's going to give it right back.

"Just . . . just for a minute, all right?" I hand the armlet over, edgy as he turns it in his hands, examining the pattern barely visible beneath the tarnish.

"Silver," he says. "Do you think the fey could sense it? The efrit and the wraiths kept asking for silver."

"No idea." I take it quickly when he hands it back, my whole body relaxing as I put it on. "But I'd die before I gave this up. It was the last thing my mother gave me. Do--do you have anything of your father's?"

"Nothing." Elias doesn't sound bitter. "Not even a name. Just as well. Whoever he was, I don't think he was a good person."

"Why? You're good. And you didn't get it from the Commandant."

Elias's smile is sad. "Just a hunch." He pokes the fire with a stick. "Laia," he says gently. "We should talk about it."

Oh skies. "Talk about what?"

"Whatever it is that's bothering you. I can take a guess, but it might be better if you tell me."

"You want to talk now? After weeks of not even looking at me?"

"I look at you." His response is swift, his voice low. "Even when I shouldn't."

"Then why won't you say anything? Do you think I'm--I'm horrible? For what happened with Shikaat? I didn't want to--" I choke back the rest of my words. Elias drops the stick and inches closer. I feel his fingers on my chin and make myself look at him.

"Laia, I am the last person who will judge you for killing in your own defense. Look at what I am. Look at my life. I left you alone because I thought you might find comfort in solitude. As for not . . . looking at you, I don't want to hurt you. I'm dead in a few months. About five, if I'm lucky. It's best if I keep my distance. We both know that."

"So much death," I say. "It's everywhere. What's the point then of living? Will I ever escape it? In a few months you'll . . ." I can't say the words. "And Shikaat. He was going to kill me--and then . . . then he was dead. His blood was so warm, and he looked alive, but--" I suppress a shudder and straighten my back. "Never mind. I'm letting this get the best of me. I--"

"Your emotions make you human," Elias says. "Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose. Don't lock them away. If you ignore them, they just get louder and angrier."

A lump rises in my throat, insistent and clawing, like a howl that's been trapped inside me.

Elias pulls me into a hug, and as I lean into his shoulder, the sound lurking within emerges, something between a scream and a sob. Something animal and strange. Frustration and fear at what is to come. Rage at how I always feel as if I'm thwarted. Terror that I will never see my brother again.

After a long time, I pull back. Elias's face is somber when I look up at him. He wipes my tears away. His scent rolls over me. I breathe it in.

The open expression on his face fades. I can practically see him fling up a wall. He drops his arms and moves back.

"Why do you do that?" I try to rein in my exasperation and fail. "You close yourself up. You shut me out because you don't want me to get close. What about what I want? You won't hurt me, Elias."

"I will," he says. "Trust me."

"I don't trust you. Not about this."

Defiantly, I edge closer to him. He clenches his jaw but doesn't move. Without looking away, I bring a tentative hand to his mouth. Those lips, curved like they're always smiling, even when his eyes are lit with desire, as they are now.

"This is a bad idea," he murmurs. We're so close that I can see a long eyelash that's landed on his cheek. I can see the hints of blue in his hair.

"Then why aren't you stopping it?"

"Because I'm a fool." We breathe each other's breath, and as his body relaxes, as his hands finally slide around my back, I close my eyes.

Then he freezes. My eyes snap open. Elias's attention is fixed on the tree line. A second later, he stands and draws his scims in one fluid motion. I scramble to my feet.

"Laia." He steps around me. "Our tail has caught up. Hide in the boulders. And"--his voice takes on a sudden note of command as he meets my eyes--"if anyone gets near you, fight with all you've got."

I draw my knife and dart behind him, trying to see what he sees, to hear what he hears. The forest around us is silent.

Zing.

An arrow flies through the trees, straight at Elias's heart. He blocks it with a twitch of a scim.

Another missile hurtles out. Zing--and another, and another. Elias blocks them all, until a small forest of broken arrows sits at his feet.

"I could do this all night," he says, and I start, because his voice is devoid of emotion. The voice of a Mask.

"Let the girl go," someone snarls from the trees, "and be on your way."

Elias glances over his shoulder at me, one eyebrow cocked.

"A friend of yours?"

I shake my head. "I don't have any--"

A figure steps out of the trees--dressed in black, heavily hooded, an arrow nocked in his bow. In the heavy mist, I cannot make out his face. But something about him is familiar.

"If you're here for the bounty--" Elias begins, but the archer cuts him off.

"I'm not," he snaps. "I'm here for her."

"Well, you can't have her," Elias says. "You can keep wasting arrows, or we can fight." Fast as a whip, Elias flips one of his scims around and offers it to the man with such blatant and insulting arrogance that I grimace. If our attacker was angry before, he'll be furious now.

The man drops his bow, staring at us for a second before shaking his head.

"She was right," he says, his voice hollow. "He didn't take you. You went willingly."

Oh skies, I know him now. Of course I know him. He pushes his hood back, hair pouring out like flame.

Keenan.

XIII: Elias

While I attempt to work out how--and why--the redhead from the Moon Festival has tracked us all the way through the mountains, another figure trudges out from the woods, her blonde hair pulled back in a messy braid, face and eyepatch smudged with dirt. She was already slender when living with the Commandant, but now she looks like she's on the edge of starvation.

"Izzi?"

"Elias." She greets me with a wan smile. "You're looking . . . ah . . . lean?" Her brow furrows as she takes in my poison-altered appearance.

Laia pushes past me, a shriek bursting from her throat. She flings one arm around Red, another around the Commandant's former slave, and takes them down in a heap, laughing and crying at the same time.

"Skies, Keenan, Izzi! You're all right--you're alive!"

"Alive, yes." Izzi throws Red a look. "I don't know about all right. Your friend here set a wicked pace."

Red doesn't respond to her, his gaze fixed on me.

"Elias." Laia catches the glare and stands, clearing her throat. "You know Izzi. And this is Keenan, a--a friend." She says friend like she's not sure if it's an accurate description. "Keenan, this is--"

"I know who he is." Red cuts her off, and I suppress the urge to punch him for doing so. Knocking out her friend within five minutes of meeting him, Elias--bad way to keep the peace.

"What I want to understand," Red goes on, "is how in the skies you ended up with him. How could you--"

"Why don't we sit down." Izzi raises her voice and drops next to the fire. I sit beside her, keeping one eye on Keenan, who has taken Laia aside and now speaks to her urgently. I watch his lips; he's telling her that he's coming with her to Kauf.

It's a terrible idea. And one that I'll have to shoot down. Because if getting Laia and myself safely to Kauf is nearly impossible, hiding four people is insanity.

"Tell me you have something to eat, Elias," Izzi says under her breath. "Maybe Keenan can live on obsession, bu

t I haven't had a proper meal in weeks."

I offer her the remains of my hare. "Sorry, there isn't much left," I say. "I can catch you another." I keep my attention on Keenan, half drawing my scim as he gets more and more worked up.

"He's not going to hurt her," Izzi says. "You can relax."

"How do you know?"

"You should have seen him when he found out she'd left with you." Izzi takes a bite of the hare and shudders. "I thought he was going to murder someone--me, actually. Laia gave me her berth on a barge and told me Keenan would find me after two weeks. But he got to me a day after I left Serra. Maybe he had a hunch. I don't know. He calmed down eventually, but I don't think he's even slept since then. Once, he hid me in a safe house in a village and was gone all day looking for information, for anything that could lead us to you. All he could think about was getting to her."

So he's infatuated. Wonderful. I want to ask more questions, like whether Izzi thinks Laia feels the same. But I hold my tongue. Whatever lies between Laia and Keenan cannot matter to me.

Tags: Sabaa Tahir An Ember in the Ashes Fantasy
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