The Final Strife

“Now?”

“In the fortress of pain. Can I have fried yams?”

Sylah laughed, breaking the tension that had started to build. “You can have a hundred, but make sure you make me some too.”

Anoor smiled, her gaze falling from Sylah’s and lingering on the wound covered in gauze.

“How do you know it was your father who made her promise?” Sylah prompted Anoor back to her story.

Anoor glanced at her bedside table, then back to Sylah. With jerky movements she reached over and pulled out the false drawer. Her hands cradled her mother’s words as she handed the journal over.

“I read it in this.”

“The missing journal…” Sylah breathed.

“What?”

“I noticed that there was one missing…in the library.” Sylah’s words were distracted.

“Oh.” Anoor spread her hands along the leatherbound cover. “I stole it when she locked me in the library.”

Sylah reached for the journal.

“Don’t—” Anoor shrieked. “I don’t want you to read the names she calls me.”

“It can’t be worse than what I call you, can it?” Sylah’s lopsided grin made Anoor ache.

“I keep it to remind myself of who I don’t want to be, what I cannot let myself become.”

Sylah dragged her eyes away from the journal and met Anoor’s.

“You will never be Uka.”

Anoor quaked under the tenderness in her words. She put the journal away and turned to Sylah.

“Do you hate me because I’m a Duster?”

Sylah recoiled. “Why would you say that?”

“Because my blood is dirty. The Dusters, we have no power.”

Sylah stood.

“Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To meet your people.”

—

Again, they walked, up through the Ember Quarter and across the Tongue. Anoor let Sylah lead her, their hands intertwined.

The trotro rattled past, and Sylah stopped. “See that?”

“The trotro?”

“No, what’s inside it.”