The Final Strife

Anoor had to hurry to keep up with it as it clattered away. She peered into one of the carriages. “Sandals?”

Sylah nodded. “That’s power.”

Anoor didn’t understand, but she wanted to. So she didn’t say anything.

Sylah didn’t stop again until they crossed the Tongue and entered the Duster Quarter. She pointed to a group of Duster children walking hand in hand toward a building. They were dancing and chanting the blood scour song. Anoor had heard the officers’ song for as long as she could remember.

“If your blood runs red, go straight ahead.” Their hands clasped together and snaked forward. “If your blood runs blue, you’re not coming through.” They held up their arms in a cross. “Translucent hue, who are you, who are you, who are you?” They turned to their partners and clapped their hands.

“You see those children, do you know where they go?”

Anoor shook her head, something like dread crawling up her back. The air smelled of burning hair.

“They walk toward their branding. Each one of them is prepared to burn for the empire.” Sylah watched them, a small smile toying her lips. “That is power.”

Anoor wanted to cry. But there was no time; Sylah was walking again. The streets became dirtier, the villas crumbling. Beggars lingered in front of ruined villas and Ghostings became more visible. They were in the Dredge again.

Sylah led Anoor down some narrow steps below street level.

“This is the Maroon, a place where all the Dusters come to drink.” Sylah pulled open the wood lice–infested door and shepherded Anoor in.

Anoor could tell they were Dusters by the blood-crusted welts on their backs. They nursed glasses of firerum and played games of shantra on small tables. A singer stood on a podium and hummed a morose tune that made Anoor’s hairs stand on end. A drummer beat a metal spoon on an upturned pot next to her. Anoor could smell the body odor and the scent of congealed latex. They should really have burned some sandalwood.

A young girl stood at the bar cleaning greasy glasses.

“Why isn’t she in school?” Anoor asked Sylah.

“School, Anoor? School?” Sylah rubbed her brows. “Education is a luxury, not a necessity. Do you understand that? Dusters are given ten years of schooling, to better their prospects for roles the Embers assign them. Burning flesh not quite the Choice Day ceremony you had in mind? Ghostings don’t even get to go to school, they’re entered into servitude as soon as they can walk.”

Anoor had been going to school for most of her life, and she was twenty. It was a luxury, she knew that, but now she wondered if she’d been studying the wrong things. She was trying to make up for it now.

“How do you know all this?”

Sylah waved at the girl behind the bar. “You’re paying,” she said to Anoor.

“Sylah…you’re not an assassin, are you?”

Anoor had doubted it for a long time. The only person who wanted her killed was her mother, and she wouldn’t send an assassin and let someone else find her body swathed in blue blood. She’d be tidy, right up until the end.

Sylah downed her firerum in one, hissing through her teeth as it burned her throat.

“No, I’m not, Anoor.”

“What are you?”

Sylah looked at Anoor’s firerum. “You drinking this?”

Anoor shook her head. Waiting.

“I’m not an assassin.”

“Okay.”

“I’m a thief. I was stealing from you that night.”

“But why didn’t you just take my jewels and go?”

“I tried, but remember the…clonk.” Sylah tipped her head back, reenacting the paperweight hitting her temple. Sylah grinned, but she didn’t seem amused.