“You may have heard of the Night of the Stolen, though the wardens tried to strangle the whispers on the wind. But for one night I will pry the wardens’ grip from our necks and let the story free. It is a story about thieves in the night; about a rebellion brewing; about our wardens’ home breached.”
Thump.
“Duty.”
The audience grumbled.
Thump.
“Truth.”
The audience booed.
Thump.
“Strength.”
Fists were raised in the air.
Thump.
“Knowledge.”
The audience screamed their dissent to the beat of the drum.
Thump-ba-da-thump.
The griot stopped and leveled his gaze at a newcomer. “My stories may fill your mind, but they don’t fill my coffer. Latecomers, pay up, stories aren’t free. One slab apiece.”
The griot paused until he heard the sound of a coin hitting his trinket box.
“Now, back we go. To the Wardens’ Keep, where the court resides and the patrons sleep. Here we find three unwelcome shadows: a mother with her child, and the leader of their crimes, sneaking through the gates.”
The griot’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you know who they were? The couple who crept in? Fleet of foot and quieter than a breath?”
“The Sandstorm!” a young Duster cried. Instead of a toy, she clutched her scythe.
“Eyoh! You have it right. Indeed, you have it right. The Sandstorm,” Griot Zibenwe whispered the word and winked. “Just in case the officers hear your cheers.
“The Sandstorm had a plan that night. They crept into Ember houses and the Keep and cut down anyone in their path. And so, the three shadows moved through the Keep, death in their wake. Blue was their blood, but that night the Keep ran red.”
Thump-ba-da-thump.
“Up and up the stairs they went. Toward the chambers where the nobility slept. Toward the chambers, where the babies were kept.”
The griot lifted his hands from the drum and sliced them through the air. “The leader slashed his scythe through the nursemaid’s neck. Blue blood stained the wall.”
“He killed a Duster?” the young girl in the front cried.
The griot nodded sadly. “Yes, my friends, he killed one of his own. But I tell you this: love may give you strength, but retribution gives you purpose.”
Thump.
“There in the center of the bedchamber, another baby lay. A babe whose blood ran red, unlike the blue-blooded child the mother held. Two years the Sandstorm had planned for this moment. The mother placed her Duster babe next to the other. Red and blue threads in the Sandstorm’s plan. The Duster a decoy for the other, a life sacrificed to allow them to escape.
“The leader lifted the other baby. The child whose blood ran red. This new child, swapped, was the key to bringing down the empire. Neither looked back at the Duster child they left behind as they ran from the warden’s home.”
Thump.