Before she could realize why, he disappeared down the path between tents.
Forty-Two
Asha didn’t wait for the song to end. Instead, with her hand still in Jas’s, she stopped dancing and pulled him through the crowd.
“What are you . . . ?”
Pulled him all the way up to his friend.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Asha said when the scrublander girls stopped dancing and turned to face them. Sensing what she was about to do, Jas tried to tug his hand free and escape, but Asha held firm. “I’m afraid I have to rush off, but I don’t want to abandon my dancing partner. So I wondered . . .” Asha looked from one to the next, until her eyes fell on the girl Jas had been watching. Lirabel, he’d called her. “I was wondering if you might want to dance with him?”
Lirabel’s big eyes looked from Asha to Jas in surprise. She was a soft-looking girl with a heart-shaped face and a gentle mouth. Lirabel dipped her head shyly, then said, “I would be honored.”
And that was that.
Asha smiled. Jas looked terrified. But when Lirabel looked up into his face, he stepped toward her, swallowing.
Asha released his hand. Turning, she pushed out of the crowd, heading in the direction Torwin had disappeared, down the path between tents.
She walked past the noise and the crowds and finally caught sight of him near the outskirts of New Haven.
“Torwin! Wait!”
At the sound of her voice, he slowed. Then turned around.
Asha ran to catch up, stopping just before a leaning structure that smelled like iron. There was no door, just a small opening, and in the starlight Asha could make out the shape of an anvil before everything melted into shadow. The smithy stood on the edge of the camp. Out here, the world was silent and dark and the stars were bright specks of sand, glittering above them.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. “You’re supposed to be—”
“Dancing with Jas?”
Torwin looked away from her.
Was he . . . jealous?
“It’s rare for someone I’ve only just met to be kind to me instead of afraid of me,” she told him, touching the crimson fabric of her dress. It was a little rough, but she never truly belonged in the beautiful sabra silk of her kaftans, and Asha didn’t mind it. “He gave me this.”
“Did he?” Torwin smiled a shadow smile. A fake. “Well, Jas certainly has fine taste. You look exceedingly pretty tonight.” He looked over his shoulder. “He’s probably wondering where you are. Maybe you should—”
“Or maybe you should tell me what’s wrong.”
Torwin went quiet, looking immediately out over the night-touched tents. Asha studied the shape of him. Already he’d recovered from the effects of the dragon bone. He was lean and tall and strong. Not strong the way Jarek was strong. Torwin’s strength was a strength of spirit.
She hadn’t forgotten what he’d said in the meeting tent a few days ago. He would stay until the wedding, he told her. And now the wedding was over.
And here they were.
“I heard a rumor tonight.” She stepped toward him. “Are the skral planning to leave Firgaard?”
He kept his gaze away from her, nodding. “The skral support your brother, but most intend to leave the city after the invasion.” Torwin sighed, running long fingers through his hair. “When this is over, if your brother secures the throne . . . the scrublanders have offered to take us across the desert.”
Us. Her heart sank at that word.
But not you, she thought, staring up at him. You’re planning to run even farther.
“For those who stay behind . . .” He shrugged. “No one knows what their fate will be.”
“Dax promised to free every slave.”
He nodded.
“So what’s the problem?”
“It’s easier said than done, Asha.”
“You can’t think he’ll go back on his word.”
“When we all go free, who will dress you and cook your meals? Build your temples and labor in your orchards? Your way of life will crumble and in the midst of that crumbling, we’re supposed to find our place among you? Be treated as your equals?”
“Yes,” she said, angry—but whether it was anger at his doubt, or her own, she wasn’t sure.
He shook his head. “Very few draksors will be eager to lose their slaves. And where will we live now that we’re free? Who will employ us?” He kicked at the earth beneath his feet. “Things are going to get worse before they get better. Draksors will be angry and skral will be easy targets. It will be dangerous for us to remain in the city.”
“So you’re leaving,” she said.
She wished she didn’t sound so angry.
Torwin merely glanced at her.
“When?” she demanded. The question had been burning within her for days now. “Tonight? Tomorrow?”
He swallowed. “When the army heads to Firgaard in the morning, I’ll leave for Darmoor. My things are already packed.”
Something broke inside her.
“You should go.” She spat the words like they were bitter. Like she hated the taste of them. She couldn’t look at him, thinking instead of what he’d told her. Of what he wanted most: freedom. She stared out at the hundreds of tents scattered across the valley. “You’ll be safer far away from here.”
Away from her.
Torwin went silent. After a moment, he stepped in close. “Safe?” His gaze bore into her. “Is that . . . ?” She could almost hear the thoughts spinning though his mind. “Are you trying to keep me safe, Asha?”
Looking at him would give her away. So, to keep her eyes from meeting his, she stared at his collarbone, noticing how it jutted out just a little, swooping elegantly in toward his throat on both sides.
To stop herself from reaching out to touch it, she curled her fingers into her palms, keeping them firmly at her sides.
“Asha. Look at me.”
When she didn’t, he reached for her. The backs of his fingers moved across her scarred skin, tracing her hairline, brushing down her cheek and neck.
Asha glanced up. The look in his eyes made her breath catch. It was like looking into the heart of a star: bright and burning.
“Do you know what it feels like to watch you dance with someone else, knowing that someone can never be me?” His hand fell to his side. “Do you know what it feels like to have you not even consider the gift waiting in your tent . . . might be from me?”
Asha looked down at her perfectly fitted garment. “The dress?”
He nodded. “I knew you wouldn’t have anything to wear. And Callie owed me a favor. I asked her to make it for you.”
“Why didn’t you just tell me?”
Suddenly, footsteps crunched along the dirt path.
They broke apart. Torwin spun to face the intruder. Asha stepped back.
The musician who’d taken Torwin’s spot stood before them, gangly and pimply, barely fifteen. He held the lute in one hand as he looked from the daughter of the dragon king to the skral and back again.
“I came to tell you”—he gaped at Asha’s scar—“that they want you back.” He thrust the lute at Torwin. “They say I keep throwing them off tune.”
Do you know what it feels like . . . ?
Asha knew what it felt like.
Torwin took the instrument. “Tell them I’m coming.” The draksor boy nodded, then returned the way he’d come.
“I should get back,” Torwin said, “before—”
“It’s like watching you with Callie,” she told him, “knowing she’ll never endanger you just by being near you.”
Torwin turned to stare at her. “What?”
“You asked me if I know what it feels like.”
Asha suddenly didn’t want to care anymore. About any of it. The wedding or the war or the fact that he was a skral and she was a draksor.
She lifted her finger to his collarbone, tracing the tough scars there. Torwin drew in a shaky breath as he
r touch trailed into the hollow of his throat, stopping where his pulse beat out a frantic rhythm.
“Asha . . .”
She wanted to take him away from here. She wanted to hear him say her name over and over.
“Asha . . .”
Her fingers followed the arch of his throat, running slowly upward, over his jaw, across his cheekbone.
He dropped the lute and stepped in close. So close, Asha could almost taste the salt on his skin.
He dug his fingers into her hair and tilted her head back. And then, with his eyes burning into hers, he kissed her. Gently at first. Then harder. Like he was hungry and Asha was the only one who could satisfy his craving.
Asha grabbed the collar of his shirt and kissed him back, hungrier and clumsier than he was. Torwin grabbed her waist, pulling her to him.
The smithy lay just behind her. Torwin guided her into the dark mouth of it until her back hit a warm, hard wall. Her palms moved over his chest and shoulders. He buried his hands in her hair, kissing her throat.
Asha made a soft sound. She wanted to hoist herself up, to wrap her legs around his hips, but Torwin grabbed her wrists, stopping her as the sound of footsteps rose up once more.
Asha froze. Torwin pressed his forehead to hers, listening.
“Torwin?” It was the boy again.
Torwin bared his teeth.
More footsteps. “I swear, he was right here. . . .”
A second voice grumbled an answer.
Torwin leaned into Asha, forehead to forehead, keeping her pressed against the heat-soaked wall. Releasing her wrists, he slid his thumb slowly over her bottom lip. When the footsteps got closer, his thumb stopped. When they moved farther away, it started again. Asha leaned forward to kiss him, but he didn’t let her, continuing his gentle torment. His thumb brushed along her jaw and down her throat. It trailed over her collarbone and shoulder.
Asha closed her eyes, tilted her head back, letting him explore her.
It felt like forever before the footsteps moved away. When they disappeared completely, Asha exhaled.
Torwin kissed her throat. “When I finish playing . . . Asha, can I come to your tent?”
“My tent?” The thought terrified her. “You’ll be seen.” Not to mention: she shared a tent with Safire.
“I won’t be.”
It was too much of a risk. It put him in so much danger.
I’m supposed to be keeping my distance. For his own protection.
“Please,” he murmured against her skin. “I’ll be so careful.”
She thought of all the times she’d put his life at risk before now.
His forehead fell against hers. His hand cupped her neck. “What if you came to me instead?”
Asha squeezed her eyes shut. She thought of his tent on the beach. Of sneaking away in the middle of the night. Of lying next to him under the stars.
In the morning, she would go to war. A war they might not win.
And he would leave. Leave for good.
This was their last night together.
Say no.
There was no future here. No way she could ever be with this boy. She needed to cut off whatever feeling was growing inside of her. Kill it at the root. He was leaving and she was staying, and even if things were different . . .
She thought about Safire’s parents, one draksor, one skral—how they burned her mother alive, how they forced her father to watch.
The thought of Torwin dead made something crack inside her. But it had the opposite effect. She didn’t say no. Instead, she pushed herself up on her toes and kissed him.
Torwin smiled a rare smile. One that involved his whole mouth instead of just half of it.
“Is that a yes?” he whispered, breaking away.
She nodded.
He walked backward, out of the smithy, like he was memorizing the sight of her and taking it with him. “Then I’ll see you tonight, fierce one.”
Forty-Three
Asha lay in her tent long after the music stopped and the voices died down. Long after New Haven grew silent and still. Her body was on fire, screaming for her to get up and go. Now, while everyone slept. Now, while there was no one to see.
But she had to be sure. So Asha waited longer.
She waited too long.
A shout broke the silence of the camp. It was followed by two more. Warning shouts, frantic and wild. Several heartbeats later, screams broke out as the clang of steel on steel erupted like the first crack of thunder in a storm.
Asha and Safire flew out of their bedrolls at the same time. Safire passed Asha a knife. Together, they stepped out of the tent and into chaos.
Her father’s emblem was everywhere, adorning the shields of soldats barreling down on New Haven. Safire threw her knives. Asha shouted old stories into the sky, one after another, calling all the dragons she’d summoned in the past five days. Most of them were already on their way, the links that had formed between them and their riders telling them something was wrong.
At the sight of the dark shapes circling above, the soldats faltered. More Haveners woke and armed themselves. Roa was at the forefront of the fighting. Her half-moon blade hacked and bit while her white hawk, Essie, flew at the enemy, screeching and diving. With every advance, Roa shouted a command, and a heartbeat later, fiery arrows flew from somewhere behind her, catching the soldats by surprise.
By the time Asha reached the edge of the camp, the soldats were retreating into the trees, chased by Safire and Jas, who were flanked by hundreds of Haveners.
Asha looked around her at the fallen, of which there were only a few. She saw Dax crouch to help a man who was bleeding badly from a wound in his leg. Asha ducked under the man’s other arm and together they walked him to his tent, where his friend waited to cut the leg of his trousers and check the wound.
Asha heard Safire shout in the distance, organizing a search of the woods.
“What was that?”
“I don’t know.” Dax halted when he saw Jas moving toward them. He sheathed his knives.
“He knows everything now,” said Jas. “Our numbers. Our location. He probably has a weapon count.” He pointed at the shadows perched on the precipices high above them. “Not to mention a dragon count.”
Dax frowned. “Call a meeting. We’ll assess the damage, then decide what to do.”
Jas nodded. Before he left, Asha grabbed his arm. “Have you seen Torwin?”
He shook his head. “He sleeps away from New Haven,” he said before leaving to do as her brother commanded. “He’s safer than anyone.”
“I’ll send him a message with Essie,” Dax said, seeing the worry etched into her face. “Go to the meeting tent. I won’t be long.”
As the bell clanged, Haveners made their way to the meeting tent. Asha was one of the first to arrive. One after another, people trickled in. Safire and Jas. The blacksmith. A scrublander girl with five gold earrings in one ear. Dax and Roa were the second to last to arrive.
The only one missing was Torwin.
The moment her brother stepped into the tent, the questions rose up like birdcalls at sunrise, loud and all at once. As Dax started taking one at a time, Asha stared at the canvas tent flaps, willing Torwin to walk through. It would take him longer than everyone else. He not only had to get the message, he had to fly to the woods’ edge and walk down to the camp.
That’s why he isn’t here yet.
“We should strike quickly,” Safire said. “The dragon king won’t expect an immediate attack, he’ll expect us to hesitate. We should chase them down and attack now.”
The tent flaps rustled and Asha’s heart leaped—but it was only Essie, flying in and settling on Roa’s shoulder. Asha watched the hawk nip at the girl’s ear.
“Did she find him?” Asha asked.
Roa untied Dax’s message from the bird’s leg. “It doesn’t seem so.”
The bird flew off Roa’s shoulder to land on Dax’s, where she squawked loudly, interrupting his re
sponse to Safire. Rising, Roa called Essie away from the heir and took her out of the tent.
Asha should have fetched Torwin herself.
“We still have the tunnel,” Dax said. “We’ll just have to take extra care.”
The tent flaps rustled again and were shoved aside. But it was only Jas who stepped through, flanked by two scrublander soldiers, one of whom held out a roll of parchment, sealed with wax.
“For the Iskari.”
All the eyes in the tent settled on Asha, who rose to her feet. She took the parchment and broke the seal. A seal she recognized as the commandant’s. Her fingers shook as she unrolled it and read:
If you want him alive, you’ll hand yourself over tonight.
It was signed: Your beloved husband.
The parchment fell to the dirt at her feet.
“Asha?”
She moved for the tent opening. Dax stopped her, forcing her to look into his eyes. “What is it?”
“Let go of me.”
From behind her, Safire picked up the message and read it. “He has Torwin. . . .”
The words rocked her. Asha knew, better than anyone, what they meant.
She pushed past Dax and ran. Jas reached, trying to stop her, but she was too fast. Asha ran hard to the edge of the camp and up through the woods. Safire was behind her; she knew the steady thump of those footsteps by heart. But Asha ran faster, calling Kozu to her as she did.
She knew her way through the woods now. And by the time she reached the other side of the trees, the First Dragon waited, glimmering in the starlight. Asha launched herself onto his back.
Safire stumbled out of the woods behind her.
“Asha!”
Asha paused.
“Please. Don’t go down there alone.”
Asha looked back. Safire’s face tilted upward. The starlight gleamed on her skin and her eyebrows knit together with worry.
At a movement in the trees, both their heads turned. Reaching down, Asha grabbed her cousin’s arm and pulled her up.
“Hold on tight.”
Safire’s arms came around Asha’s waist just as Kozu leaped into the air.
Forty-Four
The Last Namsara Page 26