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Numair clears his throat and pulls his hair away from his face. “Does anyone here know the words for “The Wanderer of the Sands?’”
Lara stretches her arm up, jumping in place to the chuckles from the couples around. She dashes to the stage and waits for Numair to begin strumming the strings again. She follows the rhythm, stomping her heel and clapping her hands. Her eyes flutter closed as soon as she starts to sing. Lara’s voice is lower than my sisters would have ever dared to go, rasping at the hardest parts. I can’t tear my gaze from her face.
A girl so free and happy, I can’t help but envy her as she sings about a man who has lost everything to the emperor —stripped of his rank of general and chased through the sands. And despite everything, he became a leader of the flock of men and women wronged by the empire. Criminals, bandits—Dustwalkers.
Lara’s last note seems to stretch for forever before she finally stops, and everyone in the bar bursts with applause.
Numair doesn’t start the next song. His gaze has settled on a boy a year or two younger than I am, standing at the bottom of the steps with sweat beading his brow.
“I’m sorry to inform you that my performance today will be much shorter than planned,” he says, standing up and setting down his guitar. Someone in the bar boos, but Numair only smiles. “I’m off to fight for the next dawn.”
Laughter and applause drown out anything else he had to say, and Numair crosses the room to the boy, who launches into a rapid report before they both disappear up the stairs. Valdus follows them with a narrowed gaze. “Can’t he ever do anything I ask?”
“What do you mean?”
He looks at me as if just now realizing he has said that out loud. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “I wanted for the two of you to talk after his performance.”
I snort.
“Exactly. You two were off to a disastrous start,” he says. “He’s a good guy. You just crossed him on a very bad day.”
Without another word, Valdus drops a few silver coins on the bar, and I have no choice but to follow, climbing the stairs back to the surface.
Scars peek out from over his right shoulder, crossing his neck in a grotesque net. It strikes me that there is no tattoo of a rising sun there, but we are back in the empty shop before I can ask him anything. The man at the counter slides a note to Valdus and leans on the wall behind him, closing his eyes. As Valdus crumbles the parchment in his hands and shoots a glance in my direction, I have to fight the urge to roll my eyes. “If you have to be somewhere, I can find my own way home as you go ‘fight for the next dawn.’”
“I’m not leaving you alone in a town you don’t know,” he says and rubs a thumb over his lower lip. “Come on, we’ll figure something out.”
I follow him through the maze of streets under the sky dotted with stars. Each time we cross a squad of guards, I mirror their yawns with one of my own. I never thought I’d have an adventure, no matter how small, but today Valdus has offered me something I didn’t know I needed. A way of life that had nothing to do with webs of intrigue that my father weaves to ensnare the people of this desert.
My feet are hurting when we finally stop next to a house with boarded windows and a crumbling roof. Valdus knocks on the door, and it flies open so fast, we have to take a step back to avoid being hit.
“What are you doing here?” Numair asks, surprise written all over his features.
“What do you think?”
Numair sighs. It’s only now that he notices me, and his shoulders stiffen. “Princess Neylan of the House of Our Sun and Light.”
I don’t know what does it—the fatigue or the alcohol running through my veins—but when he bows, I can no longer stand it. I slap him so hard he rubs his jaw for a few seconds.
“I ain’t saying I didn’t earn that,” he finally says. “But I didn’t expect you would hit so hard.”
Anger rolls through my veins, and I lift my hand to slap him again. This time, he catches it before I can hit him.
“I’m happy to do this for as long as you’d like,” he says and glances at the door he has just walked through. “But maybe we could do it when we have less pressing matters on our hands.”
Valdus, his arms still crossed, pulls away from the wall on which he was leaning, observing the scene with an indifference etched into his features.
“We’ve used that guard as bait,” Numair says. “It worked just as you’ve said it would. We’ve caught ourselves a bigger prey.”
“Who is it?”
Numair cracks the knuckles on his left hand, and a wicked grin spreads on his lips. “A guard they call Rev.”
19
The name echoes through my mind, jolting me awake. “Rev as in Rev of The Jagged Stand?”
Numair nods.
