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“Please, understand. We have exchanged only a few words since your arrival to The Broken Sands, and Valdus and Inara have spoken so well about you…”
“That you’ve wondered if their judgment wasn’t clouded,” I finish for him. Damen offers me a tight-lipped smile that tells me I’m right. I reach to rub my brow but remember the hours of work Lara has spent on my face and drop my hand. Instead, I say, “I understand. I’m a daughter of the ruthless tyrant ruling this land. That’s all everyone will ever see. I can’t change that, and, to tell you the truth, I no longer care. I’ve chosen my path. No matter how hard it will be, I’ll walk every step until we either reclaim the desert or die trying.”
“Then let Evanae guide you and the Maker protect you,” Damen says, pressing my shoulder. “I just hope that you’ll never let your heart’s desires stand in the way of duty.”
I follow his retreating back as he joins Kyle telling some extraordinary story of adventure and myth to giggling Lara and smiling Inara.
“Good evening, Neylan.”
I jump up, swallowing down a scream. Valdus’s breath tickles my neck as Numair climbs the stage to an applause from everyone gathered in the small hall. He makes a show of searching the crowd, turning from one side to another. “I’ve heard a rumor someone wanted to join, but when the time comes for a little pain, she seems to have vanished.”
The hall erupts with laughter. Numair’s words are just a prelude to a ceremony carefully planned and repeated for each recruit, but this feels like more, like this is the path Evanae charted for me.
“That’s your queue,” Valdus murmurs. “Find me in the greenhouse afterwards, will you?”
I glance over my shoulder, but Valdus has merged with the crowd, their features concealed by masks of enamel and tears of red paint.
“Rebel Princess? Do we have to send a search party?”
Before Numair can mock me further, I make my way to the stage. I settle into the chair next to a table on which Numair has set down a small pouch. Metal chisels with lines of needles of different sizes poke from under the flap.
“Ready?” Numair asks.
With a giddy smile, I bow my head so that he can have clear access to the skin of my neck.
Numair dips the longest of the chisels in the ink and gives it a good hit with a metal taping stick. The needles pierce my skin time and again with a prickle of pain. By the time he picks up the smallest chisel of a single needle, my skin is numb. A soft tingle is the only thing I feel as he puts the last dots of the rising sun on the back of my neck.
“What do you think?” Numair calls to the hall. “Do we welcome the Rebel Princess into our ranks?”
With my name on everyone’s lips, the rebels cheer their new recruit. Mylena and Izod carry trays laden with drinks through the hall, but Numair has ours ready.
“Welcome to the rebellion, your family of choice.” He lifts his glass, and the crowd mirrors his gesture.
“For the Rebel Princess,” Numair chants, changing per tradition ‘King of Rebels’ to the name of the newest recruit. “For the endless fight. For the next dawn.”
Everyone echoes the last words, downing the glass of burning liquor.
“Before we start with all the debauchery, I have an announcement to make and a favor to ask,” Numair says as I make my way down from the stage. “Some of you already know, others will learn today, but Lara has graciously accepted my proposal and made me the luckiest man alive. Damen has wed us less than a few hours ago.” Everyone claps and someone woos, and Numair has to lift his hands to calm the crowd. “The favor I want to ask is of our medic and the wisest woman I know.”
Inara is the only one surprised as we all turn to her. Battling a hearty blush, she picks up the hem of her kaftan and makes her way through the crowd and to the stage.
Numair puts a kiss on each of her cheeks as Inara offers her congratulations first to her nephew and then to the girl that made him so happy.
“My dear aunt, will you please take my role as the resident tattooist and offer us matching rings?”
“Well,” she starts, seeming to doubt for a second. “I’ve taught you everything you know. It seems only fair.”
We all laugh, but as Inara picks up the tools, I draw closer to the back door. No matter how much I want to see this, someone else is waiting for me.
29
Air wraps me in its cool embrace, sending a shiver through my thin kaftan. Each swirl of mist reveals parts of a figure draped in black shirt and trousers standing below the lemon tree. Valdus runs his fingers over a leaf where flowers bud on branches mere inches away from the metal of his hand.
Just seeing him in the greenhouse makes my breath hitch. He has made my dreams possible, and I understand Mylena, if only for a moment. No matter on what mission he sends me, no matter what he orders me to do, I’ll do it, for we’re fighting for the next dawn better than the last.
His soft brown eyes find me in the mist, and I want nothing else but to drown in them. I haven’t seen him since the night we talked by the counter in the small kitchen back at home, and I’m not sure where we stand now. The way his fingers ran down my neck felt like something much more than friendship, and a fuzzy feeling ripples through my belly just thinking about it.
Valdus rubs his thumb over his lower lip, where only an angry scar lingers as a souvenir from his encounter with the guards. Even the bruise has faded. He catches me looking and offers me a small smile, but I turn away and crouch under the lemon tree, the skirt of my kaftan spreading around me in a field of stars. Placing my hand on the ground, I channel just enough ethera for the flowers to bloom and their tangy fragrance to engulf us.
