Was hemockingher?
She could have him killed for such a thing.
Asha stepped in close, narrowing her eyes. “Call me that again, skral, and I’ll cut out your lying tongue myself.”
Dripping with anger, she turned and left him in the stream.
Twenty
Asha was still damp when she stepped out of the stairway and into the temple. Her anger fizzled out when she heard a familiar voice.
“You truly are a useless fool,” Jarek growled from somewhere in the maze of corridors. Asha followed his voice until she stood at the bottom of a stairway. The same stairway leading to a locked room, where his slave had been hiding just yesterday.
Her heart leaped into her throat.
The sound of scabbards clanking against belts and buckles made her turn. Two soldats stalked down the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the whitewashed walls.
“The next time you do something illegal, do us all a favor and pick a crime punishable by death.”
A second voice rose up, equally familiar and just as fierce. “You know, Jarek, I’m really looking forward to your binding. Specifically the part where my sister cuts off your balls and hoists them high above the walls on your wedding night.”
Dax.
His words were followed by a loudcrack!
Dax swore.
Asha took the steps two at a time, her heart hammering. When she reached the open door, the light of a torch illuminated her brother—who was reeling from the punch Jarek threw, his cheek already swelling.
Flanked by two soldats carrying torches, the commandant stood with a scroll gripped in his fist. More scrolls littered the floor at his feet, while behind him, hidden in darkness, was the cot, its linens folded in what looked like a hurry, then tucked up against the wall.
But far worse than the cot was what lay on the bottom shelf, half hidden in shadow: a worn-looking lute, fashioned out of pale pine. On its flat, pear-shaped face was the elegantly engraved nameGreta.
Distracted by the scrolls, Jarek hadn’t yet noticed this telltale sign of his fugitive slave. But the moment he did...
Suddenly, Maya, the temple guardian, stepped into view. She stood inside the room, flanked by a soldat. Her eyes widened at the sight of the Iskari in the doorway. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, telling Asha to go, to escape being implicated in whatever was happening.
Asha ducked back out of the doorway and into the shadows of the stairwell, pressing herself against the wall, out of view.
“I didn’t realize you knew how to write,” Jarek said. Asha heard the smirk in his voice. Heard the sound of him unrolling one of the scrolls. “Did your scrublander whore teachyou? Or did she write itforyou?”
Asha dared a look around the doorframe just in time to see Dax’s fists tighten and his jaw clench.
Jarek ripped the scroll’s parchment—once, twice, three times. He picked up another scroll and tore that one too. Dax watched, his eyes sharp as daggers.
With every rip, Asha’s chest constricted.
Shame scorched her. She didn’t care about torn scrolls. Of course she didn’t. The old stories killed her mother. She hated them. Shewantedthem destroyed.
When Jarek turned to the shelves for more, he caught sight of her, frozen in the shadows beyond the doorway. His sneer slid away.
“Asha? What are you doing here?” His hand fell away from the shelves. “Why are you wet?”
She looked to the lute. The moment he turned around, he would see it and recognize it.
She needed to prevent that from happening.
Asha strode into the room, positioning herself between Jarek and the lute while motioning to the crumpled, torn scrolls at their feet. “What happened here?”
