Yassen considered what they would do if they captured the scout. They could interrogate him to find out the access points into Jantar. Maybe he could even wear the man’s uniform and pose as a soldier. But they would have to kill him, of this there was no doubt.
The cruiser grew closer, and Yassen heard its steady hum as it spit pebbles in its wake. Below, Elena crouched behind skorrir bushes, and he emptied his mind. Breathed in. Rested his finger in the curve of the trigger.
One, two, three.
The hum grew louder.
Easy now.
Four, five.
The cruiser neared, but then Elena turned, waving her hands, shouting. The scout whipped around. And Yassen realized it wasn’t a scout at all, but a young boy who stared up at him in horror. He tried to right his cruiser, but he lost control; it skidded and spun, slamming into the skorrir bushes.
Yassen cursed as Elena ran to the boy. He did not put his gun away even as he saw her pulling the boy out of the bramble.
“Drop him!” he shouted.
She looked up into the barrel of his gun as she helped the boy. “Stand down, Yassen.”
But Yassen did not. The boy looked fourteen or fifteen suns, with a smattering of pimples across his cheeks. Old enough to be an initiate of the Arohassin.
“Step away from him,” Yassen said.
The boy shrank back, but Elena held on to his arm. She glared at Yassen.
“He’s just a kid,” she said.
“Kids can be dangerous too.” He looked into the boy’s eyes. They were colorless, just like his. “What are you doing out here? Can’t you see that there’s a war beginning?”
The boy looked between Yassen and Elena. A small visor hung askew from his neck. His clothes were covered in dirt.
Fear and confusion spread across his face as he stammered: “I—I was out here, c-camping, when I saw the army. I tried to run, but a storm hit. I b-barely got out.”
Yassen knew he was lying. He could see it in the way the boy tensed his shoulders, the way his eyes darted to the back compartment of the cruiser.
“What’s in the cruiser?” he demanded. When the boy did not answer, he edged closer. “What’s in there?”
“N-nothing,” the boy said, holding up his hands, but Elena was quicker, twisting his arms behind his back, forcing him to the ground as Yassen opened the compartment.
It was full of sawed-off branches of skorrir bushes and red desert berries. A forager’s case. A poor boy’s livelihood.
A means to survive.
Yassen pulled back his hand as if he had been cut. He knew this kind of desperation. He had done the same: sneaked under the cloak of night into gardens, bakeries, and the desert itself to find morsels of sustenance, something to drown out the deep, inescapable pain of hunger and loneliness.
“Don’t you know it’s illegal to forage in the desert?” he scolded, but he put away his gun. Gently, he loosened Elena’s grip and helped the boy to his feet.
The boy wet his lips. His eyes darted to the cruiser and then back to them.
“I—I only meant to take a little,” he said.
“You missed the best ones,” Elena said. “There are violet lilliberries that grow underneath the sand of a skorrir bush. Tastes like shobu shit, but three can fill you for a week.”
“Wh—” the boy began, but as he looked at Elena, a vague sense of recognition grew in his eyes. “Why are you telling me this?”
Yassen saw the moment understanding finally dawned on him. A look of surprise and horror twisted his face, and he shot forward, but Yassen grabbed him.
“Easy,” Yassen said as the boy struggled. “We just need your help. We won’t hurt you. I promise.”
