He reached back into his cloak to withdraw two bundles of pound cake and spiced chicken wrapped in flatbread.
“Here, I found these at the station café.”
“And the jacket?”
“I may have nicked it from someone’s luggage when they weren’t looking.” He winked.
“Thanks,” she said and paused. “Thanks for handling that too.”
He nodded as she bit into the pound cake, savoring its sweet vanilla aftertaste and licking the brown sugar that stuck to her lips. Yassen split the flatbread and offered half to her. She took it as they zoomed past the outskirts of the city for the deeper country beyond.
The hovertrain docked, and the crowd spilled out.
Sunlight poured into their empty compartment. Yassen groaned as he stretched out his legs.
“Skies above.” He grimaced as he pulled off his visor, which left an angry red mark across his face. “What?” he said, when he saw her staring.
She had been mulling over the question ever since he had shown her the map, tasting its rough edges. Yassen looked at her, expectant.
“The cabin in the Sona Range, was it your family’s?” she asked finally.
He hesitated for a moment. “My father’s.”
A shadow passed over his face, and Elena could tell that the answer had reopened a wound. One that she knew well—of fathers and their secrets.
“And you’re sure it’s still there?”
“Yes, although it’s been many suns since I’ve been back,” he said, his voice dampened by regret.
He reached into his cloak and withdrew his holopod. He opened the map of the tunnels underneath the mountains.
“My father taught me how to navigate these. One leads right up to the cabin, but we’ll need to rent brenni to get there. They’re more sure-footed than horses, and they can carry a heavy load of supplies.” He moved to pocket the pod, but then hesitated. The holo flickered in his hand. “My father told me once that tunnels underneath mountains are only made to harbor secrets. He wasn’t wrong.” Sunlight cut across his face, deepening the grooves beneath his eyes. “The Jantari are searching for something in the mountains. We have to be careful.”
“Searching for what?”
“A special type of metal, one so fine it can cut steel,” Yassen said. “I don’t think they’ve found it, but…” He hesitated, looking away.
“Yassen…”
He sighed. “Samson was trying to find it too. Some deposit of ore deep within the Sona Range. If it’s there, Farin might use it to build all kinds of new weapons and fortunes.”
“Samson?” she said, confused.He gave me this map.Suddenly, a cold realization struck Elena. “Did Samson tell you to go to the cabin? Did he ask you to search for the ore?”
Yassen blinked. “He did. But, to rest. Not to find the ore.”
But Elena remembered Samson’s urgent whisper in her ear, his strained smile as Farin had looped his arm around his neck.How far are you willing to go to win the war?If Samson had been searching for the ore too, did he mean to use it against the Jantari? Had he always planned to forgo peace and attack Farin?
“Do you know where to find it?” she said, heart beating quick. Farin was already mutating his soldiers. If he created weapons from this metal, it would change the war.Change any war.“Can you find it?”
For a long time, Yassen said nothing. The hovertrain hummed as it sped across the sky. With each passing minute, she grew farther away from her desert. Her home. With each passing moment, he drew closer to the remnants of his past.
When Yassen finally spoke, his voice was quiet but steady. Full of power like the songs of the priests.
“No, Elena, I won’t find it,” he said. “The past is binding, and I want to break away. If we carry the burdens of our fathers, we’ll never know what it means to be free.”
She bit her lip, but he said no more. She wanted to push further, but as he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, she stopped herself. It would be asking too much of him.
For once, Yassen became clear to her: a solid man rather than a ghost. He was neither assassin nor traitor—simply a man carving his own path in a life bound by fate.
