A heap of rubbish is festering in one corner. Salo stares at it for a moment before letting out a long sigh; then he extends his free arm and lights it up with incandescent reddish markings that weren’t there before. The thickest one is a single ring encircling his forearm. “I’m a mystic, Ilapara. I didn’t want to, but I had to reveal myself a short while ago. I had no choice. It’s why this place is so empty.”
She eyes the shards expressionlessly—shards, because that’s exactly what these markings are, and they’re the last thing anyone wants to see in this town or in any other stopover town in Umadiland.
The revelation is like a needle knitting together every odd detail she’s noticed about him, and suddenly he makes a whole lot more sense—the staff, the lack of red steel, the coins he said contained messages, the unsettling aura about him. She has questions, all right—many questions—but at least now she knows where to place him.
And that means she knows how to read him. “Siningwe, right? Your clan hasn’t produced a mystic in years, has it?”
He stiffens, dims his shards, and drops his hand. He gives a noncommittal shrug.
Interesting. “Were they really so desperate that they’d ask a man to awaken?”
“You tell me,” he says a bit curtly. “An Umadi witch attacked my kraal with tikoloshe and sacrificed dozens of my clanspeople to her lord, the same lord who apparently owns this wretched excuse for a town. Is that desperate enough for you?”
Tuk’s expression falls, and his eyes darken to brown, but he says nothing. Sounds impossible to Ilapara’s ears, yet she can’t doubt the pain in Salo’s words. He watched his people die, and that is what has driven him here.
A surge of anger grips her on his behalf, surprising in its intensity because she thought she’d abandoned her people. She wants to ask, to learn more about what happened, but sensing this isn’t something he wants to talk about, she lets it go. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
The defensiveness seems to bleed out of his shoulders. “It’s all right. You couldn’t have.” He watches her quietly for a while. “You’re taking this surprisingly well, all things considered.”
She raises an eyebrow. “What did you expect?”
“I . . . nothing. Actually, your reaction is encouraging.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. See”—he fiddles with his spectacles rather unnecessarily—“I was . . . hoping to convince you to come with me. Your cousin told me why you left the Plains, and I thought . . . well . . .” He leaves his sentence hanging.
“I see. I’m a girl who wants to be a ranger, and you’re a boy who wants to be a clan mystic, so let’s be friends.”
Salo gives her a lopsided smile. “That’s not it at all, though I can’t blame you for seeing things that way.”
“How else should I see them, then?”
“For starters, it’d be nice to have someone from home with me. It’d be even nicer if said someone could wield something like that.” He juts a finger at her spear. “I’ve been told the Yontai is quite dangerous these days.”
Ilapara smiles without humor. “And what tells you I’m any good at wielding it? Maybe I’m just carrying it around for the look of it.”
“Hardly. I heard you were a menace to the Sikhozi boys, that they stopped training with you because you embarrassed them too much.”
“Birosei exaggerated my abilities,” she lies. “I was just as good as any of them, not any worse, not any better. That’s what bothered them the most.”
“Well, it doesn’t bother me,” Salo says, and he means well, but a flash of annoyance heats up her chest.
“It shouldn’t. The Yerezi idea that women should be confined to books and magic is a thousand shades of silly. I could have done the bull pen in my sleep.”
Salo beams like she has proven his point. “I completely agree, which is why you’d be perfect for this. So what do you say?”
Next to them, Tuksaad clears his throat. Those strange changeable eyes of his are murky now. “Forgive my intrusion, but we can’t stay here,” he says. “We really need to leave.”
How odd to see someone so obviously foreign speak Sirezi so fluently. It isn’t a Great Tribe language like KiYonte, Dulamiya, or Izumadi, so there’s not much incentive for foreigners to learn it.
“You realize that going up the World’s Artery is out of the question now,” she says to both of them. “If you’re the one who emptied these streets, one of the Dark Sun’s disciples will come after you. In fact, he’s probably on his way here as we speak. I’d say your best chance of staying alive is to follow those wagons back to the Plains.”
“Not an option,” Salo says. “The queen has sent me on a pilgrimage to the Red Temple. I intend to see it through.”
“You’re not listening. Continuing with this journey of yours will only get you killed.”
“Tuk says he can take me there safely. He says he knows another way. I believe him.”
“There is no other way. Not unless you plan on risking the open wilds on your own.” Upon Salo’s wooden expression, Ilapara feels the blood leach away from her face. “That’s your plan? By Ama, do you know how stupid that is? Are you trying to get eaten by kerits and dingoneks? Because that’s exactly what will happen.”
“I’m no stranger to the open wilds, Ilapara,” Salo says. Then he adds with a knowing smile, “Besides, I don’t think I have to worry too much about predators.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Tuksaad says.
Salo looks at Ilapara with a forlorn expression, and despite herself, it gets to her.
“By Ama.” She rolls her eyes up to the sky and shakes her head. “Why has this boy come to try my patience so?” She sighs with exasperation. “We need to get you out of town.”
Salo obviously tries not to look too hopeful when he says, “So you’re coming?”
“Only until I know you’re safe,” she warns him. “Then I’ll decide what to do. Come on. My kudu is at the livery across the road.”
“How fortuitous,” Tuksaad says as he falls into step behind her. “We were actually headed the same way. Do you think I could get a good mount for a couple of silver rocks?”
She doesn’t trust him at all, but it’s hard to keep frowning at him when he smiles like that. “With the town spooked, you’ll need a heck of a lot more than a couple of rocks to get them to do business with you.”
“I’m . . . on a tight budget,” he admits with a wince.
Next to her Salo fishes out yet another pair of moongold coins from his purse. “Then it’s a good thing I have these left.”
While Ilapara tries not to clench her jaw too hard, the joy on Tuksaad’s face couldn’t be easier to read if he spelled it out on his forehead. “You don’t mind? I’d pay you back, of course.”
“No worries,” Salo says with a shrug, then quirks an eyebrow at Ilapara. “Will this be enough, though?”
That’s more than double a peasant’s yearly wage in the palm of his hand, and he doesn’t even know it. Ilapara has to fight off a groan. “We’ll see what we can do.”