He brought his eyes up to mine. The golden flecks were hidden behind the rim of tears reflecting the torchlight, but it was impossible not to see the pain floating beneath the surface.

“Sometimes you can’t stop people from doing terrible things,” I said. “All we can do now is stop Rodric and get justice for Remy and Yeri and all the others.”

My words seemed to solidify Cion. He nodded. “You’re our hope now.” He clenched my hand tightly in his, as if by letting go he might lose that hope.

I gave his hand a squeeze in return. “I will bring down Rodric and then help find the water controls and destroy them. Together, we can fix this city.” It would take more training than I imagined possible to beat Rodric now that I knew who’d trained him, but we could do it. Maybe not alone, but together it was possible. It had to be.

“In that case,” he said, finally releasing my hand, “you should get back to your own room. You’ll need rest before training tomorrow. I’ve kept you up long enough as it is.”

“Whose room is this?” I asked. The smoke dried my already parched throat, but I liked the privacy here.

“Mine,” he replied.

I looked at him sideways, trying to see if he was joking. “I thought you’d sleep closer to the other boys.”

“I like the solitude better. And the lack of light trained me to rely on my other senses. I know every whisper the sand makes when it moves and shifts. No one can sneak up on me here.”

With those words, he quickly rose. He threw the flap aside and escorted me back down the long tunnel toward my room, where I lay awake listening to the sand trickle into the cave long into the night.

CHAPTER

19

The next morning the caves were in chaos when I awoke. Boys ran frantically in all directions carrying bolts of fabric, water skins, bags of dark red kana fruit, baskets piled high with curled talon berries, and more jars of preserved jamma beans than I’d ever seen in my life.

My first thought was that Rodric had found us and we were abandoning the cave.

I grabbed my sword and ducked into the hallway. I followed the throng of boys until I heard Cion’s voice echo down the cavern. He was shouting about where to put new goods and yelling at someone else to stay in line to load the cart.

I followed the noise to the large cavern.

Hardesh, Tania, and Bala were sitting on the back of a sizable cart loaded with barrels of water, cages full of green-spotted lizards, firewood, and an assortment of other clay jars with their lids tightly shut. Two large camels waited at the head of the cart.

Bala sat with her legs dangling off the back. She smiled kindly at me.

I wanted to ask her about my mother, my sister. But I couldn’t bring myself to. So instead, I smiled in return.