Free Scavenger of Souls by Joshua David Bellin Page A

forgotten she was there. Now she stood between us, her face suffused with fury. “Did you ever stop to think of that? You act like you’re so smart, Wali. You haven’t even noticed the way Asunder looks at me.”
    Wali and I fell silent, staring at her in shock. I was mortified to realize I hadn’t noticed either. “Do you think he—”
    â€œThere’s nothing I think he wouldn’t do,” she said. “You’ve seen the way they treat their women. They’re not Asunder’s children. They’re barely even human. They’re his wives .”
    I tried to say something, but couldn’t.
    â€œYou boys can argue all you want about whether we should stay or go,” Nessa said. “But it’s not the same for you. The worst that can happen to you is death. The worst that can happen to me and Beatrice is life —as that monster’s slave.”
    She faced us, cheeks flushed, eyes on fire. The cell seemed even quieter after all the shouting. Wali flung himself away and retreated to his corner, Adem stumbling to his own. Nessa tore her bonds free, wrapped her arms around her chest, and turned away.
    I tried to approach her, but she wouldn’t look at me. My hand started to inch toward hers before my head had the sense to make it stop. I racked my brain for the right thing to say, to show her I understood. To tell her I knew what it was like to have your life taken away from you. To tell her I would fight for her.
    I wanted to tell her, but I never got the chance. Walireturned from his corner of the cave, and I tensed for another face-off. But he went up to Nessa instead and looked at her, his eyes feverish and wild.
    â€œI’ll help you,” he said to her. “I won’t let that bastard touch you.”
    She scoffed. “And how are you going to do that?”
    Wali said nothing more, returning to his corner and stretching out on the mat.
    For the second straight night, sleep laughed in my face. I tormented myself over the choice I’d made, the way I’d failed Nessa and Aleka and everyone. I wished I’d fought with Asunder, refused to go along with him, let Wali take the knife. At least that way, the worst that would have happened to us was death.
    Deep into the night I heard Nessa murmuring to herself.
    â€œMinach,” I heard her say, turning the word over and over like a stone she was trying to peer beneath. “Minach, minach tivah.”

    I woke from dreams I couldn’t remember to find Nessa shaking my shoulder, speaking my name. Her dusky outline rose before me in the never-changing gloom of our prison cell.
    â€œQuerry,” she whispered sharply. “It’s gone.”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œMy knife,” she said. “It’s gone.”
    â€œThey took it?”
    â€œI don’t know,” she said. “But it’s gone.”
    I sat up straight, the fog of sleep clearing at her words. In the dimness of the cave I saw her shape, one hand clutching her braid as if she could make the knife reappear. Then a look of horrified recognition stole across her face, and we both turned to the corner where Wali slept.
    His mat was empty.
    â€œHe can’t have gotten far,” I said. We stood and moved to the curtain that blocked the cave mouth.
    All was quiet beyond. No shadow broke the torchlight from the tunnel. My stomach dropped when I realized what that meant.
    Hesitantly I pulled the screen aside. The light spilled over me like a chill sun.
    In its glow, I saw the guard stretched on the floor, his eyes like mica, his throat a red gash. Blood pooled beneath his head, smeared by his killer’s footprints. Wali had taken the man’s spear, too, but he’d used Nessa’s knife to carve a parting message in the stone.
    Its letters were crude streaks flecked with the guard’s blood, but I could read them clearly, lighter scratches against the tunnel wall’s