Page 131 of Sands of Atonement

Norrah suppressed a smile.

“What?”

“Are you speaking from experience?”

The fire was causing my skin to feel unbearably hot. “That is not at all how Ezra makes me feel.”

“Are you sure?” she sang softly.

My eyes flickered to Ezra. “Well…” I swallowed the lie. “He does make me feel safe, but… I don’t think he feels the same about me,” I admitted the truth in a whisper.

I glanced back at Ezra, who was now staring into the fire.

She leaned a little closer this time. “I read people, Eshe. That’s what I do. He feels the same way you do. Every time he enters a room, he looks for you, and he’s always near you.” She nudges her shoulder to mine. “He admires you.”

My mouth went dry at the possibility of her words. My gaze dropped to his mouth, and I remembered for a moment what it was like to feel it on my lips. I tried to be mad at him for the rest of the day for what felt like rejection, but the truth was, he was only doing what he thought he had to. I could almost see the battle in his head as he lifted his eyes to mine from across the fire.

Gooseflesh pebbled my skin and rose to my nipples.

I cleared my throat and told the group I was going on a night walk into the sands. I was angry, confused, feeling things I’d never felt before.

Walking down the slope of the sand-covered mountain, my boots sank with each step down. It was dark, but the skies were a blanket of tethered strings of light.

I could feel him behind me. I couldn’t escape him, nor did I find myself wanting to. I turned to my left when I reached the bottom of the slope, where the rock cliffside started peeking through the sands. I stopped in my tracks. Through the darkness, I could see a sliver of an opening. Like a crack in the mountain. I approached it, wishing I had a torch, but all I had was the faint light of the stars behind me.

Ezra was behind me as I crept through the crack—I could imagine only three of him could fit in here. He was like my shadow. It was dark except for the faint glow illuminating the entrance of the cave as we went further in.

Inside the cave, there were dead shrubs scattered around as if the wind had nowhere else to push them but here. I grabbed a few, and I noticed Ezra did too, and we peacefully built a fire together, using two daggers. Neither one of us made a move to disrupt the silent truce. Of realizing that we both just left a perfectly comfortable place with our friends by a fire to move to somewhere more… private.

I slid my eyes to Ezra, and he could tell there was something on my mind because he asked, “What?”

I shrugged and continued to stare into the fire, feeling warmer here than I did there. The cool nights, especially near an oasis, turned out to be chillier than I was used to.

“Do you travel often with the Atrove?” I asked.

Ezra nodded.

“What do you usually do when you’re with them?”

His body tensed, and the crackling of the fire echoed loudly across the cave. For a moment, I swore he wasn’t going to oblige me with an answer. Maybe he thought himself too proud to answer me, or maybe he didn’t want to say it out loud, making it more real.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” he finally answered. “Curious woman, you haven’t changed a bit,” he muttered and shook his head, though the tips of his lips curved up.

I quietly scoffed but remained focused on the flickering fire dancing between us.

His voice echoed softly against the walls of the small cave. “I… have never had a conversation about what I do, except with my men, so it’s strange to discuss any of these matters with people who are not part of the Atrove…” he admitted.

“I’ve always wondered what the Atrove does. If what people said was actually true… or not.”

Ezra let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Keep wondering, because it’s not your business.”

“I know it’s not, that’s why I’m asking you,” I bit out. I could tell Ezra was holding himself back from responding.

We stared into the fire, but I didn’t speak or push the subject again. After several minutes, Ezra cleared his throat.

“We deal with the laws between the countries, and if something goes against what we want, we change it. We send messages through different ways depending on how aggressive or rebellious the Qahl or leading commanders are about doing what we bid them to do. Some are harder to convince… It’s not pretty. Others are more pliable. We keep the law intact by protecting it and holding accountable those who do not uphold it. That’s why there haven’t been wars in a very long time.” Ezra paused, and there was a moment of reading each other’s eyes. I knew some things about the Atrove, but still—I wanted him to share more, and he seemed to know that. “If people disappear, well, they blame it on the Atrove, and they have reason. I know for the most part what is happening, but not every broken law or crime. I trust in my men that they are keeping their division in check. If there’s anything that is important for me to know, they tell me when I’m at the Atrove. If I’m not there, Amr finds me at the palace… only him.”

A moment went by, and something shifted in the air, like Ezra physically felt lighter. Like he had been holding on to these secrets forever, and maybe just speaking some of it out loud felt freeing.