Daughter of the Flames by Zoe Marriott Page B

and make sure no one is hiding anywhere, too frightened to come out. Check the nurseries and the infirmary for anyone who can’t move by themselves. I will go into the tower. As soon as I see the Sedorne breach the gate, I’ll ring the bell. When you hear it, you drop what you’re doing and run for the shrine, understand?”
    Surya looked around one last time. “You have trusted me all these years, my children. Trust me again now. You will survive this. Go!”
    There was a murmur of voices – almost drowned out by the rhythmic thudding from South Gate – and general nodding of heads as the groups broke up and went about their assigned tasks. The faces I could make out in the gathering darkness were composed into expressions of grim resolve.
    “Zira.” Surya’s voice was hardly above a whisper, but it caught me as I turned away, intending to follow Deo. I stopped, my back to her, and waited.
    “Zira, come with me. To the tower. Let’s wait together.”
    I turned back to see her holding out her hand. I hesitated. Then I reached out to her, and her calloused fingers closed tightly around mine.
    “Come,” she said, tugging gently on my arm.
    I followed her through the darkness to the House. The oil lamps had not been lit; shadows draped the corridors like the folds of a carelessly dropped cloak. Our footsteps echoed as if we walked in an empty place. We passed the octagon room and my little cell, and mounted the winding steps to the tower in the waiting silence, our hands linked. The warmth of Surya’s skin against mine seemed the only real thing, the only living thing, in the House.
    When we reached the top of the tower Surya released me and went to stand at one of the open, unglassed windows that circled the walls of the round tower room. I glanced up as I crossed the floor, but the shape of the giant bronze bell was hidden by the darkness in the domed roof. Only the rope that dangled down in the centre of the room revealed its presence.
    I joined Surya at the window and leaned out. Someone had set the great tapers against the inner wall burning, and they threw the emptiness of the inner courtyard into stark relief. Between the Great Wall and the inner wall, the Sedorne had lit their own fires. The deep, regular thudding noises from South Gate drifted up to us clearly, but all else was eerily quiet. A chill shot up my spine and I clenched my teeth.
    “Why are they doing this?” I whispered.
    I sensed Surya looking at me, but couldn’t make out her face in the gloom. “Abheron’s been waiting for a chance to get rid of us for years. I don’t know why now, instead of five years ago or five years hence. It’s just … fate, I suppose.”
    “But those men are outlaws…” My voice trailed off as I remembered the attack on Sorin.
    “I’d be surprised if any of them had their hair shorn more than a week ago.”
    The chill crept down my spine again. “If their king himself is behind this – what will happen when he realizes he didn’t succeed in destroying us?”
    She sighed, the sound small and weary. “I don’t know, Zira. I don’t know. Just concentrate on getting through tonight.”
    We said no more, and for long moments the ominous sound of the battering ram was the only noise in the little room. Finally I broke the silence.
    “Surya, what you said earlier, about my name—”
    “No,
agni
.” She cut me off so swiftly that I realized she had been waiting for me to ask. “I know now that I was wrong to tell you that.”
    “Surya—”
    “Please, Zira. Please. God took your memories for a reason. It’s not up to me to tell you what I know, but for Her to restore the knowledge to you.”
    I was silent again, struggling with equal parts anger, disappointment … and relief. Coward! I scolded myself. Have the bravery to demand an answer. You need to know who you are!
    Surya stepped closer to me, one of her hands grasping my shoulder. Her voice was pleading as she spoke. “Listen,
agni
. That night