Sabaa Tahir

In another flash of insight, born of the awareness that only makes itself known deep in the night, when the mind opens strange doors, I realize something else. This is not a quiet lie. It is violent and shattering.

After I drink it down, she sits in front of me, her scars inches from my face. I gaze at them, but they no longer seem grotesque. Is it because I’ve gotten used to seeing them? Or because I have a disfigurement of my own?

I’ll never forget his face, or how he sounded when he asked me to come with him. Like I was doing him a favor instead of the other way around.”

I’ll never forget his face, or how he sounded when he asked me to come with him. Like I was doing him a favor instead of the other way around.”

Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be.

“Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don’t let it control you. Don’t let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”

It has no hero or heroine.

“The kind that’s a burden and the kind that gives you purpose. Let your guilt be your fuel. Let it remind you of who you want to be. Draw a line in your mind. Never cross it again. You have a soul. It’s damaged, but it’s there. Don’t let them take it from you, Elias.”

“Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don’t let it control you. Don’t let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”

Every button of her ebony shirt gleams with the shimmer of a serpent’s eyes.

“Look at me,” she says. I force myself to obey, instantly paralyzed as I meet her gaze. Looking into her face is like looking at the flat, smooth surface of a gravestone. There isn’t a shred of humanity in her gray eyes, nor any evidence of kindness in the planes of her masked features. A spiral of faded blue ink curls up the left side of her neck—a tattoo of some kind.

“What is your name, girl?”

“Laia.”

My head is jerked to one side, my cheek on fire before I even realize she’s struck me. Tears spring to my eyes at the sharpness of the slap, and I dig my nails into my thigh to keep from running.

“Wrong,” the Commandant informs me. “You have no name. No identity. You are a slave. That is all you are. That is all you will ever be.” She turns to the slaver to discuss payment. My face is still smarting when the slaver unhooks my collar.