Of Dreams and Rust Read Online Free Page A

I’ve told you?” He grabs the paper from his desk and stomps over to me, then slaps it onto the table. The headline reads NOOR REBELS OVERRUN YILAT CAPITAL.
    Below it there is another, smaller headline. WANTED: KNOWN REBELS is all it says. Beneath that are rows and rows of pictures, mostly artist’s sketches, some photos. A few of them are Itanyai, but most of them are Noor. “Do they look human to you, Miss Wen?” asks Dr. Yixa. “Look at those faces. Look into their eyes. They are animals.”
    I stare at the pictures. Some of the men are listed by name, some by crime, some by description. These are the most dangerous, apparently, and they certainly look the part. Wild hair, dirty faces. The sketch artist has drawn them with their teeth bared.
    At first I am almost frantic, scanning the page for any hint of a familiar face. I see none and slowly relax. Until I read the words beneath a face in the middle of the last row.
    THE RED ONE .
    Like the others, the man in that picture wears a grimace that makes him look more beast than man. His thick hair is pulled away from his face. He looks foreign and strange. But there is something about the way the artist has drawn his eyes with only the lightest shading that fills me with deadly certainty. My fingers drift along the line of his jaw.
    I remember what it felt like beneath my fingertips, rough and warm.
    â€œUgly sons of goats, aren’t they? They’ll get what’s coming to them, Miss Wen, make no mistake.”
    â€œAnd what’s coming to them?”
    Dr. Yixa chuckles. “When our men march into Yilat, they’ll hunt down and execute those troublemakers. Shoot on sight, if they get a chance.”
    I look into the eyes, pale gray in the artist’s rendering. In real life they are jade green and full of keen intelligence . . . and sometimes fiery defiance. This paper does not say what he has done, and I’m not sure it matters. Somewhere, somehow, he has been noticed. Giddy happiness and utter dread twine tightly in my chest.
    Melik, the boy who rules my dreams, is alive. He is also a rebel, marked for death.
    *  *  *
    I am thankful when my shift is over, because my concentration is fleeting at best today. Whenever I have a break, I find myself standing over the front page, staring down at the Red One’s unfamiliar-yet-familiar face. And the longer I look, the more I wonder if it’s actually Melik. Surely he and his brother are not the only Noor with rust-colored hair. I search my memories of Melik for something to confirm or dispute the accuracy of the drawing, but it is like trying to close my hands around a puff of smoke. Was his nose that long? Was his brow that wide? When I peer at it closely, I notice that the man in the drawing has a badly chipped tooth—is it a recent injury, or is this a different man?
    Isn’t that something I should know for sure?
    Realizing that I have forgotten the details of Melik’s face is like losing him all over again. The one thing I remember very well is the sight of him walking away from me after promising we would see each other again. Now that I have a window into what his life might have become, though, I have to wonder—does he bother to remember me at all?
    I was only a few weeks in his life, with many days soaked in sorrow and grief and blood, both his and that of people he loved. We shared a few kisses, a handful of embraces, a fragile understanding floating in an ocean of want. For all I know, that ocean has dried up, leaving cracked earth and a broken promise. On the other hand, perhaps he is like me. Perhaps he can’t forget. Is it possible that he carries those memories tucked inside his heart, beneath the long scar on his chest? Does he run his fingers along its length and remember the night I stitched him up? Is it possible that he dreams of me? Would it hurt him to think I’d forgotten him?
    How on earth could he afford