The Midnight Sea (The Fourth Element #1) Read Online Free Page B

the sun was setting, I could hardly lift my arms. But I refused to quit. Ilyas wouldn’t break me so easily. I was Four-Legs Clan.
    When he saw I was on the verge of toppling over, Ilyas clapped me on the back and smiled.
    “You did well, Nazafareen,” he said. “I’ll see you in the fire temple for morning prayers. They’ll feed you in the kitchens. I left some novice tunics for you in the barracks.”
    I nodded, suddenly too tired to speak. As I trudged toward the palace, I wondered what my family was doing now. Probably sitting around the fire, laughing and talking while the dogs begged for scraps.
    I’d given Ashraf’s puppy to some distant cousins. I couldn’t stand to look at it. If I’d just let her keep the cursed thing, my sister would still be alive.

Chapter Four
    I t soon became clear that almost everyone at the satrap’s compound considered me a savage. I wasn’t accustomed to eating at a table, and my clumsy manners were a great source of entertainment for the serving girls. They pretended to sniff the air when I entered the kitchens, then turned their noses up in disgust. I had never realized the contempt most people had for nomads.
    The only ones who treated me like a human being were Ilyas and Tommas, and the magus. The other Water Dogs spent most of their time on patrol and I saw little of them at first. Eventually, I managed to keep the sword in my hands while Ilyas battered me, but the first few weeks were sheer misery. Every night, I dreamed of Ashraf. Sometimes it was my knife in her neck. Those dreams were the worst, and I would wake shaking in the darkness of the empty novice barracks.
    Clearly, my sister had an axe to grind.
    So I would light a stub of candle while I waited for the dawn (trying to sleep again was useless) and I would vow to her that I’d do whatever it took to earn my place in the Water Dogs. To start killing Druj. But Ashraf had never been patient—she was only seven, after all—and I knew she would hound me until I made good on my promise.
    It didn’t take long to learn my way around the satrap’s sprawling complex. There were two sets of Water Dog barracks, one for daēvas and one for humans. The servants had their own quarters, as did the harem. The fire temple, where I prayed with Ilyas in the mornings, was a simple stone structure on the east side of the gardens. Our faith held that fire was the holiest element, followed by water, and then earth. The flames symbolized the light of wisdom banishing the darkness of ignorance.
    Ilyas would kneel next to me, eyes shut tight, lips moving silently. There was a strange intensity to his prayer, as though he sought forgiveness for some perceived sin, although his behavior seemed in all respects proper, if a touch rigid.
    “The world is in an eternal struggle against good and evil,” he would say to me. “But the most important war is fought here.” Ilyas would tap his chest. “It is not the barbarians, nor even the Druj, that we must fear the most, Nazafareen. It is the enemy within.”
    I would nod and pretend I knew what he was talking about. Did he mean the daēvas? Being bonded? Or just the temptations of sin in general? All of those things? Several times, I nearly asked, but something in his grey eyes held me back. As though Ilyas would be terribly disappointed in me if I failed to understand.
    I hoped that the afternoons I spent with the magus might clear up my confusion. I knew almost nothing. My people lived an isolated existence and the larger workings of the empire mattered little to us. So I would sit in my hard chair while he lectured me on politics and history and other subjects too boring to name. The only time I perked up was when he discussed the daēvas. They fascinated me in a shivery way, like panthers viewed through the bars of a flimsy cage.
    “Only the Immortals—the King’s personal division of the army—use daēvas as a large fighting force,” the magus said. “The satraps have a small