A Torch Against the Night

by Sabaa Tahir

  I force myself not to look away.

  "Blood Shrike." The Commandant turns and salutes. Immediately, her men follow suit. Her voice is soft, but as ever, she manages to mock my title while keeping her face and expression flat. She glances at Harper and he offers a bare nod in acknowledgement. Then she addresses me. "Shouldn't you be scouring the lands to the south for Veturius?"

  "Shouldn't you be hunting Scholar rebels along the River Rei?"

  "The revolution along the Rei has been crushed," the Commandant says. "My men and I have been purging the countryside of the Scholar threat."

  I eye the prisoners shaking in terror before her. Three are twice my father's age. Two are children.

  "These civilians do not look like rebel fighters to me."

  "It is such thinking, Shrike, that encourages revolts in the first place. These civilians harbored Resistance rebels. When brought to the garrison for questioning, they--along with the rebels--attempted to stage an escape. No doubt they were encouraged in their insurgency by rumors of a Martial rout in Nur."

  I flush at her pointed remark, seeking a retort and finding none. Your failure has weakened the Empire. The words are unspoken. And they are not wrong. The Commandant curls her lip and shifts her gaze over my shoulder, to my men.

  "A ragged bunch," she observes. "Tired men make for failed missions, Blood Shrike. Did you not learn that lesson at Blackcliff?"

  "I had to divide my forces to cover more ground." Though I try to keep my voice as unfeeling as hers, I know I sound like a sullen Cadet defending an unsound battle strategy to a Centurion.

  "So many men to hunt a traitor," she says. "Yet you've had no luck. One would think you do not truly wish to find Veturius."

  "One would be wrong," I grind out from a clenched jaw.

  "One would hope," she says with a soft derision that brings an enraged flush to my cheeks. She turns back to her prisoners. One of the children is next, a dark-haired boy with freckles across his nose. The sharp tang of urine permeates the air, and the Commandant looks down at the boy and cocks her head.

  "Afraid, little one?" Her voice is almost gentle. I want to retch at the lie in it. The boy trembles, staring at the blood-soaked dirt before him.

  "Stop." I step forward. Bleeding skies, what are you doing, Helene? The Commandant looks at me with a mild sort of curiosity.

  "As Blood Shrike," I say, "I order--"

  The Commandant's first scim whistles through the air, divesting the child of his head. At the same time, she draws her second scim, plunging it through the heart of the second child. Knives appear in her hands, and she flings them--zing-zing-zing--one by one into the throats of the last three prisoners.

  In the space of two breaths, she has executed them all.

  "Yes, Blood Shrike?" She turns back to me. On the surface, she is patient, attentive. No hint of the madness that I know roils deep within. I survey her men--well over a hundred of them watching the altercation with cold-eyed interest. If I challenge her now, there is no telling what she will do. Attack, possibly. Or try to butcher my men. She certainly won't submit to censure.

  "Bury the bodies." I suppress my emotions and flatten my voice. "I don't want the garrison's water supply contaminated by corpses."

  The Commandant nods, her face still. The consummate Mask. "Of course, Shrike."

  I order my men into the garrison and retire to the empty Black Guard barracks, dropping into one of the dozen hard bunks along the walls. I am filthy from a week on the road. I should bathe, eat, rest.

  Instead, I find myself staring at the ceiling for a solid two hours. I keep thinking of the Commandant. Her insult to me was clear--and my inability to respond displayed my weakness. But though I'm upset by that, I'm more disturbed at what she did to the prisoners. At what she did to the children.

  Is this what the Empire has become? Or is this what it always was? a quiet voice within asks.

  "I brought you food."

  I jerk upright, hit my head on the bunk above me, and curse. Harper drops his pack on the floor and nods to a steaming plate of golden rice and spiced minced meat on a table by the door. It looks delicious, but I know that right now, anything I eat will taste of ashes.

  "The Commandant left about an hour ago," Harper says. "She's headed north."

  Harper removes his armor, laying it neatly beside the door before digging around in the closet for fresh fatigues. He turns his back to me and changes. When he strips off his shirt, he steps into the shadows so I cannot see. I crack a smile at his modesty.

  "The food won't jump down your throat on its own, Shrike."

  I look suspiciously at the plate, and Harper sighs, pads to the table in bare feet, and tastes the food before handing me the plate. "Eat," he says. "Your mother asked you to. How would it look if the Empire's Blood Shrike fainted dead away from starvation in the middle of a fight?"

  Reluctantly, I take the plate and force myself to chew a few morsels of it.

  "The old Blood Shrike had tasters." Harper sits on a bunk across from me and rolls his shoulders back. "Usually an aux soldier from some nameless Plebeian family."

  "People tried to assassinate the Shrike?"

  Harper looks at me like I'm an especially dim Yearling. "Of course. He had the Emperor's ear and was first cousin to Kauf's Warden. There are probably only a handful of secrets in the Empire that he didn't know."

  I press my lips together to quell my shudder. I remember the Warden from my time as a Fiver. I remember how he got his secrets: through twisted experiments and mind games.

  Harper's eyes cut to me and glitter like the pale jade of the Southern Lands. "Will you tell me something?"

  I swallow the bite I've only half chewed. That placidness in his tone--I've learned what it means. He's about to strike.

  "Why did you let him go?"

  Bleeding skies. "Let who go?"

  "I know when you're trying to mislead me, Shrike," Harper says. "Five days in an interrogation room with you, remember?" He leans forward on his bunk, tilting his head mildly, like a curious bird. I am not fooled; his eyes burn with intensity. "You had Veturius in Nur. You let him go. Because you love him? Is he not a Mask, like any other?"

  "How dare you!" I slam the plate down and stand. Harper grabs my arm, not releasing when I try to throw him off.

  "Please," he says. "I mean no harm. I swear it. I too have loved, Shrike." Old pain flickers and fades in his eyes. I see no lie there. Only curiosity.

  I shove away his arm and, still assessing him, sit back down. I look out the open window of the barracks to the wide stretch of scrubby hills beyond. The moon barely lights the room, and the darkness is a comfort.

  "Veturius is a Mask like the rest of us, yes," I say. "Bold, brave, strong, swift. But those were afterthoughts for him." The Blood Shrike's ring of office feels heavy on my finger, and I spin it around. I have never spoken of Elias to anyone. Whom would I speak to? My comrades at Blackcliff would have mocked me. My sisters would not have understood.

  I want to speak of him, I realize. I crave it.

  "Elias sees people as they should be," I say. "Not as they are. He laughs at himself. He gives of himself--in everything he does.

  "Like with the First Trial." I shiver at the memory. "The Augurs played with our minds. But Elias didn't falter. He looked death straight in the face and never considered leaving me behind. He didn't give up on me. He's the things that I can't be. He's good. He never would have let the Commandant kill those prisoners. Especially not the children."

  "The Commandant serves the Empire."

  I shake my head. "What she did doesn't serve the Empire," I say. "Not the Empire I fight for, anyway."

  Harper watches me with an unsettling, fixed gaze. I wonder briefly if I've said too much. But then I realize that I don't care what he thinks. He is no friend of mine, and if he reports what I said to Marcus or the Commandant, it will change nothing.

  "Blood Shrike!" The shout makes both Harper and me jump, and a moment late
r, the door bursts open to reveal an aux courier panting and coated in dirt from the road. "The Emperor orders you to ride for Antium. Now."

  Bleeding skies. I'll never catch Elias if I detour to Antium. "I'm in the middle of a mission, soldier," I say. "And I'm not inclined to leave it half-finished. What's so damned important?"

  "War, Blood Shrike. The Illustrian Gens have declared war on each other."

  PART II

  NORTH

  XXV: Elias

  For two weeks, the hours pass in a blur of nighttime riding, thieving, and skulking. Martial soldiers swarm over the countryside like locusts, tearing through every village and farmstead, every bridge and shack, in their search for me.

  But I am alone, and I am a Mask. I ride hard, and Trera, desert born and bred, eats up the miles.

  After a fortnight, we reach the eastern branch of the River Taius, glimmering like the groove of a silver scim beneath the full moon. The night is quiet and bright, without a breath of wind, and I lead Trera up the riverbank until I find a place to cross.

  He slows as he splashes through the shallows, and when his hooves hit the northern bank, he tosses his head wildly, his eyes rolling back.

  "Whoa--whoa, boy." I drop into the water and pull his bridle forward to get him up the bank. He whinnies and jerks his head. "Did you get bitten? Let's see."

  I pull a blanket from one of the saddlebags and rub his legs gently, waiting for him to flinch when the blanket hits the bite. But he just lets me rub him down before turning south.

  "This way." I try to urge him north, but he's having none of it. Strange. Up until now, he and I have gotten along fine. He's far more intelligent than any of Grandfather's horses, and he has more stamina too. "Don't worry, boy. Nothing to fear."

  "Are you certain of that, Elias Veturius?"

  "Ten bleeding hells!" I don't believe it's the Soul Catcher until I see her sitting on a rock a few yards away.

  "I'm not dead," I say quickly, like a child denying a wrongdoing.

  "Obviously." The Soul Catcher stands and shakes back her dark hair, her black eyes fixed on me. Part of me wants to poke her to see how real she is. "You are, however, in my territory now." The Soul Catcher nods east, to a thick, dark line on the horizon. The Forest of Dusk.

  "That's the Waiting Place?" I never linked the oppressive trees of the Soul Catcher's lair to anything in my world.

  "Didn't you ever wonder where it was?"

  "I mostly spent my time figuring out how to get out of it." I try again to pull Trera from the river. He doesn't budge. "What do you want, Soul Catcher?"

  She pats Trera between his ears, and he relaxes. She takes his reins from me and leads him north as easily as if she's the one who's been with him for the past two weeks. I give the beast a dark look. Traitor.

  "Who says I want anything, Elias?" the Soul Catcher says. "I'm simply welcoming you to my lands."

  "Right." What a load of dung. "You won't need to worry about me lingering. I have someplace to be."

  "Ah." I hear the smile in her voice. "That might be a problem. You see, when you stray so close to my realm, you disturb the spirits, Elias. For that you must pay a price."

  Welcoming me indeed. "What price?"

  "I'll show you. If you work quickly enough, I'll help you pass through these lands faster than you would have on horseback."

  I mount Trera reluctantly and offer her a hand, though the idea of her otherworldly body so close to mine makes my blood turn to ice. But she ignores me and breaks into a run, her feet fleet as she matches Trera's canter with ease. A wind blows in from the west, and she catches it like a kite, her body floating upon it as if she is made of fluff. Too soon for it to be natural, the trees of the Forest of Dusk rise like a wall before us.

  Fiver missions never brought me this close to the Forest. Centurions warned us to keep a good distance from its borders. Since anyone who didn't listen tended to disappear, it was one of the few rules no Fiver was stupid enough to break.

  "Leave the horse," the Soul Catcher says. "I'll make sure he's cared for."

  The moment I step into the Forest, the whispers begin. And now that my senses are not dulled by unconsciousness, I can make out the words more clearly. The red of the leaves is more vivid, the sweet scent of sap sharper.

  "Elias." The Soul Catcher's voice dulls the soughing of the ghosts, and she nods to a space in the trees where a spirit paces. Tristas.

  "Why is he still here?"

  "He won't listen to me," the Soul Catcher says. "Perhaps he will listen to you."

  "I'm the reason he's dead."

  "Exactly. Hatred anchors him here. I don't mind ghosts who wish to stay, Elias--but not when they upset the other spirits. You need to talk to him. You need to help him move on."

  "And if I can't?"

  The Soul Catcher shrugs. "You'll stay here until you can."

  "I need to get to Kauf."

  The Soul Catcher turns her back on me. "Then you better get started."

  *

  Tristas refuses to speak with me. He first tries to attack me, but unlike when I was unconscious, his fists fly through my corporeal body. When he realizes he cannot hurt me, he rushes away, cursing. I try to follow, calling his name. By evening, my voice is hoarse.

  The Soul Catcher appears beside me when the Forest falls full dark. I wonder if she's been watching my ineptitude. "Come," she says tersely. "If you do not eat, you will only weaken and fail again."

  We walk along a stream to a cabin filled with pale wooden furniture and handwoven rugs. Multifaceted Tribal lamps of a dozen colors light the space. A bowl of stew steams on the table. "Cozy," I say. "You live here?"

  The Soul Catcher turns to leave, but I step in front of her, and she collides with me. I expect cold to jolt through me, like when I touched the wraiths. But she's warm. Almost feverish.

  The Soul Catcher jerks away, and I raise my eyebrows. "You're a living thing?"

  "I'm not human."

  "I gathered that," I say dryly. "But you're not a wraith, either. And you have needs, obviously." I look at the house, the bed in the corner, the pot of stew bubbling over the fire. "Food. Shelter."

  She glares and darts around me with unnatural swiftness. I'm reminded of the creature in Serra's catacombs. "Are you an efrit?"

  When she reaches for the door, I sigh in exasperation. "What harm is there in talking to me?" I say. "You must be lonely out here, with only spirits to keep you company."

  I expect her to turn on me or run away. But her hand freezes on the door handle. I move aside and gesture to the table.

  "Sit. Please."

  She eases back into the room, black eyes wary. I see a flash of curiosity deep within that opaque gaze. I wonder when she last spoke with someone who wasn't already dead.

  "I am not an efrit," she says after settling herself across from me. "They are weaker creatures, born of the lower elements. Sand or shadow. Clay, wind, or water."

  "Then what are you?" I say. "Or"--I take in her deceptively human form, save for those ageless eyes--"what were you?"

  "I was a girl, once." The Soul Catcher looks down at the speckled pattern cast upon her hands by one of the Tribal lamps. She sounds almost thoughtful. "A foolish girl who did one foolish thing. But that led to another foolish thing. Foolish became disastrous, disastrous became murderous, and murderous became damned." She sighs. "Now here I am, chained to this place, paying for my crimes by escorting ghosts from one realm to the next."

  "Quite a punishment."

  "It was quite a crime. But you know about crime. And repentance." She stands, severe once more. "Sleep where you wish. I will not disturb you. But remember, if you want your own chance at repentance, you must find a way to help Tristas."

  Days blur together--time feels different here. I sense Tristas but don't see him. As the days pass, I plunge deeper into the woods in my increasingly agitated attempts to find him. Finally, I discover a part of the Forest that looks as if it hasn't seen sunlight in years.
A river rushes nearby, and I spot an angry red glow ahead. Fire?

  The glow intensifies, and I consider calling out to the Soul Catcher. But I smell no smoke, and when I get close, I realize it's not a fire I saw but a grove of trees--enormous, interconnected, and wrong. Their gnarled trunks glow as if consumed from within by the flames of the hells.

  Help us, Shaeva. Voices within the trees cry out, the sound grating and harsh. Don't leave us alone.

  A figure kneels at the base of the largest tree, hand stretched flat against the burning trunk. The Soul Catcher.

  The fire from the trees trickles into her hands and spreads to her neck, her stomach. In the space of a breath, her body is ablaze, smokeless flames of red and black consuming her. I cry out, rushing toward her, but as suddenly as she is consumed, the flames die and she is whole again. The trees still glow, but their fire is muted. Tamed.

  The Soul Catcher crumples, and I pick her up. She's as light as a child.

  "You should not have seen that," she whispers as I carry her from the grove. "I did not know you would travel so deep into the Forest."

  "Was that the gateway to the hells? Is that where the evil spirits go?"

  The Soul Catcher shakes her head. "Good or evil, Elias, spirits simply move on. But it is a hell of sorts. At least for those trapped within it."

  She collapses on a chair inside her cabin, her face gray. I tuck a blanket around her shoulders, relieved when she doesn't protest.

  "You told me efrits are made of the lesser elements." I sit across from her. "Are there higher elements?"

  "Just one," the Soul Catcher whispers. Her hostility is so diminished that she seems like a different creature. "Fire."

  "You're a jinn." It dawns on me suddenly, though I can hardly make sense of it. "Aren't you? I thought some Scholar king tricked the other fey creatures into betraying and destroying your kind long ago."

  "The jinn weren't destroyed," the Soul Catcher says. "Only trapped. And it wasn't the fey who betrayed us. It was a young, prideful jinn girl."

  "You?"

  She pushes the blanket away. "I was wrong to bring you here," she says. "Wrong to take advantage of your seizures to speak with you. Forgive me."

  "Take me to Kauf then." I seize upon her apology. I need to get out of here. "Please. I should be there by now."