by Sabaa Tahir
He shudders and holds my gaze to his. “Tell them. Swear it!” He sounds like himself again, but when he claws at my arm, there is no strength behind it. His hand falls and a rattle escapes his chest.
“Elias,” he says. “Remember—”
He whispers something, two words I only just catch. Then the jinn burst out of the trees and I streak away from them, not stopping until I reach the clearing near my cabin, where I know I’ll be safe.
I stumble toward it, my heart thundering in a visceral reminder of my own mortality. In the forest, the ghosts wail, in need of solace. But I slam the door shut on them. My body trembles and I wait, panting, for Mauth to heal my singed skin, to take away the thoughts in my head. Laia. Helene. Keris.
When the magic surges through me, I want to weep in relief. But though my burns fade and my heart ceases its frantic beat, no tide of forgetting washes the memories away. They parade across my vision, sharp as knives stabbing into my brain.
Shame consumes me when I think of all those I killed as a Mask. I can’t count their number anymore, there were so many. Not just strangers but friends—Demetrius. Leander. Ennis.
No, no. These memories are folly, for emotion has no place in my world.
Mauth, I cry out. Help me.
But he does not respond.
IX: The Blood Shrike
Ninth bell tolls as we reach the quay and Laia pants like she’s run a hundred sprints in the dead of a Serran summer.
“Do you need a minute?” I ask. The glare she shoots me makes me take a cautious step back.
“Or ten,” she wheezes. I stop in an alley that leads to Adisa’s westernmost bay. Wind whistles through the wharf, but the snow has stopped and the Adisans are out in droves.
Hawkers sell steaming noodles steeped in garlic broth, fried honey-cakes dusted with sugar, and a hundred other foods that make my mouth water. Young thieves weave through the crowd, swiftly relieving victims of their coin.
And everywhere, Nikla’s soldiers patrol in groups of two and four, scaled blue armor flashing.
“We need to get out on the water,” Laia says. “Musa will not be on the quay. He’s too well-known.”
“There.” I nod to where a scrawny, white-haired fishmonger shouts loud enough to wake the dead. Despite that, the old woman has few customers, situated as she is at the end of the quay. An unattended punt bobs on the water at her back.
“Just big enough for two. And maneuverable enough to get us through the night market.” Lantern-lit boats ply Fari Harbor—Adisa’s renowned floating merchants. “I’ll take out the old woman. You get the—”
“We are not knocking out an old woman!” Laia hisses. “She could be someone’s grandmother.”
The Scholar girl steps out onto the quay and knifes through the teeming crowds with her elbows. The fishmonger spots us and shakes a giant pink-and-silver fish in the air.
“Winter siltfish, fresh-caught!” she shouts as if I’m not two feet away. “Chop it, roast it, put it in a pot!”
Laia glances at the barrels of unsold fish behind her. “Business rough, old mother?”
“I’m not your mother,” the fishmonger says. “But I’ve a nice fat siltfish for you. Ten coppers and it could feed your family for a week. How many children do you—”
“We have need of your boat.” I nudge past Laia. There’s no bleeding time for pleasantries. Along with Nikla’s soldiers, I’ve spotted Martial troops—Keris’s men—patrolling the edges of the market. I hand the old woman a gold mark. “And your discretion.”
A mark is a fortune for someone who probably makes one silver in a month. But the fishmonger tosses the coin, catches it, and hands it back to me. “Boats aren’t cheap, Martial. Neither is silence.”
The woman slings up her catch again. “Winter siltfish, fresh from the harbor!” she bellows, and I fight not to cover my ears. “Fry it, stew it, feed it to your barber!”
Keris stole the treasury before betraying Antium. As such, I am low on coin. But I grit my teeth and add two marks to the first. The fishmonger pockets them and nods to her punt, yelling all the while.
As Laia and I make for the boat, I give her a dirty look. “Glad we let the nice old grandmother live?”
The Scholar shrugs. “Murder is not the answer to everything, Shrike. Grab that hat. Your hood is too conspicuous.”
Evening deepens as we pull away from the dock and into the traffic of the harbor. “I don’t suppose you can use your disappearing trick?” I ask Laia. Far easier to have someone watching my back if no one can see her. But she shakes her head.
“The Nightbringer is in the city. I can’t—” She looks over my shoulder, eyes widening. I whirl, expecting a Mask, the Commandant, a platoon of Mariner soldiers. My daggers are already in hand. But there’s nothing but the fishmonger’s stall and the quay.
“Sorry.” Laia puts a finger to her temple, jumping when another punt bumps ours. “I thought . . . never mind.” She wags her head and I’m reminded, uneasily, of her mother, Mirra of Serra, who I knew only as Cook.
Laia collects herself as I maneuver through the busy harbor. Musa went on and on about it, and to my surprise, I find he didn’t exaggerate its beauty. We pass an Ankanese dhow, its blue sails adorned with a huge eye. In its wake, a dozen vessels drift by, glowing with paper lanterns and poled by Mariners peddling ice plums and siltfish, wriggling shrimp and warty blue pumpkins.
“Shrike,” Laia whispers. “Mask!”
I spot him immediately—he’s on the deck of a ship so massive it casts half the floating market in shadow. Beneath the cloudy sky, the mast flag is clearly illuminated. It is black, with a white K emblazoned upon it. Keris’s flag.
Only she’s altered it from the last time I saw it. A spiky crown rests atop the K now. The sight of it makes me want to snap my oar in half.
“That’s the Samatius,” I say. “One of the ships I left in command of Quin Veturius in Navium.” Skies only know where the old man is now.
At that moment, I spot another Mask rowing through market traffic. My heart trips. This one has the good sense to dull the silver on his face, and wears a floppy fisherman’s hat.
“Harper’s here,” I say, and after a moment, Laia spots him.
“He’s alone. Do you think Darin and Musa got out?”
“I bleeding hope so,” I say. We don’t have enough smiths in Delphinium. As Darin is skilled enough to make unbreakable Serric steel blades, we need him. I can’t take my nephew’s throne back if I don’t have any scims.
We make our way toward Harper, stopping frequently to buy goods so as not to call attention to ourselves. The market is beautiful—one of the wonders of the world.
But it is Antium I long for. I miss the high pillars of the Hall of Records, and the domes and arches of the Illustrian district. I miss the orderly bustle of the markets and the soaring white peaks of the Nevennes Range, visible from anywhere in the city.
I miss my people. And I fear what they must be suffering under Grímarr’s rule.
“Worrying won’t help.” Laia gauges the tenor of my thoughts. “But talking about it might.”
“Without the Mariners’ help,” I say, “things are only going to get worse for us. Right now we have support because the Paters of Delphinium know what happened in Antium. But in the southern part of the Empire, the Commandant’s betrayal is a rumor. One she’s crushed ruthlessly.”
“She has the support of all the southern families,” Laia says. “And she has the army. But that doesn’t mean she’s won. What is it you always tell me when I’m too tired to pull a bowstring? Defeat in your mind—”
“Is defeat on the battlefield.” I smile at her. When I began teaching her archery, I’d expected her to give up after she realized how difficult it was.
I was wrong. When I was short with Laia, she’d work harder. Some nights I’d see h
er out on the archery pitch near the Black Guard barracks, practicing. She’s no Mask, but she can kill a man at thirty paces.
“You’re right, of course,” I say. “Keris might want us dead, but I’m not in a hurry to get to the Waiting Place—are you?”
Laia’s body tenses. Too late, I realize what a callous remark it is.
“I’m uh—sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Laia sighs. “Men are a terrible waste of air.”
“Utter garbage,” I agree.
“Useless rubbish,” she adds, grinning.
I chuckle before unwittingly glancing at Harper, camouflaged amid a cluster of longboats. Laia follows my gaze.
“He’s one of the few who isn’t, Blood Shrike.”
“We’re almost there.” Harper is not a subject I have any interest in discussing, now or ever. But Laia shakes her head.
“Poor Avitas,” she says. “He does not have a chance, does he? Skies, his eyes will fall out of his head when he sees you in those Mariner leathers.”
My face gets hot and I feel stung. I didn’t expect unkindness from her.
“No need to be nasty,” I say. “I’m aware that I’m not . . .” I gesture vaguely at her, curved in all the right places.
Laia only raises her eyebrows. “I mean it, Shrike,” she says. “You are very beautiful. It’s no wonder he cannot keep his eyes off you.”
A strange, warm feeling fills me, like after I’ve won a battle, or when I’m a half dozen cups into a keg.
“You—” You really think that? I want to say, because if Faris or Dex or even Elias told me I was beautiful, I’d stab them in the face. “You’re just saying that because you’re my—my—”
“Friend? Is it so hard to admit it?” Laia glances upward, ostentatiously shading her eyes. “A Scholar rebel and a Martial Blood Shrike are friends and the sky didn’t fall in. Whatever shall we do?”
“Let’s start by getting out of here alive,” I say. “Or I’ll have to make new friends in the afterlife, and we know how that will go.”
Harper reaches us then, stepping into our larger boat gracefully and abandoning his punt. He passes so close that I shut my eyes to better feel his warmth. When I open them, he’s at my side, staring at my mouth. His pale green eyes burn as his gaze travels down my body. I should tell him to look elsewhere. I am the Blood Shrike, for skies’ sake. Laia is sitting only a few feet away. This is inappropriate.
But for just a moment, I let him stare.
“Ah—Shrike.” He shakes himself. “Forgive me—”
“Never mind. Report, Harper,” I bark at him, hating the severity of my voice but knowing it’s necessary.
“Soldiers, Shrike.”
“That’s not a report—”
Harper shoves me out of the way as an arrow smacks into the mast beside me. I did not hear it amid the noise of the market. He grabs an oar as Laia cries out.
“Shrike!” The Scholar girl looks left—then right. I see the legionnaires immediately. They are cleverly disguised as merchants, making their way toward us at speed.
And they have us surrounded.
X: Laia
One moment, I am gaping at the sheer number of Martial soldiers closing in on us.
The next, the legionnaires are leaping to our boat from a dozen different punts. I barely have a chance to shout a warning before a thick, gauntleted arm is wrapped around my neck.
Our vessel pitches violently as Harper and the Shrike battle the soldiers swarming us. I kick back, landing a blow on my captor’s knee. He grunts and quite suddenly, I am weightless.
I only realize he has thrown me off the boat and into the bay when water slams into me like a gelid fist.
A memory rises in my head, Elias speaking to me in Serra when I told him I couldn’t swim. Remind me to remedy that when we have a few days.
I thrash my arms in a panic. I cannot feel my face. My legs slow, and my clothes drag at me, like hands pulling me down to welcome me to the depths of the sea.
Let go, I think. Let go and leave this battle to someone else. You’ll see your family again. You’ll see Elias again.
Let go.
A gold figure appears before me in the water, triggering a burst of memories. The room in Adisa. The Jaduna. The excruciating pain as a thing rose out of my body. The Jaduna had a name for it.
Rehmat—a strange name, I think as the life leaves me. The Jaduna did not say what it meant. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.
“Hail, Laia, and listen well.” Rehmat’s words crack like a whip and my body jerks. “You will not let go. Fight, child.”
Whatever Rehmat is, it is used to being obeyed. I windmill my arms and legs toward the glow of the floating market. I wriggle and claw until my head breaks the surface.
A swell smacks me in the mouth, and I choke on seawater.
“There!” a voice calls out, and moments later, a pale hand yanks me onto our punt.
“Ten hells, Scholar,” the Blood Shrike says. “Can’t you swim?”
I do not have a chance to answer. Harper points to the quay where a platoon of Martials is launching longboats.
“More are coming, Shrike,” he says. “We have to get out of here.”
I hear a small shriek and catch a flash of wings as a scroll drops into the Blood Shrike’s lap from midair.
“Musa and Darin are waiting northwest of here,” she says after reading it. “Just beyond the floating market.”
“Hold on.” Avitas angles our vessel toward the thick of the market and we ram into a cluster of merchants, sending baskets, fish, rope, and people flying. Curses and shouts trail us as the Martials rain down flaming arrows, not caring who they hit.
“Come on, Laia!”
With the grace of gazelles, Avitas and the Shrike leap to another boat, and then another, making their way forward as confidently as if they are on solid ground.
But I am slowed by the chill of freezing air hitting wet clothing. I lurch forward like a drunken bear, barely clearing each deck.
The Blood Shrike turns back. With one stroke of her blade she relieves me of my cloak, a sodden, woolen weight. And thank the skies I’m wearing a chemise, because with two more cuts, my short jacket gapes open and the Shrike yanks it off.
Though my teeth slam into each other, I move more lightly. The Martials are behind us for now, but that will not last. Already I see a group of them circumventing the market, cutting off our escape.
“We can’t break their cordon.” Avitas comes to a halt on a dinghy piloted by a terrified Mariner boy. He dives into the water to escape us. The people of the floating market pole away swiftly, buyers and sellers alike trying to avoid the melee. We have nowhere to run.
“Shrike, you’ll have to swim beneath the cordon,” Avitas says. “Laia—if you can use your invisibility, I’ll distract them—”
The Shrike’s face blanches. “Absolutely not!”
As they argue, I reach for my power. But my magic evades me. The Nightbringer. That monster still lurks in the city, blocking me.
“Not so, Laia of Serra.” The glow manifests at my side this time, and it is so real that I’m stunned my companions cannot see it.
“Go away,” I hiss, feeling insane for talking to something invisible to everyone else.
“The Nightbringer weakened your powers early on,” Rehmat says. “That was before you woke me. You are stronger now. You can disappear. You can even hide those with you.”
The Blood Shrike whips out her bow and picks off our pursuers one by one. But there are too many.
Beside me, Rehmat’s glow pulses. “Is this where you wish to die, daughter of Mirra and Jahan?” it asks. “Imagine your power as a cloak of darkness. Take shelter there. Then pull the Blood Shrike and the Mask within.”
“How do I know you aren’t tricking me? That y
ou aren’t some perversion of the Nightbringer?”
“Trust me or die, child,” Rehmat growls.
A longboat looms out of the dark. There is a Mask aboard and I freeze, my fear taking hold. Then the Shrike is past me, leaping onto the Mask’s boat as our own dinghy lurches. The Mask bares his teeth and draws scims, meeting the Shrike’s attack stroke for stroke.
Another boat of soldiers bashes into ours and now Avitas is at the Shrike’s back, swift and otherworldly. They are a four-armed monster, destroying, deflecting, defying Keris’s men to come closer.
“They cannot fight forever, Laia,” Rehmat says. “Reach for the magic. Save them. Save yourself.”
“I tried—”
“Try harder.” Rehmat’s voice, stern before, is steel now. “You are a child of kedim jadu, girl. Old magic. For centuries, I have waited for one of the kedim jadu to defy the Nightbringer. You did so, glorious and fearless, and now you quake, child? Now you quiver?”
There is an irrefutability in Rehmat’s tone that rings a bell at the core of my being. It is as if the creature is simply uncovering something that has long been carved into the arc of my life. Perhaps it has tampered with my mind, or the Nightbringer has.
Or perhaps my instinct has been honed by enough betrayal that when it sings truth, I listen. Perhaps I finally believe that my victories have been because I decided to fight, when others might have given up.
The Shrike slings arrows and the boat rocks beneath me. Avitas curses as the Martials draw closer.
The world seems to slow, as if time no longer exists. It is a moment of perfect chaos, and within it, I hear my nan. Where there is life, there is hope.
I will not accept death. Why should I, when there is life yet burning in my veins? I will not let the Nightbringer win so easily when it is my fury that will destroy him, and my strength that will release the Scholars from the yoke of his terror.
Disappear. Power breaks over me and I shudder at the force of it. This? This is what I can do?