by Sabaa Tahir
“Easy,” I say. “What did that poor rock do to you?”
He does not appear surprised by my presence, even though he was engrossed in his strange ritual.
“It helps when—” He gestures to his head and lifts the rock again. This time, when he drops it, I sit on it.
“You need a pet, Elias,” I say, “if you are turning to rocks for company.”
“I don’t need a pet.” He leans down, grabs me by the waist, and throws me over his shoulder.
I yelp. “Elias Veturius, you—you put me down—”
He drops me at the edge of the clearing—not ungently—and goes back to his boulder.
“You do need a pet.” I settle my breath, which has gone a bit shallow, and circle him, considering. “Not a cat. Too solitary. Maybe a horse, though with your windwalking you would not have much use for one. An Ankanese jumping spider, perhaps? Or a ferret?”
“Ferret?” He looks almost offended. “A dog. A dog would be fine.”
“A small one.” I nod. “One that barks incessantly so that you have to pay attention to it.”
“No, no, a big one,” he says, “Strong. Loyal. A Tiborum shepherd dog, maybe, or a—”
He stops short, realizing that he is engaging in actual conversation. I smile at him. But he makes me pay for my victory, stepping into a windwalk and vanishing, muttering about seeing to the ghosts.
“Why?” I mutter to the trees hours later, unable to sleep. “Why did I have to fall in love first with a vengeance-obsessed fire creature, and then with a noble idiot who, who—”
Who gave up his freedom and future so Darin and I could live. Who chained himself to an eternity alone because of a vow he made.
“What do I do?” I mutter. “Darin—what would you do?”
“Why do you ask the night, child? The night will not answer.”
Rehmat’s voice is a whisper, its form a scant shadow limned in gold.
“I thought I’d imagined you.” I offer it a smile, for imperious as the creature is, its presence leavens my loneliness. “Where have you been?”
“Unimportant. You wish to speak to your brother. Yet you do not. Why?”
“He is hundreds of miles away.”
“You are kedim jadu. He is kedim jadu. And he is your blood. If you wish to speak to him, speak to him. Still your mind. Reach.”
“How—” I stop myself from asking and consider. Rehmat was right about my disappearing. Perhaps it is right about this too.
I close my eyes and imagine a deep, quiet lake. Pop did this with patients sometimes, children whose bellies ached for reasons we could not see, or men and women unable to sleep for days. Breathe in. Let the air nourish you. Breathe out. Expel your fears.
I sink into the stillness. Then I call out, imagining my voice stretching across the miles.
“Darin. Are you there?”
At first, there is only silence. I begin to feel foolish. Then—
Laia?
“Yes!” I nearly leap up in my excitement. “Yes, it’s me.”
Laia, what is this? Are you all right?
“I’m fine,” I say. “I—I am in the Waiting Place.”
Is Elias with you? Is he still being an idiot?
“He is not an idiot!”
Figured you’d say that. I wanted to make sure it was really you. Are you sure you’re all right? You sound—
Rehmat appears so suddenly that its glow blinds me. “Fey creatures! Approaching from the west. They must have heard you, Laia. Forgive me—I did not sense them. Arm yourself!”
The gold light fades as quickly as it appeared, and I am left alone in the inky murk. I scramble to my feet, dagger at the ready, my pulse pounding. A cricket chirps nearby and the wind whispers through the branches. The forest is quiet.
And then, in an instant, it is silent. Shapes flit between the trees, too fast to track. Jinn? Efrits?
I scuttle back, trying to use the night to my advantage. The darkness can feel like an enemy, the Blood Shrike said once, insisting I wear a blindfold while she trained me in hand-to-hand combat. Let it be a friend instead.
The shadows draw closer. Where in the skies is Elias? Of course, when he and his big fists and murderous demeanor might actually come in handy, he’s not here.
Something cold brushes past me, and I feel as if my neck has been plunged into pure snow. I dart around the fire—kicking at it to get air on the embers. They flare for a moment, then fade. But not before I see what hides in the dark.
Wraiths.
Stay calm. Elias and I fought these things out in the desert east of Serra. Taking off their heads kills them. Too bad I have a dagger with no reach instead of a scim.
Invisibility will not fool them. All I can do is run. I kick the embers into the faces of the wraiths, and as they screech, I bolt through an opening in the trees. I feel them behind me, all around me, and lash out with my dagger. They fall back—and I have a few more inches, a few more seconds.
Did the Nightbringer send them? You fool, Laia. Did you think he would just let you get away?
Through the gasps of my breathing and the crunch of brush beneath my boots, I hear a creek. Most fey creatures hate water. I tear toward the sound, slipping on the wet rocks, only stopping when I am midstream, with the water at my knees.
“Come out, little girl.” The wraiths speak as one, their words high and reedy, as if a winter gale out of the Nevennes has been given voice. “Come out and meet your doom.”
“Why don’t you come in here?” I snarl. “You ragged bastards could use a bath.”
The blue starlight throws the shadows emerging from the woods into sharp relief. A dozen wraiths, at first. Then two dozen. Then more than fifty, their shredded clothing fluttering in a nonexistent wind.
They could have rushed me in the woods. Ambushed me. But they did not. Which means they want me alive.
Think! There is a reason the wraiths are here and it is not to kill me. Brazen it out, then, Laia. And hope to the skies you aren’t wrong. Without warning, I sprint through the water toward them.
I expect them to move. Instead they catch me and squeeze. Bad idea, Laia. Very bad idea.
Impossible cold lances through me and I scream. The chill is all-consuming, and I am certain that this will be a slow death, like being bricked away and knowing you will never escape.
My body seizes, my vision flashes to a vast sea, dark and teeming. Then to the River Dusk. I see it from above, the way a bird would. I follow its serpentine path through the Waiting Place. But there is something wrong. The river disappears, rotting at the edges. There are no ghosts winding among the trees. Instead, screams echo in the air and there are faces in the water. Thousands of them, trapped. The air grows ponderous, and I turn to face a maelstrom of teeth and sinew, obscenely violent. A maw that is never satisfied.
But it will not have me. No! Though the images I saw still reverberate in my skull, I have enough sense to lash out with my blade, dodging the shadows as they reach for me.
They want my screams, I realize. They want my pain.
“You cannot have it,” I roar at them. “You can have my wrath instead. My hate.”
“Laia—” Elias’s voice calls from somewhere on my right, and the wraiths chitter and draw back.
“She doesn’t belong here, Soul Catcher,” they say. “She is not dead.”
“Neither do you.” Elias’s words make me shudder, for they are delivered in the flat, cold voice of the Soul Catcher. Of a Mask. “Leave.”
He gathers his magic—I feel the air tighten around me. The wraiths recoil and I dart through them.
“Go, Elias!” I shout when I’m within reach of him. “Windwalk! Now!” His arms close around me and we are away.
I shiver from the cold still in my bones and press into him, desperate for his warmth. He m
oves so quickly that I close my eyes so I am not sick. The maelstrom circles in my head, ever devouring, and I have to tell myself that I am safe.
Safe. Safe. Safe. I chant the word to the throb of Elias’s heartbeat. The rhythmic thud is a reminder that despite his vow and his magic, his detachment and his distance, he is still human. By the time he slows, I have the sound memorized.
The scent of the Duskan Sea cuts through the air first, and then the dull roar of the waves. Seagulls call out, and far to the east, the sun burns away a heavy cloud bank.
We have traveled hundreds of miles. He got what he wanted after all—me out of his territory. As soon as we are free of the trees, he releases me. I crash to the earth, scraping my hand on a tree trunk trying to get my balance.
“The wraiths are far away.” Elias looks northwest, where a Martial guard tower looms atop a hill of dead grass. “But they might track you. Get to a human settlement quickly. When it’s full light, you’ll be safe to travel again.”
“I saw something, Soul Catcher,” I say. “An ocean filled with—skies, I do not know. And faces. Trapped faces within the River Dusk. I saw that—that maelstrom, and it wanted to devour me and you and—”
“And everything else.” Elias glances down at me, and those pale eyes I learned to love darken. Some unfathomable emotion flickers across them, an echo of who he was.
“We can travel together.” I touch his arm, and he starts at the spark that jumps between us. He’s still human. Still here. “We can speak to the Fakirs, the Kehannis. You could ask—”
At the chill in his gaze, I cease. I keep trying to appeal to his humanity. I might as well throw myself against a stone wall. He does not give two figs about me. He cares about the Waiting Place. He cares about the ghosts.
“How many ghosts have you passed, Elias? How much rot have you seen?”
He tilts his head, contemplating me.
“It’s not because of me,” I say. “Something is wrong. What if it is the Nightbringer’s doing? You are dedicated to protecting and passing on the ghosts. The Tribal Fakirs are also dedicated to the dead. They might know where the rot is coming from.”
Stay with me, I think. Stay with me so I can remind you of who you used to be.
“A rider approaches.” Elias glances over my shoulder. The sky pales enough that I can see foam on the waves, and I squint toward the western horizon, searching.
“Tribespeople,” I say. “Musa told them I was coming. They must have scouts watching the forest.”
“Not the Tribes. Someone else.” Elias takes a step back. “The voice in your head, Laia,” he says, and I remember then that I told him of Rehmat. “Beware of it. Such creatures are never quite what they seem.”
I stare at him in surprise. “I did not know you were listening.”
Hooves thunder from behind me. A quarter mile to the northwest, a band of men and horses appears atop a hill. Even at a distance, one of the forms flickers strangely. It swings its head toward me.
Two sun eyes penetrate across the distance, pinning me like an insect on a wall.
“Elias,” I whisper. “Elias, it’s a jinn—”
Silence. I turn to him, to ask him to windwalk us away. But as I scan the tree line, my stomach sinks. He is gone.
XVIII: The Soul Catcher
The dead yew in the jinn grove bears the brunt of my frustration, the trunk creaking as I slam the chain into it again and again and again.
The girl will be fine. She’s swift and clever. She possesses magic.
She will survive.
She’s not “the girl.” She’s Laia. And if she dies, it’s your bleeding fault.
“Shut up,” I mutter, delivering a particularly savage blow to the tree. A nearby crow squawks and flies into the clear winter sky.
You’re a fool, the voice hisses, deriding me as it has for the past week, ever since I left Laia at the edge of the Waiting Place.
My exhaustion is bone deep, a product of sleep riven with nightmares and waking thoughts consumed by her. I lift the chain, seeking that sweet oblivion that takes over when my body screams that it cannot go on.
Oblivion doesn’t materialize. As Cain promised, Laia remains in my mind. Every story she told. Her shaking body as we escaped the wraiths. Her hand against my arm as she tried to persuade me to see the Fakirs with her.
And her questions. How many ghosts have you passed, Elias? Since she left, I have scoured the Waiting Place for spirits, encountering a mere half dozen in as many days. Something is wrong.
I hear a low, animal moan, and turn to find a spirit reeking of death and wringing her hands at the edge of the jinn grove. Immediately, I move toward her. Mauth’s magic allows me to dip into her memory, and I see a fleet of ships off a fair gold coast. Invaders wearing Keris Veturia’s sigil. Sadh’s silver domes and slender white spires burning and falling. Its people fleeing and dying.
Speaking Sadhese, the spirit tells me her story in bits and pieces and I usher her slowly toward the river. Focusing on her calms my mind. This is my purpose. Not night after night of oneiric hauntings. Not helping a girl cross the forest. Not talking to a Fakir.
“My children,” the ghost says. “Where are they?”
“He leaves them,” I tell her. “They’ll find their way to the nearest settlement. Do not fear for them.”
“Did they see it?” The spirit belongs to a Tribeswoman, and she turns her dark eyes toward me. “The storm?”
“Tell me about this storm,” I say. “Release your fear.”
The ghost shudders. She holds too tightly to her suffering. I let my magic curl around her like smoke and try to ease her pain from her. But she will not let it go.
“It was vast. And hungry. It wanted to devour me.”
“When did you see this?” If she did get a glimpse of the storm, she will be the first ghost to mention it other than Karinna. My neck prickles. “Where?”
“When the Nightbringer came for me. He lifted his scythe. Our Kehanni said if you look into a jinn’s eyes, you see your future, so I tried not to look. But I couldn’t help it. Is that what will happen to me when I cross over? I will be devoured?”
“No,” I say. “It’s not.” But I do not speak with conviction. Before, I knew in my bones that the ghosts were moving on to something better. Now I am not so sure.
“Something took the other spirits,” the ghost says. “But I escaped. I don’t know where they went. I don’t know why.”
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore.” I force myself to believe it, for if I do not, how will she? “The other side waits for you, and with it, peace.”
She goes, finally, and when the next ghost appears, it, too, is from the invasion of Sadh. “I don’t want to go,” it screams. “Please—it’s waiting for me. It will devour me!”
For the next three days, every ghost who passes through speaks of the maelstrom. I expect more spirits, for it is clear Keris Veturia takes no prisoners. But then, Tribal ghosts have always been rare in the Waiting Place. Their Fakirs usually pass them on without any intervention from the Soul Catcher.
Those ghosts who do enter the wood grow progressively more difficult to handle. Day after day I hear the same story. I hold and painstakingly extract the same terror. A sinking feeling creeps over me—that I am doing something terribly unjust by passing the spirits.
Then, after passing a boy who is far younger than the Nightbringer’s usual victims, I go to swim in the River Dusk, to cleanse my mind of worries.
And I find that the rot has spread.
It smells worse than before, like the aftermath of a battle. The trunks of dozens of trees are crumbly with decay. The earth is raw and smoking, as if scorched, and dead fish lay stinking along the river’s banks. I taste the river water and spit it out almost in that same instant. It savors strongly of death.
Laia was rig
ht. Something is deeply wrong with the Waiting Place. And I can ignore it no longer.
XIX: The Blood Shrike
We try to keep word of the massacre in the kitchens from leaking out. But it’s impossible. Within a week, the news is all over Delphinium.
“If she can get to the kitchens, she can get to anyone.” Pater Cassius paces the throne room. Sleet hammers the roof, and though it’s early afternoon, the storm clouds are so thick it looks as if night has fallen. We’ll have snow by morning. I can smell it.
A dozen men nod or grunt in agreement with Cassius—nearly half of our advisory council. Musa and Darin, here to represent the Scholars, exchange a glance.
“She hasn’t yet gotten to the Emperor.” Livia straightens upon the ornate seat that serves as a throne. “Not even close.”
“Because she’s distracted by her campaign in the Tribal lands,” Cassius says. “We must consider a truce. Ask for clemency—”
“There will be no clemency from the Commandant,” I say. “I trained with her for fourteen years. She doesn’t understand mercy. If we give in, we die.”
“Do you not remember what she did to Antium?” Darin, quiet until now, stares down Cassius. “Thousands of your people were slaughtered. Thousands of mine too.”
“Silence, Scholar! You think because that fool Spiro Teluman trained you—”
“Do not invoke his name.” The steel in Darin’s voice reminds me of his mother. “Spiro Teluman was ten times the man you are. As for silence—we are done being silent. Without us, you can’t hope to ever take the Empire back from Keris. You need the Scholars, Pater. Keep that in mind.”
Cyrus Laurentius, a diplomat like my father, steps in. “Keris betrayed Antium to the Karkauns. She is the real enemy, Cassius. Skies only know what our people are suffering.”
“And what have we done to help them?” Pater Cassius glares at me.
His censure rings in my head as the argument rages. I circle the room, ignoring the Paters. And what have we done to help them?