by Sabaa Tahir
I do not answer, and he looks ahead, frustrated. “He seeks to create a gateway of sorts, between Mauth’s dimension and your own. He wishes to return all the suffering that has been cleansed from the world back into it.”
And though the Sea of Suffering churns, ever restless, verily does Mauth preside, a bulwark against its hunger. Aubarit spoke those words to me. And now it appears the Nightbringer seeks to pierce that bulwark. To what end, I don’t yet know.
“Suffering is a state of mind, a feeling,” I say. “It can’t do anything.”
Talis shrugs. “That sounds like a question.”
Damn you. “How is the Nightbringer planning to weaponize this suffering?”
“Suffering is a monster, waiting to be released from a cage. You have only to look at your own mother to know the truth of that.”
“What the bleeding hells is that supposed to mean?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop myself.
“Keris Veturia’s suffering runs deep, Soul Catcher. My brethren mistakenly believe that she is but a human stooge, a servant to carry out the Meherya’s plan. But her suffering is why he sees himself in her. Why she sees herself in him. Suffering is the cup from which they both drink. It is the language they both speak. And it is the weapon they both wield.”
The Mother watches over them all. So Keris is more essential to the Nightbringer’s plan than I realized. The rest of the foretelling makes little sense, but that part, at least, must refer to her.
And though “watches over” sounds benevolent enough, when it comes to Keris, it isn’t. Likely she’s dispatched spies to surveil the Blood Shrike and Laia.
And me.
I regard Talis with new suspicion. This little game has gone on long enough. Time to end it.
“What is the Nightbringer’s intent in releasing this suffering?”
“To cleanse the land of his enemy swiftly,” Talis says softly, “that the fey might live in peace.”
Bleeding, burning hells. He wants to kill all the Scholars at once. And he’ll use this maelstrom to do it.
“Do you see now why war is your fate? I know well the Oath of the Soul Catcher. To light the way for the weak, the weary, the fallen, and the forgotten in the darkness that follows death. There is no one to light the way for them now, Elias. No one to protect the spirits. Unless you take up the torch.”
“I will not return to that life.” I have waged enough war. Brought enough pain into existence. For all that I long for in the world of the living, war is one thing I will never miss. “Besides, if I fight for the Tribespeople or the Scholars, I will only end up killing Martials. Either way, the Nightbringer wins. I will not do it.”
We have reached the escarpment, and here Talis stops. “And that is why it must be you,” he says. “A commander who has tasted the bitter fruit of war is the only one worthy of waging it. For he understands the cost. Now—to my question.”
“No more questions,” I say. “For I have none for you. I will not tell you what the Augur said. Do not bother asking.”
“Ah.” Talis observes my face, and I feel like he’s seeing more than I want him to. “That alone gives me the answer I seek. Will you fight, Soul Catcher?”
“I do not know,” I say. “But since you asked a question, I find I have one more, after all. Why let me live? You got nothing out of this conversation.”
Talis glances up at the escarpment, at the exposed, blackened roots of the jinn grove. “I love the Meherya,” he says. “He is our king, our guide, our savior. Without him, I would still be locked away in that damnable grove, leeched on by the Augurs.” He shudders. “But I fear for the Meherya. And I fear for my kin. I fear that which he calls forth from the Sea. Suffering cannot be tamed, Soul Catcher. It is a wild and hungry thing. Perhaps Mauth protects us against it for a reason.”
The clouds above shift, and the sun peeks through for a moment. Talis lifts his face to the light. “We were creatures of the sun once,” he says. “Long ago.”
The hollows of his cheeks, the angle of his chin are strangely familiar. “I know you.” I remember then, where I saw him. “I saw you with Shaeva, in the palace walls—in the images there. You were the other guard to the Nightbringer—to his family.”
Talis inclines his head. “Shaeva was a friend for long years,” he says. “I mourn her still. There must be some good in you if she saw fit to name you a Soul Catcher.”
After he leaves, I go to the clearing outside my cabin. The soft grass is nothing but snow-dusted yellow scrub now. Shaeva’s summer garden is a squarish lump beneath a fresh layer of powder. The cabin is dim, though as ever, I left a few embers burning in the hearth.
All is silent, and the silence is obscene, for this forest is the one place where ghosts are meant to find succor. And now they cannot. Because the Nightbringer is taking them all.
Inside the cabin, I do not light the lamp. Instead I stand before the two scims gathering dust above the fireplace. They gleam dully, their beauty an affront when one considers what they were created for.
I think of the Augur, that odious, cawing wretch. Not just of his foretelling, which made no sense, but the last two words he spoke. Words that stirred my blood, that made the battle rage rise in me. My vow to Mauth rings in my mind, clear as a bell.
To rule the Waiting Place is to light the way for the weak, the weary, the fallen, and the forgotten in the darkness that follows death. You will be bound to me until another is worthy enough to release you. To leave is to forsake your duty—and I will punish you for it. Do you submit?
I submit.
No one has released me. I am still bound. And I do not know the fate of the ghosts the Nightbringer has already abducted. Whether I wish to fight his forces or not, I cannot let him steal away any more.
I reach for the scims gingerly, as if they will burn my palms when I touch them. Instead, they slip into my grasp like they have been waiting for me.
Then I leave the cabin and turn south to the Tribes, and the Nightbringer and war.
XXXII: The Blood Shrike
From the knolls and ravines of the Argent Hills, Antium is cloaked from view, hidden by thick fingers of evening mist rolling down the Nevennes Range. Its towers and ramparts disappear and reappear, a city of ghosts.
No. A city of living, breathing Martials and Scholars, waiting for you to lead the charge.
I used to love nights like this in the capital. My work would be done, Marcus would retreat to his quarters, and I’d walk the city, sometimes stopping at the stall of a Tribeswoman who brewed sweet pink tea sprinkled with almonds and pistachios. Mariam Ara-Ahdieh left Antium long before the Karkauns came. I wonder where she is now.
“Good weather for a battle.” Spiro Teluman hunkers down beside me, a scim hilt poking up over his shoulder. The smith’s legendary skills and long disappearance give him an enigmatic aura. The men around me, including Pater Mettias, eye him with a wary sort of awe.
Despite my gloves, my hands are numb. In the snow-choked dell behind me, five hundred of my men hunch in their cloaks, their breath rising in white puffs.
“Sword-breaking weather, Teluman,” I say. “I don’t like it.”
“The scims are Serric steel.” Teluman’s tattoos are hidden by the dark, form-fitting armor he forged. In the gloom he is nearly impossible to see. “They won’t break. How’s the armor?”
“Strange.” It fits like a glove, makes me difficult to see, and is so light that I might as well be wearing fatigues. But it’s strong—Harper and I tested it for hours before donning it.
Still, other than Mettias, the Martials refused to wear it. Witchery, they said. Teluman argued over it. But I wasn’t willing to issue a command that wouldn’t be followed.
“Shrike.” Harper appears on my right. My heart thuds a bit faster, traitor that it is. This is the first time he has spoken directly to me in days. “Something is off,
” he says. “There aren’t enough guards on the walls. The streets are empty—the squares are empty. This doesn’t feel right.”
It is the last thing I want to hear. The people of Antium await aid. They await the weapons and soldiers that will allow them to cast out the Karkauns.
“Where the bleeding hells is Musa?”
“Here.” The tall Scholar, also clad in Teluman’s armor, materializes from the darkness like a wraith. “The wights say the Karkauns have gathered near a big, bloody rock close to the main palace. They’ve turned it into an altar. They’re shouting, screaming, murdering people—that sort of thing. And they’re leading prisoners there. Mostly Martials. Some Scholars too.”
He must speak of Cardium Rock. “Women?” My fist clenches on the scim at my waist. “Children?”
Musa shakes his head. “Men. Boys. Captured soldiers. Those who didn’t fight or couldn’t. There are thousands of them.”
“Our spies said the men were killed—”
“Does Antium have an extensive system of dungeons?” Musa says, and at my silence, he nods. “They weren’t killed, then,” he says. “They were hidden. Saved for . . . whatever the hells this is.”
“The Soul Catcher holds the ghosts,” Teluman says. “The Karkauns cannot summon them again to strengthen their army.”
“The Soul Catcher is hundreds of miles from the Waiting Place right now,” Musa says.
“What the ten hells is he doing so far—”
“Skies know, Shrike,” Musa says. “A wight brought me the information yesterday. I haven’t had a chance to send her back for details.” He levels a reproachful look at me. “Been a bit busy.”
“We can still pull back,” Harper says. “Get a message to Quin and Dex. Wait for a more opportune time to strike.”
“Gather the men,” I tell him, for there is no better time. I lost Antium. I let the Karkauns win. And Keris used my failure to steal the Empire from my nephew. I have to get it back for him. And I have to get it back for the people still suffering behind its walls.
When the men have gathered, I raise my hand for silence. They watch me with a flat sort of curiosity, even the Ankanese sappers, silent on the edges of the crowd.
“Tonight,” I say, “the Karkauns believe they will defeat us.”
The men hiss and spit, their rage as sharp as my own.
“They think they can turn our city into a butchering ground. They think their violence will frighten us. But we are Martials. And we fear nothing.
“Nearly every last one of you was in Antium. You saw what they did. You know what they’ve been doing since then. So I tell you now, no matter what happens behind those walls, no matter what horrors they have in store, there is no going back today. We will win, or we will die. We will take back our city for our people, or we will watch the Empire fall. Now. Tonight.” I put my fist to my heart. “Loyal to the end.”
They do not roar their support, for secrecy is our advantage this night. Instead, they thump their fists to their hearts once.
Then we are moving through the hills and down into the flats of the city, away from our mounts and the dozen men left to guard them. The cold drags at me, and my eyelashes frost over. But after a few minutes of running, I don’t notice it anymore. By the time we take out the Karkaun sentries, my cheeks are flushed, my fingers tingling.
We make for the northern wall, shrouded by thick, old-growth forest. Within is a door, boarded over, collapsed and forgotten behind a ton of rubble.
There, an Ankanese sapper named G’rus begins rigging the door with charges. His four comrades disappear, each escorted by a Mask. Four more of the Ankanese travel with Quin Veturius. We will see if they prove their worth this night.
Harper appears out of the darkness, a grappling hook in hand. “Soldiers,” he whispers. “Atop the wall, and headed this way.”
Moments later, voices carry down. There weren’t supposed to be soldiers near this side of the wall. According to my spies, it’s thinly patrolled.
A scream from deep within the city pierces the night, high and chilling. My men shift uneasily, and I grab the grappling hook from Avitas and march down the wall, far enough from the Karkauns that they won’t hear the hook land.
I cast it up, and when it takes, I’m moving up the wall, hand over hand, even as Harper hisses quiet protests beneath me.
Once at the top, I survey the two Karkauns. They are of medium height and build, like most of their people, with long, matted hair and skin as pale as mine. Their thick furs obscure both vision and sound, and before they notice me, I am upon them. The first manages a small yelp before I part his head from his body. The second draws his weapon—just in time for me to take it and stab him in the throat.
I drag the bodies to the side of the wall, throw them over in case any other Karkauns come searching for them, and rappel back down.
“That,” says Harper, his jaw set, “was foolish.”
“That was necessary,” I said. “Are we nearly ready?”
G’rus gestures for everyone to take cover as he lights the fuse. Moments later, a deafening boom tears through the air. It is followed by another boom moments later, farther down the wall, and then two more. Decoy explosions. They are larger, and closer to the center of the city. By the time the Karkauns ensure there are no intruders at those spots, we’ll be long gone.
“Shrike?” a soft voice calls through the dust and rubble, and a figure emerges out of the darkness. She is lean, with dark skin and curly hair. Neera, the woman who helped Faris and me escape the Karkauns.
I reach her in three strides, and before she can draw a weapon, I have a knife to her throat.
“Loyal.” She speaks the code she was given without the slightest hesitation. “To the end.”
“Well met, Neera.” I clasp her hand, and her smile is a flash of hope in the darkness.
“Quickly, Shrike,” she says. “Before the Karkauns come.”
My men enter the city two by two. They drip with weaponry, and each carries a long, thin package weighing five stones. Twenty scims, light and strong. They are concealed, wrapped, and strapped tight against the backs of the men. Ten thousand scims for our people, everything we could scrounge up from Delphinium and the now-shuttered Kauf Prison. Everything we could manage to carry.
“Go!” I hiss to the men. “Faster!”
Musa finds me moments later. “The Karkauns are on the way,” he says. “We have a few minutes, if that. And Quin is stuck in the tunnels. One of my wights says the passages you used are collapsed.”
Those tunnels were fine only two weeks ago. And as Quin loves to say, only a jackass believes in coincidences.
“It was the Karkauns,” I say. “Tell Quin his sappers must clear a path. The Karkauns are trying to herd him. They want to ambush him aboveground, no doubt, and stop his men from getting into the city. If he doesn’t get through, he might as well turn back.”
Harper takes me aside, voice low so that the soldiers still passing through the door don’t hear us. “He should have been nearly through those tunnels by now. He won’t make it on time.”
“He’s Quin Veturius,” I say. “He’ll make it.”
“We need those men,” Harper says. “We cannot take the capital with five hundred men and untrained citizens, no matter how many there are. Not with tens of thousands of Karkauns quartered here. It would be impos—”
“Don’t say it.” I put my finger against his lips, and he falls silent. “We know better. Keris trained that word out of us. Impossible doesn’t exist. Not when the Empire is on the line.”
The rest of the soldiers are through the doorway. Harper and I are the last. “I will take this city, Harper,” I tell him. “With my bare hands, if I must. Come. I have an idea.”
XXXIII: Laia
I walk along a river of death, but I am not alone.
“I ha
ve missed you, my love.”
A shadow walks beside me. Pale hands pull down a hood, revealing fire-red hair and dark brown eyes that hid so much more than I ever imagined. Not my foe, but the first boy I ever loved.
“Keenan,” I whisper.
My skin burns, and I feel like I cannot breathe. For the blink of an eye, I see seething, muddy water roiling around me.
Then Keenan speaks, and the image fades.
“You’re in trouble, my love.” He brushes a calloused thumb against my chin, and there is no lie when he calls me his love. “You’re drowning.”
“I do not feel like I’m drowning.”
“You’re strong.” He takes my hand and we walk. Something calls out to me deep in my mind, a scream locked in a chest, locked in a closet, locked in a room that is too far away from this place to notice. “You always have been, because of the Star. But for other reasons too.”
“The darkness,” I say. “The one that lives within.”
“Yes,” he says. “Tell me of it. For I have darkness within me also, and I would know if we are two sides of the same coin.”
“Two sides—” I look up at him, dazed. It hurts to breathe, and when I look down, my clothes are soaked, and my arms and hands bleed. I taste salt and put a hand to my head. My head bleeds too. A voice within calls out. Laia.
“I cannot tell you about it,” I say. “I am not supposed to.”
“Of course.” He is so gentle. So kind. “Let’s not wake it if we shouldn’t.”
“I have already woken it,” I say. “I woke it when I defied you.” I look down at my body again. I am so tired. “Keenan, I—I cannot breathe.”
“You’re drowning, my love,” he says with such sweetness. “You’re almost gone.”
A flash across my vision. Darkness. The rain-heavy sky. Debris-choked water around me, dragging me along. High canyon walls rise on either side, streaked red and white and orange and yellow, like one of Darin’s paintings.
Darin, my brother, who loves me, not like—