by Sabaa Tahir
“Yes—”
“Laia.” I want her so badly that making myself slow down is torment. But I do not want to hurt her. I am Elias now, but tomorrow, and every day after, I must be the Soul Catcher again. “Are you sure?”
She answers by hooking her leg up around my hips and pulling me toward her until it is not her moving, nor me, but us. And though I want nothing more than to disappear into this moment, she breathes my name.
“Elias,” she says between her gasps, and I know she wants me to look at her. I hesitate, for if I do so, my heart will be bare. But love rolls off her in gentle waves, enveloping me, and finally I meet her gaze.
Laia’s steady stare captures me, and I am lost, hypnotized by the dark passion that blooms there as she loses herself to the movement of our bodies, to that ancient alchemy melding the agony of desire with the ecstasy of its fulfillment.
I do not look away as she cries my name, as her fingers tighten on my fists, as her body arches into me, as we move toward the same place, that ineffable crossroads of pain and pleasure, together as one at last.
* * *
«««
Hours later, as we lie on our backs, both drawing in draughts of air like water, she rises up on her elbows and looks at me sternly. “We have to win,” she says.
“Why?”
“Because this cannot be the only night we spend together.” Her fingers are light as she traces lines on my skin, but her voice is fierce. “I want a life with you. Adventures. Meals. Late nights in front of fires. A thousand rainy walks. You talking me out of my clothing in inappropriate places. I want ch—” She stops, sadness in her eyes, though she hides it quickly. But I know what she was going to say. Because I want children too, perhaps not now, but one day. “I want more,” she says.
I smile, but it fades quickly when I remember that she wishes to destroy the jinn. That I do not. And that if, by some miracle, the Nightbringer is defeated and the jinn are restored to their place as Soul Catchers, there is still no future for us. You are sworn to me until another human—not jinn—is seen fit to replace you.
“What is it?” She folds her arms across my chest and rests her chin there, so I can only see her eyes. “What is eating at you?”
We can never have a life, she and I. No adventures. No meals. No late nights. No rainy walks. No talking her out of her clothing in inappropriate places.
No children.
This night is all we get. As soon as Mauth is restored to his full power, he will pull me back. And Laia will fade away once more.
Even as I search for the words to answer her question, the light changes. The night flees as the cabin, warm and gold-brown only moments ago, now fades to blue.
Far to the south of us, the army will be waking, the soldiers readying themselves. Beyond, near the river, the Nightbringer prepares to unleash an apocalypse upon us all.
I pull Laia to me and kiss her once more, putting all of my love and hope and desire into that kiss. Everything I wanted to give her in a lifetime together.
She senses what I’m doing, and I taste salt on my lips.
“Elias—” she whispers. “Don’t—”
But I shake my head. “Soul Catcher,” I say. “It’s Soul Catcher.”
She nods and straightens her shoulders. “Of course,” she says. “We should go.”
We find our clothing, dry now from a night beside the fire, and don it silently, sliding on boots and weapons and armor. When Laia pulls on the scythe, she sighs, as if weighed down. She walks out the door first, waiting for me in the clearing, her back turned.
I close the cabin door firmly, taking a breath as I am hit with a premonition as strong as any Augur’s, that she and I will never return here together again.
LVII: The Blood Shrike
As I emerge from the forest, forever altered, I do not think of the words I heard. I do not think of what I saw. I cannot risk a jinn—any jinn—picking the thoughts from my mind.
Instead, I think of Avitas Harper. His calm, his warmth, the way he looks at me like I am the only thing in the world that matters.
It is deep night when I return, and the army camp is quiet. I find him pacing outside my tent, brow furrowing when he sees me.
“I know,” I say, for I have his You cannot wander off, you are the Blood Shrike speech memorized. “But I had to attend to something alone.”
“Tell me—”
“I cannot.” I dismiss the guards near the front of my tent. “All things depend on my silence.”
“Blood Shrike—”
“Helene,” I whisper to him. “Tonight, call me Helene.”
He observes me for a moment before flashing that half smile that drives me mad. Then he pulls me into the tent, his hands in my hair, his lips on mine before the flap has even closed. I drag him toward my cot, and we topple onto it silently, frantic for each other, not even bothering to fully undress until after we’ve sated our desire.
Later, in the wee hours of the night, I wake, a chill running through my body.
“What’s wrong?” he asks, arm flung over my hips, still half-asleep.
“Nothing,” I say. “Go back to sleep.”
“You should too.”
“I will.” I kiss him and let myself look at his dark lashes, his scim-sharp cheekbones, the way his skin ripples as he sits up.
“Harper,” I say hesitantly. “Avitas . . .”
“Mmm?”
I love you. Such simple words. But they are not enough. They don’t convey what I mean.
“Emifal Firdaant,” I say to him.
“You’ve said that before.” He runs his fingers through my hair. “What does it mean?”
I cannot quite look at him when I say it. “May death claim me first.”
“Ah, no, my love.” He gathers me close. “You cannot go first. I could not make sense of the world if you did.”
With that, he closes his eyes, but I cannot sleep. I stare up at the peak of the tent and listen to the rain drum down on the canvas. Emifal Firdaant, I beg the skies. Emifal Firdaant.
LVIII: Laia
The moment Elias and I arrive back at the camp, the Blood Shrike pounces.
“There’s an issue with the catapults, Soul Catcher.” She wears Spiro’s battle armor, her hair tight against her head in its impeccable braid. “Where the hells have you—”
She looks between us, and her pale eyebrows arch up, then furrow as she takes in the devastation in my eyes, the cold detachment in his.
Musa appears at my elbow. Though he must know I disappeared in the night, he says nothing. His wights shift around him, an antsy cloud.
“I told them to leave,” he says, noticing me watching them. “They fear the jinn. But they refused.” He nods to the center of the camp. “Darin is looking for you, aapan. He and Spiro are near Mamie Rila’s wagon.”
I give the Scholar a grateful nod and hurry away to find my brother and the smith, the former of whom holds a sack and the latter a scim.
“A gift for you, Laia.” Darin holds up the bag. “To go with that scythe of yours. Can’t have my little sister and the savior of us all running around in mismatched armor.”
“As if there wasn’t enough pressure,” I say, only half-joking.
The armor is light and flexible, but there’s another feeling to it too, one that I cannot name.
“It’s shadow-forged,” Spiro says. “I learned it from the Augurs. It will help you blend into your surroundings, make you harder to spot. And it will protect you from jinn fire.”
He buckles a belt around my waist, a short scim and dagger attached. Darin hooks my bow to my back, over my scythe, and they both smile as they take me in, like two proud big brothers.
A Tribal horn sounds a warning. The enemy is near. I take a deep, bracing breath as a group of Martials in formation jogs past, toward the edg
e of the escarpment. A cart filled with giant blocks of salt rumbles by. Elias’s voice echoes across the camp, cool and calm, ordering troops into position.
Everyone around me moves, but I am rooted to the dead earth. What if I fail? This is not a fair fight. The Commandant has more than thirty thousand men. We have less than a third of that. She has wraiths and jinn and a horde of Masks. We have a few dozen Masks and efrits that can be weakened with song or steel or fire.
Keris has the Nightbringer.
We have me.
Darin’s hand closes on my shoulder. He knows the racket in my head—of course he does.
“Listen to me.” He gazes at me with our mother’s eyes, the eyes of someone who believes in you so deeply that you have no choice but to believe in yourself. “You are the strongest person here. The strongest in the camp. Stronger than me, Spiro, the Blood Shrike, the Soul Catcher, Afya. You are the daughter of the Lioness. The granddaughter of Nan and Pop. You are Lis’s sister and mine.”
His eyes fill, but he does not stop. “Tell me what you’ve done. Tell me.”
“I—I’ve survived the Commandant,” I say. “And Blackcliff. Our family’s deaths. I’ve survived the Nightbringer. I’ve defied him. I saved you. I’ve fought. I’ve fought for our people.”
“And you will keep fighting.” Darin grabs both shoulders now. “And you will win. There is not a single person alive who I trust more than you to do what must be done today, Laia. Not a single one.”
From the Shrike or Elias, these words would be encouraging. From my big brother, they are life-giving. Something about him, of all people, believing in me makes me grip my scim and set my jaw and stand taller. I will win today.
“I can come with you,” he says. “I want to come with you. Why should you fight him alone when you aren’t alone?”
But I shake my head, thinking of the snap of my father’s neck, of Lis’s neck. Of the way the Commandant used family to manipulate my mother.
“The Nightbringer has always used my love against me, Darin,” I say. “I do not want him to do it again. I cannot be worried about you. Stick to the plan.”
“Laia—” He appears uncertain, then grabs me in a hug. “I love you. Fight. Win. I’ll see you when it’s all over.”
“Laia!” Elias calls out as Darin disappears into the camp. Afya and Gibran are beside him, and a platoon of Tribespeople and Scholars armed with longbows waits nearby. “It’s time. We’re the last.”
“Rehmat?” I say quietly, jogging toward Elias. But the creature does not appear.
We wind through the trees, the last of a thousand soldiers Elias has already dispatched. The path we follow takes us east, angling upward before ending at a sheer cliff that drops sixty feet to the river. To our left and right, hundreds of Tribespeople and Scholars wait, bows at the ready.
Skies know how the Nightbringer cleared the way for Keris’s army. Perhaps he manipulated the forest, like Elias. Perhaps he had his jinn clear a path. Whatever the case, the enemy Martials approach a narrow strip of shallows along the river, the only place they can cross without boats.
And just close enough to the cliffs to leave them exposed to our arrows.
“Do not shoot,” Afya breathes from my left. “Only the longbows have the range.”
Though my aim has improved, I heed her advice. In any case, I am here to watch for the Nightbringer. To spy on him when hopefully, he cannot do the same.
Though the sky above is clear, the forest from which the Martials will emerge is cloaked in mist. And before our eyes, the mist thickens.
“What in the bleeding skies is that?” Afya points to a thick bank of cloud, rolling up along the river from the south. There is a sulfuric fetor to it, and it is completely at odds with the wind, which blows in from the north, favoring our arrows.
“The Nightbringer,” Elias says. “He knows we’re here. Runner!”
A young Scholar appears immediately at Elias’s side. “Call the wind efrits,” he says. “Tell them they’re to scatter the fog.”
The boy disappears, and now the fog has enshrouded the river below. We hear splashes in the water, but looking down is like looking into a bucket of milk.
“They’re crossing,” Afya hisses. “We have to do something.”
“Not yet,” Elias says. “We wait for the efrits.”
Trails of stinking mist approach the ridge where we’ve taken cover, and we hear shouts now, orders given as Keris’s army makes its way across the shallows. From there, they will travel along a cleared area that runs in a strip between this ridge and the jinn city. And then, up the short escarpment to battle our troops.
I fidget as the minutes drag on. “Elias—”
“Not yet.” His pale eyes are trained on the mist. The soldiers shift uneasily, and he calls down the line, “Steady.”
Then a whoosh over our heads, and the shrieks of the wind efrits as they arrow through the mist, swirling and ripping and tearing, scattering it as a child scatters fall leaves.
Elias lifts his hand and signals for the archers along the ridgeline to nock and aim. The cloud thins enough that we see men below, crossing the river in large groups.
Elias swings down his arm, and the thrum of a thousand arrows launching at once sings through the air. One of Keris’s men shouts a warning, but waterlogged as the soldiers are, they cannot raise their shields in time. They drop in waves. Elias lifts and drops his arm again, before signaling to fire at will. Another wave of soldiers goes down, and then another.
We could stop them right here. Perhaps a thousand Tribal longbows are enough to finish the Martials. To make Keris crawl back to Navium, licking her wounds. To make the Nightbringer think twice.
Then a knife, its hilt still glowing as if fresh from the forge, whistles out of the sky and lodges itself into the chest of the person standing beside me. Afya.
She grunts and steps back, staring down at the blade in surprise before crumpling into my arms. No, oh skies, no.
“Afya!” Gibran screams and gets his arm around her in an instant. “Zaldara, no.”
“Get her to triage,” I say. “Quickly. It didn’t hit her heart. Go, Gibran!”
But the clouds above burn orange and then a deep angry red as jinn streak out of the sky. Umber, with her fiery glaive, is among them. She thuds to the earth not thirty feet away, flattening the trees around her. Afya and Gibran both go flying as her glaive sweeps out, setting fire to two dozen of our soldiers at once.
“Retreat!” Elias calls, and we expected this. I know we did. But I am still unprepared for the swift deaths the jinn mete out. The way they tear through our troops like wind through paper. A score of our men go down. Two score. Five score.
“Run, Laia!”
“Afya—Gibran—”
“Run!”
Elias pulls me away, rage in his voice. Instantly I know his anger is born of fear, for here I stand, unmoving as death inches closer.
But though Umber is before me, though she could strike me down with her glaive, she only snarls and turns away. Elias windwalks me through the trees and back to the jinn grove, even as the soldiers we have left behind trickle from the woods.
Our camp is an organized sort of chaos, and Elias is instantly barking orders. The catapults are loaded, the sea efrits hovering above them to defend them from the jinn. The war machines are aimed not at the approaching army, but at the Sher Jinnaat. We will hurl not fire or stones, but massive blocks of salt, to keep the jinn in the city from joining their brethren and deciding the battle before we’ve had a chance to fight it.
“How many down?” the Shrike calls to Elias.
“Nearly two hundred on our side,” he says. “Perhaps a thousand on theirs.”
“We sent the messenger as you requested,” the Shrike says. “Keris sent the head back. Body tied to the horse.”
“Soul
Catcher!” Rowan Goldgale materializes before us. “The Martials are here. The Nightbringer—”
Elias grabs the Blood Shrike, already drawing her scim for battle.
“Don’t give Keris an inch, Blood Shrike. She’ll have something up her sleeve. She always does.”
The Shrike smiles grimly. “And who is to say I don’t, Soul Catcher?”
He grins at her, that old Elias smile, and with that she is gone. The sky is alight, the jinn among us, raining down hell on the army, trying their best to destroy us before we can fight back.
Elias turns to me, but I shove him away. “Go,” I say. “Hold them off.”
“Laia—”
I leave him, because if I say goodbye, I am already giving in. I will see him again. I will.
The camp is madness now, but I am not afraid. For Umber could have taken me down, and she did not. The Nightbringer wants me for himself.
An old calm consumes me. The same calm I felt before I rescued Elias from execution, and before I broke into Kauf. The calm of delivering Livia’s child in the middle of a battle. A calm born of the knowledge that I am as ready as I can be.
I plunge into the trees west of the jinn grove and make my way up to a small plateau of rock that looks out over the Sher Jinnaat. The rock is impossible to miss. Especially for a jinn watching the battle from above.
When I reach the plateau, Rehmat’s gold glow appears before me.
“I am here, Laia.”
“Thank the skies for that,” I say to Rehmat. She comes around to stand in front of me, and there is something almost formal about how her hands are clasped before her. She tilts her head, a question offered without words.
I nod, and she flows into me, joining my consciousness so completely that it takes my breath away. I am her and she is me. And though I know this is the way it must be, though she limits herself to but a corner of my mind, I chafe against her presence. I hate having someone else in my head.
We move to the edge of the promontory and peer down. Keris’s army has reached the escarpment and hurtles up it. The first wave of soldiers is impaled on the pikes there, but the army is not held back for long.