by Sabaa Tahir
As they should. For I cannot accept the crown. My nephew still lives. He is Emperor, no matter what Quin says.
“I don’t want this.” I glare at Quin. “I don’t even want to be the bleeding regent. We have an emperor.”
“Shrike.” Quin lowers his voice. “Your first duty is not to yourself or your Gens or even your nephew. It is to the Empire. We need your strength. Your wisdom.”
The Martials still shout. “Empress! Empress! Empress!”
Harper, I think. What the bleeding hells do I do? What do I say? But he is not here. Instead, Laia speaks up from beside me.
“The Augur prophecy, Helene.” And before I can tell her to call me Shrike, she grasps my shoulder, turning me toward her. “Do you remember? It was never one. It was always three. The Blood Shrike is the first. Laia of Serra, the second. And the Soul Catcher is the last. What is your beginning, Shrike? It is Blackcliff. And what are the words carved on Blackcliff’s belltower?”
“From among the battle-hardened youth there shall rise the Foretold, the Greatest Emperor, scourge of our enemies, commander of a host most devastating.” I feel faint as I say it, because now, I see what Laia is getting at. For in her way, she, too, survived Blackcliff. She, too, is a battle-hardened youth.
The chanting goes on, the crowd hardly noticing the conversation going on beneath the pavilion.“And the Empire shall be made whole.”
“I’m the second: the scourge,” Laia says. “Elias was the last: the commander. And you—”
“The first,” I say faintly. The Greatest Emperor. So Cain had known. Skies, he as good as told me, months ago, the first time I sought him out in his blasted cave.
You are my masterpiece, Helene Aquilla, he’d said, but I have just begun. If you survive, you shall be a force to be reckoned with in this world.
“Empress! Empress!”
“The Augurs knew, Helene,” Laia says. “This is your destiny. And the Empire shall be made whole. It means you can change things. Make them better.”
“But will you?” Afya says. “Will you renegotiate the Tribes’ place in the Empire, Helene Aquilla? The Scholars’? If you don’t, we cannot support you.”
“I will,” I say, for if I make this promise, I’ll have to keep it. And the Empire shall be made whole. “I swear it.”
“Empress! Empress! Empress!”
The sound echoes in my head, too heavy a burden, and I raise my hands, desperate for it to stop.
“If you wish me to be your empress,” I call out, “then you must first know my heart.” Father, I think. Wherever you are, please give me the words. “In the Empire’s darkest hour, it was not a Martial who stood with me, but a Scholar rebel.” I nod to Laia. The crowd is silent.
“When Keris and her allies were determined to destroy our world, it was not the Martials who challenged them first, but the Tribespeople. We are nothing if we are not united. And we are not united if we are not equal. I will not rule an Empire intent on crushing Scholars and Tribespeople under its boot. If the old way is what you wish for, then choose another to lead you.”
This is not what they want. I know it. For it is not simple or neat or clean. It does not sweep the sins of the Empire under the rug, or allow those who have always had everything to return to that life. But it is what they will get, if I am their empress. And they deserve to know.
“Moreover”—I glance at Quin—“I will not forsake my family. Citizens of the Empire.” I rake the crowd with my gaze. “I will not marry. I will bear no children. For if I am Empress, then the Empire is my husband and my wife. My mother and my father. My brother and my sister. And I name Zacharias Marcus Livius Aquillus Farrar my sole heir.” I draw my knife and cut my hand, letting the blood soak the ground. “This I swear, by blood and by bone.”
There is a dead silence, and I look to Quin, waiting for him to give the order to have me removed. Instead, he offers a surmising glance before putting his fist to his heart.
“Empress!” he bellows, and the army joins almost immediately, for they, above all others, understand that fighting and dying together creates bonds where there were none. The Paters and Maters follow.
Behind me, Laia calls out. “Empress!” Then Afya. Musa. The Tribespeople. The Scholars.
Only Mamie is silent.
I glance at her, at Zacharias in her arms. By naming him my heir, I may be damning him to a life he will not want. He might hate me for it.
“He will not be safe in Antium,” I muse aloud as the chant continues. “Not for long years, while I work to stabilize the Empire. His mother did not want him there anyway, amid the plotting and scheming.”
“I have raised small boys before, Helene Aquilla.” Mamie cuddles Zacharias close. “They haven’t turned out half-bad. And if he is meant to rule the Empire, he should know its people. All of its people. The Martials, Tribes, and Scholars.” She gives Laia a significant look, and at the question in my eyes, the Scholar speaks.
“Mamie is to train me as a Kehanni.” Laia cannot hide her joy at the prospect. “Tribe Saif has agreed.”
“Who better to watch over him than the woman who brought him into the world?” I say. “And the Kehanni who raised one of the best men I know. But won’t it be a burden?”
Mamie meets my eyes with an arched brow, and I see the first tender shoots of forgiveness there.
“No, Empress,” she says. “For he is family. As are you. As is Laia. And while family can cause pain and make mistakes, it is never a burden. Never.”
The chant dissolves into a roar. Within it, I hear my father’s voice and my mother’s. I hear Hannah’s and Livia’s and Harper’s.
Loyal, they whisper, to the end.
Part VI
The Tale
LXX: Elias
The first few days after the battle are difficult, and my heart cracks more than once. First when I come upon Avitas Harper’s ghost, tethered to the Waiting Place not because of his turmoil, but because of my own sadness at his loss.
“I hear our father’s voice,” he says quietly as we pass through a carpet of pink Tala blooms on our way to the river. Avitas is the consummate soldier, at peace with the fact that he died in battle, defending the woman he loved. “He awaits me. For years, I have longed to see him. Let me go, brother.”
We had too little time together. Part of me wants to refuse to pass him, to make him stay. But whereas in life Avitas was guarded, he now has a sense of quietude about him. It would be wrong to keep him here.
At the river he pauses and tilts his head, a gesture I recognize with a pang, because I do it too. “Tell Helene I got my wish, please. Tell her she must live.”
He fades into the river, and only hours later, I find Darin of Serra drifting near the promontory where he died. Seeing his spectral form drives home the finality of his passing, and I find I cannot bring myself to speak.
“Elias.” He turns to me and offers a wry smile. “I’m aware that I’m dead. You don’t have to give me the speech. All I want to know is if Laia is all right.”
“She’s alive,” I tell him. “And she defeated the Nightbringer.”
Most spirits who come to the Waiting Place are angry. Confused. Not Darin. His blue eyes shine with pride, and he walks willingly with me to the shores of the Dusk. We stare out at its glittering waters.
“You’ll go to her?” he asks.
At my nod, he tilts his head. “I’m happy,” he says. “If anyone can love her enough for everyone she’s lost, it’s you. I wish you joy, Elias.”
Then he too steps into the river. After, I sit by its banks for a long time, mourning all that the war stole away.
The weeks pass, and as I train Mirra, as I soothe the spirits’ pain, I try to put my own to rest as well. To find peace with the ghosts until I am free of them.
Spring oozes into summer, and the Waiting Place bursts with verdur
e. Beneath the drenching sunshine, the River Dusk carves its lazy path south, and the sweet scent of night jasmine perfumes every glen and clearing.
One day, when the breezes off the river are still cool and the stars are just giving way to a purple-bellied dawn, my grandmother, Karinna Veturia, finds me.
“I am ready, little one,” she says. “To pass to the other side.”
She is not alone.
“Hello, Keris.” I kneel down and speak to the child beside Karinna. Mirra, trailing them, waits patiently for me.
When we discovered Keris Veturia’s ghost among the thousands that Mauth had saved from oblivion, it was Mirra who offered to pass her on. Mirra who listened to my mother as she raged at her own death. Mirra who bore witness as Keris’s spirit wailed, forced to feel every bit of excruciating torment she’d unleashed upon the world. And Mirra who ultimately eased away a lifetime of violence and suffering over the course of months, so Keris could return to her last peaceful moment, and remain there.
The Lioness is better for it. The weight she carried in her soul has lightened, and there is a distance to her now, a tranquility in her mien that has slowly replaced the vitriol.
Together with Talis, we walk Keris and Karinna down to the river, stopping to let the young ghost crouch in the woods and watch a spider build a web.
When we finally reach the Dusk, its banks are lush with greenery, and its waters run crystalline. Young Keris peers at it suspiciously, holding tighter to her mother. Then she glances back at Mirra.
“Are you coming?” she asks.
Mirra drops to her knees. “No, Keris,” she rasps. “I have work yet to do.”
“Do not fear, lovey.” Karinna has a joyful glow to her now, for that which she waited for has finally come to pass. “I am here.”
My grandmother looks back at me, and for the first time, I see her smile. “Until we meet again, little one,” she whispers.
Then they step into the river, holding tightly to one another, and disappear. For a moment, the three of us listen to the water whisper in silent reverence. A step sounds behind us.
It is Azul, braiding her long black hair with flowers. Two months ago, she arrived at Mirra’s cabin with Talis to break bread with us. That first time, she only observed. But within a few weeks, she began to walk again among the ghosts.
She nods to the southern woods. “A ship went down near Lacertium,” she says. “The ghosts await us.”
We make to follow her, but as we do, a voice speaks.
Banu al-Mauth.
We all stop in our tracks, for Mauth hasn’t communicated with us since Mirra took her vow. Talis and Azul exchange a glance, but the Scholar watches me. I know then that he’s already spoken to her.
I thank you, my son, for your service to me. The Lioness is ready. I release you from your vow. You are Banu al-Mauth no longer.
I expect to feel different. To not be able to see the ghosts, or to not sense that low tingle of magic in the earth that lets me know Mauth is near. But nothing changes.
You will always have a home among the spirits, Elias. I do not forget my children. I leave you your windwalking as a remembrance of your time here. Perhaps one day, long years from now, you will serve again.
With that, the voice falls silent, and I turn to look at Mirra, feeling stunned, a touch sad, and uncertain of what to do.
“Well, boy, what are you waiting for?” She smiles her crooked smile and gives me a shove. “Go to her.”
* * *
«««
Nur’s streets spill over with traders and merchants, acrobats and jugglers, hawkers selling moon cakes, and children roaming in joyful packs. The thoroughfares are strung with multicolored lanterns, and dance stages gleam in the sunlight. A storm lurks along the horizon, but the people of Nur ignore it. They have survived worse.
Though there are still remnants of Keris’s assault, the Empress sent two thousand troops to assist with rebuilding. Nur’s structures have been repainted and restored, debris has long since been carted away, and roads have been repaved. The oasis thrums with life. For tonight is the Scholar Moon Festival. And the people mean to celebrate.
At the Martial garrison where Laia and I faced the Meherya, Helene’s banner snaps in the warm summer wind. She has arrived, then.
Tribe Saif’s wagons sit in one of Nur’s many caravanserais, and for a long time, I simply watch the bustle.
True freedom—of body and of soul. That is what Cain promised me, so long ago. But now that it is here, I do not know how to trust it. I am not a soldier or a student or a Mask. I am not a Soul Catcher. Life stretches ahead of me, unknown and uncertain and full of possibility. I do not know how to believe that it will last.
A whisper of cloth, and the scent of fruit and sugar. Then she is beside me, pulling me close, her gold eyes closing as she rises up on her tiptoes. I lift her, and her legs are around my waist, her lips soft against mine, hands in my hair.
“Oi!”
Mid-kiss, something smacks me on the back of the head and I wince and put Laia down, flushing as Shan steps between us.
“That is our Kehanni-in-training.” He glares at me, before his face breaks into a grin. “And she will be telling her very first story tonight. Show some decorum, Martial. Or at the very least”—he nods to a brilliantly painted wagon at the edge of the caravanserai—“find a wagon.”
He does not have to tell me twice, and as the girl I love and I tumble into her wagon, as I bash my head on the low roof and curse, as she kicks my feet out from under me and pins me to her bed, laughing, the tension in my heart unknots.
But later, when we stare up at the dark, lace-cut wood of the wagon’s ceiling, I voice the question in my head.
“How do we trust our happiness, Laia?” I turn toward her, and she traces my lips with her finger. “How do we go on if we don’t know if it will be taken away?”
I’m gratified that she doesn’t answer right away, thankful that she understands why I ask. Laia isn’t who she was. Her joy is tempered, like mine. Her heart tender, like mine. Her mind wary, like mine.
“I do not think the answer is in words, love,” she says. “I think it is in living. In finding joy, however small, in every day. We’ll struggle to trust happiness at first, perhaps. But we can trust ourselves to reach for it always. Remember what Nan said.”
“Where there is life, there is hope.”
Her answer is another kiss, and when we break apart, I am surprised to see that she casts me a dark glance.
“Elias Veturius,” she says imperiously, “two years ago, on the night of this very festival, you whispered something quite intriguing in my ear. You have yet to translate it.”
“Ah. Yes.” I rise to my elbows and kiss a trail down her neck, to her collarbone, lazily making my way to her stomach, my desire spiking as she trembles.
“I remember,” I say. “But it doesn’t quite translate.” I glance up at her, smiling as her breath hitches. “I’d really have to show you.”
LXXI: Helene
The dancing begins before the sun has set, and by the time the moon is overhead, Nur’s stages are full and the music is raucous.
Martial and Tribal guards patrol, but I survey the festival anyway, marking exits and entrances through which an attacker could escape. Alcoves and windows where an assassin could hide.
Old habits.
With two Masks at my back, I make my way through the crowds, meeting with a half dozen key Tribal Zaldars before Mamie Rila marches up to me.
“No more politics, Empress.” She jerks a chin at my guards, and when I nod, they make themselves scarce. “Even empresses must dance. Though you should have worn a dress.” She frowns at my armor, and then shoves me toward a slightly disheveled Elias, who has just appeared at the stage himself.
“Where’s Laia?” I look behind him. “I’d rather dance wit
h her.”
“She’s preparing to tell a tale.” He takes my hands and pulls me to the center of the stage. “It’s her first one, and she’s nervous. You’re stuck with me.”
“She’ll be incredible,” I say. “I heard her tell Zacharias a story last night. He was rapt.”
“Where is he?”
“With Tas, eating moon cakes.” I nod to a cart near Mamie’s wagon, where the young Scholar boy, who appears to have grown a foot since I last saw him, grins as my nephew stuffs a cake into his mouth. Musa, keeping them company, hands over another.
“How are you?” Elias steps away from me and turns, holding my hand overhead as I do the same a moment later. I remember when this was all I wanted. To hold his fingers in mine. To feel unfettered. That time feels so far away that it is like looking at someone else’s life.
“There is much to do,” I say. “I have to finish touring the Tribal cities, and then I’ll go to Serra. Blackcliff is nearly rebuilt.”
“Dex is Commandant now, I hear.”
“Commander,” I correct him. “There will not be another Commandant.”
“No.” Elias is thoughtful. “I suppose not. No whipping post either, I hope?”
“Dex said Silvius used it for kindling,” I say. “They’ll welcome our first class of female recruits in a month. Interested in a teaching position?”
Elias laughs. The drums pound a bit faster, and as one, we quicken the pace of our dance. “Maybe one day. I’ve already had a letter from your Blood Shrike.” He raises an eyebrow, referring to his grandfather. “He wants the heir to Gens Veturia back in Serra. With a Scholar wife, if you’d believe it.”
“She’d have to say yes first.” I smile at the way his brow furrows in concern. “But indeed, Quin would say that.” I glance around and find Musa moving through the crowd toward us. “The Scholars have quite the advocate at court these days.”
Elias tilts his head, gray eyes sober. “How is your heart, Hel?”