A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,10

be out for a minute, at most. I need a weapon.

The hilt of Elias’s dagger pokes out from beneath the throne. Just as I get my hands on it, still gasping for breath, I am flung back like a rag doll.

My body slams into a quartz pillar. The throne room blurs, and then sharpens as a figure who is not the Commandant, but who certainly was not here a moment ago, makes its way toward me.

Pale skin. A dark cloak. Warm brown eyes. Freckles dancing across a wrenchingly handsome face. And a shock of red hair that’s nothing compared to the fire within him.

I know what he is. I know. But when I see him, I do not think Nightbringer! Jinn! Enemy!

I think Keenan. Friend. Lover.

Traitor.

Run, Laia! My body refuses to cooperate. Blood pours from a gash on the side of my head, salty and hot. My muscles scream, legs aching like they used to after a whipping. The pain is a rope wrapped around me, pulling tighter and tighter.

“Y-you,” I manage. Why would he take this form? Why, when he has avoided it until now?

Because he wants you panicked and off your guard, idiot!

His smell, lemon and woodsmoke, fills my senses, so familiar though I’ve tried to forget.

“Laia of Serra. It is good to see you, my love.” Keenan’s voice is low and warm. But he is not Keenan, I remind myself. He is the Nightbringer. After I fell in love with him, after I gave him my mother’s armlet as a token of that love, he revealed his true form. The armlet was a long-lost piece of the Star—a talisman he needed to free his imprisoned brethren. Once I gave it to him, he had no more use for me.

He puts a hand on my arm to help me stand but I throw him off and drag myself to my feet.

It has been more than a year since I’ve seen the Nightbringer in his human form. I did not realize what a gift that was until now. Such concern in those dark eyes. Such caring. All to mask a vile creature that wants nothing more than to obliterate me.

The Commandant will be conscious soon. And while the Nightbringer cannot kill me—he cannot kill any who touched the Star—Keris Veturia can.

“Damn you.” I look past the Nightbringer to Keris. If I could just get to her—

“I cannot let you harm her, Laia.” The Nightbringer sounds almost sorry. “She serves a purpose.”

“Curse your purpose to the hells!”

The Nightbringer glances at the doors.

“No point in shouting. The guards have found pressing duties elsewhere.” He crouches beside Keris, feeling her pulse with a gentleness that bewilders me.

“You wish to murder her, Laia of Serra.” He stands and approaches. “For Keris is the font of all your woes. She destroyed your family and turned your mother into a murderess and kinslayer. She annihilated your people and torments them still. You would do anything to stop her, yes? So what makes you so different from me?”

“I am nothing like you—”

“My family was killed too. My wife slaughtered on a battlefield. My children murdered with salt and steel and summer rain. My kin butchered and imprisoned.”

“By people a thousand years gone!” I shout. But why speak with him? He’s buying time until the Commandant wakes up. He believes I am too foolish to notice.

Fury floods my veins, numbing my pain, making me forget the Commandant. It colors everything red, and a darkness roars inside me. The same feral thing that rose within me months ago, when I gave him my armlet. The beast that lashed out in the Forest of Dusk, when I thought he was going to kill Elias.

The Nightbringer glares, mouth curling into an inhuman grimace. “What are you?” he says, and it is an echo of a question he asked before.

“You will not win.” My voice is an unrecognizable snarl that rises from some ancient, visceral part of my soul. “You have harmed too many with your vengeance.” I’m inches from him now, staring into those familiar eyes, hate pouring from my own. “I do not care what it takes, nor how long. I will defeat you, Nightbringer.”

Silence stretches between us. The moment is impossibly long, hushed as death.

Then I hear an ear-blistering, eldritch scream. It goes on and on. The stained glass above cracks, the throne splinters. I clap my hands over my ears. Where is it coming from?

Me, I realize. I am screaming. Only it is not me, is it?