A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,122

to leave the Waiting Place. I cannot be trapped there.”

Mauth appears to stare down at the roiling ocean. Tell me your vow.

“To light the way for the weak, the weary, the fallen, and the forgotten in the darkness that follows death.”

Then that is what you must do. The balance must be restored. If this means leaving the Waiting Place, so be it. But hold to your duty, Banu al-Mauth. Memory will make you weak. And emotion will not serve you well.

Even as he says it, numbness steals over me. But this time, something in me bucks wildly against it.

“If Cain hadn’t put memories of Laia and Helene and Keris back inside me,” I say, “I never would have left the Waiting Place. I never would have realized what the Nightbringer is doing. I need my memories. I need my emotion.” I think of Laia and what she’s been trying to tell me for weeks. “I cannot inspire humans to fight if I’m not one myself.”

The Sea slams itself against the promontory, and enormous, repugnant shapes move beneath the water. Teeth flash. More, the Sea growls at me.

I will not interfere, Mauth says. But do not forget your vow, lest you be destroyed by the magic I used to bind you. You are sworn to me until another human—not jinn—is seen fit to replace you. Your duty is not to the living. Your duty is not to yourself. Your duty is to the dead, even to the breaking of the world.

His words are as final as the first fistful of dirt in the grave.

“The jinn have escaped,” I say. “The ghosts are imprisoned. The Nightbringer has leveled entire cities and stolen countless souls. The world is broken, Mauth.”

No, Soul Catcher, Mauth says softly. The power of the Sea of Suffering cannot be controlled. Not even by the king of the jinn. If he unleashes it, it will not just destroy humanity. The Sea will destroy everything. All life. Even the jinn themselves. I fear, Banu al-Mauth, that the world has yet to break.

* * *

«««

The bulk of the Tribal fighting force has hunkered down in the Bhuth badlands north of Nur. Near the center of the camp, a large knot of elders and Zaldars, Fakirs and Fakiras, and Kehannis have gathered around a fire half the size of a wagon. I slow as I approach, for an argument rages.

“—we are not going to bleeding Marinn—” The Zaldar of Tribe Nasur speaks, shouting down a dozen other voices. “If you wish to help the Mariners, that is your choice—”

“If we do not all go, the Nightbringer will win.” Laia’s voice is low, and she struggles to temper her frustration. “He will have his vengeance on the Scholars, and Keris will hunt you down like she hunted down my people. You’ll be enslaved. Destroyed. Just like we were.”

“You have the scythe,” another voice calls out. “You go fight him. Was it not your people whose violence led to the Nightbringer’s ire?”

“That was a thousand years ago—” Darin speaks, which is when I notice Martials sprinkled through the crowd. The Blood Shrike’s men.

“There’s no point in staying if we’re just going to be hunted,” Afya says forcefully. “We go. We fight. Laia takes down the Nightbringer. Maybe we win.”

“That will take weeks—”

“Months,” Gibran calls out. “Maybe years. But at least we fight instead of hiding like rats.”

I think of Mauth’s warning, and Khuri’s prophecy. In flowerfall, the orphan will bow to the scythe.

We do not have months or years. We have weeks, if that. Spring is close.

It is Laia who sees me first. Laia whose eyes go wide as I step out of the dark.

Whispers of Banu al-Mauth streak through the crowd gathered around the fire. They could shout at me. Ask me why I left. Instead they shift back, giving me space to pass. Watchful. Defiant.

“The Nightbringer’s maleficence runs deeper than we thought,” I tell them. “For he is not stealing your ghosts to empower his people. He is stealing them so that he can destroy all life. And if we wish for a future—any future—we have no choice but to stop him.”

XLVII: The Blood Shrike

We bury the Empress Regent two days after her murder, as the sun goes to rest in the west. Thousands line Antium’s streets, littering it with winter rose petals as six Masks carry her to the Aquilla Mausoleum on the north end of the city. There, under a rainy, slate-colored sky, she is movingly eulogized by a handful