A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,52

words. Sadh. Enemy. South.

The jinn cares as little for us as she would for a pack of animals. When we stop, she orders me to relieve myself behind a boulder, as if I am a hound she is walking. But my body obeys her and I burn with shame. And hatred.

That first night, we camp at a tiny oasis. She adjusts my chains and lashes me to a date palm.

“You will not consider escaping, girl.” She turns to the Mask. “Novius, is it? You will keep your men away from her, feed her, and see to any wounds. Rub a salve into her wrists for the chafing. You will not speak to each other. You will not set her free or aid in her escape.” At Novius’s nod, the jinn disappears into the desert.

Mask Novius does as he’s told, and when I try to capture his attention again, he looks furtively out at the dark, before focusing in on my hands.

Where to? I spell out.

Novius shakes his head. Either he cannot respond, or he does not wish to. I try again.

Weaknesses?

The Mask glances over my shoulder. Swiftly, he spells out:

Pride. Anger. Weakest at noon.

That aligns with what Elias said about the jinn being strongest at night. I consider my chains. The jinn wears the key around her neck. But other than its strange luster, the lock appears as any other.

Lock picks? I ask. Elias taught me to pick locks when he, Darin, and I were raiding Martial ghost wagons and freeing Scholars. I haven’t practiced in months, but Elias insisted it was like learning to swim. Once you know how, you never forget. He also said Masks always carry a set of picks.

But Novius only looks away.

At midnight, when the soldiers are sleeping and Novius has taken up a watch, the jinn materializes out of the desert and sits beside me. The moonlight tinges the flames of her eyes blue, and there is an emptiness there that makes me shrink back.

“Tell me of yourself, girl.” She settles herself just out of reach. “I allow you to speak.”

At first, I try to keep my mouth closed. But she presses her lips together and the compulsion to talk is overwhelming. Small truths, Laia, I tell myself. Don’t give anything away.

“My name is Laia of Serra,” I say. “I am nineteen years old. I have a brother—”

The jinn waves my words away. “Tell me about your magic.”

“I can disappear.”

“When did you encounter this magic? Where did it come from?”

“A year and a half ago,” I say. “When Martials broke into my home and I was trying to escape them. I didn’t realize I had it.” I pause, for I cannot say the magic came from Rehmat. The creature seemed adamant that its existence not be revealed.

“I—I thought I got it from an efrit I encountered when I was escaping Serra—”

The jinn’s jaw tightens. “Efrits,” she says. “Traitors and thieves. No efrit should have bestowed power upon you.”

I relax marginally—and far too soon.

“What of the darkness within?” She leans forward. “When is the first time you felt that?”

I lick my lips. Rehmat? But the creature cannot risk appearing. It made that clear.

My silence has irked the jinn. “Speak!”

“The first time was near Kauf Prison,” I say. “After I gave the Nightbringer my armlet.”

“Our armlet,” she informs me, a tightly leashed wrath stiffening her shoulders. “The Star was never yours, human.”

At the edge of the clearing, Novius turns and looks at us for a long moment. His hands fall to his scim, and the jinn swings her attention toward him. Almost immediately, he twists back around, his spine pulled unnaturally upright. Pride, he’d told me when I asked for the jinn’s weaknesses. Anger.

I try to memorize her movements, the play of emotion in her body. If the Nightbringer sent her after me, she must be close to him. But there is something about her that’s barely restrained. A volatile hatred for us that she’s not bothering to hide.

“Has the darkness within ever spoken to you?”

“Why—why would it speak to me?” When she doesn’t respond, I go on. “What is it? Did the efrits put it in me?”

“I ask the questions, girl,” she says. “Can you summon the darkness?”

I am thankful then that Rehmat has not responded to my appeals, because I can answer honestly. “No,” I say. “I could summon my magic if you took off these chains.”

The jinn smiles the way a hyena grins at its prey before it tears out its throat. “What