A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,116

now. How did you …” Is it indelicate to ask a ghost how they died? I am about to apologize, but Izzi shrugs.

“Martial raid,” she says. “A month after you left. One second I was trying to save Gibran. The next I was here and that woman was standing in front of me … the Soul Catcher, welcoming me to the realm of ghosts.”

“What of the others?”

“Alive,” Izzi says. “I’m not sure how I know, but I’m certain of it.”

“I’m sorry,” I say to her. “If I had been there, maybe I could have—”

“Stop.” Izzi’s eyes flash. “You always think everyone is your responsibility, Elias. But we’re not. We’re our own people, and we deserve to make our own decisions.” Her voice trembles with an uncharacteristic anger. “I didn’t die because of you. I died because I wanted to save someone else. Don’t you dare take that away from me.”

Immediately after she is done speaking, her wrath dissipates. She looks stunned.

“I’m sorry,” she squeaks. “This place—it gets inside you. I don’t feel right, Elias. These other ghosts—all they do is cry and wail and—” Her eye goes dark, and she spins around, snarling at the trees.

“Don’t apologize.” Something is holding her back, making her stay here, making her suffer. I feel an almost uncontrollable need to help her. “You … can’t move on?”

The branches rustle in the wind, and the whispering of the ghosts in the trees hushes, as if they too wish to hear what Izzi will say.

“I don’t want to move on,” she whispers. “I’m afraid.”

I take her hand in mine and walk, shooting a dark look at the trees. Just because Izzi is dead doesn’t mean her thoughts should be eavesdropped upon. To my surprise, the whispers cease, as if the ghosts wish to give us our privacy.

“Are you scared that it will hurt?” I say.

She looks down at her booted feet. “I don’t have family, Elias. I only had Cook. And she’s not dead. What if there’s no one waiting for me? What if I’m alone?”

“I don’t think it’s like that,” I say. Through the trees, I see the sparkle of sun on water. “There’s no alone or together on that side. I think it’s different.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t,” I say. “But the spirits can’t move on until they’ve dealt with whatever ties them to the living world. Love or anger, fear or family. So maybe those emotions don’t exist on that side. In any case, it will be better than this place, Izzi. This place is haunted. You don’t deserve to be stuck here.”

I spy a path ahead, and my body moves to it instinctively. I think of a pale-feathered hummingbird that once hatched in Quin’s courtyard, how it would disappear in winter and return in the spring, guided home by some unknowable compass within.

But why do you know this path, Elias, when you’ve never been to this part of the Forest before?

I brush away the question. Now is not the time for it.

Izzi leans on me as the path leads down to an embankment padded with dried leaves. The trail drops suddenly, and we step down. A slow river whispers at our feet.

“Is this it?” She gazes out at the clear water. The strange, muted sun of the Waiting Place shines in her blonde hair, making it appear almost white. “Is this where I go on?”

I nod, the answer coming to me as if I’ve always known it. “I won’t leave until you’re ready,” I say. “I’ll stay with you.”

She lifts her dark eye to my face, looking a bit more like her old self again. “What becomes of you, Elias?”

I shrug. “I’m”—fine, good, alive—“alone,” I blurt out. Immediately, I feel like a fool.

Izzi tilts her head and puts a ghostly hand to my face. “Sometimes, Elias,” she says, “loneliness is a choice.” She fades at the edges, bits of her disappearing as delicately as dandelion fluff. “Tell Laia I wasn’t afraid. She was worried.”

She releases me and steps into the river. One moment she is there, the next she is not, gone before I even raise a hand in farewell. Something lightens within me at her departure, as if a bit of the guilt that plagues me has melted away.

Behind me, I sense another presence. Memories on the air: the clash of practice scims, footraces in the dunes, his laughter at the endless teasing about Aelia.

“You could let go, too.” I don’t turn. “You could be free, like her. I’ll help you.