A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,130

head in her hands. “No one understands how deep his hatred for humans runs, Elias. If he frees our brethren, they will search out the Scholars and annihilate them. They will turn on the rest of humanity. Their bloodlust will know no reason.”

“Then we stop him,” I say. “We get Laia away before he can take the armlet.”

“I cannot stop him.” Shaeva’s voice rises in impatience. “He will not let me. I cannot leave my lands—”

“SHAEVA.”

A tremor rolls through the Forest, and Shaeva twists around. “They know,” she hisses. “They’ll punish me.”

“You can’t just leave. I have to find out if Laia’s all right. You could help me—”

“No!” Shaeva rears back. “I can have nothing to do with this. Nothing. Don’t you see? He—” She reaches for her throat and grimaces. “The last time I crossed him, he killed me, Elias. He forced me to suffer the torture of a slow death, and then he brought me back. He released the sorry creature that had ruled the land of death before me, and he chained me to this place as punishment for what I did. I live, yes, but I am a slave to the Waiting Place. That is his doing. If I cross him again, skies know what he will inflict upon me. I am sorry—more sorry than you can know. But I have no power over him.”

I lunge for her, desperate to make her help me, but she spins out of my grasp and darts down the bluff, disappearing within seconds into the trees.

“Shaeva, damn it!” I start after her, swearing when I realize how futile it is.

“Aren’t you dead yet?” Tristas emerges from the trees as the Soul Catcher disappears. “How much longer are you planning to cling to your miserable existence?”

I should ask you the same. But I do not, for instead of the malice I’ve come to expect from Tristas’s ghost, his shoulders slump, as if an invisible boulder rests on his back. Distracted as I am, I order myself to turn my full attention to my friend. He looks drawn and desperately unhappy.

“I’ll be here soon enough,” I say. “I have until Rathana. That’s six days away.”

“Rathana.” Tristas wrinkles his forehead in thought. “I remember last year. Aelia proposed to me that night. I sang all the way home, and you and Hel gagged me so the Centurions wouldn’t hear. Faris and Leander teased me for weeks.”

“They were just jealous that you’d met a girl who truly loved you.”

“You defended me,” Tristas says. Behind him, the Forest is still, as if the Waiting Place holds its breath. “You always did.”

I shrug and look away. “That doesn’t undo the evil I’ve done.”

“Never said it did.” Tristas’s ire returns. “But you’re not the judge, are you? It’s my life you took. It’s my choice whether I wish to forgive you or not.”

I open my mouth, about to tell him that he shouldn’t forgive me. Instead I think of Izzi’s reprimand. You always think everyone is your responsibility … We’re our own people, and we deserve to make our own decisions.

“You’re right.” Hells, it’s hard to say. Harder to make myself believe. But as I speak, the anger clears from Tristas’s eyes. “All your choices have been taken from you. Except this one. I’m sorry.”

Tristas cocks his head. “Was that so hard?” He walks to the edge of the bluff and peers down at the River Dusk. “You said I didn’t have to do it alone.”

“You don’t have to do it alone.”

“I could say the same to you.” Tristas puts a hand on my shoulder. “I forgive you, Elias. Forgive yourself. You still have time left among the living. Don’t waste it.”

He turns and leaps off the bluff in a perfect dive, his body fading. The only sign of his passing is a slight ripple in the river.

I could say the same to you. The words kindle a flame within me, and the thought that first flickered to life with Izzi’s words now grows into a blaze.

Afya’s strident assertion sounds in my head: You shouldn’t just leave, Elias. You should ask Laia what she wants. Laia’s angry pleadings: You close yourself up. You shut me out because you don’t want me to get close. What about what I want?

Sometimes, Izzi had said, loneliness is a choice.

The Waiting Place fades. When cold seeps into my bones, I know I am back in Kauf.

I also know exactly how I can get Darin out of this damned place. But I