A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,100

and loss and your broken heart.”

Musa doesn’t laugh as I expect him to. “I saw your face,” he says. “During the attack on Cardium Rock. When Harper went down. I saw.”

“Stop talking,” I say. “I don’t need advice from a—”

“Go on, insult me,” Musa says. “But you and I are more alike than you know, and that’s not a compliment. You’re in a position of great power, Shrike. It’s a lonely place to be. Most leaders spend their lives using others. Being used. Love isn’t just a luxury for you. It’s a rarity. It’s a gift. Don’t throw it away.”

“I’m not throwing it away.” I stop walking and pull the Scholar around to face me. “I’m afraid, Musa.” I don’t mean to blurt the words out—especially to a man whose arrogance has vexed me from the moment I met him. But to my relief, he does not mock me.

“How many in Antium lost those beloved to them when the Karkauns attacked?” he asks. “How many like Dex, who hide who they love because the Empire would kill them for it?” Musa runs a hand through his black hair, and it sticks up like a bird’s nest. “How many like Laia, betrayed and then left to claw her way through her pain? How many like me, Shrike, pining for someone who no longer exists?”

“There is more than love of another,” I say. “There is love of country—love of one’s people—”

“But that’s not what we’re talking about,” Musa says. “You are lucky enough to love someone who loves you back. He is alive and breathing and in the same vicinity as you. By the skies, do something about it. For however long you have. For whatever time you get. Because if you don’t, I swear that you’ll regret it. You’ll regret it for all your years.”

XXXIX: Laia

The Martial army is smaller than I expected. After Aish fell, I imagined tens of thousands of soldiers. But Keris has managed to take much of the Tribal lands with a mere ten thousand men.

“Three hundred of whom are Masks,” Elias says to the Tribespeople he’s appointed as platoon leaders for our first mission. We’ve gathered atop a small butte in the rugged lands between Taib and Aish. The Martial army is sprawled a half mile away, their outermost sentries moonlit glimmers beneath a cloudless night sky.

“It’s the Masks who walk the perimeter of Keris’s army,” Elias says. “I’ll take care of them. At my signal—”

He goes through each leader’s duties, and they buzz with adrenaline and anticipation. But I feel numb with anxiety for everyone here: Afya standing beside her little brother, Gibran; Mamie Rila’s younger son, Shan, and his group of Saif Tribesmen; Sahib, Aubarit’s uncle and the taciturn Zaldar of her tribe.

The rest of Aish’s survivors, including Mamie Rila and Aubarit, have decamped to a labyrinthine cave system a few miles to the north. We cannot fail them tonight. We cannot fail those in Taib and Nur, who will suffer Keris’s violence if we do not slow her and her army down.

Out in the darkness south of us, the Martials’ fires light up the horizon. Ten thousand is not so many, I tell myself.

But one hundred—the size of our force—is even less.

Focus, Laia. Elias assigned me a duty for this raid, but I have my own mission to carry out. The Nightbringer will likely be with the army. Which means the scythe will be there too.

A gold glow at the corner of my vision stiffens my spine. Though I am at the back of the crowd, I slip deeper into the shadows.

“Well?” I ask.

“The Nightbringer is in the camp with Keris,” Rehmat says. “I wish you would not seek him out, Laia. There are Kehannis in these lands. Seek stories instead.”

But all of the Kehannis who escaped Aish walked away the moment they heard what I wanted. Only Mamie Rila was brave enough to speak with me.

We draw our stories from the deep places, Laia. I sat in the lamplit warmth of her wagon, but the air grew cold as she spoke. They are not just words. They are magic. Some are potent as poison, and strike you dead upon speaking them. The woman you met in Marinn—the Kehanni of Tribe Sulud—she knew this. It is why she could not tell the Nightbringer’s story right away. It is the reason the wraiths killed her. I fear the words you seek, Laia, Mamie whispered. I love life too much to utter them.

“If the story