A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,102

the remaining guard draws his scim and shouts for aid, drums thunder an alarm from across the camp. Our fighters have been spotted.

The quiet is shattered. The guard I shot at bellows at the top of his lungs. “Attack! Slave pens! Attack!” A bell peals, the drums bellow, horses gallop past, soldiers stumble from their tents half-armed. I put an arrow in the shouting Martial, wincing at the squelch it makes when it hits his chest. He topples back and I break the lock on the pen with two strikes of my dagger.

The Scholars within stare out, bewildered. Of course. They cannot see me.

I dare not risk dropping my invisibility. I do not trust my ability to raise it again if I see the Nightbringer.

“Run!” I say. “Into the desert!”

They stumble out, some of them chained, others too wounded to do more than limp. Martials appear almost immediately and cut them down. I realize then how stupid I have been. Even if the Scholars could run, they have nowhere to go. If they clear the camp, they cannot navigate the desert.

Always us. Always my people.

“Oof—”An emaciated Scholar runs into me. I jump quickly out of the way, for I must get to the food stores. Time runs short. But the camp is chaos, the path to the supply wagons blocked.

The boy I ran into bolts past me. One moment he is cutting between two tents. The next, he stiffens, a scim driven through his chest.

The Martial who killed him tears his blade out and moves on. The boy falls.

I run for him and find him on his side, gaze glassy. I pull his head into my lap and stroke his hair. And then, though I know it is foolish to do so, I drop my invisibility. I do not want him to die alone.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him. “I’m so sorry.”

I want to ask his name. How old he is. But I know his name. It is Mirra. Jahan. Lis. Nan. Pop. Izzi. I know how old he is. He is the three-year-old child thrown into an inky ghost wagon before he can understand why. He is the eighty-year-old grandfather slain in his home for daring to look at a Martial soldier wrong.

He is me. So I stay with him until his last breath leaves him. This, at least, I can do.

I have a moment to close his eyes, but nothing more. Bootsteps thunder behind me, and I turn with barely enough time to parry the blade of an aux soldier. He bowls me over, and I scream, claw for a handful of dirt, and fling it in his face. When he rears back, I shove my blade into his stomach, then push him off. I try to draw my invisibility again, but it does not come.

In the distance, I see Elias atop a massive horse he’s stolen. He is clad in all black, his face half-hidden by a kerchief. With his gray eyes flashing as cold as the scims in his hands, it is impossible not to see him as the creature of war he was bred to be. His scims gleam with blood, and he destroys the men trying to kill him, moving with dizzying speed. The Martials around me stream toward him, determined to take him down.

I break away from the heart of the chaos and run for the supply wagons. Goats and pigs careen past me, and I barely avoid a goring. Gibran must have succeeded in opening the livestock pens.

The supply wagons are in sight when something at the edge of my vision makes me turn. Amid the stampeding animals and shouting soldiers and burning wagons, I see a flicker of black. A flash of sun eyes.

The Nightbringer.

“Rehmat?” I whisper to the dark. “Are you ready?”

“He waits for you, Laia,” Rehmat says. “I implore you—do not do this.”

“You promised to help,” I say through gritted teeth. “You swore.”

“I am helping you. We will get the scythe. But this is not the way.”

My heart quails in warning, perhaps. Or weakness. The latter, I think. I make my way toward where I saw the jinn. I reach for my invisibility. Disappear, Laia! For a moment, the magic eludes me. But then I have it in my grasp and draw it over me quickly.

“You need to distract him, Rehmat,” I say. “Just long enough that I—”

“Laia.” A warm hand closes around mine, and I jump.

“No detours.” Elias looks into my eyes, his own magic piercing mine easily.