A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,120

I can see the glimmer of Martial armor now, and what appear to be about two dozen soldiers.

But it is not the soldiers who have my attention. It is the brown-skinned, lanky figure who rides with them, sandy hair blowing in the desert wind.

“Darin?”

I’m too far away for him to see, but I limp through the camp toward him now, until I can make out his face. He spots me and dismounts, a giant smile on his face.

“Laia!”

“Lower your weapons,” I call out to the Tribesmen, many of whom have never met him. “Skies, he’s the one who made them!”

My brother weaves through them and envelops me in a bear hug. I do not let him go, even when he tries to put me down. My brother. My blood. The only blood I have left in this world. I find that I am sobbing, and when I finally break away, his face is wet too.

“Thank the skies you’re all right,” he says. “I tried to tell you I was coming, but you didn’t let me get a word in edgewise when we spoke. The Shrike sent half a legion with me, to help the Tribes fight Keris. Most of them are a few miles away. The last we heard, Aish had fallen.”

“So much has happened since then.” I do not know where to begin. “What matters is that I have the scythe. I can kill him, Darin. But we cannot find him or his bleeding army. We think they’re here in the Tribal lands. Probably using fey magic to hide. We just need to get to them.”

Darin glances at the Martial commander with him—Jans, the Blood Shrike’s uncle. Something passes between them.

“That will be harder than you think, Laia,” Darin finally says. “Keris sent a massive force east. Three hundred ships. They left Navium when the rest of her forces were marching on Nur.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. “Keris was here—I saw her—”

“Not anymore. She and the Nightbringer are laying siege to Marinn. Laia—they’re a thousand miles away.”

XLVI: The Soul Catcher

For long days and nights, I am at peace as I haven’t been since I first merged with Mauth. Spring eludes the Waiting Place, but the vicious bite of winter has finally eased, and I spend my time passing the ghosts.

It is not easy. For the rot near the river has spread, and the ghosts do not wish to pass. But when I worry, the gentle sweep of Mauth’s magic eases it away. There is a rightness to this work. A clarity.

But that changes one night when I enter my cabin and knock something off a small table by the door. It hits the ground hard and bounces toward the fireplace. I stare at it, perplexed. It is a half-carved armlet—but where is it from? I should remember—I need to remember.

Laia.

Her name bursts in my head like a firework. The memories that Cain returned to me come back all at once—along with everything that happened since then. Laia was injured in Nur. Is she all right now? Afya and Mamie would have taken care of her, but—

A slow tide of magic sweeps through my mind. My worry fades. My memories fade.

No! a voice screams in my head. Remember!

I stumble back out the door of the cabin, the armlet clutched in my hand. From the trees, a ghost watches me.

“You’re back,” Karinna whispers. “You were gone a long time, little one.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I was . . .” Remember, the voice in me screams. But what does it want me to remember?

“You’ve seen what’s coming,” Karinna says. “The maelstrom. I smell the knowledge on you. And yet you do nothing. What if it hurts my lovey? You told me she was out there, still alive. What if the maelstrom destroys her?”

Maelstrom. Hunger. Darkness. Suffering.

The Nightbringer. I drag the name out of the molasses that Mauth has made of my brain. The Nightbringer is waking something up. Something he cannot control. He is using ghosts to strengthen it so it can break through Mauth’s protections and destroy the human world.

“What you see cannot come to pass,” Karinna says. “It will hurt my lovey. I can feel it. You must stop it.”

“How?” That tide of forgetting is upon me, Mauth manipulating my mind, but this time, I resist it.

“Yes.” Karinna nods. “Fight him. Fight for my lovey. Fight for those who live.”

“Mauth!” I call out. He ignores me, yet again.

Or perhaps, I realize with a sudden flash of intuition, he cannot