A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,159

Laia. Her voice is anguished, for she, of all creatures, understands what this means to me. He gave his life for yours. Do not let it be for nothing.

I shout his name. Gray eyes meet gold.

He disappears between one moment and the next, as if he never existed. I lose the feeling in my body, and it is only Rehmat, infusing me with strength and forcing me to hold on to a tree branch, who keeps me from being pulled in after Elias.

“Let me go,” I cry, for the Nightbringer has won. Our battle is over. What have I done? What have I unleashed into this world?

My voice is lost—I can only reel at the knowledge that the Nightbringer is not dead, but transformed into the very suffering he sought to release into the world.

A collective scream from below as the maelstrom sweeps down from the plateau, a ravening gray funnel. Within minutes, it tears through Keris’s army, sucking up hundreds, then thousands of soldiers. With each life it claims, it grows larger, feeding off the suffering. A deep, eerie roar sounds from within it, the rage and pain of eons.

We cannot stop it. It will consume all because of me. Because I killed the Nightbringer and gave him what he wanted.

I thought I knew what it was to be alone. All those nights as a child in the great quiet of the Scholar’s Quarter, wishing for my parents and my sister. The silence of Blackcliff, when I thought I’d never see Darin again.

But this loneliness is different. Devouring. The loneliness of a girl responsible for the breaking of the world.

The world must be broken before it can be remade, or else the balance will never be restored.

Elias spoke so to me, months ago, outside this very forest. The world must be broken before it can be remade.

Before it can be remade.

“Rehmat,” I say. “You said you were his chains.”

It is what I saw, long ago in my visions. But he is gone now, Laia. Lost in the Sea of Suffering. I failed you. Forgive me, but I failed you. I did not see his intent until it was too late.

“I should have trusted you, Rehmat.” I walk to the edge of the plateau. “Because you’ve been with me my whole life. Because you’re a part of me. I trust you now. But you must trust me as well. It was a jinn and a human who began this madness a thousand years ago. A jinn and a human must stop it. I must go to him.”

Let me go with you.

“When I am ready,” I tell her as she steps out of me, “I will call you. Will you come, Rehmat of the Sher Jinnaat?”

“I will, Laia of Serra.”

I turn toward the raging cyclone and summon it with a word.

“Meherya.”

It shifts toward me, enraged and hungry, lured by my pain. I wait until it has reached the promontory, until it is close enough to touch.

Then I cast myself into the dark.

LXV: The Soul Catcher

The Martial man who walks beside me through Blackcliff’s halls is familiar, though I’ve never met him. He has deep brown skin and black hair that falls in waves down his shoulders. It is held back by a dozen thin braids, wrapped in the way of the northern Gens.

His eyes are the color of spring’s first shoots, and despite his height, which nears my own, and the imposing breadth of his shoulders, there is a kindness in his face that makes me feel immediately at ease. Though in life he was a Mask, he does not wear one now.

“Hail, my son,” he says softly. “It is good to see your face.” His eyes travel over me. “You’re tall like your grandfather. You have his cheekbones too. My hair, though. My face. A bit of my skin. And . . .” He meets my gaze.

“Her eyes,” I say. “You’re Arius Harper.” My father, I do not add.

He inclines his head.

I’m wary of him. All I know about my father is what Avitas told me: Arius Harper loved the snow and never got used to the warm Serran summers. His smile made you feel like the sun had just come out after a long, cold winter. His hands were big and gentle when teaching a young boy to hold a slingshot.

Yet months ago in a dungeon beneath Blackcliff, Keris Veturia spoke one line that has stayed with me.

I wasn’t about to let the son kill me after the father