A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,164

day when Nan howled for her daughter, that I would never see my parents again.

But Mother came back. She came back and she fought for me, and I hold on to her words. I love you, Laia. I immerse myself in her love. For, tortured as it was, it was still love, in the only way she could give it to me.

All is suffering, the maelstrom says. And suffering is all.

How many more has this cyclone swallowed? Is anyone left? I force myself to think practically. There must be. And as long as even one person remains, they are worth fighting for.

One step in front of the other, I battle my way through the swirling wind. If I stop fighting, for even one second, I am lost.

But then, the Nightbringer is also lost. Perhaps if I accept it, we will end up in the same place.

I let go.

I expect the storm to tear at me, but instead I float up and drift, a leaf in the wind. The Nightbringer’s memories flow through me. All the years and loves I did not see. All that he has endured. My heart shudders at the loneliness. Once before, I saw a glimpse of this, when I gave him the armlet. Now the abyss of his pain yawns before me, and there is no place to hide.

I realize I am circling something—the center of the maelstrom. Once, twice, each revolution shorter, until the mist settles and I can make out a scrap of bright white—a tear between worlds, through which sorrow after sorrow explodes. Each one breathes, and they claw at each other in a frenzy of cannibalistic hunger.

At the heart of the rent, a thin scrap of soul writhes in torment, vaguely human-shaped, a thousand bruised colors.

The Nightbringer. Or whatever it is that he has become.

“All the world will fall,” I whisper to him. If I cannot get him to close the tear between worlds, we are lost. “And I know you do not want that. You must stop.”

“What would a child know of such things?” the Nightbringer says. “You are dew on a blade of grass fresh born. I am the earth itself.”

The maelstrom buffets me, and I move closer to the Nightbringer. I call his name. But he ignores me, enmeshed in his pain. Rehmat’s words come back to me.

His strength is in his name. And his weakness. His past and his present.

Nightbringer was the name humans gave him. Along with the King of No Name. But before that, he had another name.

“Meherya,” I say. “Beloved.”

He howls then, an echoing cry that breaks something inside me. But still, he hides away, for he is not the Beloved anymore either. He has turned his back on his duty and humanity. On Mauth.

But in truth, humanity turned against him first. And Mauth, who should have loved the Meherya best, did nothing when his son and all that he cherished were destroyed. The Nightbringer gave Mauth everything—and Mauth repaid him with a thousand years of torment.

And how did I, the one she loved the best, repay her? How did I thank the human who gave me everything?

Mamie’s words, as she became the Nightbringer and told me his tale. As she told me of the woman Husani. The first—and perhaps only—mother the Nightbringer ever knew.

“Nirbara,” I whisper. “Forsaken.”

He turns.

“Forsaken by humans and by Mauth,” I say, and the maelstrom grows more violent with each word. “Forsaken by the Scholars, who you sought only to help and who stole all that you loved. Forsaken by Rehmat, who left you alone with all of your pain. What a terrible thing love is, when this is the cost. But it does not have to be this way. There are millions who might yet live, who might yet love, if only you returned this suffering to Mauth.”

“It is done,” the Forsaken says. “You do not know pain like mine, child. All is suffering and suffering is all. Let it destroy the world.”

“I know suffering,” I say, and he raises his head, a hiss on his lips. But I hold open my hands. “You think because you were a jinn, you felt more deeply? Because you were the Beloved, your grief is greater than my own? It is not, Nirbara. For I—I was beloved too.”

I struggle to speak, to put all the darkness in my life, all the things I have never understood, into words. “I was beloved to my mother and my father. I was beloved to my sister