A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,178

his rare smile. The way I could look at him level, because I was nearly his height. His steady, quiet love. I never danced with him. I should have.

Part of me wants desperately to shove my memories of him into the same dark room where my parents and sister live. The room that houses all my pain.

But that room should not exist anymore. My family deserves to be remembered. Mourned. Often, and with love. And so does Harper.

A tear spills down my cheek. “It should be her beside you,” I tell Musa.

“Alas.” The Scholar spins me in a circle, then pulls me back. “We’re the ones who survived, Empress. Unlucky, perhaps, but that’s our lot. And since we’re here, we might as well live.”

The fiddlers and oud players take up another tune, and the drums thump along, demanding a faster, wilder dance.

Though I was reluctant moments ago, now I find that I want to give in to that exuberant beat. So does Musa. So we laugh and dance again. We eat a dozen moon cakes and chase away the loneliness, two broken people who, for this night, anyway, make a whole.

Later, when Mamie Rila calls us for Laia’s story, and as we settle with Zacharias and the rest of Tribe Saif onto the rugs and cushions strewn across the caravanserai, I lean in to Musa.

“I am glad you are staying,” I say. “And I will be thankful for your company.”

“Good.” Musa flashes me his brilliant smile, and for once, it is not mocking. “Because you still owe me a favor, Empress. And I plan to collect.”

My answering laugh is one of delight. Delight that I can feel a thrill when a man I care for makes me smile. That I can look forward to a story told by my friend. That I can find hope in the eyes of the little boy I hold in my arms.

That despite all I have survived, or perhaps because of it, there is still joy in my heart.

LXXII: Laia

Mamie finds me in my wagon, pacing in the small space, muttering the Tale to myself. The moon is high outside, and the smell of cardamom and honey and tea fills the caravanserai.

“Laia, my love,” she says. “It is time.”

When I step out of the wagon, she straightens my dress, a traditional Scholar kurta and shalwar, the clothes we wore long ago, before the Martials came. The cloth of the kurta is the same warm ebony as the close-fitting pants beneath, and falls to my knees. It gleams with geometric embroidery in silver and green thread, to honor the Kehanni teaching me. The neckline is low and square, the K that Keris carved into me clearly visible.

“It stands,” I told Elias earlier, “for Kehanni.”

“Do you know the story you will tell?” Mamie asks me as we make our way to the Kehanni’s stage, where a massive crowd has gathered. Aubarit and Gibran spread blankets and rugs, while Spiro—who has made his home in Nur—helps Afya pass mugs of steaming tea from hand to hand.

“I know the story I wish to tell,” I say. “But—it’s not very fitting for the Moon Festival.”

“The tale chooses you, Laia of Serra,” Mamie says. “Why do you wish to tell this one?”

The crowd fades for a moment, and I hear the Meherya in my mind. Do not forget the story, Laia of Serra.

“This tale is the gibbet in the square,” I say. “The blood on the cobblestones. It is the K carved into a Scholar girl’s skin. The mother who waited thirty years for her child. The agony of a family destroyed. This tale is a warning. And it is a promise kept.”

“Then it must be told.” Mamie makes her way to her own spot in the packed crowd.

As I ascend the stage, the audience shushes itself. Elias leans against a wagon, his hair falling into his eyes, gaze far away. Helene sits near him with Musa, her guards close by, her attention given over to Zacharias, who bounces up and down in her lap.

I raise my hands and everyone falls suddenly, reverently quiet.

Do not be surprised at the silence, Mamie taught me. Demand it. For you offer them a gift they will carry with them forever. The gift of story.

“I awoke in the glow of a young world.” My voice carries to the farthest corners of the caravanserai. “When man knew of hunting but not tilling. Of stone but not steel. It smelled of rain and earth and life. It