A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,30

images of violence: my nephew, sweet Zacharias, lying limp, his small face drained of life. The horror of it is worse for his innocence, for the burden of rulership that he never knew he carried.

As I cry and beg that he be brought back, Keris laughs. The scars on my face ache, a soul-deep pain. Cook speaks in my ear, poor dead Mirra, but I cannot hear what she says because now there is a great roaring, a maelstrom coming closer, and it will devour us all—

Then I hear the Soul Catcher, though he is not next to me. “Do not listen to them,” he says. “They want to break the chain. They want to fall upon each of you, tear you away and consume your minds. Do not let them. Fight.”

“I can’t,” I whisper. “I—”

“You can. It is who you are. It is what you do best.”

It is what I do best. Because I am strong, and I dig for that strength now. I watched my family bleed out at my feet and I fought for my people and faced a horde of Karkauns alone on a hill of dead bodies. I am a fighter. I am the Blood Shrike.

You are a child.

I am the Blood Shrike.

You are weak.

I am the Blood Shrike.

You are nothing.

“I am the Blood Shrike!” I scream, and the words echo back to me, not in my own voice but in my father’s and my mother’s, in Hannah’s and in the voices of all those lost at Antium.

Broken, unmade thing, you will lose more before the end, for you are a torch against the night, little Shrike, and above all a torch burns.

Quite suddenly, we stumble to a stop in a clearing. A dimly lit cabin rises out of the darkness. I stumble toward it, along with Darin and Harper. Laia has an arm wrapped around Tas, her teeth bared.

The Soul Catcher stands between us and the heavily cloaked jinn, who pace beyond the clearing. He has no weapon. He needs none, for in this moment, he calls to mind his mother’s quiet violence.

“You will not touch these humans,” he says. “Leave.”

One of the jinn detaches from the others. “They are your weakness, Soul Catcher.” She drips with malice, shakes with it. “You will fall and the Waiting Place will fall with you.”

“Not today, Umber,” the Soul Catcher says. “They are under my protection. And you have no power here.”

The softer the Commandant spoke, the more dangerous she was. The Soul Catcher’s voice is very low indeed, and power pulses through him. The air in the clearing thickens. The fire in the jinns’ eyes pales, as if suddenly quenched.

The jinn retreat, fading into the trees, and when they are gone, my legs go weak, my wound aching. Harper is beside me instantly, shaky himself but trying to hold me up. Musa stands apart, eyes glazed. Darin is pale as he wraps an arm around Laia’s trembling shoulders.

Tas is unaffected, and glances between us. “What—what happened?”

“Are you okay, Tas?” Laia pulls him close. “It wasn’t real what they said. You know that—”

“They didn’t speak to the child.” The Soul Catcher casts an appraising look at us. “The border is close,” he says. “But they will be waiting, and they are strongest at night. You are depleted. As am I. Come. They cannot hurt us in the cabin.”

The cabin is large and smells of wood shavings, but it’s tight as a drum and solid as Blackcliff. A stove squats in one corner, with copper pans hanging from hooks on the wall. Beside it is a shelf with baskets of carrots and gourds and potatoes. Strings of garlic and onion hang from above, along with bunches of herbs I couldn’t begin to name.

There is also a table, fresh-built with a long bench on either side. A fireplace sits in the center of the room against the back wall, with a soft Tribal rug and cushions strewn about. The Soul Catcher’s bed is spare, but Tribal lanterns hang above it, making it seem almost cozy.

After a moment I realize what the cabin reminds me of: Mamie Rila’s wagon.

The Soul Catcher prepares a meal and though I know I should help, I do nothing, still numb from the jinns’ predations. Only Tas has the energy, setting out plates and cups until the Soul Catcher bids him sit.

I always preferred Elias’s cooking on long journeys. Distantly, I understand that the meal he serves us is hearty and well seasoned. But I