A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,37

to the tree, touch the dirt. Nothing happens. The soil around the evergreen is as lifeless as the salt wastes west of Serra. Small carcasses litter the ground—beetles on their backs. Spiders curled into balls. A fledgling jay, its neck broken.

I don’t bother calling out to Mauth. He hasn’t spoken since the day Cain returned my memories.

Perhaps the memories caused this. Eating away at the forest the way they eat away at me. But I’ve had them for days and this rot is new.

“Little one.” I nearly jump out of my skin, but it’s only the Wisp.

“A girl walks the trees.” The Wisp tilts her head, as if wondering why I’m on the ground. “A human, near the western border. Do you think she knows where my lovey is?”

“A girl?” I scramble to my feet. “What girl?”

“Dark of hair and gold of eye. Heavy of heart and burdened by an ancient soul. She was here before.”

Laia. I reach for the map of the Waiting Place and find her quickly, a glowing dot due west. She must’ve just entered the wood.

“Karinna,” I say, not wanting to lose track of the spirit yet again. “Will you wait here for me? I’ll be back soon—we can talk.”

But Karinna fades into the trees, muttering to herself, lost once again in her search for her lovey.

I turn toward the setting sun. The girl’s presence might explain why there’s rot in the Waiting Place. If she’s harming the forest, I’ll need to persuade her to leave.

By the time I find her, the sky is thick with stars, and the treetops dance in the wind. She’s lit a fire. No ghosts watch her and there is no decay in the forest near her. She seems for all the world like a normal girl traversing a normal forest.

A memory seizes me. Her face hovering above mine in the Serran desert as rain poured down around us. I was poisoned—raving. It was Laia who kept me from drifting away, who tethered me to reality with her quiet, indomitable will. Stay with me. She put her hands on my face. They were gentle and cool and strong.

You are not welcome here. The words are on my lips, but I don’t speak. Instead I watch her. Perhaps if I look at her for long enough, I’ll see that ancient soul that the Wisp spoke of.

Or perhaps she’s simply beautiful, and looking at her feels like sunlight flowing into a room lost to the darkness for too long.

Stop, Soul Catcher. I shake myself and approach loudly, so as not to startle her. But even when I’m certain she’s heard me, she doesn’t look up. Her hair is thrown into a long braid beneath a black kerchief, and she stares fixedly at a simmering pot of water.

“I wondered how long it would take.” She removes the pot, adding cooler river water to it. Then she unhooks her cloak and starts pulling off her shirt.

I’m dumbfounded until I realize she’s bathing and I turn away, my neck hot.

“Laia of Serra,” I say. “You have trespassed into the Wa—”

“I swear to the skies, Elias, if you finish that sentence, I will tackle you. And you wouldn’t like it.”

Something twinges within, low in my body. A sly voice in my head urges me to say, Maybe I would.

“My name is not Elias.”

“It is to me.”

Her emotions are veiled, so I reach out with my magic. For a second, I get a sense of her. Sadness, anger, love, and . . . desire. She suddenly goes blank, as if a part of her is shoving me away.

“Do not do that to me.” Her voice vibrates with anger. “I’m not one of your ghosts.”

“I only want to understand why you are here. If you need something, I can give it to you, and you can go.”

“What I want, you cannot give me. Not yet, anyway.”

“You desire me,” I say. The quiet splash of water ceases. “I can satisfy you if that’s why you’re here. It’s easy enough and if it means you’ll leave, then I’m willing to do it.”

“Satisfy me? How kind of you.” She laughs, but it doesn’t sound joyful.

“Desire is simple. Like the need for shelter or warmth. And it won’t be unpleasant.”

I hear a soft step and turn, forgetting that she has stripped down to very little. I catch a glimpse of skin, curved and golden and tapering to the swell of her hips. She’s piled her hair on top of her head and her