A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,45

There are no ghosts winding among the trees. Instead, screams echo in the air and there are faces in the water. Thousands of them, trapped. The air grows ponderous, and I turn to face a maelstrom of teeth and sinew, obscenely violent. A maw that is never satisfied.

But it will not have me. No! Though the images I saw still reverberate in my skull, I have enough sense to lash out with my blade, dodging the shadows as they reach for me.

They want my screams, I realize. They want my pain.

“You cannot have it,” I roar at them. “You can have my wrath instead. My hate.”

“Laia—” Elias’s voice calls from somewhere on my right, and the wraiths chitter and draw back.

“She doesn’t belong here, Soul Catcher,” they say. “She is not dead.”

“Neither do you.” Elias’s words make me shudder, for they are delivered in the flat, cold voice of the Soul Catcher. Of a Mask. “Leave.”

He gathers his magic—I feel the air tighten around me. The wraiths recoil and I dart through them.

“Go, Elias!” I shout when I’m within reach of him. “Windwalk! Now!” His arms close around me and we are away.

I shiver from the cold still in my bones and press into him, desperate for his warmth. He moves so quickly that I close my eyes so I am not sick. The maelstrom circles in my head, ever devouring, and I have to tell myself that I am safe.

Safe. Safe. Safe. I chant the word to the throb of Elias’s heartbeat. The rhythmic thud is a reminder that despite his vow and his magic, his detachment and his distance, he is still human. By the time he slows, I have the sound memorized.

The scent of the Duskan Sea cuts through the air first, and then the dull roar of the waves. Seagulls call out, and far to the east, the sun burns away a heavy cloud bank.

We have traveled hundreds of miles. He got what he wanted after all—me out of his territory. As soon as we are free of the trees, he releases me. I crash to the earth, scraping my hand on a tree trunk trying to get my balance.

“The wraiths are far away.” Elias looks northwest, where a Martial guard tower looms atop a hill of dead grass. “But they might track you. Get to a human settlement quickly. When it’s full light, you’ll be safe to travel again.”

“I saw something, Soul Catcher,” I say. “An ocean filled with—skies, I do not know. And faces. Trapped faces within the River Dusk. I saw that—that maelstrom, and it wanted to devour me and you and—”

“And everything else.” Elias glances down at me, and those pale eyes I learned to love darken. Some unfathomable emotion flickers across them, an echo of who he was.

“We can travel together.” I touch his arm, and he starts at the spark that jumps between us. He’s still human. Still here. “We can speak to the Fakirs, the Kehannis. You could ask—”

At the chill in his gaze, I cease. I keep trying to appeal to his humanity. I might as well throw myself against a stone wall. He does not give two figs about me. He cares about the Waiting Place. He cares about the ghosts.

“How many ghosts have you passed, Elias? How much rot have you seen?”

He tilts his head, contemplating me.

“It’s not because of me,” I say. “Something is wrong. What if it is the Nightbringer’s doing? You are dedicated to protecting and passing on the ghosts. The Tribal Fakirs are also dedicated to the dead. They might know where the rot is coming from.”

Stay with me, I think. Stay with me so I can remind you of who you used to be.

“A rider approaches.” Elias glances over my shoulder. The sky pales enough that I can see foam on the waves, and I squint toward the western horizon, searching.

“Tribespeople,” I say. “Musa told them I was coming. They must have scouts watching the forest.”

“Not the Tribes. Someone else.” Elias takes a step back. “The voice in your head, Laia,” he says, and I remember then that I told him of Rehmat. “Beware of it. Such creatures are never quite what they seem.”

I stare at him in surprise. “I did not know you were listening.”

Hooves thunder from behind me. A quarter mile to the northwest, a band of men and horses appears atop a hill. Even at a distance, one of the forms flickers strangely. It swings its head toward