A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,46

me.

Two sun eyes penetrate across the distance, pinning me like an insect on a wall.

“Elias,” I whisper. “Elias, it’s a jinn—”

Silence. I turn to him, to ask him to windwalk us away. But as I scan the tree line, my stomach sinks. He is gone.

XVIII: The Soul Catcher

The dead yew in the jinn grove bears the brunt of my frustration, the trunk creaking as I slam the chain into it again and again and again.

The girl will be fine. She’s swift and clever. She possesses magic.

She will survive.

She’s not “the girl.” She’s Laia. And if she dies, it’s your bleeding fault.

“Shut up,” I mutter, delivering a particularly savage blow to the tree. A nearby crow squawks and flies into the clear winter sky.

You’re a fool, the voice hisses, deriding me as it has for the past week, ever since I left Laia at the edge of the Waiting Place.

My exhaustion is bone deep, a product of sleep riven with nightmares and waking thoughts consumed by her. I lift the chain, seeking that sweet oblivion that takes over when my body screams that it cannot go on.

Oblivion doesn’t materialize. As Cain promised, Laia remains in my mind. Every story she told. Her shaking body as we escaped the wraiths. Her hand against my arm as she tried to persuade me to see the Fakirs with her.

And her questions. How many ghosts have you passed, Elias? Since she left, I have scoured the Waiting Place for spirits, encountering a mere half dozen in as many days. Something is wrong.

I hear a low, animal moan, and turn to find a spirit reeking of death and wringing her hands at the edge of the jinn grove. Immediately, I move toward her. Mauth’s magic allows me to dip into her memory, and I see a fleet of ships off a fair gold coast. Invaders wearing Keris Veturia’s sigil. Sadh’s silver domes and slender white spires burning and falling. Its people fleeing and dying.

Speaking Sadhese, the spirit tells me her story in bits and pieces and I usher her slowly toward the river. Focusing on her calms my mind. This is my purpose. Not night after night of oneiric hauntings. Not helping a girl cross the forest. Not talking to a Fakir.

“My children,” the ghost says. “Where are they?”

“He leaves them,” I tell her. “They’ll find their way to the nearest settlement. Do not fear for them.”

“Did they see it?” The spirit belongs to a Tribeswoman, and she turns her dark eyes toward me. “The storm?”

“Tell me about this storm,” I say. “Release your fear.”

The ghost shudders. She holds too tightly to her suffering. I let my magic curl around her like smoke and try to ease her pain from her. But she will not let it go.

“It was vast. And hungry. It wanted to devour me.”

“When did you see this?” If she did get a glimpse of the storm, she will be the first ghost to mention it other than Karinna. My neck prickles. “Where?”

“When the Nightbringer came for me. He lifted his scythe. Our Kehanni said if you look into a jinn’s eyes, you see your future, so I tried not to look. But I couldn’t help it. Is that what will happen to me when I cross over? I will be devoured?”

“No,” I say. “It’s not.” But I do not speak with conviction. Before, I knew in my bones that the ghosts were moving on to something better. Now I am not so sure.

“Something took the other spirits,” the ghost says. “But I escaped. I don’t know where they went. I don’t know why.”

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore.” I force myself to believe it, for if I do not, how will she? “The other side waits for you, and with it, peace.”

She goes, finally, and when the next ghost appears, it, too, is from the invasion of Sadh. “I don’t want to go,” it screams. “Please—it’s waiting for me. It will devour me!”

For the next three days, every ghost who passes through speaks of the maelstrom. I expect more spirits, for it is clear Keris Veturia takes no prisoners. But then, Tribal ghosts have always been rare in the Waiting Place. Their Fakirs usually pass them on without any intervention from the Soul Catcher.

Those ghosts who do enter the wood grow progressively more difficult to handle. Day after day I hear the same story. I hold and painstakingly extract the same terror. A sinking feeling creeps over me—that I am