A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,6

hoping that with a realm to protect and ghosts to tend to, the faces that haunt me will finally fade away.

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The intruders are so far south that when I drop out of my windwalk, the gale that raged around my cottage is little more than a rumor. The Duskan Sea mists my skin with salt, and through the crashing surf, I hear the interlopers. Two men and a woman holding a child, drenched and clambering up the glistening coastal rocks toward the Waiting Place.

They all have the same gold-brown skin and loose curls—a family, perhaps. The remnants of a ship float in the shallows beyond them and they stumble as they run, desperate to escape a band of sea efrits hurling detritus at them.

Though I remain hidden, the efrits look to the forest when they sense me, carping in disappointment. As they retreat, the humans continue toward the trees.

Shaeva broke bones and bodies and left them at the borders for others to find. I could not bring myself to do as she did—and this is what I get. To humans, the Waiting Place is simply the Forest of Dusk. They have forgotten what lives here.

The few ghosts I have not yet passed gather behind me, crying out at the presence of the living, which pains them. The men exchange glances. But the woman carrying the child grits her teeth and continues toward the shelter of the tree line.

When she steps beneath the canopy, the ghosts surround her. She cannot see them. But her face goes pale at their moans of displeasure. The child in her arms stirs fitfully.

“You are not welcome here, travelers.” I emerge from the trees and the men halt.

“I need to feed her.” The woman’s anger swirls around her, tinged with despair. “I need a fire to keep her warm.”

The ghosts hiss as the forest ripples. The trees reflect Mauth’s moods, and he doesn’t like the intruders any more than the spirits do.

The last time I took a life with Mauth’s magic was months ago. I killed a group of Karkaun warlords with barely a thought. I use that power again now, finding the thread of the woman’s life and pulling. At first, she grips her child more tightly. Then she gasps, reaching for her throat.

“Fozya!” one of the men cries out. “Get back—”

“I won’t!” Fozya spits, even as I squeeze the air from her lungs. “His people are murderers. How many has he killed, lurking here like a spider? How—”

Fozya’s words stick in my head. How many has he killed—

How many—

Screams erupt in my mind: the cries of thousands of men, women, and children who died after I let the walls of the Waiting Place fall last summer. The people I killed as a soldier, friends who died at my hand—they all march through my brain, judging me with dead eyes. It is too much. I cannot bear it—

As suddenly as the feeling is upon me, it fades. Magic floods me: Mauth, soothing my mind, offering me peace. Distance.

Fozya and her kin must go. I drain the woman’s life away again. She nearly drops the child. With each step I take toward her, she stumbles back, finally collapsing on the beach.

“All right, we’ll go,” she gasps. “I’m sorry—”

I release her and she flees north, her companions hurrying behind her. They keep to the coastline, casting frightened glances at the trees until they are out of sight.

“Hail, Soul Catcher.” The scent of salt overwhelms me as the waves foam at my feet and coalesce into a vaguely man-like form. “Your power has grown.”

“Why so far inland, efrit?” I ask the creature. “Does tormenting humans hold such allure?”

“The Nightbringer requested destruction,” the efrit says. “We are . . . eager to please him.”

“You mean you fear displeasing him.”

“He has killed many of my kind,” the efrit says. “I would not see any more suffer.”

“Leave them in peace.” I nod in the direction of the departing humans. “They are in your domain no longer, and they have done nothing to you.”

“Why do you care what happens to them? You are no longer one of them.”

“The fewer the ghosts I deal with,” I say, “the better.”

The efrit surges toward me, wrapping itself around my legs and yanking as if to drag me underwater. But Mauth’s power shields me. When the efrit lets go, I get the distinct feeling that it was testing me.

“A time will come,” the efrit says, “when you will wish you hadn’t spoken those words.