A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,67

myself toward it, my vision clearing. The light grows brighter until I stumble into a room lit with torches and hot from an unnaturally blue-green fire. It burns in a furnace that creates no smoke.

PING. PING. PING.

A man I’ve never seen before looks up from an anvil. His head is shaved, and his dark skin is covered in tattoos. He is perhaps a decade older than me. In one hand, he holds a hammer, and in the other, a helmet that glows with a strange, silvery light.

“Blood Shrike.” The man appears entirely unsurprised as he walks to me, puts an arm around me, and helps me to a bed in the corner. “I’m Spiro Teluman. I have been waiting for you.”

XXVI: Laia

The Nightbringer grabs the back of my head and squeezes. I suppress a scream, for I will not give him the satisfaction. Tears leak from my eyes, and I lash out at him. Fight, Laia, fight! I stole my dagger from Novius, picked the lock on my chains, and feigned weakness and defeat with Khuri—all for this moment. I cannot fail now.

As he looks at the Nightbringer, Elias cocks his head. He is otherworldly, eldritch as the jinn themselves. There is no empathy in his gaze. No trace of the man he was.

And though this is part of my plan, though getting captured by the Nightbringer means getting closer to the sickle—now a scythe—I wish I did not feel so desperately alone in my battle against the jinn.

Unwillingly, I look at Elias, knowing I will only be met with the Soul Catcher’s icy regard.

Instead, I see vitality in his gaze, and my body jolts in surprise. This is the Elias I met at Blackcliff. The Elias who escaped Serra with me, who exploded out of the depths of Kauf, my brother in tow.

The Elias I thought Mauth had crushed.

He blurs into motion, not attacking the Nightbringer, but moving for the jinn with the long spear—Khuri called her Umber. He disarms her with two quick thrusts of his hands, and then knocks her back into Azul.

Khuri jumps in front of Elias, glaring at him, no doubt trying to manipulate his mind. But he shakes off her magic, whipping the spear toward her too fast to follow. She crumples to the ground, stunned by the blow.

The Nightbringer flings me to the rooftop and streaks toward Khuri, who is already rising, her flame eyes scarlet. Run, every part of me screams. Escape, Laia!

I do run. After the Nightbringer, lunging for the scythe just as he reaches his precious kindred. This is it. Either I die or this scythe comes with me. There is no middle ground. I wrap my fingers around the handle and I pull with all my might. Please!

It does not budge.

The Nightbringer half turns, but I’ve drawn my dagger and I slice through the leather strap holding the scythe to the jinn’s back. It comes free, and for a moment, I am too stunned to move.

“Hold on to me.”

Elias appears beside me and pulls me to his chest, spinning me across the rooftop. We are away and my blood rises with the victory of the moment. I have the scythe. Elias is here with me. Elias, not the Soul Catcher.

I catch sight of a deep red flame—Umber. We lurch to a sudden halt and Khuri is there, her mouth curled in a snarl as she attempts to wrest the scythe from me. Elias shouts as Umber attacks, snatching back her spear and bringing it down on his shoulders. Though his magic must dull the spine-breaking blow, it does not stop it, for Elias gasps, on his knees.

“This,” Khuri says with an unnatural calm as she slowly pries my fingers from the scythe’s handle, “does not belong to you, human.” I feel her influence, her compulsion.

“Khuri!” The Nightbringer’s shout is low as a roll of thunder, laced with a terror I’ve never heard from him before. “No!”

She turns to him, startled, and I level a vicious kick at her knees. The handle of the scythe comes loose from her grip. Her legs buckle as she lurches forward, fingers crooked at me. I thrust her away, the scythe in hand, and the blade cuts through her like she’s flesh and blood instead of fire and vengeance.

Flames pour down my wrists, and I flinch back, my skin burning. Khuri scrabbles at her throat, but her strength is gone, and she slumps to the ground. She speaks then, her voice layered as if