A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,8

trailing them like a comet’s tail.

“You have entered the Waiting Place,” I call out. “These lands are forbidden to the living.”

I hear nothing but the rain and wind. The figure is still, but the air crackles. Magic.

That face flashes in my mind. Black hair. Gold eyes. Sorcery in her bones. But what was her name? Who was she?

“I won’t hurt you.” I speak as I would to the ghosts—with care.

“Won’t you, Elias Veturius?” the figure says. “Even now? Even after everything?”

Elias Veturius. The name conjures many images. A school of stark gray rock and thundering drums. The tiny woman with glacial eyes. Within me, a voice cries out, Yes. Elias Veturius. That is who you are.

“That is not my name,” I say to the figure.

“It is, and you must remember it.” The figure’s voice is pitched so low, I cannot tell if it is a man or woman. Adult or child.

It’s her! My heart beats too swiftly. Thoughts I shouldn’t have crowd my head. Will she tell me her name? Will she forgive me for forgetting it?

Then two withered hands appear in the darkness and shove back the hood. The man’s skin is pale as bleached linen and the whites of his eyes are livid and bloody. Though I have forgotten much of who I was, this face is burned into my mind.

“You,” I whisper.

“Indeed, Elias Veturius,” Cain, the Augur, says. “Here to torment you, one last time.”

IV: Laia

Keris Veturia is in Marinn and she is just yards from me. How? I want to scream. Only days ago, Musa’s wights reported that she was in Serra.

But what does that matter when Keris can call on the Nightbringer? He must have ridden the winds and brought her to Adisa.

My pulse pounds in my ears, but I force myself to breathe. The Commandant’s presence complicates matters. But I must still get Nikla out of the throne room and to her apartments. The Scholars and Martials in Delphinium have few weapons, little food, and no allies. If Nikla does not hear what the Blood Shrike has to say, any hope of aid is lost.

Silently, I weave across the floor until Nikla and Keris come into view. The Mariner princess is poker-straight upon her father’s massive driftwood throne, her face in shadow. Her burgundy dress is cinched tight about her waist and pools on the floor like blood. Two guards keep watch behind the throne, with four more on either side.

The Commandant stands before Nikla in her ceremonial armor. She carries no weapons, wears no crown. But she does not need them. Keris’s power has always lain in her cunning and her violence.

Her skin gleams silver at her nape, for she wears the living metal shirt she stole from the Blood Shrike. I marvel at her size—she is a half foot shorter than me. Even after all the misery she’s caused, one could see her from afar and think that she’s a young, harmless girl.

As I inch closer, the shadows on Nikla’s face shift and seethe. Ghuls, feasting on the crown princess’s pain, swirling around her in an unholy halo that she cannot see.

“—cannot make a decision,” Keris says. “Perhaps I should speak with your father.”

“I will not trouble my father while he is ill,” Nikla says.

“Then give in, Princess.” The Commandant holds open her hands, as if someone else is speaking such abhorrent words. “The attacks on your people will stop. The jinn will retreat. The Scholars are a drain on your resources. You know this.”

“Which is why I have encouraged their departure from Adisa,” Nikla says. “However, what you ask is—” The princess shakes her head.

“I am offering to take a troubled populace off your hands.”

“To enslave them.”

Keris smiles. “To offer them a new purpose in life.”

Rage makes my hands shake. My mother, Mirra of Serra, could scale walls with hardly a thought. Would that I had that same mysterious skill. I would use it now to leap upon Keris when she least expected it.

My dagger is in my hand—not the one I was to lay on Nikla’s throne, but an older weapon. Elias gave it to me long ago. It is wicked sharp and coated with poison from cross-guard to tip. I run my gloved finger along the blade and inch closer to the throne.

“What of the thousands of Scholars you killed?” Nikla wags her head, unknowingly shaking off the ghuls, who chitter in vexation. “Did they have no purpose? You perpetrated a genocide, Empress. How do I know you will