A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,81

from a cage. You have only to look at your own mother to know the truth of that.”

“What the bleeding hells is that supposed to mean?” The question is out of my mouth before I can stop myself.

“Keris Veturia’s suffering runs deep, Soul Catcher. My brethren mistakenly believe that she is but a human stooge, a servant to carry out the Meherya’s plan. But her suffering is why he sees himself in her. Why she sees herself in him. Suffering is the cup from which they both drink. It is the language they both speak. And it is the weapon they both wield.”

The Mother watches over them all. So Keris is more essential to the Nightbringer’s plan than I realized. The rest of the foretelling makes little sense, but that part, at least, must refer to her.

And though “watches over” sounds benevolent enough, when it comes to Keris, it isn’t. Likely she’s dispatched spies to surveil the Blood Shrike and Laia.

And me.

I regard Talis with new suspicion. This little game has gone on long enough. Time to end it.

“What is the Nightbringer’s intent in releasing this suffering?”

“To cleanse the land of his enemy swiftly,” Talis says softly, “that the fey might live in peace.”

Bleeding, burning hells. He wants to kill all the Scholars at once. And he’ll use this maelstrom to do it.

“Do you see now why war is your fate? I know well the Oath of the Soul Catcher. To light the way for the weak, the weary, the fallen, and the forgotten in the darkness that follows death. There is no one to light the way for them now, Elias. No one to protect the spirits. Unless you take up the torch.”

“I will not return to that life.” I have waged enough war. Brought enough pain into existence. For all that I long for in the world of the living, war is one thing I will never miss. “Besides, if I fight for the Tribespeople or the Scholars, I will only end up killing Martials. Either way, the Nightbringer wins. I will not do it.”

We have reached the escarpment, and here Talis stops. “And that is why it must be you,” he says. “A commander who has tasted the bitter fruit of war is the only one worthy of waging it. For he understands the cost. Now—to my question.”

“No more questions,” I say. “For I have none for you. I will not tell you what the Augur said. Do not bother asking.”

“Ah.” Talis observes my face, and I feel like he’s seeing more than I want him to. “That alone gives me the answer I seek. Will you fight, Soul Catcher?”

“I do not know,” I say. “But since you asked a question, I find I have one more, after all. Why let me live? You got nothing out of this conversation.”

Talis glances up at the escarpment, at the exposed, blackened roots of the jinn grove. “I love the Meherya,” he says. “He is our king, our guide, our savior. Without him, I would still be locked away in that damnable grove, leeched on by the Augurs.” He shudders. “But I fear for the Meherya. And I fear for my kin. I fear that which he calls forth from the Sea. Suffering cannot be tamed, Soul Catcher. It is a wild and hungry thing. Perhaps Mauth protects us against it for a reason.”

The clouds above shift, and the sun peeks through for a moment. Talis lifts his face to the light. “We were creatures of the sun once,” he says. “Long ago.”

The hollows of his cheeks, the angle of his chin are strangely familiar. “I know you.” I remember then, where I saw him. “I saw you with Shaeva, in the palace walls—in the images there. You were the other guard to the Nightbringer—to his family.”

Talis inclines his head. “Shaeva was a friend for long years,” he says. “I mourn her still. There must be some good in you if she saw fit to name you a Soul Catcher.”

After he leaves, I go to the clearing outside my cabin. The soft grass is nothing but snow-dusted yellow scrub now. Shaeva’s summer garden is a squarish lump beneath a fresh layer of powder. The cabin is dim, though as ever, I left a few embers burning in the hearth.

All is silent, and the silence is obscene, for this forest is the one place where ghosts are meant to find succor. And now they cannot. Because the Nightbringer is taking them