A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,93

after the battle and took me to their home, far to the west.”

“So you lived in them,” I say. “Like a disease.”

“Like gold eyes.” She is as quiet as a breeze. “Or brown skin. They traveled to Martial lands and Scholar lands and Tribal lands. The bloodlines spread. And with each generation, I grew more removed from wakefulness and watchfulness. Until all that was left was the spark of magic. In some, like you and the Blood Shrike and Musa of Adisa, the magic was awoken under duress. And in others, like Tas of the North, or Darin or Avitas Harper, the magic sleeps. But all of you have kedim jadu in you.”

“Ancient magic,” I mutter. “All that time you were lurking? Did you try to influence us?”

“Never,” she swears. “Blood magic has conditions. For my rebirth, I had to agree to three sacrifices. The first: that my life as a jinn remain in the past—I may never speak of my time with the Nightbringer, my deeds as queen, or even—even my children.”

The misery in her voice at the last is clear. I think of Mother, who struggled to speak of my father or Lis, so deep were her wounds.

“The second,” Rehmat continues, “that I remain dormant until one of the kedim jadu directly defied the Nightbringer. And the third: that I have no corporeal body, unless one of the kedim jadu allowed me to use them as a conduit.”

Skies know, I’ll never make that mistake again. “Why did you want to stay away from the jinn? Can they hurt you?”

“Not exactly—”

“You still feel for them.” I cast the accusation too swiftly for her to refute it. “That’s why you disappeared in the Waiting Place and when I was with Khuri. You’re not afraid of them. You’re afraid of yourself around them.”

“That’s not—”

“Please don’t lie,” I say. “The jinn were your family. You loved them. I felt that within you. That sense of—of yearning. Is that why you do not want me to get the scythe? Why you always say defeat instead of kill? Because you love him and don’t want him dead?”

“Laia—his losses, what he has suffered—it is incalculable.”

“I do not love my family any less than he loved his.” I turn on her, and if she had a body, it would currently sport a black eye.

“I lost my mother,” I say. “My father. My sister. My friends. My grandmother. My grandfather. I was betrayed by the Resistance. Betrayed by the first boy I ever loved. Abandoned by Elias. You think I don’t want to sink a dagger into the Commandant’s heart? You think I don’t want to see the Martials suffer for what they have done to my people? I understand loss. But you do not fix loss with mass murder.”

“Your love is powerful,” Rehmat says. “It is your love that woke me—your love of your people. Your desire to save them. But the Nightbringer is not human, Laia. Can you compare the rage of a storm to the rage of man? When Mauth created the Meherya, he created a creature that could pass on ghosts for millennia, despite all of their pain, all of their sadness. Do you know what Meherya means?”

“No,” I say. “And I don’t care. I do wonder what your name means. Traitor, perhaps?”

“Meherya means Beloved.” She ignores my barb. “Not just because we loved him, but because of the love he offered. To his kin. To the ghosts. To the humans he encountered. For thousands of years.”

I think of all those the Nightbringer loved in order to get back the Star that would set his people free. I remember how he loved me, as Keenan. Something occurs to me then, and my face heats.

“Did you—you know that he and I—that we—”

“I know,” Rehmat says after a pause. “And I understand.”

“Beloved,” I whisper. The word makes me desperately sad. Because even if that’s who he was once, that is not who he is anymore.

“Love and hate, Laia,” Rehmat says. “They are two sides of the same coin. The Nightbringer’s hate burns as brightly as his love. Mauth does not love or hate. So he was not prepared when his son turned against him. But we can imprison the Meherya,” she says. “Bind him. My magic is the only force on this earth strong enough to contain him—”

“No,” I say. “The Nightbringer must die.”

“His death will usher in only more despair. You must trust me, child.”

“Why?” I say. “You deceived me. And now you will