A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes #4) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,97
had a message from the Shrike. She is offering aid. She wants fealty in return, but it might give the Tribes a chance to renegotiate their treaty with the Empire.”
She examines me. “You could help with that if you chose,” she says. “Negotiate well, and they might be more willing to fight for you.” She nods after the retreating Tribespeople. “You weren’t doing so well there.”
“Thank you for talking to them,” I say. At her shrug, dismissive and embarrassed at once, I find myself thinking of when I first became Soul Catcher.
Darin was still recovering from Kauf, and Laia and I were walking along the border of the Forest of Dusk, speaking of the Empire.
Nothing ever changes, she had said. Nothing ever will.
Maybe we’re the ones who change it, I’d told her. If there was one thing you could do right now to change the Empire, what would it be?
I’d get rid of the ghost wagons. Set free the Scholars locked up inside. Light those skies-forsaken death boxes on fire.
You can disappear. I’d taken her hand then, even knowing that Mauth would punish me for it. I can windwalk. What’s stopping us?
She offered that same smile. That same shrug. And then she started planning. Afya helped smuggle the Scholars we freed south, and Darin aided in the fighting. But Laia was the heart of it.
“You’re good at bringing people together,” I tell her now. “You always have been.”
“And you’re good at leading them.” She holds my arm and walks with me, and I’m so astonished I let her pull me along. “If you want your ghosts back, you’ll have to channel that skill.”
“Isn’t that what I’m doing?”
She shakes her head. “Elias, you need the Tribes to fight for you. You need to save the ghosts from whatever hellish torment the Nightbringer is subjecting them to. But”—she cuts me a look—“you cannot lead them if you do not understand them. No one wants to draw blades beside someone who views them as lesser. You are too distant. Too cold. If you want the Tribes’ loyalty, then appeal to their hearts. You might want to start by finding your own.”
XXXVIII: The Blood Shrike
“Lord Kinnius! We are pleased to grant you an audience.”
Livia rises from her simple black onyx throne and smiles at the dour-faced Illustrian staring her down. My sister arrived in Antium this morning, a week after we took the city, and barely had enough time to change.
But she appears serene and composed, as if she’s been settled here for ages. Rain drums on the roof, washing away the Karkauns’ filth. The muted light filtering through the throne room’s high windows illuminates her face just so. She looks every inch the Empress Regent.
I stand behind her, flanked by Rallius and Harper. When the latter fidgets, I almost look at him. Since we took Antium, I’ve been finding excuses to. And I don’t like it. Avitas Harper is a distraction.
He was a distraction as I oversaw the cleansing of the palace, which the Karkauns degraded into a nightmare pigsty. He was a distraction as I sent troops into the city to help the citizens rebuild.
And he is a distraction today in the throne room, as Livia welcomes our first potential ally from the south.
I fix my attention on the advisory council—including Teluman, Musa, and Darin—all of whom are gathered in front of the throne. Lord Kinnius’s gaze falls on the Scholars—standing equal to the Martials and armed with Serric steel blades. He scowls.
My sister offers him a brilliant smile in return. “Welcome to the capital.”
“Or what’s left of it.” Kinnius glances around the throne room, pointedly not using Livia’s title, and I stiffen at his insolence.
Harper quells me with a look. We need allies, he seems to be saying. Winning over Gens Kinnia, with its grain stores and barges and gold, is more important than pride or titles.
Livia’s smile does not shift, but her blue eyes are cold.
“The city stands, Lord Kinnius,” Livia says. “As do its people, despite the traitorousness of Keris Veturia.”
“You mean despite the failure of the Blood Shrike.”
“I did not expect a man of your intellectual caliber to be taken in by the usurper’s honeyed words,” Livia chides him, and I stifle a laugh. Intellectual caliber indeed.
“There are thousands in Antium who witnessed Keris’s betrayal,” my sister says. “You may speak to them if you wish.”
Kinnius snorts. “Plebeians. Scholars.” He looks Darin up and down before turning to Quin. “If I’d known you were so desperate for men,