by Sabaa Tahir
“The refugee camp.” Musa urges his horse on. “They’re burning the tents.”
“What the hells happened?”
But Musa has no answer. The camp is in such chaos when we reach it that the Mariners, frantically evacuating the Scholars, do not notice two more faces amid the hundreds running through the narrow, ash-filled lanes. Musa disappears to speak to one of the Mariners before finding me again.
“I don’t think the Mariners did this,” Musa shouts over the roar of the flames. “Otherwise why would they be helping? And how could the fire have spread so quickly? One of the soldiers I spoke with said they caught wind of it only an hour ago.”
We plunge into the smoke-choked streets, tearing open tents, pulling out those who are sleeping, who remained unaware, shooing children to the outskirts of the camp. We do whatever we can, however we can, with the frantic anguish of those who know that nothing will be enough. Screams rise around us from those who are trapped. From those who cannot find their family members. From those who have found their family members injured or dead.
Always us. My eyes burn from smoke; my face is wet. Always my people.
Musa and I go back again and again, carrying out those who cannot walk themselves, pulling to safety as many Scholars as we can. A Mariner soldier hands us water to drink, to give to the survivors. I freeze when she looks up. It is Captain Eleiba, her eyes red-rimmed, hands trembling. She meets my gaze but only shakes her head and turns back to her own tasks.
You’ll be all right. All is well. You’ll be fine. I speak nonsense to those who are burned, who cough blood from all the smoke. Of course we’ll find your mother. Your daughter. Your grandson. Your sister. Lies. So many lies. I hate myself for telling them. But the truth is crueler.
Hundreds are still trapped in the camp when I notice something strange through the smoke and haze. A red glow rises from the city of Adisa. My throat is parched, burned from inhaling so much smoke, but suddenly it goes even more dry. Has the fire from the camp spread? But no—it couldn’t have. Not over the massive city wall.
I back away from the refugee camp, hoping I can see better from outside it. Dread spreads slowly through my body. The same feeling I’ve had when something terrible has happened and I wake up having forgotten. And then I remember.
Cries rise up all around me, like ill spirits let loose. I am not the only one who has noticed the glow from Adisa.
“Musa.” The Scholar man lurches back toward the camp, desperate to save even one more person. “Look—”
I pull him around to face the city. A warm wind off the ocean parts the fug of smoke over the camp for a moment. That’s when we see it.
To call the fire enormous would be like calling the Commandant unkind. It is immense, an inferno that transforms the sky into a lurid nightmare. The thick cloud of smoke is illuminated by the flames, impossibly high, as if shooting from the depths of the earth to the very heavens.
“Laia.” Musa’s voice is weak. “It’s—it’s—”
But he doesn’t have to say it. I knew as soon as I saw the height of the flames. No other building in Adisa is so tall.
The Great Library. The Great Library is on fire.
XXVII: Elias
For two weeks, I plot how I’ll seize the truth from the jinn. The mercantile in a nearby village provides most of what I need. The rest depends on the weather, which finally cooperates when an early summer storm sweeps in from the east, drenching the entirety of the Waiting Place.
I don’t mind the rain. I catch a dozen buckets’ worth of it. By the time I transport them to the jinn grove, the deluge has dulled the unholy glow of the trees to an ocherous red.
Once in the grove, I smile, waiting for the jinn to begin tormenting me. Come on, you devils. Watch me. Listen to my thoughts. Squirm over what’s coming.
When I am past the first row of trees, the canopy grows tangled. All is silent, but the air thickens, weighing me down, as if I’m walking through water in full Martial armor. It is an effort to remove the bag of salt I have stowed away. But as I make rings of salt around the trees, the jinn stir, snarling softly from within their prisons.
I take out an ax—its steel edge freshly sharpened—and give it a few test swings. Then I dip it in the bucket of rainwater and sink it six inches into the closest jinn tree. The shriek that arises from the grove is both hair-raising and horribly satisfying.
“You’re keeping secrets,” I say. “I want to know them. Tell me, and I’ll stop.”
You fool. Cut open the trees and we will simply burst forth.
“Lies.” I slip into the voice of a Mask, as if I were interrogating a prisoner. “If your freedom was that simple, you’d have gotten your efrit friends to break you out long ago.”
I dip the ax in the rainwater again and, on inspiration, scoop up some of the salt to rub on it. At my second strike, the jinn scream so loudly that the ghosts clustered nearby streak away. When I lift the ax for a third time, the jinn speak.
Stop. Please. Come closer.
“If you’re tricking me—”
If you want our secrets, you must take them. Come closer.
I move deeper into the grove, the ax clutched tightly. Mud slimes my boots.
Closer.
Every step grows more difficult, but I drag myself forward until I can’t move at all.
How does it feel to be trapped, Soul Catcher?
Quite suddenly, I cannot speak or see or feel anything beyond the steady thud of my heart. I fight against the darkness, the silence. I cast myself against the walls of this prison like a moth caught in a jar. In my panic, I reach for Mauth. But the magic doesn’t respond.
How does it feel to be chained?
“What the hells,” I rasp, “are you doing to me?”
Look, Elias Veturius. You wanted our secrets. They are before you.
Suddenly, I am free of their grasp. The trees ahead thin out as the land curves to a rise. I stagger toward it and find myself looking down a slope at a shallow valley nestled in a bend of the fast-rushing River Dusk.
And in that valley are dozens—no, hundreds of stone structures. It’s a city I’ve never seen. A city Shaeva never mentioned. A city that has never made itself known to me on the strange internal map I have of the Waiting Place. It looks—and feels in my mind—like empty space.
“What is this place?” I ask.
A bird sails down into the valley through the thick sheets of rain, some small, squirming creature caught in its claws. The treetops sway in the wind, heaving like a restless sea.
Home. The jinn speak without rancor, for once. This is home.
Mauth nudges me forward, and I make my way through tall, soaked summer grasses down into the city, dagger at the ready.
It is unlike any city I’ve ever seen, the streets curved in concentric half circles around a building on the banks of the River Dusk. The streets, the buildings—everything is made of the same strange black stone. The color is so pure that I reach out more than once to touch it, awestruck by its depth.
I soon sheathe my dagger. I’ve been in enough graveyards to know what they feel like. There isn’t a soul in the place. There aren’t even ghosts.
Though I want to explore every single street, I’m drawn to the large building on the riverbank. It’s bigger than the Emperor’s palace in Antium and a hundred times more beautiful. Stone blocks sit upon one another with such perfect symmetry that I know no human cut them.
I see no columns or domes or ornate patterns. The structures in the Empire or Marinn or the Tribal deserts reflect their people. Those cities laugh and cry and shout and snarl. This city is one note, the purest note ever sung, held until my heart wants to break at the sound.
A low set of stairs leads to the main building. At my touch, the two massive doors at the top of the stairs open as easily as if their hinges were oiled
this morning. Within, three dozen blue-fire torches sputter to life.
Which is when I realize that the walls, which appeared to be a deep black stone, are something else entirely. They reflect the flame like water reflects sunlight, transforming the entire room to a gentle sapphire blue. Though the massive windows are open to the elements, the thunder of the storm outside is muted to a murmur.
I cannot make heads or tails of what this place is. Its size makes me think it was used for gatherings. Yet there is only one low bench in the center of the room.
Mauth tugs me up a staircase, through a series of antechambers, and into another room with a huge window. It is filled with the scents of the river and the rain. Torches paint the room white.
I lift my hand to touch the wall. When I do, it comes alive, filled with misty images. I yank my hand back, and the images fade.
Gingerly, I touch it again. At first, I cannot understand the pictures. Animals play. Leaves dance on the wind. Tree hollows transform into kindly faces. The images remind me of Mamie Rila—of what her voice is like when she sings a tale. Which is when I understand: These are children’s stories. Children lived here. But not human children.
Home, the jinn said. Jinn children.
I make my way, room by room, to the top of the building, stopping in a high rotunda that overlooks the city and the river.
When I touch the walls, images appear again. This time, though, they are of the city itself. Strips of orange and yellow and green silk flutter in the windows. Jewel-like flowers grow in overflowing boxes. The trill and hum of voices tell of a happier time.
People clad in smoky black robes walk the city. One woman has dark skin and tight curls, like Dex’s. Another has pale skin and fine hair, like the Blood Shrike’s. Some are scim-thin, and others are heavier, like Mamie was before the Empire got its hands on her. Each, in their own way, walks with a grace that I only ever saw in Shaeva.
But they do not walk alone. All are surrounded by ghosts.
I spot a man with auburn hair and a face so beautiful I can’t even be irritated by it. He is surrounded by ghost children, love suffusing every bit of him as he speaks with them.
I can’t hear what he says, but I can understand his intent. He offers the ghosts love. Not judgment or anger or questions. One by one, the spirits drift into the river at ease. At peace.
Is this, then, the secret of what Shaeva did? I’ve only to offer the spirits love and they’ll move on? It can’t be. It’s antithetical to everything she said about quelling my emotions.
The ghosts here are calm, far more serene than they were when Shaeva lived. I do not sense the frantic pain that suffuses the Waiting Place as I know it. There are also far fewer of them. Little groups of them follow the black-robed figures obediently.
Instead of a lone Soul Catcher, there are dozens. No, hundreds.
Other figures drift from the buildings, human in form but made of deep black-and-red flame, glorious and free. Here and there I spot children switching from human to flame and back with the rapidity of a hummingbird’s wings.
When the Soul Catchers and their ghosts pass, the jinn move aside, inclining their heads. The children watch from afar, mouths agog. They whisper, and their body language reminds me of how Martial children act when a Mask passes by. Fear. Awe. Envy.
And yet the Soul Catchers are not isolated. They speak to each other. One woman smiles when a flame child comes running toward her, transforming into a human just before the jinn scoops him up. They have family. Partners. Children.
An image of Laia and me in a house, making a life together, flashes through my mind. Could it be possible?
The city ripples. A frisson of sorts, a portent made manifest in the shiver in the air. The jinn turn to the rim of their valley, where a row of flags fly, green with a purple quill and an open book: the sigil of the Scholar Empire, before it fell.
The images come swiftly. A young human king arrives with his retinue. The auburn-haired jinn welcomes him, a brown-skinned jinn woman at his side and two flame children fidgeting behind them. The jinn wears a crown with discomfort, as if he’s not used to it.
I finally recognize him. The hair is different, as is the build, but something about his manner is familiar. This is the King of No Name. The Nightbringer.
Flanking the king and his queen are two flame-formed jinn bodyguards armed with black-diamond sickles. Despite their nonhuman physiques, I recognize the one who stands by the children. Shaeva. She watches the visiting Scholar king with fascination. He notices.
The images speed up. The Scholar king wheedles, then cajoles, then demands the secrets of the jinn. The Nightbringer rejects him, but the Scholar king refuses to give up.
Shaeva meets the Scholar in his guest quarters. Over weeks, he befriends her. Laughs with her. Listens to her, scheming even as she falls desperately in love with him.
A sense of foreboding grows, thick as mud. The Nightbringer haunts the streets of his own city when everyone’s sleeping, sensing a threat. When his wife speaks to him, he smiles. When his children play with him, he laughs. Their fears are quelled. His only grow.
Shaeva finds the Scholar king in a clearing beyond the city. His manner reminds me of someone, but the knowledge wavers at the edges of my mind before slipping away. Shaeva and the Scholar argue. He calms her anger. Makes promises. Even at the distance of a thousand years, I know he’ll break those promises.
Three moons rise and set. Then the Scholars attack, tearing into the Forest of Dusk with steel and fire.
The jinn cast them back easily, but with bewilderment—they do not understand this. They know the humans want their power. But why, when we keep the balance? Why, when we take the spirits of your dead and move them on so that you are not haunted by them?
Ghosts fill the city. But the jinn must fight, so there are not enough Soul Catchers to move the spirits on. Forced to wait and suffer, the spirits cry out, their wails an eerily prescient dirge. The jinn king meets with the efrit lords as the Scholars press the attack. His flame children are sent far away with hundreds of others, howling tearful goodbyes to their parents.
The images follow the children into the Forest.
Oh no. No. I want to pull my hand from the wall, to stop the images. Danger closes in on the little ones. The crack of a twig, a shadow flitting among the trees. And all the while these waist-high flame children scurry through the Forest. They are unknowing, illuminating the trunks and leaves and grasses with brilliance, some deep fey magic that lends beauty to all that they touch. Their whispers sound like bells, and they move like cheery, brave little campfires on a freezing night.
A sudden silence descends. You’re walking into an ambush! Protect them, you fools! I want to scream at the guards. Humans pour from the trees, armed with swords gleaming with summer rain.
The flame children cluster together, terrified. As they join, their fire burns brighter.
And then their flames go out.
I don’t want to see anymore. I know the tale. Shaeva gave the Scholar king the Star. He and his coven of magic-users locked away the jinn.
Do you see now, Elias Veturius? the jinn ask.
“We destroyed you,” I say.
You destroyed yourselves. For a thousand years you’ve had only one Soul Catcher. Shaeva, at least, was jinn. Her magic was innate. Still, the ghosts built up—you saw her struggle. But you have no magic. How can a talentless mortal do that which a jinn could not? The ghosts press against the borders like rainwater presses against a dam. And you will never move the ghosts swiftly enough to stop the dam from bursting. You will fail.
For once, the jinn play no tricks. They do not need to. The truth in their words is terrifying enough.
XXVIII: The Blood Shrike
Night is thick on Navium when I jerk out of sleep.
“The beach.” I don’t realize I’ve spoken the w
ords aloud until I hear the creak of armor. Avitas, keeping watch in a chair near my door, shudders awake, scim in hand.
“Some guard you make.” I snort. “You were fast asleep.”
“My apologies, Shrike,” he says stiffly. “I have no excuse—”
I roll my eyes. “That was a joke.” I swing my legs out of the bed and search around for my breeches. Avitas reddens and faces the wall, drumming his fingers on his dagger’s hilt.
“Don’t tell me you’ve not seen a naked soldier before, Captain.”
A long pause, then a chuckle, low and husky. It makes me feel . . . strange. Like he’s about to tell me a secret. Like I would lean in closer to hear it. “Not one like you, Blood Shrike.”
Now my skin feels hot, and I open my mouth, trying to think of a retort. Nothing. Skies, I’m relieved he can’t see me over here, red as a tomato and gaping like a fish. Don’t act the fool, Shrike. I lace my pants, throw on a tunic, and grab my armor, pushing away my embarrassment. At Blackcliff, I saw Dex, Faris, Elias—all of my friends—stripped down to absolutely nothing, and I didn’t bat an eyelid. I’m not about to humiliate myself with blushes over this.
“I have to get to the beach.” I yank on my bracers, wincing at the twinge in my stomach. “I have to see if . . .” I don’t want to say it or even think it, in case I’m utterly deluded.
“Would you care to explain that first?” Harper nods to my stomach. Right. He saw me heal myself. He heard what the Nightbringer said.
“I would not.”
“Silvius—the physician—came to check on you at Dex’s request. I didn’t let him in. Told him Dex exaggerated the seriousness of your wound. And he mentioned that a group of children in the Aquilla infirmary saw miraculous improvement in a very short span of time.” Harper pauses, and when I say nothing, he sighs in exasperation. “I’m your second, Shrike, but I don’t know your secrets. And so I cannot protect you when others try to ferret them out.”
“I don’t need protection.”
“You are second-in-command of the Empire,” he says. “If you didn’t need protection, it would be because no one saw you as a threat. Needing protection is not a weakness. Refusing to trust your allies is.” Harper’s voice rarely rises above the familiar monotone of a Mask. Now it cracks like a whip, and I gaze at him in surprise.
