by Sabaa Tahir
A large tent looms in the very center of the camp and a black flag flies atop it, a K at its center. My scar itches. Would that I could choke Keris Veturia with her own banner.
Poisoning her army will have to do. I weave past slumbering men and guards sweeping dirt out of a tent, past a soldier cursing the loss of a bet and a few others playing dice and cards. I spy the food stores in the southeast corner of the camp. A livestock pen sits in the way, lightly patrolled.
As I move around it, I hear whispers. Cries. Red eyes flash—ghuls? Why would ghuls be lurking among the livestock?
I draw closer. The shadows in the pen resolve into faces and bodies. People. Almost all are Scholars, chained at the wrists and packed tightly, lash marks suppurating on their visible skin.
No detours, Elias said, but he did not know of the slaves. I cannot let them remain here.
There are only two soldiers guarding the pen’s gate, likely because the rest of the army is within shouting distance. The whips at their belts turn my vision red. I ready my bow. Mother could nock two arrows so quickly that they hit their targets at almost the same time. But I am not so skilled. I will have to be quick.
I nock, aim, and fire. Nock, aim, fire. The first Martial goes down quietly, clutching his throat. But my second shot flies into the darkness. As the remaining guard draws his scim and shouts for aid, drums thunder an alarm from across the camp. Our fighters have been spotted.
The quiet is shattered. The guard I shot at bellows at the top of his lungs. “Attack! Slave pens! Attack!” A bell peals, the drums bellow, horses gallop past, soldiers stumble from their tents half-armed. I put an arrow in the shouting Martial, wincing at the squelch it makes when it hits his chest. He topples back and I break the lock on the pen with two strikes of my dagger.
The Scholars within stare out, bewildered. Of course. They cannot see me.
I dare not risk dropping my invisibility. I do not trust my ability to raise it again if I see the Nightbringer.
“Run!” I say. “Into the desert!”
They stumble out, some of them chained, others too wounded to do more than limp. Martials appear almost immediately and cut them down. I realize then how stupid I have been. Even if the Scholars could run, they have nowhere to go. If they clear the camp, they cannot navigate the desert.
Always us. Always my people.
“Oof—”An emaciated Scholar runs into me. I jump quickly out of the way, for I must get to the food stores. Time runs short. But the camp is chaos, the path to the supply wagons blocked.
The boy I ran into bolts past me. One moment he is cutting between two tents. The next, he stiffens, a scim driven through his chest.
The Martial who killed him tears his blade out and moves on. The boy falls.
I run for him and find him on his side, gaze glassy. I pull his head into my lap and stroke his hair. And then, though I know it is foolish to do so, I drop my invisibility. I do not want him to die alone.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to him. “I’m so sorry.”
I want to ask his name. How old he is. But I know his name. It is Mirra. Jahan. Lis. Nan. Pop. Izzi. I know how old he is. He is the three-year-old child thrown into an inky ghost wagon before he can understand why. He is the eighty-year-old grandfather slain in his home for daring to look at a Martial soldier wrong.
He is me. So I stay with him until his last breath leaves him. This, at least, I can do.
I have a moment to close his eyes, but nothing more. Bootsteps thunder behind me, and I turn with barely enough time to parry the blade of an aux soldier. He bowls me over, and I scream, claw for a handful of dirt, and fling it in his face. When he rears back, I shove my blade into his stomach, then push him off. I try to draw my invisibility again, but it does not come.
In the distance, I see Elias atop a massive horse he’s stolen. He is clad in all black, his face half-hidden by a kerchief. With his gray eyes flashing as cold as the scims in his hands, it is impossible not to see him as the creature of war he was bred to be. His scims gleam with blood, and he destroys the men trying to kill him, moving with dizzying speed. The Martials around me stream toward him, determined to take him down.
I break away from the heart of the chaos and run for the supply wagons. Goats and pigs careen past me, and I barely avoid a goring. Gibran must have succeeded in opening the livestock pens.
The supply wagons are in sight when something at the edge of my vision makes me turn. Amid the stampeding animals and shouting soldiers and burning wagons, I see a flicker of black. A flash of sun eyes.
The Nightbringer.
“Rehmat?” I whisper to the dark. “Are you ready?”
“He waits for you, Laia,” Rehmat says. “I implore you—do not do this.”
“You promised to help,” I say through gritted teeth. “You swore.”
“I am helping you. We will get the scythe. But this is not the way.”
My heart quails in warning, perhaps. Or weakness. The latter, I think. I make my way toward where I saw the jinn. I reach for my invisibility. Disappear, Laia! For a moment, the magic eludes me. But then I have it in my grasp and draw it over me quickly.
“You need to distract him, Rehmat,” I say. “Just long enough that I—”
“Laia.” A warm hand closes around mine, and I jump.
“No detours.” Elias looks into my eyes, his own magic piercing mine easily. “You didn’t get to the wagons.”
“How—”
“I saw you. With the boy who died.” Sorrow flashes across his face, and his hands shake. I think back to the night in Blackcliff’s barracks after the Third Trial. He looked just like this. Like his heart had been razed. “Come. We need to get out of here.”
“The Nightbringer has to die, Elias,” I say. “That scythe he wears is the only way to kill him. And it’s here. He’s here.”
“He expects you to take it.” Elias does not release me, though I tug at him. “Don’t do what he expects, Laia.”
I glance toward where I saw the Nightbringer, and the scythe flashes again. It is so close.
Too close, I realize. Too obvious. Rehmat and Elias are right. The Nightbringer is trying to lure me in.
I turn from the weapon, clenching my fists so I’m not tempted to break free from Elias. The Soul Catcher wraps his arms around me, and we step into the wind. As we leave, half the camp is on fire and the rest is in an uproar. Even though I didn’t get to the supply wagons, our attack worked. The Martials—and the Nightbringer—have suffered a blow tonight.
Still, as Elias and I race through the desert, I think of the Scholars killed after escaping the pen. I think of the boy who died in my arms. I think of the scythe, out of my reach yet again. And it doesn’t feel like a victory at all.
* * *
«««
The Tribes hide deep in the Bhuth badlands, a maze of canyons and hoodoos, ravines and caves that are impossible to navigate unless you have traveled them before. The thousands of Tribespeople who escaped Aish are scattered through the caves, finding water, making camp, and keeping a close eye out for Martial outriders.
Afya, Gibran, Shan, and the others arrive back at the hideout a little while after I do. Mamie, Aubarit—everyone, it seems—are waiting and euphoric at the victory. They wish to know every detail.
Elias extricates himself quickly and disappears into the camp. It takes me longer, but after an hour or so, I leave the celebrations for Afya’s wagon. There, I strip off my armor and rinse away the blood in freezing-cold stream water. The Tribeswoman lends me a soft black shift that is small on me, but cleaner than anything I have. Then, perhaps sensing my disquiet, she throws me a sack of mangoes she filched from the Martials and leaves me alone.
But I am restless. I cannot forget the face of the boy who died, or the screams of the Scholars. I cannot stop thinking of the Martials who I put arrows into.
“You mourn the enemy, Laia.” Rehmat materializes beside me. “There is no shame in that.”
“Isn’t there?”
She fades, and I stand up. There is one person in this entire camp who might understand how I feel. One person as lost as I am. I grab the mangoes, pull on a long cloak, and wind my way through the caves until I find him.
He has not made himself easy to find. His tent is pitch-black and tucked into the shadows beyond two supply wagons, in the lee of a cave wall.
I understand why he hides. No one will look for him here. No one will congratulate him or clap him on the back, ask him to share how he took down so many sentries.
“Elias,” I call softly from outside the flaps, in case he is sleeping. For a long minute, there is no answer. Then:
“Come in.”
He sits cross-legged with a green mirrored pillow at his back, no doubt burgled from Mamie Rila’s wagon. A lone lamp burns low, and he tucks something away in his pocket, a small knife covered in wood shavings still in his hand.
There is no sign of his blood-spattered armor, or his scims. He’s changed into his usual black fatigues, and as ever at night, he appears to have misplaced his shirt. I hide a smile, thinking of the way the Blood Shrike would roll her eyes.
Then I let myself take him in, the hard lines of his biceps and jaw, the sharply carved ridges of his stomach, the black hair curling at his neck and falling into his face as he leans forward to light another lamp.
“Do the fighters sleep, Laia of Serra?” His baritone is soft, its deep timbre eliciting a lurch low in my body. But he does not look at me. He has no idea what he does to me. I hate him a little for his ignorance.
My hands tremble, and I tangle them in the hem of my cloak. “They sleep,” I answer. “But I couldn’t.”
“I understand,” he says. “I can never sleep after a battle.” He sits back, and if I didn’t know him so well, I would think he was relaxed. “The Scholar boy,” he says. “Did you know him?”
“Not really,” I say. “But no one should die alone.”
“His ghost did not enter the Waiting Place,” Elias says, and I realize that in the time it took me to change and bathe, he’s been to his home and back. “It crossed to the other side. I felt it. Most of them did.”
“The Nightbringer didn’t take them?”
Elias shakes his head. “We killed clean. Quick. He wants suffering.”
I do not know what to say to that, so I lift the bag of mangoes. “I brought you something.”
“You can leave one there.” He unties the neat knots of his bedroll, turning his back on me. “Thank you.”
He still will not look at me, so I shift over to sit next to him. I let the cloak fall from my shoulders and take out a mango.
“Mangoes shouldn’t be eaten alone.” I roll the golden fruit along my thigh, softening it up, the way I used to in the midst of a Serran summer.
The Soul Catcher’s gaze flicks to the movement, and suddenly, I am glad for the way Afya’s shift sits on my skin. Elias follows the path of the mango up and down my bare thigh before looking away.
It is so dismissive that I almost leave. But his hands are clenched into fists, the veins on his arms standing out, and though the sweep of his hair hides his face, his jaw is tight.
A hot thrill of victory shoots through me. I do not know what he’s feeling. Maybe it is anger. But some feeling is better than none at all. I tear off the top of the mango with my teeth, setting it beside me. Then I squeeze it, drawing the sweet pulp out with my lips, letting the juice trail down my wrists, my neck. I imagine him watching me the way I want him to. Him kissing the sweetness from my throat. His arms around me, driving the chill night air away.
“How is it?” he asks, voice pitched low.
“It’s fine,” I say. “But mangoes are not as sweet if you are not sharing them with someone you love.”
Silence, and then the whisper of his body shifting. His fingers are on mine, and my breath catches when I look up at him. Somewhere deep within those gray eyes, I see the Elias I knew. I feel the heat of the man who has blazed with life from the first moment I met him.
I let him take my hands, every inch of me tingling as he licks the juice from my wrists. He runs a finger up my neck and puts it in his mouth. Then he puts the mango to his lips and closes his eyes. His long lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones, and he makes a small moan of satisfaction at the taste of the fruit. At the sound, my desire spikes. Every part of me aches toward him.
“Laia.” He reaches out, his hand closing on my waist. My breath grows shallow. The tent is warm suddenly, and a flush rises in my cheeks as he moves closer. His gaze is on my lips, his own just a hairsbreadth away.
Kiss me, I want to tell him. Touch me. Rip this stupid shift off.
He lifts the mango. “And now,” he whispers, “is it sweeter?”
His finger brushes my lips, and I rake my teeth across it ever so briefly. He jerks and pulls away, and I wonder if his heart stutters like mine does.
“Not as sweet as it could be.” I make him meet my eyes. For a moment, it is Elias I see. My Elias, just like in Aish.
Then he’s gone, windwalking from the tent so fast that I startle and drop the mango. It thuds to the earth, ruined now, its sweetness curdled by dust.
XL: The Soul Catcher
For ten days, we attack the Commandant’s army in small, surgical strikes. As Keris tightens her defenses, our attacks grow more complex—and take a higher toll. In the fourth raid, we lose five fighters.
When we return to the camp that night, the Tribespeople are silent. Most do not meet my eyes. My instinct is to sit with them. Mourn with them. Listen to their stories. But doing so only reminds me of the death I have meted out. Of the death I have yet to deliver. So I stay away.
When we are two days from Taib, we abandon the raids and ride for the city. Keris is a day behind us—and we need to help with the evacuation. Everything is going to plan.
But something is not right.
“What’s bothering you, Elias?” a voice says from behind me.
Laia. I’ve avoided her since the first raid. That night, I wished to comfort her. For like me, she was tormented by the killing. I wished to listen to her and hold her and pass the hours with her in my arms.
But as Mauth said, wishes only cause pain.
I mumble an excuse and make to ride off, but Laia angles her horse in front of mine.
“Stop, Elias,” she says. “I’m not here to seduce you. Just because I’m in love with you does not mean I lack in pride—”
“You—” Her words wrap around me like a breeze on a hot day. Mauth, damn you, this is when I need your magic to wipe away what I feel. But with every day that passes, the magic grows more unresponsive. Today is no different.
“You shouldn’t say that,” I manage.
“Why?” she asks blithely, but her knuckles are stiff against the reins. Her hair is caught in a braid and she no longer tries to hide the layers of emotion in her dark eyes. “It’s true. In any case, I’m not here to talk about us. Something eats at you. Is it the raids?”
Even with our losses, our raids have been successful. We have no shortage of volunteers, for our band of refugee fighters has grown from a little more than three thousand riders and half a hundred wagons to nearly double that. Survivors fleeing Sadh and Aish have joined us, as well as Tribespeople escaping smaller villages scattered across the vast desert.
“It’s the Commandant,” I tell Laia. “I feel like I’m missing something. Keris doesn’t make the same mistake twice. And we’ve hit her four times now.”
“She’s tightened her defenses.”
Know your enemy. In Blackcliff, it was the first rule the Commandant taught us about war.
“If our strikes were hurting her,” I say, “she would have done more t
han tighten her defenses.”
“We’ve decimated her supplies and livestock, Elias,” Laia says. “Slowed them down by days. Our attacks are hurting her. She’ll arrive in Taib with a far weaker army than she expected.”
But why should she care about Taib? It hits me then, and I feel like a fool for not seeing it before. Keris is herding us. Distracting us.
“She split her forces.” I say. “She doesn’t give two figs about Taib, Laia. She wants Nur.”
Capturing the crown jewel of the Tribal desert will net the Nightbringer three times as many souls as Taib. I slow my horse and dismount, throwing my canteen and some provisions into a pack. “I have to go. I have to see if it’s true. I’ll return.”
“Send out scouts,” Laia says. “Or at least tell the fighters you’re going. Even if you don’t . . . care about them—”
“Mohsin An-Saif. Sule An-Nasur. Omair An-Saif. Isha Ara-Nur. Kasib An-Rahim.” I tighten my scim straps and swing my pack on. “Those are the five fighters who died last night. They leave behind four mothers, three fathers, eight siblings, and two children.”
Horses move around us, and some of the fighters stare at me surreptitiously. While a few call out greetings to Laia, most look away from me.
“I do not speak to them because I’m not their savior, Laia,” I say. “I can’t tell them everything will be all right. Or that I can make them safe. Instead, I tell them they can flee their enemies or fight, knowing that they will fight. Knowing that as a result, many will die. And I’m doing all of it so the ghosts find peace in the Waiting Place. I do it to save the dead, not the living.”
“Fine,” she says. “But no one wants to fight for nothing, Elias. You need to give them a reason. Let them know and understand you. Let them care for you. Otherwise you might return and find you have no army left.”
“The fate of their dead is their reason,” I say. “And it will have to be enough.” I hand her the reins of my mount. “I shouldn’t be gone more than a few hours.”
