by Sabaa Tahir
“Elias—”
“Soul Catcher,” I tell her, before windwalking out into the desert, scouring for any sign of Keris’s army. I consider what Laia said as I travel. No one wants to fight for nothing. My grandfather, Quin Veturius, is a legendary leader of men. His soldiers follow him because they trust his battle acumen. They trust that he cares about them and their families and their lives.
Keris leads through fear. Through threats that are reinforced by a fierce and uncanny understanding of human weakness.
Tribe Saif followed Uncle Akbi because they loved him. The same reason Tribe Nur follows Afya. The Tribal fighters do not entirely trust me. Nor do they fear me. They certainly do not love me. Because I am their Banu al-Mauth, they respect me. I have no right to ask for more.
Windwalking lends me speed, but it does not make it easy to find Keris’s army. I check every canyon, every depression in which they might be lurking, zigzagging over the Tribal lands. But I find nothing.
That night, I take shelter in a ravine. As I build up a fire, I step back into the memories Cain gave me of Blackcliff, of training, of her.
The Commandant taught me that to defeat your enemy, you had to know her better than you knew yourself. Her wants. Her weaknesses. Her allies. Her strengths.
The next day, I do not make for ravines or canyons. Because I know now that I will not find her army there. Instead, I head for the open desert and put my hand to the chill, cracked ground.
Keris has jinn who can magic away the sights and sounds of the army. She cannot, however, erase their passage from the earth itself. Midway through the day, I feel a distant rumble. Thousands of boots marching. Horses. Wagons. War machines.
I make for that thunderous drone until suddenly, I’m among the army. I windwalk amid the neat rows of infantrymen, their heads bent against the sharp desert wind.
A scream cracks the air. “Breach!” an unearthly voice shouts. “Breach! Find the intruder!”
It’s Umber who cries the warning, and she streaks through the skies toward me, kneading the wind to lend her speed. Though I bolt away before the soldiers notice my presence, fiery hands swipe at my back. She’s caught my scent.
“Ah, the humans’ savior!” Umber pursues me in full flame, glaive in hand. She swings it down through my armor and into the flesh of my back. “How does it feel to fail?”
Mauth’s magic surges weakly. But it is not enough to block Umber’s next attack, or to keep me from spinning out of my windwalk like a wounded bird.
The ground rises up at me far too swiftly, and I fall with a bone-numbing crash. Pain rolls through me in relentless waves, and blood pours from the wound in my back, but Umber is not done. As I lurch away from her, frantic to escape, she swings the blade across my stomach, slicing into my side.
“I will find you, little Soul Catcher,” she grinds out. “You cannot run from me.”
But I can bleeding try. I just need to get away long enough that she can’t track me. Her fire does not burn as bright as it did in Aish. She is still recovering. If I’m clever, I can outwit her. Come on, Soul Catcher, I snarl at myself. You’ve dealt with worse.
I force the pain into one corner of my mind and windwalk, spinning sharply around Umber, striking at her with my scims. They dig deep into her hip, and she screams—perhaps from the wound, perhaps from the salt coating I applied to the blade. She tumbles to the earth in an explosion of dust and fire, and I am away.
Though not for long. After only seconds, she is behind me again. My head aches, and my vision doubles. Soul Catcher or not, I’m in danger. My scims feel like anvils in my hands—it is all I can do to hold on to them.
“Where is Mauth now?” Umber follows me turn for turn, hacking at me with her glaive, crowing as it tears through my shoulder. “Where is the magic, little Soul Catcher?”
The sun-blasted earth blurs beneath my feet as I turn and turn and turn again. Anything to shake her loose, slow her down.
Magic surges around me—not mine, but not Umber’s either. She disappears, her vitriol abruptly silenced. I don’t know what happened to her and I don’t care. I keep running, until finally, I can go no farther. Slowing down could mean death; skies know what else is out here. But I must. My heart pumps too frantically. I’ve lost too much blood.
The moment I stop, I retch, and if Umber appeared now, I’d be a dead man. Mauth’s magic slows the damage, but I can’t stand.
My canteen is still in my pack—thank the skies Umber didn’t tear it from me—and I drink the entire contents down as I try to comprehend what I just saw. Keris’s army was vast. Twice the size of the army we’ve been bedeviling. It will crush Nur like a Mask crushing a flea.
Nur must be warned. Laia, Afya, Shan—all the Tribespeople who fought with me—still have time to protect the city. But I have to get to them.
As I mull, my neck prickles.
I am on my feet, if unsteady, but there is no one here. Hallucinations. Excellent. The last time I hallucinated in a desert, I nearly died of poisoning.
Not today. The wind rises, nudging me northwest, so I follow it. Instinct is instinct. Sometimes it’s a shout in your head, and sometimes it’s your mind telling you the wind wants you to move in a particular direction.
Whenever I stop—which is often—I get that same feeling, as if I’m being watched. But it is not hostile. Nor is it kindly. It feels wary. One animal observing another.
By sunset, I spot the lights of the Tribal caravan. It has stopped for the night, and though all I want is to find a quiet corner of the camp to nurse my wounds alone, the wind appears to shove me to the center of it. I teeter to a stop beside Mamie Rila’s wagon.
“Elias!” Laia drops the bowl in her hands and runs toward me. “Where have you—you’re bleeding!”
“S-Soul Catcher,” I correct her, and she shoots me a glare, wedging herself under my arm. My legs give out the moment she does.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble. “Too—too heavy—”
“I dragged you on and off a horse for a week when you were poisoned,” she says. “In armor heavier than this. Shan!”
My foster brother appears with two other Saif Tribesmen. A few minutes later, we are in Mamie’s wagon, Afya, Mamie, and Shan bent over me.
Laia disappears, returning a moment later with a black rucksack. She shoos everyone else away and snips off my leathers, wincing at the sight of my wounds.
A joke teeters on the tip of my tongue. Something about her trying to get my shirt off. I bite it back, my body jerking as she applies bloodroot to Umber’s slashes.
“Who did this?” Her jaw is clenched, and if Umber were to fight Laia right now, I’d bet my marks on the latter. “And why didn’t Mauth’s magic protect you?”
“I don’t know.” Skies, my head is spinning. Laia’s face blurs. “The magic’s weaker—”
“Because of you?” She glances at me. “Because you’re remembering who you were?”
I shake my head. “He’s weakening. Mauth. I need to talk to the Zaldars—Afya—”
“You need to stay still. These are deep, Elias. I’ll have to sew them up.”
I don’t bother to correct the name. My strength wanes, and there are more important things to say. “We can’t go to Taib,” I tell her. “Keris is sending an army to Nur.”
“Afya and the other Zaldars already gave the order to evacuate Taib,” Laia says. “We’ll send Gibran ahead to warn Nur. How far out is the army?”
“Far enough that we can make it. But we need to break camp now. L-leave the wagons.” My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. “Anything and anyone unessential. Just—sew me up so I can give the order.”
“Someone else can give the order. It doesn’t always have to be you! It was stupid of you to go off alone.”
“Had to,” I mutter. “No one else. Nur cannot fall, Laia.” I grab her arm, but I do not
know what I’m saying anymore. “If it falls, he’ll open the door to the Sea—”
The wagon creaks, and Shan appears. “Sorry.” He winces as he takes in my injuries. “But there’s someone here to see him—”
“Look at him.” Laia puts a hand on her hip and stands. Shan backs up, alarmed. “He’s not talking to anyone.”
“Let me up,” I grumble, and Laia shoves me back to the bed, something that is both irritating and intriguing at once.
“Shut it, you,” she growls at me, eyes flashing. She turns back to Shan, but he has stepped away, and a strange, shifting figure stands in his place. Rowan Goldgale.
“You,” I say. “How did you find me?”
“Find you?” The efrit laughs, and it’s the deep hum of a dune shifting. “It was I who brought you here, Banu al-Mauth. Did you not feel the wind?”
And here I thought my instinct led me back. “Why would you help?”
“Because you need the efrits, Banu al-Mauth,” he says. Behind Rowan, outside the wagon, other figures take shape. One of water who I vaguely recognize as Siladh, lord of the sea efrits. Another that undulates like wind in a bottle. “And we need you,” Rowan says. “The time for our alliance has come, whether you wish it or not.”
XLI: The Blood Shrike
I do not muster up the courage to seek out Harper until evening, and by then, he has disappeared. An hour into my search, one of the Black Guards tells me he is in the baths, in the lower levels of the palace.
I make my way through a dozen hallways and down three staircases to arrive at a plain wood door that looks, at first glance, like an entrance to a broom closet. The bricks here are ancient, likely dating back to the Scholar Empire. It is one of the few places unspoiled by the Karkauns—probably because they didn’t much like bathing.
The hallway outside the bath is abandoned, the blue-fire torches burning low. Through a window at the end of the corridor, evening deepens to night.
It’s just a door, Shrike. Go through it. He’s probably not even there. You’ll clean up and leave.
But I can’t bring myself to go in. Instead I pace back and forth, wishing Laia wasn’t off with the bleeding Tribes, because she’d have useful advice. I wish Faris was here. He’d have been so thrilled for me that he’d have built me up like I was going into battle.
I wish I’d had more lovers. My first was a Mercator boy I met at a masquerade in Navium while on leave. He was handsome and seductive and far more experienced than I. I’d worn an ornate mask over my own—and I never took it off. My next was Demetrius—an ill-fated and dissatisfying tryst when we were in our second-to-last year at Blackcliff. It left us both uneasy. He wanted peace. I wanted Elias. Instead, we ended up with each other, week after week, until I finally ended it.
But I didn’t care about either of them. Not the way I care about Harper.
Admit it, you coward, I say to myself. The way you love Harper.
How I have feared that word. Feared it more than Karkauns or Keris or jinn. But to think it now is strangely freeing. A knot inside me releases, as if some part of me is finally unfettered.
Go on, Shrike.
I open the door to the bath and find Harper with a towel about his waist, another one raised to his dark hair. The brown skin of his body gleams, and I follow a droplet of water as it drips onto his wide shoulders, down his chest, to the rigid muscles of his stomach.
I realize I’m staring and jerk my gaze up, stepping past him into the room, scanning for anyone else, a hand on my scim.
“Shrike?” He peers past me into the hall, assuming there must be a threat. “Are you—is the Emperor—”
“No. Nothing like that.” My voice is hoarse. The baths are empty but for Harper. The pool is massive, tiled in green and blue, with water piped in from the bottom. Steam disappears into two large vents to keep the room cool. I eye them warily.
“Already clear, Shrike,” Harper says. “I’m alone.”
My armor creaks as I shift from foot to foot, still staring, which is when I realize that I have not thought this through at all. Because no one in her right mind would wear armor to seduce the person she’s been pining after for months.
Silence descends, and I meet his pale green eyes with a plea in my own, begging him to understand, to not make me any more embarrassed than I already am.
“Shrike—” he begins, and at the same time, I speak.
“I—ah—” Bleeding hells. “Did you—get the orders about the half legion that’s to head south?” I say. “Because they shouldn’t be delayed, but I wasn’t certain if the armory was up to outfitting them—”
“Why are you here, Blood Shrike?” he says.
“I—I’m—”
Bleeding Musa and his bleeding advice. I can’t just come out and say why I’m here. I’ve been horrible to Harper. Avoiding him, ignoring him, barking orders at him, never offering him a word of kindness or gratitude. What if he doesn’t feel anything for me anymore? What if he has moved on? There are plenty of—
“Shrike—why are you here?”
“How’s the water?” I squeak, and begin removing my armor. Almost immediately, one of the buckles on my chest plate gets stuck. Usually I’d have Livia or one of the guards help me with it, but here, in front of Harper, I tug at it stupidly, my face growing redder with every second that passes. How I wish for my mask.
His hand closes over mine.
“Let me,” he murmurs, and a moment later, the buckle is loose. He loosens the others with quick fingers. Then he kneels to pull off the leather greaves from my shins. Moments later, I am in nothing but my shift, and he stands, closer than he was before.
“Could you—” I cannot meet his gaze, and he turns around, dropping the towel. Oh hells. I close my eyes immediately though I do not want to, and wait until I’m certain he’s in the water.
When his back is turned toward me, I kick off my boots, throw my shift and drawers into a corner. For a long moment, my hand hovers above my hair. I have worn it in this braid since I was a girl, since I got to Blackcliff. The Centurions tried to cut it, but Cain told them that if they touched my hair, he would take off their arms.
I rarely wear my hair loose. The last time I remember doing so was the night of graduation, and only at my mother’s insistence.
But I pull it free now. It cascades down my back, and I submerge myself in the water, letting the heat of the pool sink into my muscles. When I come up for air, Harper has turned toward me.
I cross my arms in front of me awkwardly, well aware that I am all muscle, that I have none of Laia’s lush curves or Livia’s softness.
Harper moves toward me, takes me in slowly. His mouth quirks in the closest thing to a smile I’ve ever seen from him. Skies, how long have I been staring at his face without realizing it, memorizing his most minute expressions.
For some reason, I keep my attention on the water. I am afraid of rejection. Or mockery. Or realizing that his feelings are shallower than the well of desire within my own heart.
“Look at me,” he whispers. But I cannot. “Helene,” he says, and the sound of my name on his lips is marvelous. My eyes are hot, and his hand comes up beneath my chin. “Look at me.”
I drag my gaze to his, and my breath catches at the look in his eyes. Desire to match my own, just as dark, just as heady. He holds nothing back with this look. He hides nothing.
“Tell me why you’re here.”
“You know why.” I try to turn away, but he will not let me.
“But I need you to say it. Please.”
“I’m here because it’s been months since you kissed me, but I think about that moment so often it feels like it happened yesterday,” I say. “And because when I saw you go down in the battle, I thought I’d—I’d tear apart the world if anything happened to you. And because I—”
His hands are at my hips, and h
e pulls me closer. My legs rise easily in the water, wrapping around his waist, and his fingers dig into my skin. He mutters something and kisses my throat, slow and careful as he follows the column of my neck to my jaw and settles finally on my mouth, where, suddenly, he is careful no longer.
But I don’t care, because I don’t want to be careful either. I bite his lip, savage, hungry, and he makes a sound low in his throat. I do not know we have reached the edge of the pool until the cold stone digs into my back and he is lifting me up, trailing kisses up my thighs, higher. In his hands, I am beautiful, sacred, beloved. Beneath his lips, I am undone.
I close my eyes and run my hands over his taut arms, his shoulders, his neck, marveling at his perfection, that impression of coiled strength. My breath quickens, and my legs, my arms, corded with muscle from years of training, quiver beneath his touch. When I slide back into the pool, trembling and impatient, he smiles, a smile that belongs to me alone.
“Helene,” he whispers against my ear.
I sigh. “Say it again.”
“Helene.” He tilts my face toward him, and as our bodies come together, as I cry out his name, my fingers digging into his back at the ache of him inside me, he says it again, and again. Until I am the Blood Shrike no longer, but simply Helene. His Helene.
XLII: Laia
Mamie Rila finds me not long after we enter Nur. The city is vastly changed from the last time I was here. The sand-colored buildings are stripped of the Tribal flags that once draped them. The only sound in the streets is the whisper of wind and the occasional bleat of a forgotten goat.
In some ways, I prefer this Nur, for the oppressive presence of the Martials is gone. They left months ago, Afya told me, after Tribe Nur attacked their barracks.
Now we have set up a base of operations not far from where I first met the Zaldara, in a courtyard hidden by trellises choked with winter-dead vines. From above, we are invisible.
