by Sabaa Tahir
“Scholar!” I shout. “I’m coming in.”
I take a few steps back and then kick the door in, scims out, expecting . . . I don’t know. The Commandant again. A jinn.
Musa’s sitting room is empty, and it’s not until I enter the bedroom that I see his crumpled form slumped against the bedframe.
“Musa—” I’m at his side in two steps. His eyes are red, his face wet and haggard. “What the hells happened? Poison? What did you ea—”
Then I see a parchment in his hands. I take it from him gently. The missive is from Eleiba, and it is not long.
Ayo has fallen. Adisa has fallen. Thousands dead. Princess Nikla killed defending King Irmand. Both murdered by Keris Veturia. Request immediate aid.
“Oh bleeding hells.” I sit down next to him. “Skies, Musa. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
The paper falls. He sinks his face into his knees and weeps. I have no idea what to say. His grief is raw and unabashed and so very different from my own. After a moment, I take his hand, because it seems like something Laia might do. He grips it tight as he sobs, and my eyes grow hot as I watch him grapple with the horror of losing the love of his life as well as his king.
“Shrike?” a voice calls from the door. Harper scans the room, scims in hand. “The wights called me.”
“It’s clear,” I say. He sheathes his blades as I hand him the note. Our eyes meet over Musa’s head, and I know he is thinking what I am: Keris Veturia needs to bleeding die.
After a moment, Harper kneels down, and I scramble back, thankful that someone else has come. Someone who will know how to deal with Musa’s pain. But the Scholar does not release my hand.
“I shouldn’t mourn her.” He wipes his face, and I almost don’t hear him. “She jailed my father. Took my lands. My title. The Scholars suffered under her rule.”
“She sounds . . .” Horrible, I think. “Complicated.” I wince as soon as I say it. But Musa chuckles unexpectedly.
“We got married a decade ago. I was eighteen. She was nineteen. Her brother was crown prince, but he died of an illness and the palace healer—my father—couldn’t save him. She—” He shakes his head. “Grief took her. The ghuls found ripe prey with her, and they nibbled at her mind for years. And when I spoke of them to her, she called me insane. King Irmand was so grief-stricken after his son’s death that he did not see what was happening to his daughter.”
“My father died in prison. My mother soon after. And yet—” He looks between Harper and me. “I still loved her. I shouldn’t have, but I did.” His hands curl into fists. “Keris slaughtered Nikla’s guards. Stabbed her through the—the chest and pinioned her to the walls of her palace. Then—killed her father in front of her. The ghuls finished her off.”
Skies above. The details unsettle me because they are so barbarous. So vile.
But also because of the timing. First Livia. Now Nikla. These murders are targeted. Keris knows how essential Musa and his wights are. She is trying to weaken us.
“I have to go to Marinn,” Musa says. “Find Keris. Kill her. Nikla’s heir is a first cousin. Skies know if he’s still alive, but he’s young. He’ll need help.”
I look at Harper helplessly. How do I tell Musa the Commandant is manipulating him when his heart is broken? I wish Laia were here. Or Livia.
But it must be me. And in that moment, it hits me that with Livia gone, and until Zacharias comes of age, it will always be me. For a thousand things I don’t wish to do.
Damn you, Keris.
“Musa, this is a great blow,” I venture, and as he searches my face, I am thankful for the first time that I do not have my mask. “I have been a victim of Keris’s cruelty also. And it is never without intent.”
“You want me to stay,” he says. “But the Mariners were my people first. They need me. And you owe me a favor, Shrike.”
“I know that,” I say. “If you still want to go tomorrow, then I will offer you my best horse, and an escort. All I ask is that before you leave, consider all you know of Keris Veturia. She is manipulative. Ruthless. She kills who she must to weaken her foes.”
Musa is silent. But at least he’s listening.
“She wants you angry. Alone. On your way to the Free Lands instead of working against her. Your people are here, Musa. Thousands of Scholars that Nikla drove out. They look to you too.”
“I will wait until tomorrow,” Musa says. “But if I wish to leave, you cannot keep me here.”
“I won’t. I swear it.”
We leave him then, and though I wish to put guards outside his door to protect him, I do not want him to think I’m locking him in. His wights, I hope, will keep him safe.
All the way to Avitas’s quarters, where we can speak without interruption, I think of Musa’s cries. The way he sounded as if his soul had been dug out of his body.
“We cannot let him go,” Avitas says as soon as we enter his room. “He is too important. What if we—”
“Emifal Firdaant,” I interrupt Harper. May death claim me first.
“What does that mean?”
I do not answer, instead drawing him toward me with the strap of his scim. I kiss him, trying to put all that I cannot say into that kiss. His hands land on my hips, pulling me closer, and then he is unbuckling my armor.
Now is not the time for this, I know. I should speak to our spies again and try to figure out what Keris is up to. I should find Quin and ask him if he really thinks we should head south.
I should break away. Because every time I touch Harper, I fall deeper into a place I know I will not be able to emerge from, should I lose him.
My soul aches with all that I should do. It weighs on me like a mountain, and I cannot bear it.
So I lead him to his bed, to do what I wish, not what I should. And hope that I will not pay for it.
* * *
«««
Avitas is asleep when I wake. The sky outside his window is littered with stars. I let myself appreciate their beauty. I pretend that I do not have to decide the fate of thousands of people. I am just a normal woman, in bed with my lover. Am I a soldier? No. Something completely different. I am a baker. I am safe. The world is safe. I will rise, put on my clothes, and go bake bread.
And that is why you must rise. To protect all the lovers and bakers, the mothers and fathers, the sons and daughters.
I have a decision to make. This far north, winter’s grip is still tight, and if the army is to go, then we must leave today. I feel a cold snap coming, and would not have the river freeze and delay us.
But I still do not know what to do. So I leave my armor and slip out to walk the city, as I always did when I was troubled.
The streets outside the palace are dark and empty, but when I am nearly to the gates, a step sounds behind me. Harper—staying close, for he is my second, and that is his duty. A moment later, wings flutter near my face—Musa’s way of reminding me that I have a promise to keep.
Think, Shrike. What does the Commandant want? To rule. Not just over the Empire, but over the Tribes, Marinn, even the Southern Lands. Why then would she leave her Empire vulnerable to me? Why would she want me to sail south?
Because she’d know exactly where I am. She’d be keeping me occupied, so that she could—what? Claim Antium or Delphinium? No—we’ve already confirmed that there are no armies lurking, waiting to attack.
The sky brightens, the sun still tucked behind thick clouds, and a heavy snow falls. The orchards I pass through are bare, but this is winter’s last vicious assault before bowing to spring. Soon, the trees will bud. Within a month, they will bloom, and winter’s chill will be a memory.
The bells toll seven. The snow falls thicker. I must return. Hear what Musa has to say. Give the order to move out before the river freezes.
But I keep walking. Because I do not yet have my answer. The orchards are lon
g past and I move now into the open land beyond the capital, some instinct drawing me farther from the city.
“Shrike,” Harper says. “We should—
“I’m missing something,” I say. “And I’m not going back until I know what it is. I will not let her fool me, Harper. Never again.”
Now I move urgently, and an old feeling steals over me—the desire to heal. To help.
“Harper.” I unsheathe my blades. “Someone’s out here.”
Against the unending stretch of white, something moves. No. Many things—and at speed.
“What in the ten burning hells?” Harper says.
“Wraiths,” I say. “A half dozen. Chasing down—”
But I cannot make sense of the shimmer they are chasing. I only know that if it’s running from the wraiths, then we share a common enemy.
“You have to behead them,” I tell Harper, but he’s already charged forward, his scim flashing as he slices through one of the wraiths. It screams, and the sound is followed by another.
Then they are upon me, their spectral hands reaching out. One closes its fingers on my throat, and cold lances into me.
“Not today,” I snarl at it before wrenching away and slicing off its head. The last two rush me, but they are sloppy—panicked. Their screams still linger in my ears when I turn to the shimmer in the air, which is not a shimmer at all, but a cloud of glittering sand, roughly man-shaped and clearly in distress.
“Peace, Blood Shrike,” the efrit whispers, and though I feel as though I must heal it, I realize that I cannot sing for it. Sand efrits hate songs.
“I bring a message,” it says. “From Laia of Serra. A message Keris did not wish you to hear.”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Laia said you should ask this question of me: What were Marcus Farrar’s last words?”
Laia is the only person with whom I shared that detail, one night a few months ago, when neither of us could sleep.
“Very well,” I say. “What were Marcus Farrar’s last words?”
“‘Please, Shrike.’ Satisfied?” At my nod, the efrit goes on. “The Nightbringer sought to draw the Soul Catcher’s army to Marinn. Instead, the Soul Catcher moves his forces toward the City of the Jinn, in the Waiting Place. There, they hope to lure the Nightbringer and finish him for good. But—but—” The efrit’s breathing grows labored. It has seconds, if that. “They cannot do it alone.”
“I can’t possibly march an army—”
“Laia of Serra said something else.” The efrit’s sand grows dull, its light fading. “Strive even unto your own end, else all is lost—”
The efrit’s words trail off. Between one breath and the next, he is gone, his sand form disappearing in the wind.
Thank the skies Harper tends toward silence, because it gives me a moment to piece it all together. The Commandant left the south open because she wanted me to attack. Because if I’m focused on Silas, I cannot help the one person who can destroy her master.
“Shrike,” Harper finally says. “We need to leave. It’s getting colder. The river will freeze, and we won’t be able to sail south.”
“Let it freeze,” I tell him. “Today, we do not sail. Today, we march.”
Part IV
The Sher Jinnaat
LI: The Nightbringer
For years, I raged. Villages burned. Caravans disappeared. Families murdered. But in the end, there were too many humans. I annihilated thousands, yet when I turned, I would find hundreds more.
Vengeance would take years. Centuries. And I could not do it alone. I needed to prey on humanity’s worst traits. Tribalism. Prejudice. Greed. And while I pitted them against each other, I needed to reconstitute the Star, a far more difficult task. For it had shattered, its pieces scattered to the winds. Each piece had to be hunted down. Each returned to me in love.
The first human I ever loved was a Scholar. Husani of Nava—what would later become Navium. She wore the shard of the Star as a necklace, fashioned by her late husband. Her child died of a fever when she had only just learned to speak. So I came to her as an orphan, red-haired and brown-eyed, grappling with my own pain. She called me her son and named me Roshan.
Light.
My presence filled a hole within her. She loved me instantly.
It took me longer to love her. Though I lived in the body of a human child, my mind was my own, and I could not forget what her kind had done to mine. But she soothed my nightmares and tended my wounds. She attacked my face with kisses, and hugged me so much that I began to crave the comfort of her arms.
Soon after coming to her, I learned to respect her. And in time, I loved her.
She gave me the necklace after I told her I was leaving home to seek my fortune. All my love goes with you, beloved son. Those were her words when she set the necklace around my neck, tears in her eyes.
In that moment, I wanted to transform. To scream at her that I was beloved, once, but that all who loved me were gone. That her kind had not just stolen my people, but my name.
The only parent I had ever had was Mauth, and his love for me was rooted in the duty he laid upon my shoulders. Husani offered me the love of a mother: fierce where Mauth was sober, pure where Mauth was calculated.
And how did I, the one she loved the best, repay her? How did I thank the human who gave me everything, who taught me more of love in a few short years than I had learned in all my millennia?
I abandoned her. After taking her necklace, I left. I did not return.
When she died a few years later, she died nirbara—forsaken. She left this earth with her adopted son’s name on her lips, not knowing where he had gone, or whether he lived, or what she had done to deserve his silence.
I mourned her then. I mourn her still.
Like the Tribes, the Mariners have their own rites for the dead. Like the Tribes, they begin to understand that against me, those rites mean nothing.
The palace of the Mariner royal family is rubble around me—as is much of Adisa. The city that gave haven to my enemies has been laid low by Keris Veturia. Thousands of souls flow from her killing fields and into my hands.
Maro still recovers from the wound Laia dealt him. But I catch nearly as many spirits as him. The souls of men are fickle and thin. They come to me easily. Almost willingly.
“The city is ours.” Keris walks gingerly through the ruins of the palace, her gaze snagging on the shattered glass dome that used to sit above Irmand’s driftwood throne. There is a proprietary air about her. This is her city. Her palace. An extension of her Empire. Just as I promised.
She is splattered with the blood of Marinn’s brave soldiers, none of them a match for her savagery. “Before I killed her, Nikla raised the white flag—”
I give her a withering look, and she bows her head, barely cowed. “My lord,” she adds.
“Adisa is a fallen city,” I tell her. “But the Mariners are not a broken people. Many in the city fled. How many dead?”
“More than twelve thousand, my lord.”
More, the Sea whispers in my mind. More.
I shift my gaze to my lieutenant. “What troubles you, Keris?”
“I should have killed the child.” She shifts from foot to foot, her boots crunching the multicolored glass of the dome. “Zacharias.”
“You had your opportunity. Why did you not strike?”
“I needed him,” she says. “To lure the Blood Shrike. But as I was holding him, I was reminded of Ilyaas.”
“There is no weakness in having remembered your child,” I tell her. “The weakness lies in denying it. What did you feel?”
Keris is silent for a long time, and though she is a grown woman, she looks, for a moment, like the child she was long ago. I suppose to me, they are all children.
She grasps at the hilt of her bloody scim.
&
nbsp; “It does not matter—”
But I do not let her turn away, for the weakness must out, so that it does not fester within her.
“When you see your son again, will you be able to do what must be done?”
“I did see him again,” she says. “In Aish. He was—different. But the same. A Veturius.” She offers the name unemotionally. For a long time, we do not speak.
“I do not know,” she finally says, “if I will be able to do what must be done.”
It is one of the talents of humans to surprise, even after millennia of knowing their kind. She meets my flame eyes, for of all creatures who walk this earth, only Keris Veturia has never flinched from my gaze. Her darkest moments are long behind her.
“There are some things that do not die. No matter how many blades we put into them,” she says.
“Indeed, Keris.” I know it better than any.
We stare out at the burning city. A white flag hangs limp in the still air. The Sea stirs, hungry. More.
Thousands are dead. So much suffering.
But not enough.
LII: Laia
We trek out of the Tribal desert and into the grasslands of the southern Empire. It is sparsely populated, so it is easy enough to stay far from villages and garrisons. About three weeks after we set out, the mottled horizon thickens into a mass of tangled green branches.
“The Waiting Place. Not long to go, Laia.” Darin speaks from beside me. I have cloaked him so it appears his horse is riderless—something the horse protested with vigorous head-tossing and angry whinnies. Elias, riding ahead of us, is also invisible, though I can hear the steady hum of conversation between him and Jans Aquillus.
All around, weapons and armor are stowed away. A great many of the fighters travel inside wagons, while their mounts bear supplies instead of riders. The sand efrits settle the dust of the caravan so it’s unnoticeable from afar, and the wind efrits lure clouds over us to mask us further. A jinn would have to get close to tell that this is an army, and according to the efrits none have.
