A Sky Beyond the Storm, Page 2

  “Musa, love.” The innkeeper sets down the food and I am suddenly starving. “You won’t stay another night?”

  “Sorry, Haina.” He flips a gold mark at her and she catches it deftly. “That should cover the rooms.”

  “And then some.” Haina pockets the coin. “Nikla’s raised Scholar taxes again. Nyla’s bakery was shuttered last week when she couldn’t pay.”

  “We’ve lost our greatest ally.” Musa speaks of old King Irmand, who’s been ill for weeks. “It’s only going to get worse.”

  “You were married to the princess,” Haina says. “Couldn’t you talk to her?”

  The Scholar offers her a wry smile. “Not unless you want your taxes even higher.”

  Haina departs and Musa claims the stew. Darin swipes a platter of fried okra still popping with oil.

  “You ate four ears of street corn an hour ago,” I hiss at him, grappling for a basket of bread.

  As I wrest it free, the door blows open. Snow drifts into the room, along with a tall, slender woman. Her silvery-blonde crown braid is mostly hidden beneath a hood. The screaming bird on her breastplate flashes for an instant before she draws her cloak over it and strides to our table.

  “That smells incredible.” The Blood Shrike of the Martial Empire drops into the seat across from Musa and takes his food.

  At his petulant expression, she shrugs. “Ladies first. That goes for you too, smith.” She slides Darin’s groaning plate toward me and I dig in.

  “Well?” Musa says to the Shrike. “Did that shiny bird on your armor get you in to see the king?”

  The Blood Shrike’s pale eyes flash. “Your wife,” she says, “is a pain in the a—”

  “Estranged wife.” Musa says. A reminder that once, they adored each other. No longer. A bitter ending to what they hoped was a lifelong love.

  It is a feeling I know well.

  Elias Veturius saunters into my mind, though I have tried to lock him out. He appears as I last saw him, sharp-eyed and aloof outside the Waiting Place. We are, all of us, just visitors in each other’s lives, he’d said. You will forget my visit soon enough.

  “What did the princess say?” Darin asks the Shrike, and I push Elias from my head.

  “She didn’t speak to me. Her steward said the princess would hear my appeal when King Irmand’s health improved.”

  The Martial glares at Musa, as if he is the one who has refused an audience. “Keris bleeding Veturia is sitting in Serra, beheading every ambassador Nikla has sent. The Mariners have no other allies in the Empire. Why is she refusing to see me?”

  “I’d love to know,” Musa says, and an iridescent flicker near his face tells me that his wights, tiny winged creatures who serve as his spies, are near. “But while I have eyes in many places, Blood Shrike, the inside of Nikla’s mind isn’t one of them.”

  “I should be back in Delphinium.” The Shrike stares out at the howling snowstorm. “My family needs me.”

  Worry furrows her brow, uncharacteristic on a face so studied. In the five months since we escaped Antium, the Blood Shrike has thwarted a dozen attempts to assassinate young Emperor Zacharias. The child has enemies among the Karkauns as well as Keris’s allies in the south. And they are relentless.

  “We expected this,” Darin says. “Are we decided, then?”

  The Blood Shrike and I nod, but Musa clears his throat.

  “I know the Shrike needs to speak to the princess,” he says. “But I’d like to publicly state that I find this plan far too risky.”

  Darin chuckles. “That’s how we know it’s a Laia plan—utterly insane and likely to end in death.”

  “What of your shadow, Martial?” Musa glances around for Avitas Harper, as if the Mask might appear out of thin air. “What wretched task have you subjected that poor man to now?”

  “Harper is occupied.” The Shrike’s body stiffens for a moment before she continues inhaling her food. “Don’t worry about him.”

  “I have to take one last delivery at the forge.” Darin gets to his feet. “I’ll meet you at the gate in a bit, Laia. Luck to you all.”

  Watching him walk out of the inn sends anxiety spiking through me. While I was in the Empire, my brother remained here in Marinn at my request. We reunited a week ago, when the Shrike, Avitas, and I arrived in Adisa. Now we’re splitting up again. Just for a few hours, Laia. He’ll be fine.

  Musa nudges my plate toward me. “Eat, aapan,” he says, not unkindly. “Everything is better when you’re not hungry. I’ll have the wights keep an eye on Darin, and I’ll see you all at the northeast gate. Seventh bell.” He pauses, frowning. “Be careful.”

  As he heads out, the Blood Shrike harrumphs. “Mariner guards have nothing on a Mask.”

  I do not disagree. I watched the Shrike single-handedly hold off an army of Karkauns so that thousands of Martials and Scholars could escape Antium. Few Mariners could take on a Mask. None is a match for the Blood Shrike.

  The Shrike disappears to her room to change, and for the first time in ages, I am alone. Out in the city, a bell tolls the fifth hour. Winter brings night early and the roof groans with the force of the gale. I ponder Musa’s words as I watch the inn’s boisterous guests and try to shake off that sense of being watched. I thought you were fearless.

  I almost laughed when he said it. Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be. The blacksmith Spiro Teluman told me that long ago. Some days, I live those words so easily. On others, they are a weight in my bones I cannot bear.

  Certainly, I did the things Musa said. But I also abandoned Darin to a Mask. My friend Izzi died because of me. I escaped the Nightbringer, but unwittingly helped him free his kindred. I delivered the Emperor, but let my mother sacrifice herself so that the Blood Shrike and I could live.

  Even now, months later, I see Mother in my dreams. White-haired and scarred, her eyes blazing as she wields her bow against a wave of Karkaun attackers. She was not afraid.

  But I am not my mother. And I am not alone in my fear. Darin does not speak of the terror he faced in Kauf Prison. Nor does the Shrike speak of the day Emperor Marcus slaughtered her parents and sister. Or how it felt to flee Antium, knowing what the Karkauns would do to her people.

  Fearless. No, none of us is fearless. “Ill-fated” is a better description.

  I rise as the Blood Shrike descends the stairs. She wears the slate, cinch-waisted dress of a palace maid and a matching cloak. I almost don’t recognize her.

  “Stop staring.” The Shrike tucks a lock of hair beneath the drab kerchief hiding her crown braid and nudges me toward the door. “Someone will notice the uniform. Come on. We’re late.”

  “How many blades hidden in that skirt?”

  “Five—no, wait—” She shifts from foot to foot. “Seven.”

  We push out of the Ucaya and into streets thick with snow and people. The wind knifes into us, and I scramble for my gloves, fingertips numb.

  “Seven blades.” I smile at her. “And you did not think to bring gloves?”

  “It’s colder in Antium.” The Shrike’s gaze drops to the dagger at my waist. “And I don’t use poisoned blades.”

  “Maybe if you did, you would not need so many.”

  She grins at me. “Luck to you, Laia.”

  “Do not kill anyone, Shrike.”

  She melts into the evening crowds like a wraith, fourteen years of training making her almost as undetectable as I am about to be. I drop down, as if adjusting my bootlaces, and draw my invisibility over me between one moment and the next.

  With its terraced levels and brightly painted homes, Adisa is charming during the day. But at night, it dazzles. Tribal lanterns hang from nearly every house, their multicolored glass sparkling even in the storm. Lamplight leaks through the ornamental lattices that cover the windows, casting gold fractals upon the snow.

  Th
e Ucaya Inn sits on a higher terrace, with a view of both Fari Bay, on the northwest end of Adisa, and Aftab Bay, on the northeast. There, among mountains of floating ice, whales breach and descend. In the city’s center, the charred spire of the Great Library lances the sky, still standing despite a fire that nearly destroyed it when I was last here.

  But it is the people who make me stare. Even with a tempest roaring out of the north, the Mariners dress in their finest. Red and blue and purple wools embroidered with freshwater pearls and mirrors. Sweeping cloaks lined in fur and heavy with gold thread.

  Perhaps I can make a home here one day. Most Mariners do not share Nikla’s prejudices. Maybe I, too, could wear beautiful clothes and live in a periwinkle house with a green-shingled roof. Laugh with friends, become a healer. Meet a handsome Mariner and swat at Darin and Musa when they tease me mercilessly about him.

  I try to hold that image in my mind. But I do not want Marinn. I want sand and stories and a clear night sky. I want to stare up into pale gray eyes filled with love and that edge of wickedness I ache for. I want to know what he said to me in Sadhese, a year and a half ago, when we danced at the Moon Festival in Serra.

  I want Elias Veturius back.

  Stop, Laia. The Scholars and Martials in Delphinium are counting on me. Musa suspected Nikla wouldn’t hear the Shrike’s plea—so we plotted a way to make the crown princess listen. But it will not work unless I get through these streets and into the palace.

  As I make my way toward the center of Adisa, snatches of conversation float by. The Adisans speak of attacks in far-flung villages. Monsters prowling the countryside.

  “Hundreds dead, I heard.”

  “My nephew’s regiment left weeks ago and we haven’t had any word.”

  “Just a rumor—”

  Only it is not a rumor. Musa’s wights reported back this morning. My stomach twists when I think of the border villages that were burned to the ground, their residents slaughtered.

  The lanes I traverse grow narrower, and streetlamps more scarce. Behind me, a tinkle of coins echoes and I whirl, but no one is there. I walk more quickly when I catch a glimpse of the palace gate. It is inlaid with onyx and mother of pearl, selenic beneath the snowy pink sky. Stay away from that bleeding gate, Musa warned me. It’s guarded by Jaduna and they’ll see right through your invisibility.

  The magic-wielding Jaduna hail from the unknown lands beyond the Great Wastes, thousands of miles to the west. A few serve the Mariner royal family. Running into one would mean jail—or death.

  Thankfully, the palace has side entrances for the maids and messengers and groundskeepers who keep the place running. Those guards are not Jaduna, so slipping past them is simple enough.

  But once inside, I hear that sound again—one coin sliding against another.

  The palace is a massive complex arranged in a U around acres of manicured gardens. The halls are wide as boulevards and so tall that the frescoes painted upon the pale stone above are hardly visible.

  There are also mirrors everywhere. As I turn a corner, I glance into one and catch a flash of gold coins and vivid blue clothing. My heartbeat quickens. A Jaduna? The figure is gone too fast to tell.

  I backtrack, heading to where the person vanished. But all I find is a hallway patrolled by a pair of guards. I will have to deal with whomever—or whatever—is following me when they reveal themselves. Right now, I need to get to the throne room.

  At sixth bell, Musa said, the princess departs the throne room for the dining hall. Go in through the southern antechamber. Place your blade on the throne and get out. The moment her guards see it, Nikla will be evacuated to her chambers.

  No one gets hurt and we have Nikla where we want her. The Blood Shrike will be waiting and will make her plea.

  The antechamber is small and musty, the faint scent of sweat and perfume mingling, but it is, as Musa predicted, empty. I slip silently through and into the shadows of the throne room.

  Where I hear voices.

  The first is a woman’s, resonant and angry. I’ve not heard Princess Nikla speak in months and it takes me a moment to recognize her intonations.

  The second voice stops me cold, for it is laced with violence and chillingly soft. It is a voice that has no business being in Adisa. A voice I would know anywhere. She calls herself Imperator Invictus—Supreme Commander—of the Empire.

  But to me, she will always be the Commandant.

  III: The Soul Catcher

  The stew tastes like memories. I don’t trust it.

  The carrots and potatoes are tender, the grouse falling from the bone. But the moment I take a bite, I want to spit it out. Steam undulates in the cool air of my cabin, conjuring faces. A blonde-crowned warrior standing in a jungle with me, asking if I’m all right. A small, tattooed woman with a whip dripping blood and a gaze cruel enough to match.

  A gold-eyed girl, her hands on my face, imploring me not to lie to her.

  I blink and the bowl is across the room, smashed into the stone mantel above the fireplace. Dust drifts down from the masterfully crafted scims I hung up months ago.

  The faces are gone. I’m on my feet, the splinters of the rough-hewn table I just built digging into my palms.

  I don’t recall throwing the bowl or standing. I don’t remember grabbing the table so hard my hands bleed.

  Those people—who are they? They are in the scent of winter fruit and the feel of a soft blanket. In the heft of a blade and the slap of a northern wind.

  And they are in my nightly visions of war and death. The dreams always begin with a great army hurtling itself against a wave of fire. A roar breaks across the sky, and a maelstrom spins, sentient and hungry, devouring all in its path. The warrior is consumed. The cold woman and the gold-eyed girl disappear. In the distance, the soft pink blooms of Tala fruit trees drift to the earth.

  The dreams make me uneasy. Not for myself but for those people.

  They matter not, Banu al-Mauth. The voice reverberating in my head is low and ancient. It is Mauth, the magic at the heart of the Waiting Place. Mauth’s power shields me from threats and gives me insight into the emotions of the living and the dead. The magic lets me extend life or end it. All in service of protecting the Waiting Place, and offering solace to the ghosts that linger here.

  Much of the past has faded, but Mauth left me some memories. One is what happened when I first became Soul Catcher. My emotions kept me from accessing Mauth’s magic. I could not pass the ghosts quickly enough. They gathered strength and escaped the Waiting Place. Once out in the world, they killed thousands.

  Emotion is the enemy, I remind myself. Love, hate, joy, fear. All are forbidden.

  What was your vow to me? Mauth speaks.

  “I would help the ghosts pass to the other side,” I say. “I would light the way for the weak, the weary, the fallen, and forgotten in the darkness that follows death.”

  Yes. For you are my Soul Catcher. Banu al-Mauth. The Chosen of Death.

  But once, I was someone else. Who? I wish I knew. I wish—

  Outside the cabin walls, the wind wails. Or perhaps it is the ghosts. When Mauth speaks again, his words are followed by a wave of magic that takes the edge off my curiosity.

  Wishes only cause pain, Soul Catcher. Your old life is over. Attend to the new. Intruders are afoot.

  I breathe through my mouth while I clean up the stew. As I don my cloak, I consider the fire. Last spring, efrits burned down the cabin that was here. It belonged to Shaeva, the jinn who was Soul Catcher until the Nightbringer murdered her.

  Rebuilding the cabin took me months. The pale wood floor, my bed, the shelves for plates and spices—they’re all so new they still ooze sap. The house and clearing around it provide protection from the ghosts and the fey, just as they did when they belonged to Shaeva.

  This place is my sanctuary. I do not want to see it burn
down again.

  But the cold outside is fierce. I bank the fire, leaving a few embers burning deep within the ashes. Then I tug on my boots and grab the carved wooden armlet I always find myself working on—though I don’t recall where it came from. At the door, I glance back at my blades. It has been difficult to give them up. They were a gift from someone. Someone I once cared for.

  Which is why they don’t matter anymore. I leave them and step into the storm, hoping that with a realm to protect and ghosts to tend to, the faces that haunt me will finally fade away.

  * * *

  «««

  The intruders are so far south that when I drop out of my windwalk, the gale that raged around my cottage is little more than a rumor. The Duskan Sea mists my skin with salt, and through the crashing surf, I hear the interlopers. Two men and a woman holding a child, drenched and clambering up the glistening coastal rocks toward the Waiting Place.

  They all have the same gold-brown skin and loose curls—a family, perhaps. The remnants of a ship float in the shallows beyond them and they stumble as they run, desperate to escape a band of sea efrits hurling detritus at them.

  Though I remain hidden, the efrits look to the forest when they sense me, carping in disappointment. As they retreat, the humans continue toward the trees.

  Shaeva broke bones and bodies and left them at the borders for others to find. I could not bring myself to do as she did—and this is what I get. To humans, the Waiting Place is simply the Forest of Dusk. They have forgotten what lives here.

  The few ghosts I have not yet passed gather behind me, crying out at the presence of the living, which pains them. The men exchange glances. But the woman carrying the child grits her teeth and continues toward the shelter of the tree line.

  When she steps beneath the canopy, the ghosts surround her. She cannot see them. But her face goes pale at their moans of displeasure. The child in her arms stirs fitfully.

  “You are not welcome here, travelers.” I emerge from the trees and the men halt.