A Reaper at the Gates

  I, meanwhile, have no purpose at all other than to wait.

  "No sneaking around outside the forge." Musa's said it a dozen times. "The Jaduna I spoke of report to the king. If they see you, you'll find yourself back in prison, and I don't fancy having to rescue you again."

  If Musa has information for me, he doesn't share it. Nor do we have any news from the outside world. With every day that goes by, I am more mistrustful. Does the Scholar man truly intend to help me? Or are his promises to aid me a ploy to get Darin to make weapons?

  A week flies past. Then another. The Grain Moon is a mere eight weeks away, and I am spending my time testing blades that keep breaking. One morning, while Musa is out, I sneak into his quarters, hoping to find something--anything--about his past, the Resistance, or his information network. But all I discover is that he has a taste for candied almonds, which I find tucked away in drawers, beneath the bed, and most bizarrely, in a set of old boots.

  On most evenings, Musa introduces me to other Scholars he knows and trusts. Some are refugees, like me, but many are Adisan Scholars. Every time, I have to tell my story again. Every time, Musa refuses to explain his plan for resurrecting the Resistance.

  What were you thinking, Shaeva? Why did you send me to this man?

  News finally arrives in the form of a scroll that appears in Musa's hand one day, in the middle of dinner. Darin and Zella are deep in conversation, Taure is telling me the story of a girl she's fallen for in the camps, and I'm staring daggers at Musa, who is placidly stuffing his face as if the fate of the world doesn't hinge on his ability to get me information.

  My fixed glare is the only reason I even see the scroll appear. One second, it's not there, the next, he's unrolling it.

  "The Nightbringer," he says, "is in Navium with the Commandant, the Paters of the city, the Blood Shrike, and her men. He hasn't left there in weeks. There is some infighting between the Commandant and the Blood Shrike, apparently--"

  I groan. "That doesn't help me at all. I need to know whom he's seeing. Whom he's talking to--"

  "Apparently, he's spent a great deal of time in his chambers, recovering from sinking the Martial fleet," Musa says. "Must take a lot of energy, murdering a few thousand souls and sending their vessels to the bottom of the sea."

  "I need more," I say. "He has to be doing something beyond sitting in his quarters. Are there any fey creatures around him? Are they getting stronger? How fare the Tribes?"

  But Musa has nothing more to offer--not yet, anyway.

  Which means I have to take matters into my own hands. I need to get out into the city. Jaduna or not, I need to at least learn what's happening elsewhere in the Empire. After dinner, as Darin, Taure, and Zella discuss the different clays used for cooling a blade, I yawn and excuse myself. Musa has long since retired, and I pause outside his room. Snores rumble within. Moments later, I am invisible and cutting my way west, toward Adisa's central markets.

  Though I was only in the refugee camp for moments, the difference between it and the Mariner city is stark. The camp was dingy tents and sucking mud. Adisa's cobbled streets are lined with houses of azure and violet, more alive at night than during the day. The camp was full of young Scholars with jutting collarbones and swollen bellies. Here, I don't see a single starving child.

  What kind of king would allow this? Is there no space in this massive city for the Scholar souls freezing beyond its gates?

  Maybe it's not the king. Maybe it's his ghul-infested daughter. The creatures flit through the market too, a seething blight lurking on the fringes of the crowds.

  In the city's center, brightly dressed Mariners haggle and joke and trade. Silk kites sail like ships overhead, and I stop to ogle clay vessels with entire books painted on their sides. An Ankanese seer from the far south rasps out fortunes, and a kohl-eyed Jaduna watches him, the gold coins strung across her forehead catching the light. Recalling Musa's warning, I head away from the woman.

  All around me, Mariners walk the streets with a surety I fear I will never possess. The freedom of this place, the ease of it--it feels like none of it is for me or my people. All this belongs to others, to those who do not abide at the crossroads of uncertainty and despair. It belongs to people so used to living free that they cannot imagine a world in which they are not.

  "--do you expect? The Tribes won't lie down and take it like the Scholars. They won't allow their people to be enslaved."

  Two Mariner cooks argue loudly over the pop of frying pastries, and I inch closer.

  "I understand their anger," one of them says. "But to target innocent villagers--"

  Someone jostles me, and I just manage to hold on to my invisibility. The crowds here are too thick, so I leave them behind, not stopping until I spot a group of children gathered in a doorway.

  "--she burned Blackcliff to a crisp and killed a Mask--"

  A few are Adisan Scholars, full-cheeked and finely dressed. Others are Mariners. All cluster around wanted signs featuring me, Darin, and--I'm surprised to see--Musa.

  "--I heard she stabbed Kauf's warden in the face--"

  "--I think she'll save us from the wraiths--"

  All I need from you is a story, Musa had said. It is strange to hear that story now, altered into something else entirely.

  "--Uncle Musa says she's got magic, like the Lioness--"

  "--My da says Uncle Musa is a liar. He says the Lioness was a fool and a murderess--"

  "--My ama says the Lioness killed children--"

  My heart twists. I know their words shouldn't bother me. They are only children. But I want to show myself anyway. She was funny and clever, I want to say. She could shoot a sparrow on a branch from a hundred paces. She only ever wanted true freedom for us--for you. She only ever wanted better.

  Another child appears in the alley. "Kehanni! Kehanni!" she yells. The children race away to a nearby courtyard where a deep voice rises and trembles and swoops--a Kehanni spinning a tale. I follow them, to find the yard bursting with an audience collectively holding its breath.

  The Kehanni has silver hair and a face that has seen a thousand tales. She wears a heavily embroidered, calf-length dress over wide, mirror-hemmed pants that catch the lamplight. Her voice is throaty, and though I should move on, I find an empty spot against a wall to listen.

  "The ghuls surrounded the child, drawn by his sadness." She speaks Serran, and her accent is heavy. "And though he wished to help his ailing sister, the fey creatures whispered poison into his ears, until his heart became as twisted as the roots of an old jinn tree."

  As the Kehanni sings her story, I realize there is truth within this tale--a history of sorts. Hadn't I just witnessed exactly what she described, only with Princess Nikla?

  The Kehannis' stories, I realize, have as much history in them as any book in the Great Library. More, perhaps, for there is no skepticism in the old tales that might occlude the truth. The more I consider it, the more excited I get. Elias learned to destroy efrits from a song Mamie Rila sang him. What if the stories could help me understand the Nightbringer? What if they could tell me how to stop him? My excitement has me moving away from the wall, toward the Kehanni. Finally, I have a chance to learn something useful about the jinn.

  Laia . . .

  The whisper brushes against my ear and I jump, jostling the man next to me, who yelps, looking about for whoever bumped him.

  Quick as I can, I weave my way through the still-rapt audience and out of the courtyard. Something is watching me. I feel it. And whatever it is, I don't want it making trouble among those listening to the Kehanni.

  I shove back through the crowded market, looking over my shoulder repeatedly. Black scraps of shadow flit just out of my vision. Ghuls? Or something worse? I speed my gait, exiting the market and entering a quiet side street. I look back once more.

  The past shall burn, and none will slow it.

  I recognize the whisper, the way it grates like rotted claws across my mind. Nightbringer! I am too frightene
d even to cry out. All I can do is stand there, useless.

  I spin, trying to pick him out of the shadows.

  "Show yourself." My voice is barely above a whisper. "Show yourself, you monster."

  You dare to judge me, Laia of Serra? How can you, when you know not the darkness that lives within your own heart?

  "I'm not afraid of you."

  The words are a lie, and he chuckles in response. I blink--an instant of darkness, nothing at all--and when I open my eyes, I sense I am alone again. The Nightbringer is gone.

  By the time I return to the forge, my body trembles. The place is dark--everyone has turned in. But I don't drop my invisibility until I'm alone in my room.

  The moment I do, my vision goes black. I am standing in a room--a cell, I realize. I can just make out a woman in the darkness. She is singing.

  A star she came

  Into my home

  And lit it bright with glo-ry

  The song floats all around me, though the words grow muffled. A strange sound splits the song, like the branch of a tree breaking. When I open my eyes, the vision is gone, as is the singing. The house is quiet, other than Darin murmuring in his sleep from next door.

  What in the skies was that?

  Is it the magic affecting me? Or the Nightbringer? Is this him--is he toying with my mind? I sit up quickly, glancing about my darkened room. Elias's armlet is warm in my hand. I imagine his voice. The shadows are just shadows, Laia. The Nightbringer can't hurt you.

  But he can. He has. He'll do so again.

  I retreat to my bed, refusing to release the armlet, trying to keep Elias's soothing baritone in my mind. But I keep seeing the Nightbringer's face. Hearing his voice. And sleep does not come.

  XVIII: Elias

  The jinn know I'm coming. The moment I reach their grove, I'm unnerved by an expectant sort of quiet. A waiting. Strange, how silence can speak as loudly as a scream. Yes, they know I'm here. And they know I want something.

  Hail, mortal. My skin crawls at the choral voice of the jinn. Come to beg forgiveness for your existence?

  "I've come to ask for help."

  The jinns' laughter knifes at my ears. "I do not wish to trouble you." It irks, but humility might serve me well. I certainly can't brazen my way through this. "I know you suffer. I know what was done to you long ago is the heart of your suffering. And I've been imprisoned too."

  You think the horrors of your puny human prison can begin to approach our torment?

  Skies, why did I say that? Stupid. "I just . . . I don't wish pain like that on anyone."

  A long silence. And then: You are like her.

  "Like Shaeva?" I say. "But the magic bonded with her, and it won't bond with me--"

  Like your mother. Keris. The jinn sense my dismay and laugh. You think not? Perhaps you do not know her as well as you think you do. Or perhaps, mortal, you do not know yourself.

  "I'm not a heartless, murdering--"

  The magic of the Soul Catcher will never be yours. You are too deeply linked to those you love. Too open to pain. Your kind is weak. Even Keris Veturia could not release her mortal attachments.

  "The only thing my mother is attached to is power."

  I sense that in their arboreal prison, the jinn are smug. How little you know, boy. Your mother's story lives in your blood. Her past. Her memory. It is there. We could show you.

  The silk in their voices reminds me of the time a Senior Skull tried to tell fourteen-year-old me to come to his room so he could show me a new blade his father gave him.

  You wish to know her better. Deep in your heart, the jinn say. Do not lie to us, Elias Veturius, for when you are in our grove, your subterfuge is for naught. We see all.

  Something rough slithers past my ankles. Vines rise up out of the earth like giant, bark-encrusted snakes. They twist up around my legs, locking me into place. I try to draw my scims, but the vines bind the weapons to my back and coil around my shoulders, holding me fast.

  "Stop this. Sto--"

  The jinn shove their way into my mind, probing and turning and examining it, bringing their fire to places that were never meant to see the light.

  I push back at them, but to no avail. I am trapped in my own head, in my memories. I see myself as a babe again, looking up into the silver face of a woman whose long blonde hair is darkened with sweat. The Commandant's hands are bloody, her face flushed. Her body trembles, but when she touches my face, her fingers are gentle.

  "You look like him," she whispers. She doesn't look angry, though I always thought she would. Instead, she appears perplexed, almost bewildered.

  Then I'm watching myself as a young boy of four, wandering through Camp Saif, a thick jacket buttoned up to my chin against the chill winter night.

  While the other Tribal children have clustered around Mamie Rila to hear a terrifying tale about the King of No Name, I watch as young Elias walks to the rocky desert beyond the circle of wagons. The galaxy is a pale cloud across the onyx sky, the night bright enough for me to pick my way forward. From the west, a rhythmic thump draws close. A horse materializes on a nearby ridge.

  A woman dismounts, her gleaming armor flashing beneath heavy Tribal robes. A dozen blades glint from her chest and back. The wind whips at the hard, dry earth around her. In the glowing starlight, her blonde hair is the same silver as her face.

  This didn't happen, I think wildly. I don't remember it. She left me. She never came back.

  Keris Veturia drops to one knee but remains a few feet away, as if she doesn't want to scare me. She appears so young--I can scarcely fathom it is her.

  "What is your name?" At last, I recognize something about her--that hard voice, as cold and unfeeling as the land beneath our feet.

  "Ilyaas."

  "Ilyaas." The Commandant draws my name out, as if searching for its meaning. "Go back to the caravan, Ilyaas. Dark creatures walk the desert at night."

  I don't hear my response, because I am now in a room outfitted with nothing but a cot, a desk, and a wide fireplace. The arched windows and thick walls, along with the scent of salt, tell me I'm in Navium. Summer has come swiftly to the south, and heavy, warm air pours through the window. Despite that, a fire burns in the grate.

  Keris is older--older than she was when I last saw her months ago, just before she poisoned me. She lifts up her undershirt and examines what looks to be a bruise, though it is difficult to tell, since her skin is silver. I remember then that she stole the Blood Shrike's shirt of living metal, long ago. It has fused to her body as closely as her mask has fused to her face.

  Her ALWAYS VICTO tattoo is clearly visible beneath the silver of the shirt, except now it says ALWAYS VICTORI.

  As she feels out the bruise, I notice a strange object in the room, all the more unusual against the simplicity of the quarters. It's a crude clay sculpture of a mother holding a child. The Commandant studiously ignores it.

  She drops her shirt and puts her armor back on. As she stares into the mottled mirror, her gaze shifts to the statue. She watches it in the reflection, wary, as if it might come to life. Then she turns on her heel, snatches it up, and tosses it, almost casually, into the hearth fire. She calls through the closed door. Moments later, a slave enters.

  The Commandant nods at the burning sculpture. "You found it," she says. "Did you speak to anyone of it?" At the man's denial, the Commandant nods and beckons him closer.

  Don't do it, I want to tell him. Flee.

  My mother's hands blur as she breaks his neck. I wonder if he even felt it.

  "Let's keep it that way," she says to his slumped body, "shall we?"

  I blink, and I am back in the jinn grove. No vines drag me down to the Forest floor, and dawn paints the grove red and orange. Hours have passed.

  The jinn still scuttle through my mind. I fight back, shoving them out, pushing into their consciousness. Their surprise is palpable, and their guard drops for a moment. I feel their rage, their shock, a shared, deep pain--and a swiftly suppressed
panic. A furtiveness.

  Then I am cast out.

  "You're hiding something," I gasp. "You--"

  Look to your borders, Elias Veturius, the jinn snarl. See what we have wrought.

  An attack. I feel it as clearly as I'd feel an attack on my own body. But this assault doesn't come from outside the Forest. It comes from within.

  Go and see the horror of ghosts who break free of the Waiting Place. See your people ravaged. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.

  I curse, hearing the Augur's words from so long ago thrown back in my face. I windwalk to the southern border with a speed that would rival Shaeva's. When I arrive, thousands of ghosts cluster in one spot, pushing against the border with single-minded violence, almost feral with the desire to escape.

  I reach for Mauth, for the magic, but I might as well be grasping at air. The ghosts part as I make my way through them, their shrieking disappointment reverberating in my bones.

  The border appears whole, but spirits might still have escaped. I run my hands over the glowing gold wall, trying to find any weaknesses.

  Far in the distance, the red and blue of Tribe Nasur's wagons gleam in the morning light, the smoke of cook fires fading into a stormy sky. To my surprise, the encampment has grown--and moved closer to the Forest. I recognize the green-and-gold-draped wagons curved in a circle not far from the shore of the Duskan Sea. Tribe Nur--Afya's tribe--has joined Aubarit's.

  Why is Afya here? With the Martials so belligerent, the Tribes shouldn't congregate in one place. Afya's savvy enough to know that.

  "Banu al-Mauth?"

  Aubarit appears from a dip in the land just ahead.

  "Fakira." I step out of the Forest, my pulse still thundering in warning, though I sense nothing out of the ordinary. "Now isn't really a good--"

  "Elias bleeding Veturius!" I know the small woman who shoves past Aubarit by the fire in her eyes, for in every other way, she is unrecognizable. Her face is lined, and the kerchief that hides her usually impeccable braids cannot mask their disarray. Purple shadows nest beneath her eyes and I smell the sharp tang of sweat. "What the hells is going on?"

  "Zaldara!" Aubarit looks scandalized. "You will address him as the Banu--"

  "Do not call him that! His name is Elias Veturius. He is a foolish man, just like any other foolish man, and I suspect he is the reason Tribe Nur's ghosts are stuck--"