A Reaper at the Gates

  You will know victory, or you will know death. I hear the Commandant whisper in my ear, an old memory. There is nothing else. It's always this way before I kill. Even when I was hunting Masks so Laia could free prisoners from ghost wagons--even then I struggled. Even then it took its toll. My foes will die, and they will take a bit of me with them.

  The field of battle is my temple.

  I draw close to the tent and find a fold that is hidden from anyone inside. Ever so slowly, I cut a slit. Five Masks, including the commander, sit around a table within, eating their meal and arguing about the coming battle.

  They will not expect me, but they are still Masks. I will need to move swiftly, before they raise the alarm. Which means first taking them out with the darts Afya gave me.

  The swordpoint is my priest.

  I must do this. I must cut off the head of this army. Doing so will give the Tribes a chance to run. These Masks would have killed my people, my family. They would have enslaved them and beaten them and destroyed them.

  The dance of death is my prayer.

  But even knowing what the Masks would have done, I do not wish to kill. I do not wish to belong to this world of blood and violence and vengeance. I do not wish to be a Mask.

  The killing blow is my release.

  My wishes do not matter. These men must die. The Tribes must be protected. And my humanity must be left behind. I step into the tent.

  And I unleash the Mask lurking within.

  XXXV: The Blood Shrike

  A week after Marcus's attack on Livvy, Harper finally emerges from the Hall of Records, where he has spent every waking moment since I gave him his mission.

  "The record archivists were preparing for a move," he says. "Bloodline certificates and birth records and family trees all over the place. Scholar slaves were trying to clean it up, but they can't read, so it was all a jumble."

  He places a stack of death certificates on my desk before collapsing into a chair across from me. "You were right. In the past twenty years, ten tattooists have died unnaturally in and around the cities where the Commandant was posted. One just recently, not far from Antium. The others lived everywhere from the Tribal lands to Delphinium. And I found something else."

  He hands me a list of names. There are thirteen, all Illustrian, all from well-known Gens. I recognize two--they were found dead just recently, here in Antium. I remember reading about them weeks ago, the day Marcus ordered me to Navium. Another name also stands out.

  "Daemon Cassius," I say. "Why do I know that name?"

  "He was murdered last year in Serra by Scholar's Resistance fighters. It happened a few weeks before the murder of a Serran tattooist. Every one of these Illustrians was murdered shortly before the local tattooists were. Different cities. Different methods. All within the last twenty years. All Masks."

  "I remember now," I say. "Cassius was at home when he was murdered. His wife found him in a locked room. Elias and I were in the middle of the Trials when it happened. I wondered how the hells a group of Scholar rebels could kill a Mask."

  "Titus Rufius," Harper reads. "Killed in a hunting accident at the age of thirty-two, nine years ago. Iustin Sergius, poisoned at twenty-five, apparently by a Scholar slave who confessed to the crime sixteen years ago. Caius Sissellius was thirty-eight. He drowned on his family's own grounds, in a river he'd been swimming in since before he could walk. That was three years ago."

  "Avitas, look at their ages." I examine the names carefully. "And they were Masks. Which means every one of these men graduated with her. She knew them."

  "They all died before they should have, many in unnatural ways. So why? Why did she kill them?"

  "They got in her way somehow," I say. "She was always ambitious. Maybe they were given postings she wanted, or they thwarted her somehow, or . . . oh . . . oh."

  I remember what Quin told me of Arius Harper: He was murdered by a group of Masks the day after they graduated--Keris's fellow Senior Skulls. A vicious killing--more than a dozen of them beat him to death. Illustrian, all of them.

  "It wasn't because they got in her way." I relate what Quin said. "It was vengeance. They beat Arius Harper to death." I look up from the scrolls. I wonder if his father had green eyes too. "Your father."

  Avitas is quiet for a long moment. "I . . . didn't know how he died."

  Bleeding hells. "I'm sorry," I say quickly. "I thought--oh skies, Avitas."

  "It doesn't matter." He seems to find the window of my office suddenly very interesting. "He's been gone a long time now. Why would it matter if they killed my father? The Commandant isn't the sentimental type."

  I am startled by how quickly he moves on, and I consider apologizing again or telling him that if he doesn't want the nature of his father's death made public, I understand. But then I realize that what he needs is for me to move on. To be the Blood Shrike. To let it go.

  "It's not sentiment," I say briskly, though I have my doubts. The Commandant did, after all, take Avitas under her wing--inasmuch as someone like her could. "It's power. She loved him. They killed him. They took her power. By murdering them, she's taking it back."

  "How do we use this against her?"

  "We get this information out to the Paters," I say. "They learn about the tattoo, the dead tattooists, Arius Harper, the murdered Illustrians--all of it."

  "We need proof."

  "We have it." I nod to the death certificates. "For anyone who cares to look. If we can get these certificates into the hands of just a few trusted Paters, the rest won't need to see them. Think of how she's handled what happened in Navium. It didn't matter that she lied. All that mattered is that people believed it."

  "We should start with Pater Sissellius and Pater Rufius," Harper says. "They're her closest allies. The other Paters trust them."

  For three days, Harper and I seed the rumors. And then, when I am in court listening to Marcus arguing with a Tribal envoy--

  "--Illustrians from her own year! Over a Plebeian! Can you imagine--"

  "But there's no proof--"

  "Not enough to jail her, but Sissellius saw the death certificates. The link is obvious. You know how that man loathes idle gossip. Besides, the proof is on her body--that vile tattoo--"

  After a few more days, I sense the change in the air. I feel the Paters distancing themselves from Keris. Some are even outright opposed to her. When she does return to Antium, she will find it a far less welcoming city than she expects.

  * * *

  Captain Alistar sends me a message letting me know he has information on the same day Dex returns to Antium, and I call them both to me in the training yard.

  "Keris will be here within the week." Dex is fresh from the road, splattered with mud, exhausted. But he spars with me anyway, keeping his helm low so that his lips cannot be read. It's nearly impossible to hear him over the clash of weapons and grunts of men training.

  "She knows you've spread the truth about the tattoo and the murders. She sent two assassins; I dispatched them before they could get here, but skies know what she'll do when she arrives. You'd best start cooking your food yourself. Farming your own grain too."

  "Did she ride straight for Antium?"

  "She stopped at the Roost," Dex says. "I followed her in, but her men nearly caught me. By then I thought it best to get back here. I'll check in with my spies--" Dex's gaze shifts over my shoulder, and he frowns.

  At the entrance to the barracks, across the training field, a group of Black Guards crowds together. I think at first that a fight has broken out. I hurry toward them, war hammer still in hand.

  One of the men calls out: "Get the bleeding physician!"

  "No point, that's karka snake venom--"

  They are clustered around a fellow guard who bucks as he vomits black bile onto the ground. I recognize him instantly: Captain Alistar.

  "Bleeding hells." I crouch down next to him. "Get the barracks physician. Get him now!"

  But the man could already be here and it
would be too late. The black bile, the red mottling around Alistar's nose and ears. It is karka snake venom. He's done for.

  Harper pushes through the crowd and kneels beside me. "Shrike, what--"

  "Nothing--" Alistar grabs the front of my fatigues with one hand and pulls me close. His voice is little more than a death rattle. "Nothing--no attacks--nothing--Shrike--they're nowhere--"

  His grip goes slack, and he slumps to the ground, dead.

  Burning skies. "As you were," I say to the men. "Go on." The men scatter, except for Dex and Harper, who stare down in horror at the dead soldier.

  I lean down and wrest a pile of papers from Alistar's stiff hand. I expect it to be information on Corporal Favrus. Instead I find reports from the garrisons across the north--straight from the garrison commanders.

  "The Karkauns have disappeared." Harper, reading over my shoulder, sounds as mystified as I feel. "Not a single attack near Tiborum. Nothing in the deep north, not for months. Corporal Favrus lied. The Karkauns were quiet."

  "The Karkauns are never quiet," I say. "This time last year, they were conquering the Wildmen clans. We stopped them in Tiborum. We stopped them in Navium. They lost their fleet. There's a bleeding famine in their southern territories, and a warlock priest whipping them into righteous fury. They should be harassing every village from here to the sea."

  "Look at this, Shrike." Harper has searched Alistar's body, and he pulls out another scroll. "He must have found it in Favrus's things," Harper says. "It's in code."

  "Break the code," I snap. Something is wrong--very wrong. "Find me Favrus. Alistar's death can't be a coincidence. The corporal is involved. Get messages to the northwestern garrisons. Have them send scouts to check in on the closest Karkaun clans. Find out where they are, what they are doing. I want answers by nightfall, Harper. If those bastards are planning an assault on Tiborum, the city may fall. It might already be too late. Dex . . ."

  My old friend sighs, already knowing that he's about to head back on the road.

  "Head north," I say. "Check the passes around the Nevennes. They might be pushing for Delphinium. They won't have enough men to hold it, but that doesn't mean they're not stupid enough to try."

  "I'll send a message through the drums as soon as I know anything, Shrike."

  By nightfall, we've had word from even the most far-flung of the western garrisons. The Karkauns have completely abandoned their camps in the west. Their caves are empty, their grazing animals gone, their few fields and gardens are fallow. They can't possibly be planning an attack on Tiborum.

  Which means they are gathering elsewhere. But where? And to what end?

  XXXVI: Laia

  Musa offers no explanation as we leave the palace, the only sign of his frustration the swift clip of his stride.

  "Excuse me." I poke him in the ribs as he winds through streets unfamiliar to me. "Your Highness--"

  "Not now," he grinds out. As much as I want to question him, we have a bigger problem, which is how the hells we're going to get rid of Captain Eleiba. The Mariner spoke briefly to the king before escorting us from the throne room and hasn't been more than a foot away from us since. When Musa enters a neighborhood where the houses are densely packed, I prepare to pull on my invisibility, expecting him to attack our chaperone. But instead, he just stops in an alley. "Well?" he says.

  Eleiba clears her throat and turns to me. "His Royal Highness King Irmand thanks you for your warning, Laia, and wishes to assure you that he does not take lightly the interference of the fey creatures in his domain. He accepts Darin of Serra's offer for weapons and vows that he will provide shelter for the Scholars in the city until more permanent accommodations can be made. And he wishes you to have this." Eleiba places in my hand a silver signet ring emblazoned with a trident. "Show it to any Mariner, and they are honor bound to aid you."

  Musa smiles. "I knew you'd get to him."

  "But, the crown princess, she--"

  "King Irmand has been ruler in Marinn for sixty years," Eleiba says. "Princess Nikla . . . was not always as she is now. The king has no other heir, and he does not wish to undermine her by disagreeing with her outright. But he knows what is best for his people."

  All I can manage is a nod. "Good luck, Laia of Serra," Eleiba says quietly. "Perhaps we will meet again."

  "Prepare your city." I say it before I lose my courage. Eleiba raises perfectly arched brows, and I rush on, feeling like an idiot for giving advice to a woman twenty years older and far wiser than I am. "You're the captain of the guard. You have power. Please do what you can. And if you have friends elsewhere in the Free Lands who can do the same, tell them."

  When she is long gone, Musa answers my unspoken question. "Nikla and I eloped ten years ago," he says. "We were only a little older than you, but much more foolish. She had an older brother who was supposed to be king. But he died, she was named crown princess, and we grew apart."

  I wince at the perfunctory nature of his recitation, a decade of history in four sentences.

  "I didn't mention it before because there was no point. We've been separated for years. She took my lands, my titles, my fortune--"

  "Your heart."

  Musa's harsh laugh echoes off the hard stone of the buildings on either side of us.

  "That too," he says. "You should change and get your things. Say goodbye to Darin. I'll meet you at the east gate with supplies and information about my contact."

  He must see that I'm about to try to offer him a word of comfort, for he melts into the dark quickly. A half hour later, I've gathered my hair in a fat plait and returned the dress to Musa's quarters at the forge. Darin sits with Taure and Zella in the courtyard, stoking a low fire while the two women pack clay onto the edges of a sword.

  He glances up when I appear and, spotting my packed bag, excuses himself.

  "I'll be ready in an hour," he says after I tell him of my audience with the king. "Best tell Musa to make it two horses."

  "The Scholars need you, Darin. And now the Mariners need you too."

  Darin's shoulders stiffen. "I agreed to make weapons for the Mariners before I realized you'd be leaving so soon. They can wait. I won't stay behind."

  "You have to," I say. "I must try to stop the Nightbringer. But if I fail, our people need to be able to fight. What is the point of all you suffered--all we suffered--if we don't even give our people a chance in battle?"

  "Where you go, I go," Darin says quietly. "That was the promise we made."

  "Is that promise worth more than the future of our people?"

  "You sound like Mother."

  "You say that like it's a bad thing."

  "It is a bad thing. She put the Resistance--her people--ahead of everything: her husband, her children, herself. If you knew--"

  My neck prickles. "If I knew what--"

  He sighs. "Nothing."

  "No," I say. "You've done this before. I know Mother wasn't perfect. And I heard . . . rumors when I was out in the city. But she wasn't what Princess Nikla made her out to be. She wasn't a monster."

  Darin tosses his apron on an anvil and begins throwing tools in a sack, stubbornly refusing to talk about Mother. "You'll need someone to watch your back, Laia. Afya isn't there to do it and neither is Elias. Who better than your brother?"

  "You heard Musa. He has someone who will help me."

  "Do you know who? Has he given you a name? How do you know you can trust that person?"

  "I don't, but I trust Musa."

  "Why? You barely know him, like you barely knew Keenan--excuse me, the Nightbringer. Like you barely knew Mazen--"

  "I was wrong about them." My ire rises, but I quash it; he is angry because he is scared, and I know that feeling well. "But I don't think I'm wrong about Musa. He's frustrating, and he gets on my nerves, but he's been honest. And he--we both--we have the magic, Darin. There's no one else I can even talk to about it."

  "You could talk to me."

  "After Kauf, I was barely able to talk to you a
bout breakfast, let alone magic." I hate this. I hate fighting with him. Part of me wants to give in. Let him join me. I will be less lonely, I will feel less afraid.

  Your fear doesn't matter, Laia, nor your loneliness. The Scholars' survival is what matters.

  "If something happens to me," I say, "who will speak for the Scholars? Who knows the truth about the Nightbringer's plan? Who will ensure that the Mariners prepare, no matter the consequence?"

  "Bleeding hells, Laia, stop." Darin never raises his voice, and I am surprised enough that I waver. "I'm coming with you. That's it."

  I sigh, because I hoped it wouldn't come to this, and yet I suspected it might. My brother, stubborn as the sun. Now I know why Elias left a note all those months ago when he disappeared, instead of saying goodbye. It's not because he didn't care. It's because he cared too much.

  "I'll just disappear," I say. "You won't be able to follow me."

  Darin glares at me in disgusted disbelief. "You wouldn't do that."

  "I would if I thought it would keep you from coming after me."

  "You just expect me to be all right with this," Darin says. "To watch you leave, knowing that the only family I have left is risking herself again--"

  "That's rich! What did you do, meeting with Spiro for all those months? If anyone should understand this, Darin, it's you." My anger takes hold now, the words pouring like poison from my mouth. Don't say it, Laia. Don't. But I do. I cannot stop. "The raid happened because of you. Nan and Pop died because of you. I went to Blackcliff for you. I got this"--I yank my collar back to reveal the Commandant's K--"because of you. And I traveled halfway across the bleeding world, lost one of the only true friends I've ever had, and saw the man I love get chained to some hellish underworld because of you. So don't talk to me about risking myself. Don't you bleeding dare."

  I didn't know how much was locked up inside me until I began shouting it. And now my rage is full-throated and throbbing, tearing out of me.

  "You stay here," I snap at him. "You make weapons. And you give us a fighting chance. You owe that to Nan and Pop and Izzi and Elias and me. Don't think I'll bleeding forget it!"

  Darin's mouth hangs open, and I stride out, slamming the forge door behind me. My anger carries me away from the shipyard and up into the city, and when I am halfway to the western gate, Musa falls into step beside me.