“I thought you were different, Laia.” Tas shrugs off my cloak. “I thought you loved him. I thought you had hope.”

“Tas, I do—” But as I say it, I realize it’s not true. All has been dark for so long. To hope is a fool’s errand. “Elias as we knew him is gone.”

“Maybe.” Tas shrugs. “But I think that if you were the one who got chained up in the forest, Elias would never give up. If you had forgotten how much you loved him, he’d find a way to make you remember. He’d keep fighting until he brought you back.”

My face burns in shame as Tas returns to the cabin. I want to call out after him, You are only a child. You have no idea what you speak of.

But I do not. Because he is right.

* * *

???

The Soul Catcher wakes me at dawn with a hard tap to my shoulder. It is the first time he has touched me in months and so perfunctory that I wish he had woken me with a curse and a kick to the heels, as Cook used to.

“Time to leave.” He drops my pack—already buckled shut—by my head. The others are up and ready moments after me. Tas looks hopefully toward the stove, but it is cold and barren.

Just as well.

“You all right?” Darin lifts my pack as I pull on my boots. “That’s a dumb question, isn’t it?”

He looks so rueful that despite everything, I smile. “I am fine,” I say. “In a way I’m glad I saw him like this. I needed to be reminded that Elias is gone.”

It takes mere minutes to reach the border of the Waiting Place. Beyond the tree line, the land slopes down into gentle rolling hills, their yellowed grasses poking through old snow. The presence of the Empire settles over me like an iron mantle.

The Soul Catcher does not step beyond the trees. He holds something in his hand, examining it absently. My heart leaps when I realize what it is: my armlet. The one he made me months ago. The one I gave back to him.

He’s still in there somewhere, trying to escape.

“The jinn will sense your departure,” the Soul Catcher says, armlet still in hand. “By nightfall, they could come after you. Move swiftly. I do not wish to welcome any of you to the Waiting Place.”

He turns his back and a small hand reaches out to stop him.

“Elias,” Tas says. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

The Soul Catcher looks down at the boy, and I think of how he spoke to Tas after we escaped Kauf, by dropping to a knee so they were eye-to-eye.

“My name is Soul Catcher, child.”

I step forward to draw Tas away. But he holds tightly to the Soul Catcher.

“I’m Tas,” he says. “You gave me my name. In Sadhese, it means—”

“Swift,” the Soul Catcher says. “I remember.”

Then between one blink and the next, he is gone, leaving a heavy silence in his wake.

The Blood Shrike turns west. “There’s a garrison ten miles away,” she says. “We can get horses there, and replenish our supplies before heading to Delphinium.”

Everyone moves off behind her, even Tas, but I find myself lagging. My legs feel like lead, and every step is labored. What in the skies? When a glow blooms at the edge of my vision, relief floods me.

“I’d wondered where you went,” I say to Rehmat. “Is this you?” I gesture to my stubborn feet. “Can you stop it? I need to catch up with the others.”

“Your unwillingness to travel a road you should not travel has nothing to do with me,” Rehmat says. “The heart knows what it knows.”

“Well, I do not know what it knows, so please enlighten me.”

Rehmat does not say anything for a moment, but when it does, it is with a note of censure. I think of Pop’s face when Darin was being particularly obstinate.

“The fate of millions rises or falls with your strength, Laia of Serra,” Rehmat says. “You challenged the Nightbringer. You woke me. Together, we must stop him from the apocalypse he wishes to inflict upon the world. Such willful ignorance is beneath you. You do not wish to abandon Elias Veturius. Accept it.”

I feel suddenly exposed and cowardly. “I am not—I will fight the Nightbringer. I will destroy him and not because you tell me to. But Elias—the Soul Catcher—he has nothing to do with this.”

“He does and your heart knows it. Go against its wishes at your own peril.”

“My heart”—I draw myself up—“fell in love with a murderous jinn. It cannot be trusted.”

“Your heart is the only thing that can be trusted.” With that, the creature disappears and I stand there, ankle-deep in frozen grasses, my mind pulling me forward while my skies-forsaken heart yanks me back.

Darin, noticing that I’ve fallen behind, jogs to me. Skies, what will I say to him? How will I explain this?

“I can’t change your mind,” he says when he’s within earshot. “Can I?”

“You—” I sputter. “How did you—”

“You’re more like Mother than you’ll ever admit.”

“I cannot abandon him, Darin,” I say. “I have to at least try to break through.” The more I think about what I want to do, the more it makes sense. “I’ll head south. Months ago, a Tribal Kehanni tried to tell me of the Nightbringer. But wraiths killed her. The Nightbringer wanted his past hidden. Which means there must be something about him worth knowing—secrets, weaknesses—information I can use to destroy him. Maybe that Kehanni is not the only storyteller who knows the Nightbringer’s tale. Maybe there is another who will tell it.”

“Right, well, I’m coming with you.” Darin turns to hail the others, but I stop him.

“Our people need you,” I say. “They need Musa. They need a voice in the Emperor’s court. The Shrike means well, but the Empire is her first priority. Not the Scholars. Besides.” I look to the forest. “Talking to the Soul Catcher—getting through to him—it will be difficult enough. I do not want any distractions.”

Darin argues with me for several long minutes, and far ahead, the others stop to await us.

“Skies, but you’re stubborn, Laia,” he finally says, running a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “I hate this. But if you’re set on it, I won’t tell you what to do. Not that I ever could.” He digs around in his pack, pulling out a lumpy package.

“This was supposed to be a surprise for when we made it to Delphinium.” He offers it to me. “Don’t—” He stops me when I go to untie the twine. “Don’t open it,” he says. “Wait until you’re out on the road.”

I consider calling out to the others. But a nearby flash of wings tells me Musa will know about my decision in a moment anyway. Tas and Harper will understand. And while the Shrike’s friendship has been a pleasant surprise these past months, her first loyalty is to the Empire. The Empire would want Laia of Serra in Delphinium, sustaining an alliance between Scholars and Martials.

“Will you be all right?” I look up into my brother’s face, the first real stirrings of anxiety pulling at me.

But he flashes me Mother’s cavalier smile. “We fight less when we’re not in the same city. And I won’t miss you stealing my food or bossing me around like you’re my nan instead of a wittle cwicket—”

I bat him away, laughing as he pinches my cheeks like I’m an infant. “Oh, piss off—”

He pulls me into a hug, and I yelp when he lifts me up. “Be safe, little sister,” he says, and there is no laughter in his voice anymore. “It’s just us now.”

Part II

   The Reaping

XIV: The Nightbringer

As a young jinn, I drifted through the trees in awe of the silence and the sound, the light and the redolent earth. In my ignorance, I set the forest alight. But Mauth’s laughter was gentle, his instruction patient. He taught me to dance from shadow to flame, to step lightly so as not to disturb the small creatures with whom I shared the Waiting Place.

After I had learned the swell of the forest and the curves of the river, after I stalked with the wolves and rode the winds with the falcons, Mauth guided me to the border of the Waiting Place. Beyond, fires burned and stone clashed. The children of clay laughed and fought and stole life and brought it forth with joy and blood.

“What are they?” They mesmerized me. I could not look away.

They are your charges, Mauth said. Fragile, yes, but with spirits like the great old oaks, long-lived and strong. When their bodies are finished, those spirits must pass on. Many will do so without you. But others will require your aid.

“Where do they go?”

Onward, he said, to the other side. To a twilight sky and a peaceful shore.

“How do I care for them? How do I help them?”

You love them, he said.

The task seemed like a gift. For after a few minutes of watching them, I was half in love already.

Keris Veturia leaves Marinn with grain, leather, iron, and a treaty that includes the expulsion of every Scholar who walks the Free Lands. Though not their sale, much to her irritation. Still, after days of negotiations, it is a victory. She should feel satisfied.