But the Commandant holds a squirming Zacharias in her arms—and I understand now why Livia was frozen in fear. When I leap toward the Bitch of Blackcliff, she throws Zacharias at me. My nephew howls as he flies through the air and I drop my scim to catch him, stumbling.

It is a delay of only seconds. But it’s enough for the Commandant to escape out the window. I am at the sill in three steps, in time to see a swirl of cloak and the glare of two sun eyes.

Then the Nightbringer and his minion are gone, disappearing on the back of a screaming wind.

Livvy moans, and I am at her side, her son wailing in my arms as she bleeds out. The guards, including Rallius, burst into the room, going silent when they see the Empress Regent fallen.

I hold up a hand so they don’t speak. I do not have much time. The desire to heal overwhelms me. I close my eyes and search for her song. It comes to my lips immediately, but as I hum, Livia scrabbles at me with her hand. It is slick with blood, but I hold it tight.

I keep singing, but Livvy’s face is bone-white. The need to heal fades as it never has before. Zacharias reaches out to her, crying, no doubt wondering why Auntie Shrike holds him so tight.

“Don’t leave us,” I whisper to her, because I understand now that she’s too far gone. That I cannot heal this. “Livia, please don’t leave us alone.”

Her blue eyes drop from mine to her son’s. She smiles at him and touches his small fingers with her own. His cries fade into whimpers.

Then her hand goes slack, and my baby sister, my Livvy, closes her eyes and does not open them again.

XLV: Laia

I drift in and out of consciousness for days after stealing the scythe. By the time the Tribes take shelter in a canyon a hundred miles north of Nur, I am able to stay awake for longer stretches. But my recovery is slow. I am like a cat with no whiskers, unable to walk ten yards without lurching.

All I want is to remain in Mamie Rila’s wagon, nursing my aching head. Unfortunately for me, Rehmat is not one for brooding. A week after I face off with the Nightbringer, when Mamie leaves the wagon to prepare dinner, the jinn queen appears.

“You think you can simply cut the Nightbringer’s throat.” Rehmat hovers on the opposite end of the wagon, keeping her distance from the scythe—which has not left my side. “But he will be ready for that. You must surprise him. Outwit him. And for that, you need his story.”

“I believe you.” I curl into the knit blanket Mamie gave me. “I’m the one who wanted his story in the first place. But we have to fight a war, Rehmat. Can you at least tell me how his story will help us win?”

“War is like the sun. It burns away all the softness and leaves only the cracks. The Nightbringer has been at war for a long time. Learning his story will teach us his weaknesses. It will help us exploit the cracks.”

I hoped for something more specific. “You know his weaknesses,” I say, frustration taking hold. “But you won’t tell me what they are.”

“The magic will not allow—”

“But have you tried?” I ask. “Tell me something small about your life with him. Anything.”

“He and I—we—” Rehmat’s gold form flickers. “We were—” Her voice chokes off and she screams—a bloodcurdling sound. Her color fades so rapidly that I think she will disappear entirely.

“Stop!” I stand. “Forget it—”

The jinn queen is a pale shadow now, her vitality leached away by the magic that binds her. “I told you,” she whispers. “The blood magic will not allow me to speak of my life with him. You must ask the Kehanni.”

A few minutes later, Mamie Rila spots me emerging from her wagon. She glares at me from where she is stirring a pot of squash stew and brandishes her spoon.

“Get back into bed, child. You’re still recovering—”

The fire makes her shadow massive on the canyon wall behind her. Shan looks up from the stone where he’s rolling out flatbread and grins.

“Says the woman who was driving our wagon the day after leaving a Martial interrogation.”

I wince as I sit on the earth beside Mamie, head throbbing, body shivering from the sound of Rehmat’s scream. The scythe is slung in a sheath across my back, unwieldy, but too precious to leave unattended.

All along the canyon, fires have sprung up. Their glow is cleverly hidden beneath overhangs and vented tarps. The scent of roasting leeks and buttered flatbread has my mouth watering.

“I thought you might want company,” I tell Mamie. “And I’m—a bit lonely.”

The Kehanni’s face softens, and she hands me the spoon so I can stir the stew as she sprinkles a pinch of cinnamon into it, followed by a handful of dried cilantro. The omnipresent desert wind whistles down the canyon, muting the quiet talk of thousands of people, and the fires spark and dance. Efrits walk beside Tribespeople. High above on the canyon’s rim, guards patrol.

“Mamie,” I begin. “I was wondering—”

Horses’ hooves sound behind me, and I turn to see Afya and her little brother, Gibran, dismounting near their own caravan.

“Anything?” I call out to the Zaldara, but she shakes her head.

“Not so much as a forgotten shoe,” she says. “Rowan was with us for most of the trip.” She nods to the sand efrit, drifting to a group of his kin who have gathered on one side of the canyon. “He sensed no magic. They’re gone.”

Mamie ladles out a bowl of squash stew for me and another for Afya. When the latter protests, the Kehanni gives her a dark look, and she sits.

Gibran drops beside his sister, lured by the scent of stew as well as the fluffy stack of flatbread Shan has produced. “They might be headed for Taib,” he says. “Though by now, they should know it’s empty.”

“At least we have time to recover,” I say. “And to plan our next move.”

“A bit hard to do that when our general is missing,” Afya mutters. Mamie gives her a sharp look, but I do not blame the Zaldara for her irritation. Elias’s disappearance sent ripples of unease through the Tribes, even when Afya told them of his assurances that he’d return.

“He’ll be back,” I say. “Nur was a small victory in a greater war, and he has a stake in it. Mamie”—I turn to her now—“how goes the story-hunting?”

“It is slow,” the Kehanni says between bites of stew. “Our stories have two qualities. Sechei and Diladhardha.”

“Truth . . . and—” My Sadhese is limited, and I shake my head.

“Diladhardha means ‘to know the heart of pain,’” Mamie says. “We seek truth, Laia. And when we find it, we must approach it with empathy. We must understand the creatures, fey or human, who populate our tales. Respect them. Love them, despite the villainous things they do. We must see them. Else how will our stories echo in the hearts of those who hear them? How will the stories survive beyond one telling?”

The Zaldara and Gibran listen, rapt, and even Shan, who has lived with the Kehanni his whole life, stares at her with his spoon frozen halfway to his mouth.

“Sechei and Diladhardha are the first steps to hunting a story. When you have attained them, then a story might be coaxed from the shadows. I have heard many tales of the Nightbringer. But none that will allow me to understand him or love him or respect him. I know him only as a creature of great evil. I fear loving him. I fear respecting him. I fear if I do, I will lose myself.”

“Such stories are dragons drawn from a deep well in a dark place,” I murmur.

“Where did you hear that?” Mamie asks.

“The Kehanni of Tribe Sulud,” I say. “She knew the Nightbringer’s story. But wraiths killed her before she could tell me.”

Mamie’s food is forgotten, and she looks at me intently. “Do you remember anything else of what she told you? Any hint at all as to what the story could be about?”

“She didn’t really—” I stop then and consider. “She spoke of his name. She said the story she told would be about his name. About how—how important it is.”

“His name,” Mamie considers. “The Meherya, you said. And it means . . .”

“Beloved.” Even thinking the word makes me sad. But Mamie shakes her head.

“It is not enough,” she says.

“You couldn’t help, could you?” I mutter to Rehmat. But she doesn’t respond.

A sharp call sounds from the northern end of the canyon, followed by the chilling rasp of dozens of scims being drawn at once.

Mamie is already kicking sand over the fire and shooing me toward her wagon. Afya sprints for her horse, Gibran following. Then Afya calls out.

“Laia,” she says. “Wait, look!”

She peers down the canyon, and I can see the glimmer of Martial armor now, and what appear to be about two dozen soldiers.

But it is not the soldiers who have my attention. It is the brown-skinned, lanky figure who rides with them, sandy hair blowing in the desert wind.

“Darin?”

I’m too far away for him to see, but I limp through the camp toward him now, until I can make out his face. He spots me and dismounts, a giant smile on his face.

“Laia!”