Page 123 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

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Avitas is asleep when I wake. The sky outside his window is littered with stars. I let myself appreciate their beauty. I pretend that I do not have to decide the fate of thousands of people. I am just a normal woman, in bed with my lover. Am I a soldier? No. Something completely different. I am a baker. I am safe. The world is safe. I will rise, put on my clothes, and go bake bread.

And that is why you must rise. To protect all the lovers and bakers, the mothers and fathers, the sons and daughters.

I have a decision to make. This far north, winter’s grip is still tight, and if the army is to go, then we must leave today. I feel a cold snap coming, and would not have the river freeze and delay us.

But I still do not know what to do. So I leave my armor and slip out to walk the city, as I always did when I was troubled.

The streets outside the palace are dark and empty, but when I am nearly to the gates, a step sounds behind me. Harper—staying close, for he is my second, and that is his duty. A moment later, wings flutter near my face—Musa’s way of reminding me that I have a promise to keep.

Think, Shrike.What does the Commandant want? To rule. Not just over the Empire, but over the Tribes, Marinn, even the Southern Lands. Why then would she leave her Empire vulnerable to me? Why would she want me to sail south?

Because she’d know exactly where I am. She’d be keeping me occupied, so that she could—what? Claim Antium or Delphinium? No—we’ve already confirmed that there are no armies lurking, waiting to attack.

The sky brightens, the sun still tucked behind thick clouds, and a heavy snow falls. The orchards I pass through are bare, but this is winter’s last vicious assault before bowing to spring. Soon, the trees will bud. Within a month, they will bloom, and winter’s chill will be a memory.

The bells toll seven. The snow falls thicker. I must return. Hear what Musa has to say. Give the order to move out before the river freezes.

But I keep walking. Because I do not yet have my answer. The orchards are long past and I move now into the open land beyond the capital, some instinct drawing me farther from the city.

“Shrike,” Harper says. “We should—

“I’m missing something,” I say. “And I’m not going back until I know what it is. I will not let her fool me, Harper. Never again.”

Now I move urgently, and an old feeling steals over me—the desire to heal. To help.

“Harper.” I unsheathe my blades. “Someone’s out here.”

Against the unending stretch of white, something moves. No. Many things—and at speed.

“What in the ten burning hells?” Harper says.

“Wraiths,” I say. “A half dozen. Chasing down—”

But I cannot make sense of the shimmer they are chasing. I only know that if it’s running from the wraiths, then we share a common enemy.

“You have to behead them,” I tell Harper, but he’s already chargedforward, his scim flashing as he slices through one of the wraiths. It screams, and the sound is followed by another.

Then they are upon me, their spectral hands reaching out. One closes its fingers on my throat, and cold lances into me.

“Not today,” I snarl at it before wrenching away and slicing off its head. The last two rush me, but they are sloppy—panicked. Their screams still linger in my ears when I turn to the shimmer in the air, which is not a shimmer at all, but a cloud of glittering sand, roughly man-shaped and clearly in distress.

“Peace, Blood Shrike,” the efrit whispers, and though I feel as though Imustheal it, I realize that I cannot sing for it. Sand efrits hate songs.

“I bring a message,” it says. “From Laia of Serra. A message Keris did not wish you to hear.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“Laia said you should ask this question of me: What were Marcus Farrar’s last words?”

Laia is the only person with whom I shared that detail, one night a few months ago, when neither of us could sleep.

“Very well,” I say. “What were Marcus Farrar’s last words?”

“‘Please, Shrike.’ Satisfied?” At my nod, the efrit goes on. “The Nightbringer sought to draw the Soul Catcher’s army to Marinn. Instead, the Soul Catcher moves his forces toward the City of the Jinn, in the Waiting Place. There, they hope to lure the Nightbringer and finish him for good. But—but—” The efrit’s breathing grows labored. It has seconds, if that. “They cannot do it alone.”

“I can’t possibly march an army—”

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