Page 142 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

Or they might not.

A scream turns my head, and I barely avoid a spear aimed at my heart. Shan knocks the attacker unconscious, and then he is swallowed up in the battle, and though I try to make my way toward him, the sheer mass of bodies is impossible to get through, even windwalking.

“Soul Catcher!”

Darin appears, panting and blood-streaked, Spiro at his back. “Where is Laia?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “She was on her way to the plateau—”

Darin glances over his shoulder toward the rocky promontory, but we cannot see anything from here.

“I know she doesn’t want us there.” He is frantic. “I promised I wouldn’t interfere. But everything feels wrong. There’s something coming—and she’s the only family I have left, Soul Catcher. I can’t just leave her alone.”

Laia feared he would do what older siblings do and put himself in danger to help her. I grab his shoulder, sensing his anguish—and his intent. “If you go after her, it might distract her. It’s the last thing she needs or wants, Darin. Please—”

My words are drowned out by the shriek of rock—Faaz hurling a giant boulder down upon the farthest reaches of our army. Keris’s forces roar in triumph as it digs a grave-deep runnel into the earth, taking out dozens of our soldiers with it.

The Martials and Scholars around Darin howl at the abrupt death of somany comrades, and attack Keris’s men with newfound strength, driving them back toward the edge of the escarpment. My battle rage rises, screaming at me to fight, to kill.War is your past. War is your present. War is your future. So Talis, the jinn, told me. And so it is. I give in to my wrath, my scims whipping through the men around me.

“Darin!” I call out, but he does not respond. Spiro Teluman is next to me, scanning the faces around him for his apprentice. But Darin has disappeared. Distantly, the Blood Shrike bellows orders, and Keris shouts in horrific triumph. The earth groans, a jinn-spawned temblor, and huge fissures open and swallow dozens of my troops. One of the catapults explodes as Faaz slings a boulder into it. Two more erupt in a roar of flame.

The air, already weighted with the cacophony of war, thickens, as if a thunderstorm is about to break.

Banu al-Mauth.

Mauth’s voice is so quiet, but it rings in my head like a bell.

Forgive me, Banu al-Mauth, he says.I have not the strength to stop him.

Oh bleeding, burning hells. A vision flashes in my head—Mauth’s foresight. A terrifying, hungry maw, spearing through Mauth’s barrier, erupting into the world.

“Mauth,” I whisper. “No.”

LX:The Blood Shrike

When I see Elias streaking for the woods where Laia disappeared, I know something is wrong.

I cannot go to him. I cannot even call out to him. Keris’s forces have killed half our bowmen, and Umber lights up our catapults with that damnable glaive of hers. All our attempts to stop the jinn have been met by their fey superiority. The Soul Catcher said the creatures have their limitations. He said they would grow weak as they poured their life forces into destroying us.

But if there is weakness, I do not see it. I only see our forces being annihilated, with no sign of Laia, no indication that she even still lives. The efrits fight valiantly—and fail, for they are no match for the jinn, fading sparks against screaming suns.

Wraiths pour from the Commandant’s ranks, and while her men shy back, ours do not. Scholars stand shoulder to shoulder with Martials and Tribespeople. A wave of wraiths is upon us, their infernal cold sending man after man to his knees. But I scream and swing my scims, lopping off their heads as if they are stalks of corn.

“Imperator Invictus!” My troops rally around me. “Imperator Invictus!”

But it’s not enough. There are too many wraiths, too many jinn, too many soldiers fighting for Keris.

Panic envelops me, the same terror I felt in Antium. The hopelessness of defeat, and the knowledge that nothing can be done to stop it.

You are all that holds back the darkness. Today, I will not be defeated. Today, I take vengeance for Antium. For Livia.

“Shrike!” Harper appears beside me, gasping, bleeding from too many wounds to count. I feel the urge to heal him. It is so powerful that his song is already on my lips. But I transform it into a demand.

“Where is she, Harper? This cannot end until she is destroyed.”

“Her standard is there—” Ahead of me, well past the catapults and near the escarpment, Keris’s banner snaps in the jinn-spawned wind. Near it, a man stands inches above those around him, white hair flying as he fights his daughter.

“She’s battling Quin,” I say. This is my best chance. I turn to Harper, catching his gaze. “You stay away,” I say. “She’ll use you against me. Do you understand? Stay away.”

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