Page 17 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

The images I saw months ago in the City of the Jinn assail me. Cain as a young Scholar king, greedy for power and magic. Cain demanding knowledge from the jinn ruler before he became the Nightbringer. Cain manipulating a kind-hearted, lovestruck jinn woman named Shaeva into betraying her people.

Shaeva, who passed the mantle of the Waiting Place on to me. Who was chained to a fate she didn’t deserve because of this man.

“Why didn’t you just let the jinn kill you?” I ask.

“Because they do not want to kill me,” Cain says. “Not yet. When jinn die, they speak prophecy.Thatis what they want from me.”

“You’re not a jinn.”

“I siphoned their power for a millennium, Soul Catcher.” The Augur glances back to the dark line of the forest. “The Nightbringer killed the other Augurs too swiftly to learn anything from their deaths. But he’s been saving me. If he hears what I have to say, it will be the end of all things. This I swear, by blood and by bone. Kill me, Elias, before he and his kin can hear the prophecy, before they can use me. Kill me and the world might yet endure.”

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“Body and soul!” Cain closes the distance between us and jerks my face close, until all I can see are the reds of his eyes. “Do you remember?True freedom—of body and of soul.”

“Lies,” I say. “Like everything else you told me.”

“Not lies, but hope,” he says. “Hope for the future. Hope for the Scholars, my people, whom I failed. And hope for you, Soul Catcher, even when you believe your fate is written. It is not, no matter what Mauth or the Nightbringer might tell you.”

That muted voice within pokes up its head.Fight, Soul Catcher, it says as I try to hush it.Fight.

In the distance, the forest glows orange. The jinn approach.

“Tell me about the dreams and the threat to the Waiting Place. And I’ll take you somewhere you’ll be safe from the jinn.”

“I do not want safety. The killing blow is my release, Elias Veturius. And yours. Swear you will deliver it, and you will have what you wish.”

“Keep your secrets, then.” There’s some trick here. Something he’s not saying. I try to shake him off, but he holds on like a lamprey. “I won’t kill you.”

“Remember I’d hoped to be gentle,” he whispers. “Remember that I tried, Elias, even as you curse my name. And tell them. You are my messenger here, at the end, and if you do not tell them, there will be no sky beyond the storm. No Waiting Place or ghosts or hope. Only suffering and pain.”

He grabs me, sinking his fingers into my scalp like he’s going to tunnel through my skull. I shout and try to pry him off. But though I’m six inches taller and four stones heavier, Cain holds me captive as easily as if I’m that six-year-old child being dragged off to Blackcliff.

“A gift from me to you, Elias,” he says. “A gift for all that I have taken. The girl with the gold eyes is Laia of Serra, heir of the Lioness. I burn her name into you, and no power on this earth shall root it out—” He flares with magic and a flood of memories explodes in my mind.

—The fire in her gaze the day I met her and—

—A dark night in the Tribal desert. WhisperingYou are my templeand—

—Her tears as she shoved a familiar armlet into my hands.Take this. I don’t want it—

“No.” I try to force Cain’s hands away. “Stop this.”

“The woman with the crown braid”—the Augur’s bloody gaze bores into me—“is Helene Aquilla, Blood Shrike and Hope of the Empire. I burn her name into you, and no power on this earth shall root it out—”

—Her hand reaching for me in the Blackcliff culling pens and—

—Her moonlit face in the steppes north of the Empire, smiling as the wind howled and—

—Let me go, Eliasas I fled Blackcliff—

“Cain, skies.” I shove him, but he won’t let go. Mauth’s magic pools inside me, a white-hot sizzle at my fingertips, screaming for release.

“Stop—bleeding, burning skies—” The words are strange in my mouth and I realize I haven’t sworn for months. “You mad old bastard!”

But Cain is resolute. He speaks, his words a cudgel over my head.

“The woman with your eyes is your mother, Keris Veturia, daughter of Quin and Karinna, teacher and executioner. I burn her name into you, and no power on this earth shall root it out—”

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