Page 21 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

I only realize he has thrown me off the boat and into the bay when water slams into me like a gelid fist.

A memory rises in my head, Elias speaking to me in Serra when I told him I couldn’t swim.Remind me to remedy that when we have a few days.

I thrash my arms in a panic. I cannot feel my face. My legs slow, and my clothes drag at me, like hands pulling me down to welcome me to the depths of the sea.

Let go, I think.Let go and leave this battle to someone else. You’ll see your family again. You’ll see Elias again.

Let go.

A gold figure appears before me in the water, triggering a burst of memories. The room in Adisa. The Jaduna. The excruciating pain as athingrose out of my body. The Jaduna had a name for it.

Rehmat—a strange name, I think as the life leaves me. The Jaduna did not say what it meant. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.

“Hail, Laia, and listen well.” Rehmat’s words crack like a whip and my body jerks. “You will not let go. Fight, child.”

Whatever Rehmat is, it is used to being obeyed. I windmill my arms and legs toward the glow of the floating market. I wriggle and claw until my head breaks the surface.

A swell smacks me in the mouth, and I choke on seawater.

“There!” a voice calls out, and moments later, a pale hand yanks me onto our punt.

“Ten hells, Scholar,” the Blood Shrike says. “Can’t you swim?”

I do not have a chance to answer. Harper points to the quay where a platoon of Martials is launching longboats.

“More are coming, Shrike,” he says. “We have to get out of here.”

I hear a small shriek and catch a flash of wings as a scroll drops into the Blood Shrike’s lap from midair.

“Musa and Darin are waiting northwest of here,” she says after reading it. “Just beyond the floating market.”

“Hold on.” Avitas angles our vessel toward the thick of the market and we ram into a cluster of merchants, sending baskets, fish, rope, and people flying. Curses and shouts trail us as the Martials rain down flaming arrows, not caring who they hit.

“Come on, Laia!”

With the grace of gazelles, Avitas and the Shrike leap to another boat, and then another, making their way forward as confidently as if they are on solid ground.

But I am slowed by the chill of freezing air hitting wet clothing. I lurch forward like a drunken bear, barely clearing each deck.

The Blood Shrike turns back. With one stroke of her blade she relieves me of my cloak, a sodden, woolen weight. And thank the skies I’m wearing a chemise, because with two more cuts, my short jacket gapes open and the Shrike yanks it off.

Though my teeth slam into each other, I move more lightly. The Martials are behind us for now, but that will not last. Already I see a group of them circumventing the market, cutting off our escape.

“We can’t break their cordon.” Avitas comes to a halt on a dinghy piloted by a terrified Mariner boy. He dives into the water to escape us. The people of the floating market pole away swiftly, buyers and sellers alike trying to avoid the melee. We have nowhere to run.

“Shrike, you’ll have to swim beneath the cordon,” Avitas says. “Laia—if you can use your invisibility, I’ll distract them—”

The Shrike’s face blanches. “Absolutely not!”

As they argue, I reach for my power. But my magic evades me.The Nightbringer. That monster still lurks in the city, blocking me.

“Not so, Laia of Serra.” The glow manifests at my side this time, and it is so real that I’m stunned my companions cannot see it.

“Go away,” I hiss, feeling insane for talking to something invisible to everyone else.

“The Nightbringer weakened your powers early on,” Rehmat says. “That was before you woke me. You are stronger now. You can disappear. You can even hide those with you.”

The Blood Shrike whips out her bow and picks off our pursuers one by one. But there are too many.

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