Page 48 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

“Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi. Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi.”Dex never found a translation—though he did share far too much about the Karkauns’ chilling blood rites.

“Break the window,” Faris whispers. “We don’t have a choice, Shrike.”

I nod and wait long moments for the third bell. When it rings out, I wrap my hand in my cloak and punch through the window.

The glass shattering is the loudest sound I have ever heard, even with the bells. I wait for a warning cry, but it does not come. The only sound is that infernal chanting.

When I’m certain no one has heard us, I shimmy through the window and into a dirty room with stains on the walls and a sagging bed.

“Come on—” I hiss at Faris and Septimus, but the window is too small for them.

“Back door,” I whisper. “I’ll unlock it.”

“Shrike,” Faris hisses. “This isn’t the plan.”

But I’m already through the room and in the hallway beyond, slipping along the darkened corridor. I unlock the door Faris and Septimus will use and move past a refuse-strewn staircase.

“Sh-Shrike.”

I jump at the whisper, and scan the darkness to see a figure hunched against the side of the stairwell. Heera. Her hands rest limply on either side, each in a bowl filled with liquid.

Blood for the Karkauns’ rites.

I am at her side instantly. “It’s okay, Heera.” I glance behind me, my nerves screaming a warning. She’s the madam of the house, the woman who can procure their pleasure for them. The Karkauns would not kill her unless they wanted her—or her body—to be a message.

“He knows, Shrike,” Heera whispers. “Grímarr. He knows you’ve come to kill him. He wants you. Your blood. Your bones. He’s—he’s waiting—”

If she says more, I don’t hear it. To my right, from behind a closed door, a board creaks.

Then the door bursts open, and an army of Karkauns pours out.

XX:Laia

The jinn is hooded and cloaked, but I can tell it is not the Nightbringer. The air around the creature is not curdled or twisted. The humans who ride with it do not cringe away.

My mind races. Nothing blocks their line of sight and the sun rises from the sea at my back. A shout of alarm confirms that they have seen me. Skies only know how they found me.

Rehmat’s voice sounds from beside me, though the creature does not manifest. “Why do you stand there like a moonstruck doe, child?” it demands. “If they catch you, they will kill you.”

“They are in bow range. If they wanted me dead, they’d shoot me.” I consider the advancing soldiers, and though my courage falters when I spot the silver glitter of a Mask, I remind myself that if I need to disappear, I can. “What if I let them catch me? There’s a jinn with them. I could trick it into giving me information about the Nightbringer.”

“You cannot trick a jinn.” I hear a long sniff. “And I smell devilry in the air.”

“I need to learn about the Nightbringer,” I say. “What better way than from his kin?”

“I cannot help you if you are with the jinn,” Rehmat warns me. “I cannot be discovered.”

Rehmat hasn’t mentioned this before. “What happens if they discover you?”

But the soldiers crest the rise of a nearby hill and thunder toward me. The jinn, cloaked and hooded with her face in shadow, leads.

If I just stand here, she will realize something is amiss. So I run. TheNightbringer has likely told the jinn I cannot use my invisibility around their kind. If she tries to kill me, or if I fail to get information from her, I can simply disappear. The Tribal lands are not far, and there are plenty of gullies and gulches to hide in.

I call on my magic and then let it falter, as if it is beyond me. The jinn surges forward eagerly—my deception worked. As the soldiers close in, I turn west, toward the grassy foothills that slowly flatten into the Tribal desert.

“Spread out!” The jinn’s voice is as crisp as the first breeze of winter, and instantly, the soldiers obey. “Do not let her past.”

I drop low to the ground, do my best to look terrified, and make a run for it. A blast of heat singes my back and a burning hand closes on my arm, tighter than a Martial torture cuff.

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