Page 100 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

A joke teeters on the tip of my tongue. Something about her trying to get my shirt off. I bite it back, my body jerking as she applies bloodroot to Umber’s slashes.

“Who did this?” Her jaw is clenched, and if Umber were to fight Laia right now, I’d bet my marks on the latter. “And why didn’t Mauth’s magic protect you?”

“I don’t know.” Skies, my head is spinning. Laia’s face blurs. “The magic’s weaker—”

“Because of you?” She glances at me. “Because you’re remembering who you were?”

I shake my head. “He’s weakening. Mauth. I need to talk to theZaldars—Afya—”

“You need to stay still. These are deep, Elias. I’ll have to sew them up.”

I don’t bother to correct the name. My strength wanes, and there are more important things to say. “We can’t go to Taib,” I tell her. “Keris is sending an army to Nur.”

“Afya and the otherZaldarsalready gave the order to evacuate Taib,” Laia says. “We’ll send Gibran ahead to warn Nur. How far out is the army?”

“Far enough that we can make it. But we need to break camp now. L-leave the wagons.” My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. “Anything and anyone unessential. Just—sew me up so I can give the order.”

“Someone else can give the order. It doesn’t always have to be you! It was stupid of you to go off alone.”

“Had to,” I mutter. “No one else. Nur cannot fall, Laia.” I grab her arm, but I do not know what I’m saying anymore. “If it falls, he’ll open the door to the Sea—”

The wagon creaks, and Shan appears. “Sorry.” He winces as he takes in my injuries. “But there’s someone here to see him—”

“Lookat him.” Laia puts a hand on her hip and stands. Shan backs up, alarmed. “He’s not talking toanyone.”

“Let me up,” I grumble, and Laia shoves me back to the bed, something that is both irritating and intriguing at once.

“Shut it, you,” she growls at me, eyes flashing. She turns back to Shan, but he has stepped away, and a strange, shifting figure stands in his place. Rowan Goldgale.

“You,” I say. “How did you find me?”

“Find you?” The efrit laughs, and it’s the deep hum of a dune shifting. “It was I who brought you here, Banu al-Mauth. Did you not feel the wind?”

And here I thought my instinct led me back. “Why would you help?”

“Because you need the efrits, Banu al-Mauth,” he says. Behind Rowan, outside the wagon, other figures take shape. One of water who I vaguely recognize as Siladh, lord of the sea efrits. Another that undulates like wind in a bottle. “And we need you,” Rowan says. “The time for our alliance has come, whether you wish it or not.”

XLI:The Blood Shrike

I do not muster up the courage to seek out Harper until evening, and by then, he has disappeared. An hour into my search, one of the Black Guards tells me he is in the baths, in the lower levels of the palace.

I make my way through a dozen hallways and down three staircases to arrive at a plain wood door that looks, at first glance, like an entrance to a broom closet. The bricks here are ancient, likely dating back to the Scholar Empire. It is one of the few places unspoiled by the Karkauns—probably because they didn’t much like bathing.

The hallway outside the bath is abandoned, the blue-fire torches burning low. Through a window at the end of the corridor, evening deepens to night.

It’s just a door, Shrike. Go through it. He’s probably not even there. You’ll clean up and leave.

But I can’t bring myself to go in. Instead I pace back and forth, wishing Laia wasn’t off with the bleeding Tribes, because she’d have useful advice. I wish Faris was here. He’d have been so thrilled for me that he’d have built me up like I was going into battle.

I wish I’d had more lovers. My first was a Mercator boy I met at a masquerade in Navium while on leave. He was handsome and seductive and far more experienced than I. I’d worn an ornate mask over my own—and I never took it off. My next was Demetrius—an ill-fated and dissatisfying tryst when we were in our second-to-last year at Blackcliff. It left us both uneasy. He wanted peace. I wanted Elias. Instead, we ended up with each other, week after week, until I finally ended it.

But I didn’t care about either of them. Not the way I care about Harper.

Admit it, you coward, I say to myself.The way youloveHarper.

How I have feared that word. Feared it more than Karkauns or Keris or jinn. But to think it now is strangely freeing. A knot inside me releases, as if some part of me is finally unfettered.

Go on, Shrike.

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