Page 128 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

But Grandfather pulls me into a bear hug, nearly breaking my ribs.

“I missed you, my boy,” he says, and my arms rise, for there is comfort in hugging one of the few people I know who is bigger than me. Stronger than me.

“I missed you too, Grandfather.”

“Right.” The Blood Shrike steps away from Mamie. Her face is stricken from whatever Mamie said to her, but she pulls herself together. “How do you plan to get nearly ten thousand troops, and their horses, wagons, and supplies, through that?” She nods to the gnarled forest.

“Getting through it isn’t the problem,” I say. “It’s what happens once we’re inside.” I look past her toward her massive supply train. “Did you bring the salt?”

“Wasn’t bleeding easy,” she says. “But we have a dozen carts’ worth.”

“Set extra sentries around it,” I tell her. “We’ll need every last bit.”

We reach the Waiting Place an hour later. Wary conversation dwindles to silence as we close in on the wall of trees. Low brush chokes the space between the trunks. I urge my skittish mount forward and bid the trees to open a path. The forest is reluctant, so I push harder.Mauth. This army is essential to my cause.

A shimmer in the wood and then, ever so slowly, it shifts. Where there was naught but a deer trail, there is now an earthen road, wide enough for ten wagons. When I attune myself to the map of the Waiting Place, all is as it usually is, just compressed, as if to make room for us.

For most of the day, we pass through the forest swiftly. I do not need to warn the army to be silent. The trees loom oppressively over the road, vinesshifting and twisting just out of sight, as if considering whether they should make a meal of a passing human.

The place has never felt emptier. I fear for Karinna for a time, worried the Nightbringer has taken her too, until I spot her flitting near a stream. She flees when she sees the approaching army. Laia, riding beside me, sees her too.

“Who was that?”

“No one,” I say quickly. But the Blood Shrike, on my other side, snorts in disbelief.

“It’s the ghost of my grandmother,” I relent. “Quin’s wife. He doesn’t know she’s here, and it needs to stay that way. Knowing would only cause him pain. Stay away from her, in any case. She’s very shy and she’s been through enough.”

The Shrike seems taken aback by my vehemence and draws Laia into conversation as Avitas Harper comes up on my right.

“Banu al-Mauth,” he says. “The supply train sergeant has requested that we slow down. Says the horses need a rest.”

I nod and give the order, and as the Mask snaps his reins to move past me, I think of all the questions I quelled when I first met him months ago. The questions Mauth washed from my mind. I call out.

“Do you—” I probably should have thought this through. “I don’t know anything about our father. And I thought if you did—of course, if you don’t wish to—”

“He looked like you,” Avitas says. “I was only four when he died. But I remember his face. Had green eyes, though. Like me. Skin much darker than the both of us. Closer to Musa’s. He had big hands and a laugh that carried through a village. He was good.” Avitas cocks his head and looks me dead in the eye. “Like you.”

Avitas’s words fill a part of me I didn’t know was empty. For years, I did not care to reflect upon my father. Quite suddenly, I want to know everything.

“Do you know why he came to Blackcliff to teach? Usually Centurions are older.”

“According to my mother, it was that or be discharged. He was bad at following orders apparently.”

I smile at that, and the conversation comes easy, after. We talk until evening approaches and the Shrike rides up to us.

“Are we going to stop and camp?” she asks. “Or do you two plan on gossiping all night?”

Later, as everyone beds down on the road, I reflect on the day. On how it felt to see the Shrike and Grandfather, and to talk to my brother. On how it felt to learn about my father.

I have deadened my emotions for so long that it is jarring to feel so much in so short a time.Emotion will not serve you well, Mauth said. But there are no ghosts to pass now. And I am tired—so tired of telling myself not to feel.

So the next day, instead of holding myself aloof or immersing myself in battle preparations, I find Shan. We laugh over the tricks he pulled to avoid getting married. Later I wheedle a story out of Mamie and talk with Grandfather. I seek out the Shrike, and we speak of Faris and Livia, of the Empire, the jinn, and the coming battle. For the first time in ages, the angry voice within is at peace.

And then there’s Laia. There are fewer words between us, yet our conversation never ends. She touches my arms or shoulders as she passes, and smiles when she watches me with my family. If she catches me gazing at her, she stares back, a promise and a question in her dark eyes. At night, she wanders through my dreams, and I wake from them aching with need.

Years ago, when I was a Fiver at Blackcliff, I was sent into the Nevennes on a spying mission. It was deep winter, and one morning, I woke to find the fire I’d kindled the night before had gone out. I had no more flint, so I hunched over a lone ember. The deep red glow at its core promised warmth, if I was willing to give it time and air. If I was patient enough to wait until it was ready to burn.

Laia is far more patient with me than I was with that ember. But I struggle to open up to her. Because if we survive all of what is to come, I will return to the Waiting Place. I will forget her.

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