Page 28 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

But Laia looks back at me with betrayal and pain in her eyes and I let the magic drain away. An unfamiliar emotion fills me.

Shame, I realize. Deep and gnawing.

XII:The Blood Shrike

The Soul Catcher guides us away from the edge of the forest to a muddy game trail. I glance at him, searching for vestiges of my friend Elias Veturius. But other than the hard lines of his body and the sharp planes of his face, there isn’t a shred of the boy I knew.

We stop in a small clearing, and he watches as Laia carefully removes the arrow and bandages my wound. At the crack of a branch behind me, I draw my scim.

“Just a squirrel,” the Soul Catcher says. “The soldiers won’t enter here. The ghosts would drive them mad.”

My neck prickles. I know there are ghosts here, but they are quiet, far different from the screeching demons that possessed my men at the gates of Antium.

“Why won’t they drive us mad?” It is the first Tas has spoken.

The Soul Catcher looks down at the boy, and his voice is gentler. “I don’t know,” he says. His brow is furrowed. It’s the look he’d get at Blackcliff when the Commandant would send us after a deserter, and he couldn’t settle on how he felt about it.

Forget about Blackcliff, Shrike. I have more important things to think about. Like getting the hells back to my nephew. Figuring out what my next steps are beyond crossing this wood for three weeks.

By the time I reach Delphinium, I will have been gone for two months. Skies know what I will find on my return.

When I mutter as much to Laia, she shakes her head.

“Not if he helps us.” She glances at the Soul Catcher. He hears. Hemight be some otherworldly servant of ghosts now, but he’s still tied to Laia, still a part of her song, whether he admits it or not.

“You’ll be through by dawn,” he says. “But stay close. The ghosts are not the only fey who walk the Waiting Place. There are older creatures that would seek to harm you.”

“The jinn,” Laia says. “Those the Nightbringer freed.”

The Soul Catcher gives her a brief, unreadable look. “Yes. One human might slip through the forest undetected by them. But a half dozen? They will know you are here soon enough.”

“Can’t you just—” Musa puts his hands around his throat and mimes choking—referring no doubt to how the Soul Catcher can steal away breath.

“I’d rather not.” The Soul Catcher’s voice is so cold that Musa, who lives and breathes impudence, is silent. “I will windwalk you across,” the Soul Catcher goes on. “But there are many of you, and it will take time. We will be pursued.”

“But the jinn were just rampaging across the Mariner countryside,” Darin says. “How—”

“Not all of them,” Musa says. “The Nightbringer takes only a few on his raids. But thousands were imprisoned. And they used to live here. Do they still?” Musa glances around warily. “Do you let them?”

“This was their home before it was mine.” The Soul Catcher tilts his head, and it’s another gesture I recognize. His instincts shout a warning at him.

“We’ve tarried too long. Child—” He reaches out a hand to Tas, whose face falls at the Soul Catcher’s aloofness.

I understand his grief. When Elias turned his back on me in Antium, Ididn’t realize what he had become. Not really. Even now, he looks the same as ever. He feels solid. Real.

But he’s put duty above all things. He’s put on the mask and set aside his humanity. Just like we were trained to do.

Tas takes the Soul Catcher’s hand and we form a chain, Tas holding on to Harper, then me, Musa, Darin, and Laia.

“Walk as you normally would,” the Soul Catcher says. “Close your eyes if you wish. But no matter what you see, do not let go of each other. Do not reach for a weapon. Do not try to fight.” He looks at me when he says this and I nod grudgingly. I know an order when I hear one.

Seconds later, we are flying, the trees blurring by faster than I thought possible. It feels as if I am on a boat tearing across a wild sea with the wind at my back. Naked branches whip past, a massive oak, a clearing of frosted grass, a lake, a family of foxes.

The smell of the ocean fades, and we are in the deep woods, the canopy so thick I cannot make out the evening sky. Beneath my feet, the underbrush is soft and springy. I don’t understand how the Soul Catcher can move us through such dense forest without knocking us all unconscious. But, as when he was a soldier fighting at my back, he does it with complete confidence. After an hour passes, I let myself relax.

Then Laia screams. Her hair has come loose from her braid, streaming out behind her. Beyond it, a half dozen shadows stir, each with eyes that blaze like tiny suns.

My stomach plunges, and I want my scim so badly that I nearly countermand the Soul Catcher’s order and pull away from Harper. Because for a second, I think one of the shadows ishim. The Nightbringer. The monsterwho demanded my mask from me, who engineered the hell rained down upon my people.

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