Page 57 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

“Shrike,” Faris says. “Listen to me—”

“Don’t say it,” I tell him. “Don’t youbleedingsay it, Faris Candelan.”

“We can’t both survive,” he says. His skin is blanched whiter than bone, body shuddering from loss of blood. “They’ll be here in seconds. But if I stay, I can give you the time to get away.”

“I’m hit too. I might not make it.” My head feels fuzzy, and the shouts are louder now. Too loud.

“You’ll make it. Go.”

“Captain Faris Candelan, I order you to get down into that tunnel,now—”

“I’m done,” he says. “I’ve got one good battle left in me. Let me fight it. The Empire needs its Shrike. It doesn’t need me.” His pale eyes bore into me, and I cannot speak.

No.No. I’ve known Faris since we were six, starving in Blackcliff’s culling pen. It’s Faris who could make Elias laugh in his darkest moods, who helped keep me sane when Marcus ordered us to hunt him. Faris who took me to Madam Heera’s for the first time and who protected my sister.Not Faris. Please, not Faris.

“I said, Iorder—” I do not finish. He grabs me by the straps on my armor and shoves me down the grate. I land heavily, knees buckling.

“Faris, youidiot—”

For a moment, his silhouette is all I see, backlit by dawn breaking above.

“It was an honor to serve by your side, Helene Aquilla,” he says. “Give mybest to Elias, if you see him. And for skies’ sake, put Harper out of his misery. Poor bastard deserves a roll in the hay after all you’ve put him through.”

I burst into wild laughter, my face wet with salt or blood, I know not which. The Karkauns bay like hounds, and Faris lifts his scim and shoves the grate closed with his boot. Blades clash, and I hear him roar a battle cry as he fights his last.

“Loyal to the end!”

I stumble toward a torch flickering just ahead. Where did it come from?Who bleeding cares. Get to it.Just as I reach it, the sounds of fighting above cease. I listen for long minutes, hoping the grate will move. Hoping my friend will appear.

But he doesn’t.

He’s dead. Bleeding hells. Faris is dead.Dead because of me, like my parents and sister and Cook and Demetrius and Leander and Tristas and Ennis, and I do not deserve to live when they all died.

Perhaps death will find me too, down here in the dark veins of a city that I should have saved.

But no. I cannot die. Too much is at stake. And too much has been lost already. The Karkauns will find their dead countrymen. They will find Faris. They will come after me.

The Empire needs its Shrike.The last thing I want to do is move, but I drag myself to my hands and knees. I hold my bleeding body and crawl, hoping to the skies that my friend did not just give his life for nothing.

XXIII:Laia

On the second day of my captivity, the jinn aims us south, and within hours, the Duskan Sea is lost to view. Soon, we are deep within the Tribal desert. Eerie rock formations rise into the sky, each a hundred wind-blasted shades of the sun. Purple rain clouds lay heavy on the horizon, and the freezing wind carries the sharp, almost medicinal smell of creosote.

Every few hours, the jinn ranges ahead on her mount. Before she goes, she reinforces the compulsion she’s already placed upon us by again demanding silence.

But on the morning of the third day, she forgets.

Most of the soldiers do not notice, and ride onward with dead eyes, bodies swaying to the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves. Only Mask Novius, riding beside me, jerks his head up as she leaves. A muscle pops on his jaw as he strains against the jinn woman’s control.

I watch him surreptitiously. His mask gleams in the dreary winter sunlight, and though he stares straight ahead, I sense he is aware of my every move.

Rehmat will not or cannot help me. I have no magic. I tried to contact Darin—to no avail. We travel at unnatural speeds. If I do not act soon, I will be in Aish—and the Nightbringer’s hands—by nightfall tomorrow. Skies only know what he will do with me. Not kill me, perhaps. But there are things worse than death. My mother’s fate as the Commandant’s slave taught me that.

Far ahead, the jinn is a distant silhouette on the horizon. With utmost care, I rest my left palm where Novius can see it.

Help, I trace slowly.I have a plan.

A minute passes. Then another.You will not set her free or aid in her escape.He cannot break free of the jinn. Perhaps I was a fool to think that any of us could.

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