Page 69 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

“We’ve made two hundred since you left for Antium,” he says. “No beauty to them, but they won’t break.”

Spiro joins us, wiping melted snow off his shaved head with a rag. “The work goes more swiftly now,” he says. “You look better, Shrike.”

“I’m alive because of you.” I offer him my hand. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Get your men to wear the armor I’ve been forging for the past year.” He pulls me to the side as Darin and Musa converse. “The Empress Regent had it carted here at my request. But your soldiers say it’s unnatural.”

I have a vague memory of a glowing helmet. While Scholars attempt to find logical excuses for the supernatural, Martials are wary of it. It’s why I hid my healing powers for so long. I had no wish to be killed for practicing witchery.

“Unnatural,” I say. “Is it?”

“The Augurs taught me to make the armor. It will help our fighters blend in with the darkness. It will turn away arrows. It’s resistant to fire. And it loses that glow as soon as it’s put on.”

I regard the smith thoughtfully. “I don’t remember much about the journey out. But I do remember you saying you’d been waiting for me.”

He turns to a scim awaiting polish. “The Augurs warned me you’d come,” he says. “Told me much depended on me working in that damned cave, making armor until you showed up. I was starting to think they were crazy.”

“Why you? And...” I glance at Darin. “Why him? You knew the risksin taking him on. In sharing our secrets. It’s a miracle you weren’t both executed.”

“The secrets never should have been ours alone.” Teluman’s voice is harsh, and he glares down at the scim. “I had a sister,” he says after a moment. “Isadora. When she was sixteen, she fell in love with a Scholar girl. They were discovered together by an Illustrian who had been courting Isa.”

“Oh,” I say. “Oh no.”

“I tried to get her to Marinn, where she could love who she wished. I failed. The Empire used one of my blades to execute her. Or so they told me. They didn’t let me see her, before the end.”

His look of self-loathing is as familiar to me as my own face. “Do you know how many blades I made for them before Isa died, Shrike?” he says. “Do you know how many were used to kill innocents? But it wasn’t until it affected my family that I finally did something. That fact will haunt me until I die.”

“What happened to the Scholar girl?”

“I found her. Put her on a ship south. She lives in Ankana. Writes to me sometimes. Anyway, I met him a few months after.” Spiro nods to Darin. “Curious, just like Isa. An artist like her. Full of questions like her. And he told me he had a little sister.”

The smith gives me a level stare, snow dusting his many piercings. “I waited for you because the Augurs said you’d set things right. That you’d help to forge a new world. I will hold you to that, Shrike. I’m done siding with tyrants.”

“Shrike.” Darin interrupts us, a furrow between his brows. “Musa says one of his wights just returned from the Tribal desert. Aish has fallen to Keris. No one’s seen Laia. She’s been missing for days.”

“Missing?” Worry gnaws at me, and I turn to Musa. “I thought you had eyes everywhere.”

“I do,” Musa says. “The wights can’t find her.”

“Which means I need to,” Darin says. “I know we need weapons for the Scholars, but she’s my sister, Shrike.”

I cannot lose him now. We need his smithing skills—not to mention the fact that if he leaves and Keris gets to him, Laia will murder me. “Darin, give me until after we take Antium—”

“What if something’s happened to her?”

“Your sister,” I say, “is tough. Tougher than you. As tough as me. Wherever she is, she will be all right. I’ll have my spies in the south keep an eye out for her.”

As it happens, I already sent Laia a message, asking her to tell the Tribes that we’ll offer support in their fight against Keris if they swear fealty to Zacharias. “When I get word of her—and I will get word of her—I promise, I’ll let you know.”

The Scholar is about to protest again, but if I have to argue further, I might lose my temper. “Musa.” I grab the Beekeeper by the arm and walk him out of the forge. “Come with me.”

“Now, Shrike.” Musa follows me reluctantly. “While Idolike my women tall and bossy, and while I know this face is difficult to resist, sadly, my heart belongs to another—”

“Oh, shut up.” I stop when we’re far from the courtyard. “You’re not that pretty.” He bats his eyelashes at me, and I wish he were just a bit uglier. “I need eyes in Antium, Scholar. Mine have all gone to ground.”

“Hmm. Humans are sadly unreliable.” Musa pulls an apple from his cloak and pares off a slice. Its sweet scent cuts through the damp, and hehands me the piece. “What do I get for helping you, Blood Shrike?”

“The thanks of the Emperor and his Blood Shrike,” I say. At the distaste on his face, I sigh. “What do you want?”

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