Page 125 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

More, the Sea whispers in my mind.More.

I shift my gaze to my lieutenant. “What troubles you, Keris?”

“I should have killed the child.” She shifts from foot to foot, her boots crunching the multicolored glass of the dome. “Zacharias.”

“You had your opportunity. Why did you not strike?”

“I needed him,” she says. “To lure the Blood Shrike. But as I was holding him, I was reminded of Ilyaas.”

“There is no weakness in having remembered your child,” I tell her. “The weakness lies in denying it. What did you feel?”

Keris is silent for a long time, and though she is a grown woman, shelooks, for a moment, like the child she was long ago. I suppose to me, they are all children.

She grasps at the hilt of her bloody scim.

“It does not matter—”

But I do not let her turn away, for the weakness must out, so that it does not fester within her.

“When you see your son again, will you be able to do what must be done?”

“I did see him again,” she says. “In Aish. He was—different. But the same. A Veturius.” She offers the name unemotionally. For a long time, we do not speak.

“I do not know,” she finally says, “if I will be able to do what must be done.”

It is one of the talents of humans to surprise, even after millennia of knowing their kind. She meets my flame eyes, for of all creatures who walk this earth, only Keris Veturia has never flinched from my gaze. Her darkest moments are long behind her.

“There are some things that do not die. No matter how many blades we put into them,” she says.

“Indeed, Keris.” I know it better than any.

We stare out at the burning city. A white flag hangs limp in the still air. The Sea stirs, hungry.More.

Thousands are dead. So much suffering.

But not enough.

LII:Laia

We trek out of the Tribal desert and into the grasslands of the southern Empire. It is sparsely populated, so it is easy enough to stay far from villages and garrisons. About three weeks after we set out, the mottled horizon thickens into a mass of tangled green branches.

“The Waiting Place. Not long to go, Laia.” Darin speaks from beside me. I have cloaked him so it appears his horse is riderless—something the horse protested with vigorous head-tossing and angry whinnies. Elias, riding ahead of us, is also invisible, though I can hear the steady hum of conversation between him and Jans Aquillus.

All around, weapons and armor are stowed away. A great many of the fighters travel inside wagons, while their mounts bear supplies instead of riders. The sand efrits settle the dust of the caravan so it’s unnoticeable from afar, and the wind efrits lure clouds over us to mask us further. A jinn would have to get close to tell that this is an army, and according to the efrits none have.

“Once we’re in,” Darin says, “the Soul Catcher said there won’t be a need for the invisibility.”

“Because we won’t be able to hide from him,” I say. Rehmat wished to strengthen my magic by joining with me. But exhausted as I am from hiding so many of us for so long, I cannot bear having her inside my mind again. It feels too invasive.

“Don’t worry about hiding from him,” Darin says. “We’ve gotten this far, haven’t we? No sign of those fiery bastards.”

All I can offer is a weak smile. Fear flares in my bones. It is an oldenemy, my companion since childhood. Fear of what is to come. Fear of what awaits among those trees. Fear that all the Tribes and the Scholars have suffered was only a precursor to something worse.

“I am with you Laia.” Rehmat has given me space, sensing my distrust. Her sunlight figure floats alongside me, steady despite the wind. “When he comes, I will not leave your side.”

I nod, but I do not trust her yet. For I must kill the Nightbringer, and once, she loved the Nightbringer.

Love. Always, I return to that word. Darin went to prison because of love. Elias gave up his future because of love. The Nightbringer seeks vengeance because of love.

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