Page 18 of A ?Sky Beyond the Storm

—Her tired face peering down at me and—

—Go back to the caravan, Ilyaas. Dark creatures walk the desert at nightand—

—The tattoo winding up her neck and—

My mind overflows with their names, their faces, with all we are to each other.Laia. Helene. Keris. Beloved. Friend. Mother.

This cannot be borne, because I have a duty and these names, thesefaces, are an impediment to that. Yet I can’t unsee the memories Cain has given me.

Laia. Helene. Keris.

“You get these names out of my head, Cain.” I want to shout, but I only manage a whisper.Laia. Helene. Keris.“Get themout—”

But the Augur tightens his grip, and fearing he will pour more memories into me, I lash out with Mauth’s magic. It wraps around Cain’s throat like a whip and pulls at his life force, draining him dry in seconds. The Augur collapses and I drop beside him, understanding too late that this was his intention. That this is why he gave me the memories. He’s not dead yet. But he will be soon.

As I stare down at him, I can smell the cool sand of the desert and Tribe Saif’s fear. I see the stars going out as he stole me from my family. From any joy I might have had.

“It was the only way, Elias,” he whispers. “I—” His body stiffens like Shaeva’s did, before the end. He stares into the middle distance, and when he speaks, it’s as if there are many of him.

“It was never one. It was always three. The Blood Shrike is the first. Laia of Serra, the second. And the Soul Catcher is the last. The Mother watches over them all. If one fails, they all fail. If one dies, they all die. Go back to the beginning and there, find the truth. Strive even unto your own end, else all is lost.”

He shudders and holds my gaze to his. “Tell them. Swear it!” He sounds like himself again, but when he claws at my arm, there is no strength behind it. His hand falls and a rattle escapes his chest.

“Elias,” he says. “Remember—”

He whispers something, two words I only just catch. Then the jinn burst out of the trees and I streak away from them, not stopping until I reach the clearing near my cabin, where I know I’ll be safe.

I stumble toward it, my heart thundering in a visceral reminder of my own mortality. In the forest, the ghosts wail, in need of solace. But I slam the door shut on them. My body trembles and I wait, panting, for Mauth to heal my singed skin, to take away the thoughts in my head.Laia. Helene. Keris.

When the magic surges through me, I want to weep in relief. But though my burns fade and my heart ceases its frantic beat, no tide of forgetting washes the memories away. They parade across my vision, sharp as knives stabbing into my brain.

Shame consumes me when I think of all those I killed as a Mask. I can’t count their number anymore, there were so many. Not just strangers but friends—Demetrius. Leander. Ennis.

No, no. These memories are folly, for emotion has no place in my world.

Mauth, I cry out.Help me.

But he does not respond.

IX:The Blood Shrike

Ninth bell tolls as we reach the quay and Laia pants like she’s run a hundred sprints in the dead of a Serran summer.

“Do you need a minute?” I ask. The glare she shoots me makes me take a cautious step back.

“Or ten,” she wheezes. I stop in an alley that leads to Adisa’s westernmost bay. Wind whistles through the wharf, but the snow has stopped and the Adisans are out in droves.

Hawkers sell steaming noodles steeped in garlic broth, fried honey-cakes dusted with sugar, and a hundred other foods that make my mouth water. Young thieves weave through the crowd, swiftly relieving victims of their coin.

And everywhere, Nikla’s soldiers patrol in groups of two and four, scaled blue armor flashing.

“We need to get out on the water,” Laia says. “Musa will not be on the quay. He’s too well-known.”

“There.” I nod to where a scrawny, white-haired fishmonger shouts loud enough to wake the dead. Despite that, the old woman has few customers, situated as she is at the end of the quay. An unattended punt bobs on the water at her back.

“Just big enough for two. And maneuverable enough to get us through the night market.” Lantern-lit boats ply Fari Harbor—Adisa’s renowned floating merchants. “I’ll take out the old woman. You get the—”

“We are not knocking out an old woman!” Laia hisses. “She could be someone’s grandmother.”

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