Musa doesn’t laugh as I expect him to. “I saw your face,” he says. “During the attack on Cardium Rock. When Harper went down. I saw.”

“Stop talking,” I say. “I don’t need advice from a—”

“Go on, insult me,” Musa says. “But you and I are more alike than you know, and that’s not a compliment. You’re in a position of great power, Shrike. It’s a lonely place to be. Most leaders spend their lives using others. Being used. Love isn’t just a luxury for you. It’s a rarity. It’s a gift. Don’t throw it away.”

“I’m not throwing it away.” I stop walking and pull the Scholar around to face me. “I’m afraid, Musa.” I don’t mean to blurt the words out—especially to a man whose arrogance has vexed me from the moment I met him. But to my relief, he does not mock me.

“How many in Antium lost those beloved to them when the Karkauns attacked?” he asks. “How many like Dex, who hide who they love because the Empire would kill them for it?” Musa runs a hand through his black hair, and it sticks up like a bird’s nest. “How many like Laia, betrayed and then left to claw her way through her pain? How many like me, Shrike, pining for someone who no longer exists?”

“There is more than love of another,” I say. “There is love of country—love of one’s people—”

“But that’s not what we’re talking about,” Musa says. “You are lucky enough to love someone who loves you back. He is alive and breathing and in the same vicinity as you. By the skies, do something about it. For however long you have. For whatever time you get. Because if you don’t, I swear that you’ll regret it. You’ll regret it for all your years.”

XXXIX: Laia

The Martial army is smaller than I expected. After Aish fell, I imagined tens of thousands of soldiers. But Keris has managed to take much of the Tribal lands with a mere ten thousand men.

“Three hundred of whom are Masks,” Elias says to the Tribespeople he’s appointed as platoon leaders for our first mission. We’ve gathered atop a small butte in the rugged lands between Taib and Aish. The Martial army is sprawled a half mile away, their outermost sentries moonlit glimmers beneath a cloudless night sky.

“It’s the Masks who walk the perimeter of Keris’s army,” Elias says. “I’ll take care of them. At my signal—”

He goes through each leader’s duties, and they buzz with adrenaline and anticipation. But I feel numb with anxiety for everyone here: Afya standing beside her little brother, Gibran; Mamie Rila’s younger son, Shan, and his group of Saif Tribesmen; Sahib, Aubarit’s uncle and the taciturn Zaldar of her tribe.

The rest of Aish’s survivors, including Mamie Rila and Aubarit, have decamped to a labyrinthine cave system a few miles to the north. We cannot fail them tonight. We cannot fail those in Taib and Nur, who will suffer Keris’s violence if we do not slow her and her army down.

Out in the darkness south of us, the Martials’ fires light up the horizon. Ten thousand is not so many, I tell myself.

But one hundred—the size of our force—is even less.

Focus, Laia. Elias assigned me a duty for this raid, but I have my own mission to carry out. The Nightbringer will likely be with the army. Which means the scythe will be there too.

A gold glow at the corner of my vision stiffens my spine. Though I am at the back of the crowd, I slip deeper into the shadows.

“Well?” I ask.

“The Nightbringer is in the camp with Keris,” Rehmat says. “I wish you would not seek him out, Laia. There are Kehannis in these lands. Seek stories instead.”

But all of the Kehannis who escaped Aish walked away the moment they heard what I wanted. Only Mamie Rila was brave enough to speak with me.

We draw our stories from the deep places, Laia. I sat in the lamplit warmth of her wagon, but the air grew cold as she spoke. They are not just words. They are magic. Some are potent as poison, and strike you dead upon speaking them. The woman you met in Marinn—the Kehanni of Tribe Sulud—she knew this. It is why she could not tell the Nightbringer’s story right away. It is the reason the wraiths killed her. I fear the words you seek, Laia, Mamie whispered. I love life too much to utter them.

“If the story kills the Kehannis,” I tell Rehmat, “then it isn’t worth it.”

“The weapon alone will not defeat him.”

“Laia. Laia!” Afya pokes my side. The entire group stares at me. Elias, arms crossed and head tilted, meets my gaze, bemused. I flush under his regard.

I realize we’re reviewing the plan of attack. “I’m to poison the food stores. Without being seen.”

Everyone turns back to Elias, perhaps waiting for encouragement. But despite my warning to him that he is too cold, he only nods. “Midnight, then,” he says, and cuts through the crowd toward me.

“A word?” When we stand apart, he looks down, brow furrowed. “The jinn may be among the soldiers,” he says. “And when I first suggested the mission, you seemed reluctant to use your magic. Will you be able to hold your invisibility?”

I have been reluctant. Ever since I found out who Rehmat really is, my magic has felt unknowable. Like it belongs to someone else.

“I’ll be fine.”

“No detours.”

“You sound almost worried about me, Elias.”

“Soul Catcher,” he corrects me, sounding so much like a Blackcliff Centurion that I want to kick him. “Your skills are important for the success of other raids, Laia. Get in, get the job done, and get out without getting distracted.”

Afya strolls to me as he walks away. “What a charmer,” she says, and at my glower, she shoves me. “I told you not to fall in love with a ghost-talker,” she says. “But did you listen? Forget about him for a moment. Your armor is no good.” She glances critically at the hodgepodge bits of protection I’ve collected over the past few months and steers me toward the horses. “Let’s fix it before we have to leave.”

Two hours later, I follow Shan through the desert with ten other fighters from Tribe Saif. All my concentration is fixed on cloaking us with my magic—not easy when there are so many and we are spread out. Finally, Elias calls a halt in a shallow depression within spitting distance of the sentry line. I sigh in relief when he signals for me to drop the invisibility. His gaze fixed on the sentries, he windwalks away.

“I cannot get used to that,” Shan says to me. “No matter how many times Mamie tells me he is gone, I still see my brother.”

I know so little about Shan. But I remember Elias speaking of him when we traveled to Kauf Prison. They spent the early years of their lives together. Perhaps Elias must be reminded of that.