“Not as sweet as it could be.” I make him meet my eyes. For a moment, it is Elias I see. My Elias, just like in Aish.

Then he’s gone, windwalking from the tent so fast that I startle and drop the mango. It thuds to the earth, ruined now, its sweetness curdled by dust.

XL: The Soul Catcher

For ten days, we attack the Commandant’s army in small, surgical strikes. As Keris tightens her defenses, our attacks grow more complex—and take a higher toll. In the fourth raid, we lose five fighters.

When we return to the camp that night, the Tribespeople are silent. Most do not meet my eyes. My instinct is to sit with them. Mourn with them. Listen to their stories. But doing so only reminds me of the death I have meted out. Of the death I have yet to deliver. So I stay away.

When we are two days from Taib, we abandon the raids and ride for the city. Keris is a day behind us—and we need to help with the evacuation. Everything is going to plan.

But something is not right.

“What’s bothering you, Elias?” a voice says from behind me.

Laia. I’ve avoided her since the first raid. That night, I wished to comfort her. For like me, she was tormented by the killing. I wished to listen to her and hold her and pass the hours with her in my arms.

But as Mauth said, wishes only cause pain.

I mumble an excuse and make to ride off, but Laia angles her horse in front of mine.

“Stop, Elias,” she says. “I’m not here to seduce you. Just because I’m in love with you does not mean I lack in pride—”

“You—” Her words wrap around me like a breeze on a hot day. Mauth, damn you, this is when I need your magic to wipe away what I feel. But with every day that passes, the magic grows more unresponsive. Today is no different.

“You shouldn’t say that,” I manage.

“Why?” she asks blithely, but her knuckles are stiff against the reins. Her hair is caught in a braid and she no longer tries to hide the layers of emotion in her dark eyes. “It’s true. In any case, I’m not here to talk about us. Something eats at you. Is it the raids?”

Even with our losses, our raids have been successful. We have no shortage of volunteers, for our band of refugee fighters has grown from a little more than three thousand riders and half a hundred wagons to nearly double that. Survivors fleeing Sadh and Aish have joined us, as well as Tribespeople escaping smaller villages scattered across the vast desert.

“It’s the Commandant,” I tell Laia. “I feel like I’m missing something. Keris doesn’t make the same mistake twice. And we’ve hit her four times now.”

“She’s tightened her defenses.”

Know your enemy. In Blackcliff, it was the first rule the Commandant taught us about war.

“If our strikes were hurting her,” I say, “she would have done more than tighten her defenses.”

“We’ve decimated her supplies and livestock, Elias,” Laia says. “Slowed them down by days. Our attacks are hurting her. She’ll arrive in Taib with a far weaker army than she expected.”

But why should she care about Taib? It hits me then, and I feel like a fool for not seeing it before. Keris is herding us. Distracting us.

“She split her forces.” I say. “She doesn’t give two figs about Taib, Laia. She wants Nur.”

Capturing the crown jewel of the Tribal desert will net the Nightbringer three times as many souls as Taib. I slow my horse and dismount, throwing my canteen and some provisions into a pack. “I have to go. I have to see if it’s true. I’ll return.”

“Send out scouts,” Laia says. “Or at least tell the fighters you’re going. Even if you don’t . . . care about them—”

“Mohsin An-Saif. Sule An-Nasur. Omair An-Saif. Isha Ara-Nur. Kasib An-Rahim.” I tighten my scim straps and swing my pack on. “Those are the five fighters who died last night. They leave behind four mothers, three fathers, eight siblings, and two children.”

Horses move around us, and some of the fighters stare at me surreptitiously. While a few call out greetings to Laia, most look away from me.

“I do not speak to them because I’m not their savior, Laia,” I say. “I can’t tell them everything will be all right. Or that I can make them safe. Instead, I tell them they can flee their enemies or fight, knowing that they will fight. Knowing that as a result, many will die. And I’m doing all of it so the ghosts find peace in the Waiting Place. I do it to save the dead, not the living.”

“Fine,” she says. “But no one wants to fight for nothing, Elias. You need to give them a reason. Let them know and understand you. Let them care for you. Otherwise you might return and find you have no army left.”

“The fate of their dead is their reason,” I say. “And it will have to be enough.” I hand her the reins of my mount. “I shouldn’t be gone more than a few hours.”

“Elias—”

“Soul Catcher,” I tell her, before windwalking out into the desert, scouring for any sign of Keris’s army. I consider what Laia said as I travel. No one wants to fight for nothing. My grandfather, Quin Veturius, is a legendary leader of men. His soldiers follow him because they trust his battle acumen. They trust that he cares about them and their families and their lives.

Keris leads through fear. Through threats that are reinforced by a fierce and uncanny understanding of human weakness.

Tribe Saif followed Uncle Akbi because they loved him. The same reason Tribe Nur follows Afya. The Tribal fighters do not entirely trust me. Nor do they fear me. They certainly do not love me. Because I am their Banu al-Mauth, they respect me. I have no right to ask for more.

Windwalking lends me speed, but it does not make it easy to find Keris’s army. I check every canyon, every depression in which they might be lurking, zigzagging over the Tribal lands. But I find nothing.

That night, I take shelter in a ravine. As I build up a fire, I step back into the memories Cain gave me of Blackcliff, of training, of her.

The Commandant taught me that to defeat your enemy, you had to know her better than you knew yourself. Her wants. Her weaknesses. Her allies. Her strengths.

The next day, I do not make for ravines or canyons. Because I know now that I will not find her army there. Instead, I head for the open desert and put my hand to the chill, cracked ground.

Keris has jinn who can magic away the sights and sounds of the army. She cannot, however, erase their passage from the earth itself. Midway through the day, I feel a distant rumble. Thousands of boots marching. Horses. Wagons. War machines.

I make for that thunderous drone until suddenly, I’m among the army. I windwalk amid the neat rows of infantrymen, their heads bent against the sharp desert wind.