I believed the jinn needed to be freed and returned to their duty. That is the purpose for which I created them. I did not understand the depth of their pain. Nor did I understand the Nightbringer’s fury. Thus I battle him, and I fear I am losing.

“How can you lose against him?” I ask. “You are Death.”

If you underestimate the spider, Banu al-Mauth, it can bite. And if its bite is poison, it can kill. So it is with the Nightbringer. He knows where to bite. And he is riven with poison.

“Why can you not take the magic from him as you took it from me?” I say.

The magic you use to pass the ghosts and hold the wall is an extension of my own. You borrow it. Nothing more. Your windwalking, however, was a gift. I cannot take it away. When I created the Meherya, I gifted him all of my magic. What I have given I cannot take back. Even Death has rules.

“He wants to release the Sea of Suffering. Destroy all life,” I say. “I could stop him. And I think I can remind the jinn of their duty. Bring them back into the fold. But I have to be able to leave the Waiting Place. I cannot be trapped there.”

Mauth appears to stare down at the roiling ocean. Tell me your vow.

“To light the way for the weak, the weary, the fallen, and the forgotten in the darkness that follows death.”

Then that is what you must do. The balance must be restored. If this means leaving the Waiting Place, so be it. But hold to your duty, Banu al-Mauth. Memory will make you weak. And emotion will not serve you well.

Even as he says it, numbness steals over me. But this time, something in me bucks wildly against it.

“If Cain hadn’t put memories of Laia and Helene and Keris back inside me,” I say, “I never would have left the Waiting Place. I never would have realized what the Nightbringer is doing. I need my memories. I need my emotion.” I think of Laia and what she’s been trying to tell me for weeks. “I cannot inspire humans to fight if I’m not one myself.”

The Sea slams itself against the promontory, and enormous, repugnant shapes move beneath the water. Teeth flash. More, the Sea growls at me.

I will not interfere, Mauth says. But do not forget your vow, lest you be destroyed by the magic I used to bind you. You are sworn to me until another human—not jinn—is seen fit to replace you. Your duty is not to the living. Your duty is not to yourself. Your duty is to the dead, even to the breaking of the world.

His words are as final as the first fistful of dirt in the grave.

“The jinn have escaped,” I say. “The ghosts are imprisoned. The Nightbringer has leveled entire cities and stolen countless souls. The world is broken, Mauth.”

No, Soul Catcher, Mauth says softly. The power of the Sea of Suffering cannot be controlled. Not even by the king of the jinn. If he unleashes it, it will not just destroy humanity. The Sea will destroy everything. All life. Even the jinn themselves. I fear, Banu al-Mauth, that the world has yet to break.

* * *

«««

The bulk of the Tribal fighting force has hunkered down in the Bhuth badlands north of Nur. Near the center of the camp, a large knot of elders and Zaldars, Fakirs and Fakiras, and Kehannis have gathered around a fire half the size of a wagon. I slow as I approach, for an argument rages.

“—we are not going to bleeding Marinn—” The Zaldar of Tribe Nasur speaks, shouting down a dozen other voices. “If you wish to help the Mariners, that is your choice—”

“If we do not all go, the Nightbringer will win.” Laia’s voice is low, and she struggles to temper her frustration. “He will have his vengeance on the Scholars, and Keris will hunt you down like she hunted down my people. You’ll be enslaved. Destroyed. Just like we were.”

“You have the scythe,” another voice calls out. “You go fight him. Was it not your people whose violence led to the Nightbringer’s ire?”

“That was a thousand years ago—” Darin speaks, which is when I notice Martials sprinkled through the crowd. The Blood Shrike’s men.

“There’s no point in staying if we’re just going to be hunted,” Afya says forcefully. “We go. We fight. Laia takes down the Nightbringer. Maybe we win.”

“That will take weeks—”

“Months,” Gibran calls out. “Maybe years. But at least we fight instead of hiding like rats.”

I think of Mauth’s warning, and Khuri’s prophecy. In flowerfall, the orphan will bow to the scythe.

We do not have months or years. We have weeks, if that. Spring is close.

It is Laia who sees me first. Laia whose eyes go wide as I step out of the dark.

Whispers of Banu al-Mauth streak through the crowd gathered around the fire. They could shout at me. Ask me why I left. Instead they shift back, giving me space to pass. Watchful. Defiant.

“The Nightbringer’s maleficence runs deeper than we thought,” I tell them. “For he is not stealing your ghosts to empower his people. He is stealing them so that he can destroy all life. And if we wish for a future—any future—we have no choice but to stop him.”

XLVII: The Blood Shrike

We bury the Empress Regent two days after her murder, as the sun goes to rest in the west. Thousands line Antium’s streets, littering it with winter rose petals as six Masks carry her to the Aquilla Mausoleum on the north end of the city. There, under a rainy, slate-colored sky, she is movingly eulogized by a handful of highborn Paters and Maters who barely knew her.

Or so I am told, after. I do not attend. I do not leave the palace for days following. Instead, I plot how I will destroy Keris.

Two weeks after the funeral, I am holed up in a meeting chamber with Livia’s advisory council, listening to a group of recently arrived generals arguing over why their war plan is the only one that will allow us to take back Silas—and eventually Serra and Navium—from Keris.

“We should wait,” says old General Pontilius, fresh from Tiborum. He paces around the long table where I sit with Mettias, Quin Veturius, Musa, Cassius, and six others.

“No. We strike now,” Quin says. “While she’s trying to take the Free Lands. Secure Silas, and move south from there.”

“And what if it’s a trap?” Pontilius asks. “She could have an army lying in wait for us. Reports put her forces in Marinn at nearly forty thousand men. She has another thirty thousand in reserve. That leaves fifty thousand men unaccounted for.”

“They’re scattered throughout the south—” Musa offers, and Pontilius recoils as if slapped.

“How would you know, Scholar?”

Once, Musa might have laughed off such insolence. Now he frowns. Eleiba’s tidings from Marinn have sobered him. All I could send was a token force. Two Masks. Two hundred soldiers. They will not have even reached Marinn yet. They won’t get through in time, Musa had fretted. We have to draw Keris off. We have to take back the Empire so she has no choice but to return.