His eyes fill, but he does not stop. “Tell me what you’ve done. Tell me.”

“I—I’ve survived the Commandant,” I say. “And Blackcliff. Our family’s deaths. I’ve survived the Nightbringer. I’ve defied him. I saved you. I’ve fought. I’ve fought for our people.”

“And you will keep fighting.” Darin grabs both shoulders now. “And you will win. There is not a single person alive who I trust more than you to do what must be done today, Laia. Not a single one.”

From the Shrike or Elias, these words would be encouraging. From my big brother, they are life-giving. Something about him, of all people, believing in me makes me grip my scim and set my jaw and stand taller. I will win today.

“I can come with you,” he says. “I want to come with you. Why should you fight him alone when you aren’t alone?”

But I shake my head, thinking of the snap of my father’s neck, of Lis’s neck. Of the way the Commandant used family to manipulate my mother.

“The Nightbringer has always used my love against me, Darin,” I say. “I do not want him to do it again. I cannot be worried about you. Stick to the plan.”

“Laia—” He appears uncertain, then grabs me in a hug. “I love you. Fight. Win. I’ll see you when it’s all over.”

“Laia!” Elias calls out as Darin disappears into the camp. Afya and Gibran are beside him, and a platoon of Tribespeople and Scholars armed with longbows waits nearby. “It’s time. We’re the last.”

“Rehmat?” I say quietly, jogging toward Elias. But the creature does not appear.

We wind through the trees, the last of a thousand soldiers Elias has already dispatched. The path we follow takes us east, angling upward before ending at a sheer cliff that drops sixty feet to the river. To our left and right, hundreds of Tribespeople and Scholars wait, bows at the ready.

Skies know how the Nightbringer cleared the way for Keris’s army. Perhaps he manipulated the forest, like Elias. Perhaps he had his jinn clear a path. Whatever the case, the enemy Martials approach a narrow strip of shallows along the river, the only place they can cross without boats.

And just close enough to the cliffs to leave them exposed to our arrows.

“Do not shoot,” Afya breathes from my left. “Only the longbows have the range.”

Though my aim has improved, I heed her advice. In any case, I am here to watch for the Nightbringer. To spy on him when hopefully, he cannot do the same.

Though the sky above is clear, the forest from which the Martials will emerge is cloaked in mist. And before our eyes, the mist thickens.

“What in the bleeding skies is that?” Afya points to a thick bank of cloud, rolling up along the river from the south. There is a sulfuric fetor to it, and it is completely at odds with the wind, which blows in from the north, favoring our arrows.

“The Nightbringer,” Elias says. “He knows we’re here. Runner!”

A young Scholar appears immediately at Elias’s side. “Call the wind efrits,” he says. “Tell them they’re to scatter the fog.”

The boy disappears, and now the fog has enshrouded the river below. We hear splashes in the water, but looking down is like looking into a bucket of milk.

“They’re crossing,” Afya hisses. “We have to do something.”

“Not yet,” Elias says. “We wait for the efrits.”

Trails of stinking mist approach the ridge where we’ve taken cover, and we hear shouts now, orders given as Keris’s army makes its way across the shallows. From there, they will travel along a cleared area that runs in a strip between this ridge and the jinn city. And then, up the short escarpment to battle our troops.

I fidget as the minutes drag on. “Elias—”

“Not yet.” His pale eyes are trained on the mist. The soldiers shift uneasily, and he calls down the line, “Steady.”

Then a whoosh over our heads, and the shrieks of the wind efrits as they arrow through the mist, swirling and ripping and tearing, scattering it as a child scatters fall leaves.

Elias lifts his hand and signals for the archers along the ridgeline to nock and aim. The cloud thins enough that we see men below, crossing the river in large groups.

Elias swings down his arm, and the thrum of a thousand arrows launching at once sings through the air. One of Keris’s men shouts a warning, but waterlogged as the soldiers are, they cannot raise their shields in time. They drop in waves. Elias lifts and drops his arm again, before signaling to fire at will. Another wave of soldiers goes down, and then another.

We could stop them right here. Perhaps a thousand Tribal longbows are enough to finish the Martials. To make Keris crawl back to Navium, licking her wounds. To make the Nightbringer think twice.

Then a knife, its hilt still glowing as if fresh from the forge, whistles out of the sky and lodges itself into the chest of the person standing beside me. Afya.

She grunts and steps back, staring down at the blade in surprise before crumpling into my arms. No, oh skies, no.

“Afya!” Gibran screams and gets his arm around her in an instant. “Zaldara, no.”

“Get her to triage,” I say. “Quickly. It didn’t hit her heart. Go, Gibran!”

But the clouds above burn orange and then a deep angry red as jinn streak out of the sky. Umber, with her fiery glaive, is among them. She thuds to the earth not thirty feet away, flattening the trees around her. Afya and Gibran both go flying as her glaive sweeps out, setting fire to two dozen of our soldiers at once.

“Retreat!” Elias calls, and we expected this. I know we did. But I am still unprepared for the swift deaths the jinn mete out. The way they tear through our troops like wind through paper. A score of our men go down. Two score. Five score.

“Run, Laia!”

“Afya—Gibran—”

“Run!”

Elias pulls me away, rage in his voice. Instantly I know his anger is born of fear, for here I stand, unmoving as death inches closer.

But though Umber is before me, though she could strike me down with her glaive, she only snarls and turns away. Elias windwalks me through the trees and back to the jinn grove, even as the soldiers we have left behind trickle from the woods.

Our camp is an organized sort of chaos, and Elias is instantly barking orders. The catapults are loaded, the sea efrits hovering above them to defend them from the jinn. The war machines are aimed not at the approaching army, but at the Sher Jinnaat. We will hurl not fire or stones, but massive blocks of salt, to keep the jinn in the city from joining their brethren and deciding the battle before we’ve had a chance to fight it.