A Reaper at the Gates

Distantly, I remember Elias telling me what he learned from the Soul Catcher: that the Star protects those who have touched it. The Nightbringer cannot kill Elias. But he can hurt him, and by the skies, I will not have anyone else I care about hurt.

I hurl myself forward—and bounce back. The Nightbringer ignores me, comfortable in his power. You will not hurt Elias. You will not. Some feral darkness rises within me and takes control of my body. I felt it once before, months ago when I fought the Nightbringer outside Kauf Prison. An animal cry explodes from my lips. This time when I push ahead, I get through. Darin is a half step behind, and the Nightbringer flicks his wrist. My brother freezes. But the jinn’s magic has no effect on me. I leap between the Nightbringer and Elias, dagger out.

“Don’t you dare touch him,” I say.

The Nightbringer’s sun eyes flare as he looks first at me, then at Elias, reading what is between us. I think of how he betrayed me. Monster! How close is he to setting the jinn free? Shaeva’s prophecy answered the question moments ago: one piece of the Star left. Does the Nightbringer know where it is? What did Shaeva’s death gain him?

But as he observes me, I remember the love that roiled within him, and the hate as well. I remember the vicious war waged between the two and the desolation left in their wake.

The Nightbringer’s shoulder ripples as if he is unsettled. Can he read my thoughts? He shifts his attention over my shoulder to Elias.

“Elias Veturius.” The jinn leans over me, and I cringe back, pressing against Elias’s chest, caught between the two of them: my friend’s pounding heart and despair at Shaeva’s death, and the Nightbringer’s eldritch wrath, fueled by a millennium of cruelty and suffering.

The jinn doesn’t bother looking at me before he speaks. “She tasted sweet, boy,” he says. “Like dew and a clear dawn.”

Behind me, Elias stills and takes a steadying breath. He meets the Nightbringer’s fiery stare, his face paling in shock at what he sees there. Then he growls, a sound that seems to rise out of the very earth. Shadows twist up like vines of ink beneath his skin. Every muscle in his shoulders, his chest, his arms strains until he is tearing free of his invisible bonds. He raises his hands, a shock wave bursting from his skin, knocking me on my back.

The Nightbringer sways before righting himself. “Ah,” he observes. “The pup has a bite. All the better.” I cannot see his face within that hood. But I hear the smile in his voice. He rises up as wind floods the clearing. “There is no joy in destroying a weak foe.”

He turns his attention east, toward something far out of sight. Whispers hiss on the air, as if he’s communicating with someone. Then the wind snatches at him and, as in the forest outside Kauf, he disappears. But this time, instead of silence to mark his passing, the ghosts who fled to the borders of the Waiting Place pour into the clearing, swarming me.

You, Laia, this is because of you!

Shaeva is dead—

Elias is condemned—

The jinn a breath from victory—

Because of me.

There are so many. The truth of their words breaks over me like a net of chains. I try to stand against it, but I cannot, for the spirits do not lie.

One piece remains. The Nightbringer must find only one more piece of the Star before he is able to free his kin. He is close now. Close enough that I can no longer deny it. Close enough that I must act.

The ghosts tornado around me, so angry I fear they will tear off my skin. But Elias cuts through them and lifts me to my feet.

Darin is beside me, grabbing my pack from where it has fallen, glaring at the ghosts as they ease back into the trees, barely restrained.

Before I even say the words, my brother nods. He heard what Shaeva said. He knows what we must do.

“We’re going to Adisa.” I say it anyway. “To stop him. To finish this.”

CHAPTER NINE

Elias

The full burden of the Waiting Place descends like a boulder dropping onto my back. The Forest is part of me, and I can feel the borders, the ghosts, the trees. It’s as if a living map of the place has been imprinted on my mind.

Shaeva’s absence is at the heart of that burden. I gaze at the fallen basket of herbs that she’ll never add to the korma that she’ll never eat in the house she’ll never step foot in again.

“Elias—the ghosts—” Laia draws close. The usually mournful spirits have transformed into violent shades. I need Mauth’s magic to silence them. I need to bond with him, the way Shaeva wanted me to.

But when I grasp at Mauth with my will, I feel only a trace of the magic before it fades.

“Elias?” Despite the shrieking ghosts, Laia takes my hand, her lips drawn down in concern. “I’m so sorry about Shaeva. Is she really—”

I nod. She’s gone.

“It was so fast.” Somehow, I am comforted by the fact that someone is as stunned as I am. “Are you—will you be—” She shakes her head. “Of course you’re not all right—skies, how could you be?”

A groan from Darin pulls our attention away from each other. The ghosts circle him, darting close and whispering skies know what. Bleeding hells. I need to get Laia and Darin out of here.

“If you want to get to Adisa,” I say, “the fastest way is through the Forest. You’ll lose months going around.”

“Right.” Laia pauses and furrows her brow. “But, Elias—”

If we speak more of Shaeva, I think something inside me will break. She was here, and now she’s gone, and nothing can change that. The permanence of death will always feel like a betrayal. But raging against it when my friends are in danger is the act of a fool. I must move. I must make sure Shaeva didn’t die for nothing.

Laia is still speaking when I take Darin’s hand and begin to windwalk. She goes quiet as the Forest fades past us. She squeezes my hand, and I know that she understands my silence.

I cannot travel with Shaeva’s swiftness, but we reach one of the bridges over the River Dusk after only a quarter hour, and seconds later, we’re beyond it. I angle northeast, and as we move through the trees, Laia peeks at me from beneath the wing of hair that has fallen over her eye. I want to speak to her. Damn the Nightbringer, I want to say. I don’t care what he said. I only care that you are all right.

“We’ll be there soon,” I begin, before another voice speaks, a hateful chorus that is instantly recognizable.

You will fail, usurper.

The jinn. But their grove is miles away. How are they projecting their voices this far?

Filth. Your world will fall. Our king has already thwarted you. This is just the beginning.

“Piss off,” I snarl. I think of the whispers I heard just before the Nightbringer disappeared. He was giving these fiery monsters orders, no doubt. The jinn laugh.

Our kind are powerful, mortal. You cannot replace a jinn. You cannot hope to succeed as Soul Catcher.

I ignore them, hoping they’ll shut the hells up. Did they ever do this to Shaeva? Were they always bellowing in her head, and she just never told me?

My chest aches when I think of the Soul Catcher—and of so many others. Tristas. Demetrius. Leander. The Blood Shrike. My grandfather. Are all those who get close to me fated to suffer?

Darin shivers, gritting his teeth against the onslaught of the ghosts. Laia’s skin is gray, though she walks on without a word of complaint.

In the end, they will fade. You will endure. Love cannot live here.

Laia’s hand is cool and small in mine. Her pulse flutters against my fingers, a tenuous reminder of her mortality. Even if she survives to be an old woman, her years are nothing against the life of a Soul Catcher. She will die and I will abide, becoming less and less human as time passes.

“There.” Laia points ahead. The trees thin, and through them I spot the cottage where Darin recovered from his injuries at Kauf, months ago now.

When we reach the tree line, I release the siblings. Darin grabs me and pulls me into a rough hug. “I don’t know how to thank you—” he begins, but I stop him.

“Stay alive,” I say. “That’ll be thanks enough. I’ll have enough problems here without your ghost showing up.” Darin offers a flash of a smile before glancing at his sister and prudently heading for the cottage.

Laia twists her hands together, not looking at me. Her hair has come free from its braid as it always does, in fat, unruly curls. I reach for one, unable to help myself.

“I … have something for you.” I rummage around in a pocket and pull out a piece of wood. It is unfinished, the carvings on it rough. “You reach for your old armlet sometimes.” I feel ridiculous all of a sudden. Why would I give her this hideous thing? It looks like a six-year-old made it. “It’s not finished. But … ah … I thought—”

“It’s perfect.” Her fingers brush mine as she takes it. That touch. Ten hells. I steady my breath and crush the desire that thrums in my veins. She slides the armlet on, and seeing her in that familiar pose, one hand resting on the cuff—it feels right. “Thank you.”

“Watch your back in Adisa.” I turn to practicalities. They are easier to speak of than this feeling in my chest, like my heart is being carved out of me and lit on fire. “The Mariners will know your face, and if they know what Darin can do—”

I catch her smile and realize that, like a fool, I’m telling her things she already knows.

“I thought we would have more time,” she says. “I thought we’d find a way out for you. That Shaeva would release you from your vow or …”

She looks like I feel: broken. I need to let her go. Fight the Nightbringer, I should say. Win. Find joy. Remember me. For why should she come back here? Her future is in the world of the living.

Say it, Elias, my logic screams. Make it easier for both of you. Don’t be pathetic.

“Laia, you should—”

“I don’t want to let you go. Not yet.” She traces my jaw with a light hand, her fingers lingering on my mouth. She wants me—I can see it, feel it—and it makes me desire her even more desperately. “Not so soon.”

“Neither do I.” I pull her into my arms, reveling in the warmth of her body against mine, the curve of her hip beneath my hand. She tucks her head beneath my chin and I breathe her in.

Mauth tugs at me, harsh and sudden. Against my will, I sway back toward the Forest.

No. No. Ghosts be damned. Mauth be damned. Waiting Place be damned.

I grab her hand and pull her toward me, and as if she was waiting for it, she closes her eyes and rises up on her toes. Her hands tangle in my hair, drawing me tightly toward her. Her lips are soft and lush, and when she presses every curve into me, I nearly lose my feet. I hear nothing but Laia, see nothing but Laia, feel nothing but Laia.

My mind races forward to me laying her down on the Forest floor, spending hours exploring every inch of her body. For a moment I see what we could have had: Laia and her books and patients, and me and a school that taught more than death and duty. A little one with gold eyes and glowing brown skin. The white in Laia’s hair one day, and the way her eyes will mellow and deepen and grow wiser.

“You are cruel, Elias,” she whispers against my mouth. “To give a girl all she desires only to tear it away.”

“This isn’t the end for us, Laia of Serra.” I cannot give up what we could have. I don’t care what bleeding vow I made. “Do you hear me? This is not our end.”

“You’ve never been a liar.” She dashes her hands against the wetness in her eyes. “Don’t start now.”

Her back is straight as she walks away, and when she reaches the cottage, Darin, waiting outside, rises. She goes past him quickly, and he follows.

I watch her until she is just a shadow on the horizon. Turn around, I think. Just once. Turn around.

She doesn’t. And perhaps it’s just as well.

CHAPTER TEN

The Blood Shrike

I spend the rest of the day in the Black Guard barracks, reading through spy reports. Most are mundane: a prisoner transfer that could guarantee the loyalty of a Mercator house; an investigation into the death of two Illustrian Paters.

I pay closest attention to the reports out of Tiborum. With the approach of spring, the Karkaun clans are expected to come pouring out of the mountains, raiding and reaving.

But my spies say the Karkauns are quiet. Perhaps their leader, this Grímarr, committed too many forces to the attack on Navium. Perhaps Tiborum is uncommonly lucky.

Or perhaps those blue-faced bastards are up to something.

I request reports from all the northern garrisons. By the time the midnight bells ring, I am exhausted and my desk is only half-clear. But I stop anyway, forgoing a meal despite the rumbling in my belly, and pulling on my boots and a cloak. Sleep will not come. Not when the crack of Livia’s bones still rings through my head. Not when I’m wondering what ambush the Commandant will have waiting for me in Navium.

The hallway outside my quarters is silent and dark. Most of the Black Guard should be asleep, but there’s always at least a half dozen men on watch. I don’t want to be followed—I suspect the Commandant has spies among my men. I head for the armory, where a hidden passage leads into the heart of the city.

“Shrike.” The whisper is soft, but I jump anyway, cursing at the sight of the green eyes shining like a cat’s from across the hall.

“Avitas,” I hiss. “Why are you lurking out here?”

“Don’t take the armory tunnel,” he says. “Pater Sissellius has a man watching the route. I’ll have him taken care of, but there wasn’t time tonight.”

“Are you spying on me?”

“You’re predictable, Shrike. Any time Marcus hurts her, you take a walk. Captain Dex reminded me that it’s against regulations for the Shrike to be unaccompanied, so here I am.”

I know Harper is simply carrying out his duties. I have been irresponsible, wandering the city at night without any guards. Still, I’m vexed. Harper serenely ignores my discontent and nods to the laundry closet. There must be another passageway there.

Once we’re inside the narrow space, my armor clanks against his, and I grimace, hoping no one hears us. Skies know what they would say at finding us pressed together in a dark closet.

My face heats thinking of it. Thank the skies for my mask. “Where’s the bleeding entrance?”

“It’s just—” He reaches around me and up, rummaging through uniforms. I lean back, catching a V-shaped glimpse of the smooth brown skin at his throat. His scent is light—barely there—but warm, like cinnamon and cedar. I take a deeper sniff, glancing up at him as I do.

To find him staring at me, eyebrows raised.

“You smell … not unpleasant,” I say stiffly. “I was simply noticing.”

“Of course, Shrike.” His mouth quirks a little. Is that a bleeding smile?

“Shall we?” As if sensing my annoyance, Harper pushes open a section of the closet behind me and moves through quickly. We do not speak again as we wend our way through the secret passageways of the Black Guard barracks and out into the chill spring night.

Harper drops back when we are aboveground, and I soon forget he is near. Hood pulled low, I ghost through Antium’s lower level, through the crowded Scholar sector, past inns and bustling taprooms, barracks and Plebeian-heavy neighborhoods. The guards at the upper gate do not see me as I pass into the city’s second tier—a trick I play to keep my edge.

I find myself toying with my father’s ring as I walk, the ring of Gens Aquilla. Sometimes, when I look at it, I still see the blood that coated it, the blood that spattered my face and armor when Marcus cut Father’s throat.

Don’t think about that. I spin it round, trying to take comfort from its presence. Give me the wisdom of all the Aquillas, I find myself thinking. Help me defeat my foe.

I soon reach my destination, a wooded park outside the Hall of Records. At this hour, I expected the hall to be dark, but a dozen lamps are lit, and the archivists are still hard at work. The long, pillared building is spectacular for its size and simplicity, but I take comfort from it because of what is within: records of lineages, births, deaths, dispatches, treaties, trade agreements, and laws.

If the Emperor is the heart of the Empire and the people are its lifeblood, then the Hall of Records is its memory. No matter how hopeless I feel, coming here reminds me of all the Martials have built in the five hundred years since the Empire was founded.

“All Empires fall, Blood Shrike.”

When Cain steps from the shadows, I reach for my blade. I have thought many times about what I would do if I saw the Augur again. Always, I saw myself remaining calm. Silent. I would hold myself aloof from him. I would give him nothing of my mind.

My intentions vanish at the sight of his accursed face. The passion with which I want to break his frail neck astounds me. I didn’t know I could have this much hate in me. Hannah’s pleading fills my ears—Helly, I’m sorry—and my mother’s calm words as she knelt for her death. Strength, my girl. My father’s ring cuts into my palm.

But as I draw the blade, my arm freezes—and drops, forced to my side by the Augur. The lack of control is enraging and unsettling.

“Such anger,” he murmurs.

“You destroyed my life. You could have saved them. You—you monster.”

“What of you, Blood Shrike? Are you not a monster?” Cain’s hood is low, but I can still make out the inquisitive gleam of his gaze.

“You’re different,” I spit. “You’re like them. The Commandant, or Marcus, or the Nightbringer—”

“Ah, but the Nightbringer is no monster, child, though he may do monstrous things. He is cloven by sorrow and thus locked in a righteous battle to amend a grievous wrong. Much like you. I think you are more similar than you know. You could learn much from the Nightbringer, if he deigned to teach you.”

“I don’t bleeding want anything to do with any of you,” I hiss. “You are a monster, even if you—”

“But you are a paragon of perfection?” Cain tilts his head, appearing genuinely curious. “You live and breathe and eat and sleep on the backs of those less fortunate. Your entire existence is due to the oppression of those you view to be lesser. But why you, Blood Shrike? Why did fate see fit to make you the oppressor instead of the oppressed? What is the meaning of your life?”

“The Empire.” I shouldn’t answer. I should ignore him. But a lifetime of reverence dies hard. “That is the meaning of my life.”

“Perhaps.” Cain shrugs, a strangely human gesture. “I did not, in truth, come here to argue philosophy with you. I came with a message.”

He pulls an envelope from his robes. At the sight of the seal—a bird winging over a shining city—I snatch it from him. Livia.

As I open it, I keep one eye on the Augur.

Come to me, sister. I need you.

Yours always,

Livia

“When did she send this?” I scan the message quickly. “And why did she send it with you? She could have—”

“She asked, and I acquiesced. Anyone else would have been followed. And that would not have aligned with my interests. Or hers.” Cain touches my masked brow gently. “Fare thee well, Blood Shrike. I will see you once more, before your end.”

He steps back and vanishes, and Harper appears out of the dark, jaw clenched. Apparently, he likes the Augurs as much as I do.

“You can keep them out of your head,” he says. “The Nightbringer too. I can show you how, if you like.”

“Fine,” I say, already making for the palace. “On the way to Navium.”

We soon reach the balcony of Livvy’s apartments, and I do not spot a single soldier. Avitas is stationed below, and I’m reminding myself to yell at Faris, who captains Livvy’s personal guard, when the air shifts. I’m not alone.

“Peace, Shrike.” Faris Candelan steps out of the arched doorway that leads into Livvy’s quarters, his hands up, short blond hair a mess. “She’s waiting for you.”

“You should have bleeding told her it was stupid to summon me.”

“I don’t tell the Empress what to do,” Faris says. “I just try to make sure no one hurts her while she’s doing it.” Something about how he says it makes the hair on my neck rise, and in two steps, I have a dagger at his throat.

“Watch it with her, Faris,” I say. “You flirt like your life depends on it, but if Marcus suspects she is disloyal he will kill her, and the Illustrian Paters will believe he had every right to do it.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Faris says. “I’ve got a lovely Mercator girl waiting for me in the Weaver’s district. Most spectacular hips I’ve ever seen. Would have been there by now”—he glares at me until I release him—“but someone needed to be on duty.”

“Two people,” I say. “Who’s your backup?”

A figure steps into the light from the shadows beside the door: a thrice-broken nose, deep brown skin, and blue eyes that always sparkle, even beneath the silver mask.

“Rallius? Ten hells, is that you?”

Silvio Rallius salutes before flashing a grin that made knees weak at Illustrian parties across Serra for nearly all of my teenage years—including my knees, before I learned better. Elias and I hero-worshipped him, though he is only two years older. He was one of the few upperclassman who wasn’t a monster to the younger students.

“Blood Shrike.” He salutes. “My scim is yours.”

“Words as pretty as that smile.” I don’t return his, and he realizes then that he’s dealing with the Blood Shrike and not a young cadet from Blackcliff. “Make them true. Protect her, or your life is forfeit.”

I slip past them both and into Livvy’s bedroom. As my eyes adjust, the floorboards near a tapestry creak. Cloth whispers as the contours of the room come into focus. Livia’s bed is empty; on her side table, a cup of tea—wildwood, from the scent of it—sits untouched.

Livia pokes her head out from behind the tapestry and motions me forward. I can barely make her out, which means any spies within the walls can’t see her either.

“You should have drunk the tea.” I am careful of her wounded hand. “It must hurt.”

Her clothes rustle, and a soft click sounds. Stale air and the smell of wet stone wash over me. A hallway stretches before us. We step in, and she closes the door, finally speaking.

“An empress who bears her pain with fortitude is an empress who gains respect,” she says. “My women have spread the rumor that I scorned the tea. That I bear the pain without fear. But bleeding hells, it hurts.”

The moment she says it, a familiar compulsion comes over me: the need to heal her, to sing her better.

“I can—I can help you,” I say. Bleeding skies, how will I explain it to her? “I—”

“We don’t have time, sister,” she whispers. “Come. This passage connects my rooms to his. I’ve used it before. But be silent. He cannot catch us.”

We pad down the hallway toward a tiny crack of light. The muttering begins when we’re halfway down. The light is a spy hole, big enough to admit sound but too small to see through very clearly. I glimpse Marcus, bare of armor, stalking back and forth across his cavernous quarters.

“You have to stop doing this when I’m in the throne room.” He digs his hands into his hair. “Do you want to have died just so I can get hurled off the throne for being insane?”

Silence. Then: “I won’t bleeding touch her! I can’t help that her sister’s gagging for it—”

I nearly choke, and Livvy grips me. “I had my reasons,” she whispers.