“Tell me.” Her tongue flicks across my ear, and I forget to breathe. “Show me.”
When she wraps her legs around my waist, when I feel the heat of her against me, it undoes me, and I flip her onto her back on the bed and drop down over her. She draws circles on my chest and then moves her hand lower . . . lower. I curse in Sadhese and capture her wrist.
“Me first,” I say, tracing the indent of her stomach and, spurred on by her sighs, dropping my hand further, moving in time with her body until she arches her back, her arms trembling against my neck. As we both start to rid ourselves of clothes, our eyes meet.
She smiles at me, a sweet smile, unsure and hopeful and bemused. I know that smile. I think about it all the time.
But it is not a smile a dream could ever re-create. And this feeling within me—my desire. Hers. They are also not emotions a dream could ever simulate.
Could this be real? Could I have windwalked here somehow?
Who bleeding cares? You’re here now.
But I hear something—whispers—the same whispers I heard when I was with the Blood Shrike. The jinn.
A warning flares down my spine. This isn’t a dream. Laia is here, in this inn. I am here. And if I’m here, then it’s the jinn who have done it. How the bleeding hells did they move me? How did they know where Laia was? And why have they brought me here?
I pull my hands away to sit up, and she growls in disappointment. “You’re right,” I say. “I—I am here. This is real. But it shouldn’t be.”
“Elias.” She laughs again. “It has to be a dream, or we couldn’t do this. But it is the best dream.” She reaches for me again, pulling me down. “You’re exactly like you. Now where were—”
She pauses, and it’s as if the world has frozen. Nothing moves, not even the shadows. A moment later, the world unfreezes and Laia shudders, as if a chill has entered her very blood.
Or her mind. For when she looks at me, she is no longer Laia. Her eyes are pure white, and I jump away from her as she shoves me, her strength unnatural. A ghost? My mind screams. Skies, is she possessed?
“Go back!” Her voice has completely changed, and I recognize it as the voice that spoke out of Shaeva when I took my vow to become Soul Catcher. The voice that spoke to me in that strange in-between place when Shaeva stole me away from the raid. Mauth’s voice.
Laia’s whole body shifts, changing into shadow, her features faded, her body unfamiliar.
“Where is she?” I demand. “What did you do with her?”
“Go back. The jinn deceive you. They use your weakness against you. Go back.”
Mauth—in Laia’s shadow form—swings at me, as if trying to beat me toward the Waiting Place. I’m thrown backward by the blow.
“Stop this.” I lift my hands. “Who brought me here? Was it you? Was it the jinn?”
“The jinn, you fool,” says Mauth—for I won’t allow myself to think of him as Laia, no matter what form he takes. “They siphon the power that you do not use. They strengthen themselves. They distract you with the lures of the human world. The more you feel, the more you fail. The more you fail, the stronger they become.”
“How—how are you talking to me?” I say. “Are you possessing her? Are you hurting her?”
“Her fate is not your concern.” Mauth shoves me, but I plant my feet. “Her life is not your concern.”
“If you’ve hurt her—”
“She will not remember this—any of this,” Mauth says. “Go back. Surrender to me. Forget your past. Forget your humanity. You must, do you see? Do you understand?”
“I cannot!” I say. “It’s part of me. But I need the magic—”
“The magic will allow you to pass the ghosts through with nary a thought. It will allow you to quell the jinn. But you must leave your old self behind. You are Elias Veturius no more. You are the Soul Catcher. You are mine. I know what your heart desires. It can never be.”
I try desperately to push those wishes away. So stupid. So small. A house and a bed and a garden and laughter and a future.
“Forget your dreams.” Mauth’s anger mounts. “Forget your heart. There is only your vow to serve me. Love cannot live here. Seek out the jinn. Find their secrets. Then you will understand.”
“I’ll never understand,” I say. “I’ll never let go of what I fought so hard to keep.”
“You must, Elias. Otherwise all is lost.”
Mauth spins out of Laia, a teeming cyclone of cindered shadows, and she collapses in a heap. I take one step toward her before Mauth yanks me into darkness. Seconds or minutes or hours later, I slam into the singed earth outside Shaeva’s cabin. Warm summer rain falls in sheets, drenching me within seconds.
Bleeding, burning hells, it was real. I was with Laia in Marinn—and she won’t even remember it. I was with the Blood Shrike in Navium. Did she survive her wound? I should have helped her. Gotten her to the barracks.
Just thinking of them ignites Mauth’s wrath. I double over, hissing at the fire that tears through me.
Seek out the jinn. Find their secrets. Mauth’s order rings through my head. But I sought the jinns’ help once before. They used it to bedevil me so the spirits could escape.
The Commandant’s words float through my mind. There is success. And there is failure. The land in between is for those too weak to live.
I need to get to the magic. And to do that, Mauth, at least, thinks I need the jinn. But this time, I won’t go to those creatures as Elias Veturius. I won’t even go to them as the Soul Catcher.
I’ll go to them as Mask Veturius, dread Martial, soldier of the Empire. I’ll go to them as the estranged, murderous son of the Bitch of Blackcliff, as the monster who killed his friends and assassinated the Empire’s enemies as a child and who watched stonily as Yearlings were whipped to death before his eyes.
This time, I will not ask the jinn for help.
I will take it.
XXV: The Blood Shrike
You are Blood Shrike of the Empire. And you are meant to survive.
Who spoke the words? I try to grasp at the memory. Someone was here, on this dark street with me. A friend . . .
But when I open my eyes and pull myself to my knees, I am alone, left with nothing but the echo of those words.
My knees shake as I try to pull myself to my feet. But no matter how deeply I breathe, I can’t get any bleeding air. Because you’re losing all your blood, Shrike.
I rip off my cloak and tie it around my stomach, groaning at the pain of it. Now is when I need a damned patrol to pass, but of course the Commandant, who no doubt planned this, would make sure there was none.
But there might be more assassins. I have to get up. Get to the Black Guard barracks.
Why? a voice whispers. The darkness waits with open arms. Your family waits.
Mother. Father. I need to remember something about them. I fist my hands and feel something cold, round. I look down—a ring. A bird in flight.
You are all that holds back the darkness. Someone said those words to me. But no—those words do not matter. Not against the pain that slams through me, waves and waves of it.
You are all that holds back the darkness. The memory burns in my mind. I put a hand to my eyes, and my mask ripples. The cool metal lends me strength as nothing else can, snapping me out of my torpor.
My father spoke those words to me. Livia! The baby! The regency! My family lives. The Empire lives. And I must protect both.
I crawl forward, teeth gritted, enraged at the tears streaming unchecked down my face at the astounding pain of my wound. Break it down. How many steps to the barracks? It’s a quarter mile from here at least. Five hundred strides at most. Five hundred strides is nothing.
What about when you get there? What if someone sees you? Will you let your men see you weak? What if someone spots you on the way? The assassin can’t possibly be alone.
Then I will fight his accomplices too. And I will live. Because if I do not, all is lost.