I soon sheathe my dagger. I’ve been in enough graveyards to know what they feel like. There isn’t a soul in the place. There aren’t even ghosts.
Though I want to explore every single street, I’m drawn to the large building on the riverbank. It’s bigger than the Emperor’s palace in Antium and a hundred times more beautiful. Stone blocks sit upon one another with such perfect symmetry that I know no human cut them.
I see no columns or domes or ornate patterns. The structures in the Empire or Marinn or the Tribal deserts reflect their people. Those cities laugh and cry and shout and snarl. This city is one note, the purest note ever sung, held until my heart wants to break at the sound.
A low set of stairs leads to the main building. At my touch, the two massive doors at the top of the stairs open as easily as if their hinges were oiled this morning. Within, three dozen blue-fire torches sputter to life.
Which is when I realize that the walls, which appeared to be a deep black stone, are something else entirely. They reflect the flame like water reflects sunlight, transforming the entire room to a gentle sapphire blue. Though the massive windows are open to the elements, the thunder of the storm outside is muted to a murmur.
I cannot make heads or tails of what this place is. Its size makes me think it was used for gatherings. Yet there is only one low bench in the center of the room.
Mauth tugs me up a staircase, through a series of antechambers, and into another room with a huge window. It is filled with the scents of the river and the rain. Torches paint the room white.
I lift my hand to touch the wall. When I do, it comes alive, filled with misty images. I yank my hand back, and the images fade.
Gingerly, I touch it again. At first, I cannot understand the pictures. Animals play. Leaves dance on the wind. Tree hollows transform into kindly faces. The images remind me of Mamie Rila—of what her voice is like when she sings a tale. Which is when I understand: These are children’s stories. Children lived here. But not human children.
Home, the jinn said. Jinn children.
I make my way, room by room, to the top of the building, stopping in a high rotunda that overlooks the city and the river.
When I touch the walls, images appear again. This time, though, they are of the city itself. Strips of orange and yellow and green silk flutter in the windows. Jewel-like flowers grow in overflowing boxes. The trill and hum of voices tell of a happier time.
People clad in smoky black robes walk the city. One woman has dark skin and tight curls, like Dex’s. Another has pale skin and fine hair, like the Blood Shrike’s. Some are scim-thin, and others are heavier, like Mamie was before the Empire got its hands on her. Each, in their own way, walks with a grace that I only ever saw in Shaeva.
But they do not walk alone. All are surrounded by ghosts.
I spot a man with auburn hair and a face so beautiful I can’t even be irritated by it. He is surrounded by ghost children, love suffusing every bit of him as he speaks with them.
I can’t hear what he says, but I can understand his intent. He offers the ghosts love. Not judgment or anger or questions. One by one, the spirits drift into the river at ease. At peace.
Is this, then, the secret of what Shaeva did? I’ve only to offer the spirits love and they’ll move on? It can’t be. It’s antithetical to everything she said about quelling my emotions.
The ghosts here are calm, far more serene than they were when Shaeva lived. I do not sense the frantic pain that suffuses the Waiting Place as I know it. There are also far fewer of them. Little groups of them follow the black-robed figures obediently.
Instead of a lone Soul Catcher, there are dozens. No, hundreds.
Other figures drift from the buildings, human in form but made of deep black-and-red flame, glorious and free. Here and there I spot children switching from human to flame and back with the rapidity of a hummingbird’s wings.
When the Soul Catchers and their ghosts pass, the jinn move aside, inclining their heads. The children watch from afar, mouths agog. They whisper, and their body language reminds me of how Martial children act when a Mask passes by. Fear. Awe. Envy.
And yet the Soul Catchers are not isolated. They speak to each other. One woman smiles when a flame child comes running toward her, transforming into a human just before the jinn scoops him up. They have family. Partners. Children.
An image of Laia and me in a house, making a life together, flashes through my mind. Could it be possible?
The city ripples. A frisson of sorts, a portent made manifest in the shiver in the air. The jinn turn to the rim of their valley, where a row of flags fly, green with a purple quill and an open book: the sigil of the Scholar Empire, before it fell.
The images come swiftly. A young human king arrives with his retinue. The auburn-haired jinn welcomes him, a brown-skinned jinn woman at his side and two flame children fidgeting behind them. The jinn wears a crown with discomfort, as if he’s not used to it.
I finally recognize him. The hair is different, as is the build, but something about his manner is familiar. This is the King of No Name. The Nightbringer.
Flanking the king and his queen are two flame-formed jinn bodyguards armed with black-diamond sickles. Despite their nonhuman physiques, I recognize the one who stands by the children. Shaeva. She watches the visiting Scholar king with fascination. He notices.
The images speed up. The Scholar king wheedles, then cajoles, then demands the secrets of the jinn. The Nightbringer rejects him, but the Scholar king refuses to give up.
Shaeva meets the Scholar in his guest quarters. Over weeks, he befriends her. Laughs with her. Listens to her, scheming even as she falls desperately in love with him.
A sense of foreboding grows, thick as mud. The Nightbringer haunts the streets of his own city when everyone’s sleeping, sensing a threat. When his wife speaks to him, he smiles. When his children play with him, he laughs. Their fears are quelled. His only grow.
Shaeva finds the Scholar king in a clearing beyond the city. His manner reminds me of someone, but the knowledge wavers at the edges of my mind before slipping away. Shaeva and the Scholar argue. He calms her anger. Makes promises. Even at the distance of a thousand years, I know he’ll break those promises.
Three moons rise and set. Then the Scholars attack, tearing into the Forest of Dusk with steel and fire.
The jinn cast them back easily, but with bewilderment—they do not understand this. They know the humans want their power. But why, when we keep the balance? Why, when we take the spirits of your dead and move them on so that you are not haunted by them?
Ghosts fill the city. But the jinn must fight, so there are not enough Soul Catchers to move the spirits on. Forced to wait and suffer, the spirits cry out, their wails an eerily prescient dirge. The jinn king meets with the efrit lords as the Scholars press the attack. His flame children are sent far away with hundreds of others, howling tearful goodbyes to their parents.
The images follow the children into the Forest.
Oh no. No. I want to pull my hand from the wall, to stop the images. Danger closes in on the little ones. The crack of a twig, a shadow flitting among the trees. And all the while these waist-high flame children scurry through the Forest. They are unknowing, illuminating the trunks and leaves and grasses with brilliance, some deep fey magic that lends beauty to all that they touch. Their whispers sound like bells, and they move like cheery, brave little campfires on a freezing night.
A sudden silence descends. You’re walking into an ambush! Protect them, you fools! I want to scream at the guards. Humans pour from the trees, armed with swords gleaming with summer rain.
The flame children cluster together, terrified. As they join, their fire burns brighter.
And then their flames go out.
I don’t want to see anymore. I know the tale. Shaeva gave the Scholar king the Star. He and his coven of magic-users locked away the jinn.
Do you see now, Elias Veturius? the jinn ask.