“Elias,” she says. “How can you say this?”
“You should leave,” I say. “I do not wish to welcome you to the Waiting Place—not yet. May the skies speed your way.”
“What the hells has that place done to you?” she cries. “I need your help, Elias. The people need you. There are thousands of Scholars here. If I cannot get the Star, then I can at least get them out. You could—”
“I must return to the Waiting Place,” I say. “Goodbye, Laia of Serra.”
Laia grabs my face and peers into my eyes. A darkness rises in her—something that is fey, but not. It is more than fey. It is atavistic, the essence of magic itself. And it rages.
“What have you done to him?” She speaks to Mauth, as if she knows he has joined with me. As if she can see him. “Give him back!”
My voice, when it comes, is an unearthly rumble that isn’t my own. I feel shoved to the side in my own mind, watching as I incline my head. “Forgive me, dear one,” Mauth says through me. “It is the only way.”
I back away from her and turn east, toward the Forest of Dusk. Moments later, I am through the masses of Karkauns ravaging the city, then beyond them, speeding through the countryside, at last one with Mauth.
But though I know I go now to my duty, some old part of me twinges, reaches out to whatever it is that I have lost. It feels strange.
It is the pain of what you have given up. But it will fade, Banu al-Mauth. You have endured much in a short time, learned much in a short time. You cannot expect to be ready overnight.
“It . . .” I search for the word. “It hurts.”
Surrender always does. But it will not hurt forever.
“Why me?” I ask. “Why do we have to change and not you? Why do we have to become less human instead of you becoming more so?”
The ocean waves thunder on, and it is man who must swim among them. The wind blows, cold and brittle, and it is man who must protect against it. The earth shakes and cracks, swallows and destroys, but it is man who must walk upon it. So it is with death. I cannot surrender, Elias. It must be you.
“I don’t feel like myself anymore.”
Because you are not yourself. You are me. I am you. And in this way, we will pass the ghosts through, that your world be spared from their predations.
He falls silent as we leave Antium far behind. Soon, I forget the fighting. I forget the face of the girl I loved. I think only of the task ahead.
All is as it must be.
LIV: Laia
Cook finds me beside the stables moments after Elias disappears. I stare after him, disbelieving. He is not the Elias I left even two weeks ago, the Elias who brought me back from the Nightbringer’s hell, who told me that we would find a way.
But then I remember what he said: If I seem different, remember that I love you. No matter what happens to me.
What in the skies happened to him? What was it inside me that lashed out at him? I think of what the Nightbringer said to me in Adisa: You know not the darkness that lies within your own heart.
Deal with Elias later, Laia. My mind reels. The city has fallen. I have failed. And the Scholar slaves—they are trapped here. Antium is surrounded on three sides. Only the north end, built against Mount Videnns, is not overrun with Karkauns.
That is where Cook and I entered the city, and that is how we will escape. That is how we will help the Scholars escape.
Because I know this feeling sweeping through me far too well, the feeling that all my effort, all I have worked for, means nothing. That everything and everyone is a lie. That all is cruel and unforgiving and that there is no justice.
I have survived this feeling before, and I will survive it again. In this fiery hellscape of a world, this mess of blood and madness, justice exists only for those who take it. I’ll be damned if I’m not one of them.
“Girl.” Cook appears from the streets. “What has happened?”
“Is the Mariner Embassy still clear?” I ask her as we head away from the sounds of fighting. “Have the Karkauns taken that district, or can we escape that way?”
“We can escape.”
“Good,” I say. “We’re getting as many Scholars out as we can—do you understand? I’m going to send them to you at the embassy. I need you to tell them where to go.”
“The Karkauns have broken through to the city’s second level. They’ll be at the embassy in a matter of hours, and then what will you do? Escape with me now. The Scholars will find their own way out.”
“They will not,” I say. “Because there is no way out. We’re surrounded on three sides. They don’t know there are escape routes.”
“Let someone else do this.”
“There is no one else! There is only us.”
“This is a stupid idea,” Cook says, “that’s going to get us both killed.”
“I have never asked anything of you.” I grab her hands, and she flinches, but I hold tight to her. “I never had the opportunity. I am asking you to do this for me. Please. I’ll send them to the embassy. You lead them out.”
I do not wait for her response. I turn and run, knowing that she will not say no—not after what I just said to her.
The Scholar’s District is in a panic, with people packing and searching for relatives and trying to fathom how they will escape the city. I stop one of the girls I see running across the main square. She looks a few years younger than me.
“Where is everyone going?” I ask her.
“No one knows where to go!” she wails. “I can’t find my mother, and the Martials are all gone—they must have started evacuating the city, but no one told us.”
“My name is Laia of Serra,” I say. “The Karkauns have broken through. They will be here soon, but I’m going to help you leave. Do you know where the Mariner Embassy is?”
She nods, and I heave a sigh of relief. “Tell everyone, every Scholar you see, to go to the Mariner Embassy. A scar-faced woman will take you out of the city. Tell them to go now, to leave their things and run.”
The girl nods rapidly and runs away. I grab another Scholar, a man Darin’s age, and give him the same message. Whoever will stop, whoever will listen, I tell them to go to the embassy. To find the scar-faced woman. I see recognition in the eyes of a few when I tell them my name, but the sounds of fighting draw closer, and no one is stupid enough to ask questions. The message spreads, and soon the Scholars are fleeing the square en masse.
I hope to the skies everyone in the district gets the message, then I plunge into the city. The girl was right—the only Martials I see are soldiers, all of whom are running toward the fighting. I think of the wagon trains I saw leaving when Cook and I were approaching Antium. The wealthiest of the Martials left here weeks ago. They gave up on their capital and left the soldiers and the Plebeians and the Scholars to die.
I spot a group of Scholars clearing rubble under the direction of two Martials who aren’t paying attention because they are listening to drum messages. They discuss the messages in low, urgent tones, as aware of the sounds of nearby fighting as I am. I use the Martials’ distraction to sneak up to the Scholars.
“We can’t simply run.” A woman glances at the Martials fearfully. “They’ll come after us.”
“You must,” I say. “If you don’t run from them now, you’ll be running from the Karkauns, but by then, you’ll have nowhere to go.”
Another woman in the group hears, drops her pick, and breaks away, and that is all the other Scholars need. Three score of them scatter, the adults grabbing the few children, all disappearing in a dozen directions before the Martials can even understand what is happening.