A Reaper at the Gates (An Ember in the Ashes, #3)

by Sabaa Tahir

“The moon sets on the archer and the shield maiden!” Her voice changes, multiplies. It is a child’s voice and an old woman’s layered over her own, as if all the versions that Shaeva was and ever could be are speaking at once. “The executioner has arisen. The traitor walks free. Beware! The Reaper approaches, flames in his wake, and he shall set this world alight. And so shall the great wrong be set right.”

“Your answers lie in Adisa.” I wince and try to squirm away, but she holds me with a jinn’s strength. “With the Beekeeper. But beware, for he is cloaked in lies and shadow, like you. Find him at your peril, child, for you will lose much, even as you save us all—”

One piece remains, and beware the Reaper at the Gates! The sparrows will drown, and none will know it. The past shall burn, and none will slow it. The Dead will rise, and none can survive. The Child will be bathed in blood but alive. The Pearl will crack, the cold will enter. The Butcher will break, and none will hold her. The Ghost will fall, her flesh will wither. By the Grain Moon, the King will have his answer. By the Grain Moon, the forgotten will find their master.

She was here, and now she’s gone, and nothing can change that.

The permanence of death will always feel like a betrayal.

“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 hear nothing but Laia, see nothing but Laia, feel nothing but Laia.

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.”

Turn around, I think. Just once. Turn around. She doesn’t. And perhaps it’s just as well.

“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.

“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?”

Ooop. I see no lies Helene.

Strange how monsters can reach from beyond the grave, as potent in death as they were in life.

Why is it always us? All of these people—so many children—hunted and abused and tormented. Families stolen, lives shattered. They come all this way to be rejected yet again, sent outside the city walls to sleep in flimsy tents, to fight over paltry scraps of food, to starve and freeze and suffer more. And we are expected to be thankful. To be happy. So many are—I know it. Happy to be safe. To be alive. But it’s not enough—not to me.

What sin was so great that Scholars must pay, with every generation, with the only thing we have left: our lives?

bhai.”

Bani al-Mauth.

“Astagha!”

it. “Let’s keep it that way,” she says to his slumped

To lead, you have to do ugly things.

Love. I sigh. Love is joy coupled with misery, elation bound to despair. It is a fire that beckons me gently and then burns when I get too close. I hate love. I yearn for it. And it drives me mad.

“Jealous?” She laughs, and immediately I want to hear her laugh again. “Now I know this isn’t a dream. Dream Elias would know that he never needs to be jealous.” “I’m not—” I consider. “Never mind. I am jealous. Tell me he’s old, at least? Or grouchy? Or maybe a bit stupid?” “He’s young. And handsome. And smart.” I snort. “He’s probably rubbish in be—” Laia smacks me on the arm. “Battle,” I say quickly. “I was going to say battle.”

“Why is it like this?” she asks. “Why must we be apart? I miss what we should have been, Elias. Is that possible—”

Her questions are my own subconscious, holding me accountable for my mistakes.

I want her. She wants me. And we have wanted each other for so long.

She smiles at me, a sweet smile, unsure and hopeful and bemused. I know that smile. I think about it all the time.

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.”

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?

“Everyone believes that nothing concerns them until the monsters are knocking on their doors!” She winces at my shriek, but I do not care. “Until they are burning down your homes and destroying your lives and killing your families!”

“The blood of the father and the blood of the son are harbingers of darkness,” Musa reads. “The King shall light the Butcher’s path, and when the Butcher bows to the deepest love of all, night approaches. Only the Ghost may stand against the onslaught. Should the Lioness’s heir claim the Butcher’s pride, it will evanesce, and the blood of seven generations shall pass from the earth before the King may seek vengeance again.

“Don’t you belittle me.” I step forward, and everything fades—Eleiba’s hand on her weapon, the guards tensing, a murmured plea from Musa to calm down. “I am the daughter of the Lioness. I destroyed Blackcliff. I saved the life of Elias Veturius. I survived Commandant Keris Veturia. I survived the betrayals of the Resistance and the Nightbringer. I crossed the Empire and broke into Kauf Prison. I rescued my brother and hundreds of other Scholars. I am not nothing.”

saw the man I love get chained to some hellish underworld because of you.

thought I loved Keenan, but that love was born out of desperation and loneliness, out of a need to see myself, my struggles, in someone else. What I feel for Elias is different, a flame I hold close to my heart when I feel my strength flagging. Sometimes, deep in the night as I travel, I picture a future with him. But I dare not look at it too closely. How can I, when it can never be?

Skies, I hope he has not grown a beard. I hated his beard.

But I can’t do it. I can’t pretend that I don’t love her.

“Will we ever take a walk by the moonlight, or spend an afternoon making jam or making . . .”

Love.

“We will find a way, Laia. Somehow. But if . . . if I change . . . if I seem different, remember that I love you. No matter what happens to me. Say you’ll remember, please—”

I will find you, Laia. I will find a way. This is not our end.

“The Tribespeople say that the heavens live under the feet of the mother,”

Saying also in Islamic roots.

“So great is their sacrifice. And indeed no one suffers in war more than the mother. This war will be no different.”

Long ago, I took something that did not belong to me. And I—and my kin—have spent every moment since paying for it.”

Come what may, I am glad I am here to fight with my people. And I am glad I am the Blood Shrike charged with leading the Martials to victory.

But after only a few steps, I turn back. I cannot leave her. I missed her for so many years. I have longed for her from the age of five, when she was taken from me.

I know that look now. It is the look she gets when she’s about to spring a trap.

“Why do you care so much what happens to me?” “Why do you think?” His words are sharp, lacking his usual care. And when his green eyes meet mine, they are angry. But his voice is cool. “You are the Blood Shrike. I am your second. Your safety is my duty.” “Sometimes, Avitas,” I sigh, “I wish you’d say what you’re actually thinking.

And I would be blind not to see what he feels for me. I am woven into his consciousness the way Elias used to be woven into mine. Harper is always aware of where I am, of whether I am all right.

“There is no Mirra of Serra!” Cook shrieks so loudly that a pack of sparrows takes flight from a nearby tree, as frightened as I am. “She’s dead. She died in Kauf Prison when her child and husband died! I’m not Mirra. I’m Cook. And you will not speak to me of that murderous, traitorous bitch or what she would or wouldn’t do. You know nothing of her.”

Perhaps Mirra of Serra would have been willing to sacrifice a child to save her own neck, but that’s because Mirra of Serra had no soul. Mirra of Serra was as evil as the Commandant. And I’m not her. Not anymore.”

“But I enjoyed it. And that makes me evil? Come now, girl. You cannot walk in the shadows as long as I have and not become one.”