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

by Sabaa Tahir

But when I looked into her soul, something—someone—peered back: my queen, gazing at me across the centuries.

“Mauth is the source of all the world’s fey power,

He. As if the magic is alive.

Pain is a choice. Succumb to it and fail. Or defy it and triumph.

a fey part of my mind trills at the life within her. She has healed. She is strong.

The cruelest anger comes from the deepest pain.

“There is so much you do not yet know, and if you fail, the world will fall.

And seek the Tribes, Elias. Long have they been my allies. Ask about the stories of the dea—”

“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.”

“Remember all that I say before the end,” she whispers. “That is why he has come. That is what he wants from me. Swear it.”

The thickest concentration of ghosts is always around the cabin. But the spirits are gone. Every last one.

Whoever this Grímarr is, he’s trying to take the damn city.”

“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.

learned from the Soul Catcher: that the Star protects those who have touched it.

the jinn’s magic has no effect on me.

“What of you, Blood Shrike? Are you not a monster?”

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 will see you once more, before your end.”

“An empress who bears her pain with fortitude is an empress who gains respect,”

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

The sparrows will drown, and none will know it. The Scholars must be the sparrows, Laia. The Mariners have always been called the sea people. They are the flood.”

Grandfather’s ghost was deeply troubled—it would not speak to me. Something is wrong.

I realize that they aren’t pressing at something near the wall. They are pushing at the wall itself. They are trying to get out.

I wonder if my entire life will be a series of moments in which I realize I’m an idiot long after I can actually do anything about it. Will I ever feel like I know what I’m doing? Or will I be an old man, tottering about, flummoxed by whatever recent foolishness I’ve committed?

“The memory is in the pain.”

“A hurt like mine. The memory is in the pain, little one. In their pain. They burn with it, for they have lived with it much longer than I.”

Their pain. “The jinn?”

“Hope is stronger than fear. It is stronger than hate.”

The Martial fleet is gone.

Your answers lie in Adisa. With the Beekeeper. But beware, for he is cloaked in lies and shadow, like you.

“You wanted me to be a Resistance leader,” I say. “Here’s a lesson I learned from the last Resistance fighter I knew. To lead, you have to do ugly things. We leave in an hour. Come along or stay. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“The magic makes me seek control when there is none to be found,” he says. “It is the magic of manipulation—of speaking—of getting lesser creatures to bend to my will. It’s why I was so good with my father’s bees. But when I rely too much on it, it makes me into my worst self. A tyrant.”

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.

You seek to destroy the Nightbringer. And he is something else altogether.”

No, the Nightbringer cannot be killed. Not by a human, anyway. But he can be stopped.”

The stories we tell have power, of course. But the stories that go untold have just as much power, if not more. I will sing you such a story—a story that was long untold.

“I said—” I shake my head. Mamie Rila used to say that dreams are the bits of ourselves we can’t face in the day, coming to visit at night.

“Why must we be apart? I miss what we should have been, Elias. Is that possible—”

The more you feel, the more you fail. The more you fail, the stronger they become.”

Seek out the jinn. Find their secrets.

There is success. And there is failure. The land in between is for those too weak to live.

What folly that he is chained to that place—what folly when this world needs his light.

My song is not one of peace. It is one of failure and pain. My song is one of battle and blood, death and power. It is not the song of Helene Aquilla. It is the song of the Blood Shrike. And I cannot find it. I cannot wrap my mind around it.

“Seek out the Augurs’ words,” she whispers. “Prophecy. The Great Library—”

The Great Library. The Great Library is on fire.

I’ve only to offer the spirits love and they’ll move on?

You destroyed yourselves. For a thousand years you’ve had only one Soul Catcher. Shaeva, at least, was jinn. Her magic was innate. Still, the ghosts built up—you saw her struggle. But you have no magic. How can a talentless mortal do that which a jinn could not? The ghosts press against the borders like rainwater presses against a dam. And you will never move the ghosts swiftly enough to stop the dam from bursting. You will fail.

“You are young to stand so deeply in the shadow.”