A ​Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4)

by Sabaa Tahir

We are, all of us, just visitors in each other’s lives, he’d said. You will forget my visit soon enough.

Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be.

I want sand and stories and a clear night sky. I want to stare up into pale gray eyes filled with love and that edge of wickedness I ache for. I want to know what he said to me in Sadhese, a year and a half ago, when we danced at the Moon Festival in Serra. I want Elias Veturius back.

“Elias Veturius yet lives. And it is imperative that he live, for the Great War approaches, and it is not the Soul Catcher who will win it, it is Elias Veturius. It is not the Soul Catcher who is an ember in the ashes, it is Elias Veturius. It is not the Soul Catcher who will spark and burn, ravage and destroy. It is Elias Veturius.”

“It was never one. It was always three. The Blood Shrike is the first. Laia of Serra, the second. And the Soul Catcher is the last. The Mother watches over them all. If one fails, they all fail. If one dies, they all die. Go back to the beginning and there, find the truth. Strive even unto your own end, else all is lost.”

Because laughing makes it hurt less.

“For me, Elias, desire is not simple. It is not shelter. It is not warmth. It is a fire that offers no light, only heat, ruinous and consuming. The longer you deny it, the hotter it burns. You forget shelter. You forget warmth. There is only that which you want and cannot have, and the desolation that follows.”

“Perhaps,” Rehmat says. “But you’ll remain human. Is that not worth a bit of madness?”

“Suffering is a monster, waiting to be released from a cage.

“A commander who has tasted the bitter fruit of war is the only one worthy of waging it.

“To offer more love than we will ever be given.”

Would that we all knew the cracked terrain of each other’s broken hearts. Perhaps then, we would not be so cruel to those who walk this lonely world with us.

No one wants to fight for nothing.

“War is like the sun. It burns away all the softness and leaves only the cracks.

“You are broken. But it is the broken things that are the sharpest. The deadliest. It is the broken things that are the most unexpected, and the most underestimated.”

“There are some things that do not die. No matter how many blades we put into them,”

“Love can be more powerful in a battle than planning or strategy. Love keeps us fighting. Love drives us to survive.”

love while you can. For tomorrow, all that you love might be ash.

“I wish I could live a thousand lives so I could fall in love with you a thousand times,”