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

by Sabaa Tahir

there will be no sky beyond the storm.

But none of it would matter. Elias Veturius is gone. Only the Soul Catcher remains. And I do not love the Soul Catcher.

Even then, she was an ember ever burning, no matter how much the world tried to quench her fire.

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.

“I am sorry. But—” “No.” She puts a finger to my lips. “I am sorry was the perfect place to stop.”

Until I am the Blood Shrike no longer, but simply Helene. His Helene.

“I said: You are my temple.”

“You are my priest,”

“You are my prayer,”

“You are my release,”

I love you. Such simple words. But they are not enough. They don’t convey what I mean. “Emifal Firdaant,” I say to him. “You’ve said that before.” He runs his fingers through my hair. “What does it mean?” I cannot quite look at him when I say it. “May death claim me first.” “Ah, no, my love.” He gathers me close. “You cannot go first. I could not make sense of the world if you did.”

After months of hunting and killing and hoarding suffering, I realized that the despair of humans would never equal mine. That the only way to release the maelstrom, to bore a hole between this world and Mauth’s, was to pour a thousand years of my own pain into the Sea of Suffering.

“How do we trust our happiness, Laia?” I turn toward her, and she traces my lips with her finger. “How do we go on if we don’t know if it will be taken away?” I’m gratified that she doesn’t answer right away, thankful that she understands why I ask. Laia isn’t who she was. Her joy is tempered, like mine. Her heart tender, like mine. Her mind wary, like mine. “I do not think the answer is in words, love,” she says. “I think it is in living. In finding joy, however small, in every day. We’ll struggle to trust happiness at first, perhaps. But we can trust ourselves to reach for it always. Remember what Nan said.” “Where there is life, there is hope.”