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

by Sabaa Tahir

“I swear I will not forget,” I say. “Nor will my children. Nor theirs. As long as one of my line draws breath, Meherya, the Tale will be told.”

“Mercy,” she says. “My name means mercy.”

For the Beloved who woke with the dawning of the world is no more. And for a single, anguished moment, the earth itself mourns him.

She defeated a creature that defies description—more than a king, more than a jinn, more than a foe. And in the process, she lost the only family she had left in this world.

“The same foretelling said I would die.” I remember the jinn’s prophecy as clearly as if she spoke it yesterday. The son of shadow and heir of death will fight and fail with his final breath. “But it didn’t say I’d find my way back.” I pull Laia close. “And it didn’t say that you’d win.” “Have we won?”

Despite her violence, her implacable hatred, I grieve her loss. Her skin is cold and soft beneath my hands as I close her eyes. My eyes.

Perhaps she was never trying to kill me. Perhaps she was trying to kill some part of herself.

“Love and regret and hope are all I can offer.”

“I have saved lives and taken them. I have been whipped and beaten and broken down. I have failed the world, failed in my duty. My mistakes will haunt me until I die. But I can still do good. I can pass the ghosts. I can vow to never make the same mistakes again.”

Without you, all would have been lost, Banu al-Mauth. One is a beginning. And for now, that is enough.

I will know that somewhere in the world, you exist, and that you are at peace. That is enough for me.” “Well, it might be enough for you,” a voice rasps from the shadows of the forest, “but it’s not enough for me.”

“I’m not alone.” Laia buries her face in her mother’s hair. “I thought I was all that was left of us.” My eyes get hot, and the Blood Shrike looks away, rubbing her hand against her cheeks and muttering about mud in her lashes. “You’re not alone,” Mirra says, and her voice is gentler now. “And if I have anything to do with it, you never will be again.”

You told the boy he will not be free of his vow until a human takes his place. Well, here I am. Ready to take over. And you don’t even have to bring me back to life.” A long silence, and then Mauth’s ancient rumble. Do you know what it is you ask for, Lioness? Laia looks between Mirra and me, for she cannot hear Mauth. But before I can explain, Mirra answers. “A few months of training from my future son-in-law—”

“You want me in the world of the living instead?” Mirra asks. “Weighing it down with my hate? I killed Keris Veturia. Slid a dagger through her throat and watched her die. But all I dream about is raising her from the dead so I can do it again.” Her voice drops to a whisper. “I am haunted, girl. By your f-f-father’s eyes. Your sis-sister’s voice. Dar—dar—” The Lioness shudders. “Your b-brother’s laugh,” she finally says. “I do not belong among the living. To be a Soul Catcher is to feel remorse, the jinn queen said. I am made of it. Let me go. Let me do some good.”

“Just free the boy, Mauth. I’ll do whatever you bleeding want.” Mirra considers. “Except forget her.” She nods to Laia.

You are her mother, Lioness. No power in the universe could wrest her from your heart. She is of you.

I notice that he does not threaten to punish Mirra for leaving the forest. Nor does he call her the ruler of the Waiting Place, as he did me. Perhaps she won’t be bound for an eternity after all.

“The Mother watches over them all,”

“I thought the Augur was talking about the Commandant. But it was you. You’re the Mother.”

“That I am, Elias.” The Lioness takes her daughter’s fingers in one hand and mine i...

Damn you for not being faster. For not loving me less. For not being locked in some other battle so you didn’t have to risk yourself in mine.

“You got there first, my love,” I whisper. “I envy you so. For how will I endure without you?”

Taius was hailed Imperator Invictus because when our people suffered, he saved them. When they were divided, he united them.”

“And there she stands.” At that moment, the sun, drifting in and out of the clouds all morning, breaks through, washing the training ground and the river beyond in pale light. “Witness!” Quin isn’t one to waste a moment of drama. “Witness how the skies crown her!”

“From among the battle-hardened youth there shall rise the Foretold, the Greatest Emperor, scourge of our enemies, commander of a host most devastating.”

“I’m the second: the scourge,” Laia says. “Elias was the last: the commander. And you—” “The first,” I say faintly. The Greatest Emperor.

You are my masterpiece, Helene Aquilla, he’d said, but I have just begun. If you survive, you shall be a force to be reckoned with in this world.

It means you can change things. Make them better.”

“In the Empire’s darkest hour, it was not a Martial who stood with me, but a Scholar rebel.”

“I have raised small boys before, Helene Aquilla.” Mamie cuddles Zacharias close. “They haven’t turned out half-bad. And if he is meant to rule the Empire, he should know its people. All of its people. The Martials, Tribes, and Scholars.”

“Mamie is to train me as a Kehanni.” Laia cannot hide her joy at the prospect. “Tribe Saif has agreed.”

“Who better to watch over him than the woman who brought him into the world?” I say. “And the Kehanni who raised one of the best men I know. But won’t it be a burden?”

“No, Empress,” she says. “For he is family. As are you. As is Laia. And while family can cause pain and make mistakes, it is never a burden. Never.”

“Tell Helene I got my wish, please.

Tell her she must live.”

“If anyone can love her enough for everyone she’s lost, it’s you. I wish you joy, Elias.”

The weeks pass, and as I train Mirra, as I soothe the spirits’ pain, I try to put my own to rest as well. To find peace with the ghosts until I am free of them.

“Do not fear, lovey.” Karinna has a joyful glow to her now, for that which she waited for has finally come to pass. “I am here.” My grandmother looks back at me, and for the first time, I see her smile. “Until we meet again, little one,” she whispers.

You will always have a home among the spirits, Elias. I do not forget my children. I leave you your windwalking as a remembrance of your time here. Perhaps one day, long years from now, you will serve again.

True freedom—of body and of soul. That is what Cain promised me, so long ago. But now that it is here, I do not know how to trust it. I am not a soldier or a student or a Mask. I am not a Soul Catcher. Life stretches ahead of me, unknown and uncertain and full of possibility. I do not know how to believe that it will last.

the tension in my heart unknots.

“How do we trust our happiness, Laia?”

“How do we go on if we don’t know if it will be taken away?”

“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.”

And instead of hating my heart, I began to marvel at its strength, at the fact that it thuds on insistently. I am here, it seems to say. For we are not done, Helene. We must live.

“We’re trailing ghosts now, Hel,” he says, and there is strange comfort in knowing that at the very least, there is someone in the world who understands this pain. “All we can do is try not to make any more.”

Power is a strange thing.”

“It can twist loneliness into despair if there is not someone nearby to keep an eye out.”

And since we’re here, we might as well live.”

two broken people who, for this night, anyway, make a whole.