The curiosity that emanates from him is somehow worse than if he simply gloated.
“What is it like, Laia of Serra,” he says, “to know that no matter what you do, nothing will stop the war that is coming? The war that will annihilate your people.”
He’s toying with me. “Why did you save me,” I snarl at him, “when the blast hit?”
For a moment, he is still. And then his shoulders ripple, like a great cat shaking itself.
“Run to your brother, Laia of Serra,” he says. “Find a ship to take you far away. You do not wish to witness what is to come.”
“You know what it means to destroy an entire race. How could you want it when you have survived it?”
“The Scholars deserve destruction.”
“You have already destroyed us,” I shout. I fight to keep from hitting him—not because I am afraid, but because I know it will do no good. “Look at what the Scholars are. Look at what we have become. We are nothing. We are dust. Look”—my voice is ragged now—“look at what you did to me. Look at how you betrayed me. Is it not enough?”
“It is never enough.” He is angry now, my words poking at something tender that he does not wish to touch. “Do as I say, Laia of Serra. Run. You heard Shaeva’s prophecy. The library burned. The dead escaped and marauded. The Child will be bathed in blood but alive. I believe you had a hand in that. The Pearl will crack, the cold will enter.” He lifts his hands at the chaos around us.
Of course. Antium is referred to as the Pearl of the Empire.
“Jinn prophecies are truth,” he says. “I will free my brethren. And we will have our vengeance.”
I step back from him. “I will stop you,” I say. “I will find some way—”
“You failed.” He brushes a scorching, flame-veined hand across my face, and though all that is visible of him are those burning suns beneath his hood, I know he’s smiling. “Now go, child.” He shoves my face away. “Run.”
LIII: Elias
In groups of ten and fifty and a hundred, Mauth and I hunt down the ghosts and pass them on. The screams of dying Martials grow more distant, the howl of fire ripping through the city more muted, the cries of civilians and children suffering and dying less important to me with every ghost I attend to.
Once the escaped ghosts are herded, I turn to those enslaved by the Karkauns. The magic used to summon and control them is ancient, but it has a familiar taint to it—the Nightbringer or his ilk taught the Karkauns this magic. The spirits are chained to a dozen or so warlocks—minions of the Karkauns’ leader. If I murder those warlocks, the ghosts will be free.
I do not give the killing a second thought. I do not even use my weapons, though they are strapped across my back. Mauth’s magic suffuses me, and I call on it as easily as I would my own skills with a scim. We circle the warlocks and choke the life from them one by one, until finally, as the day fades and the drums scream out which parts of the city have fallen, I find myself near an enormous building I know well: the Black Guard barracks.
I feel for more ghosts and find nothing. But as I prepare to leave, I catch a flash of brown skin and black hair.
Laia.
I step toward her immediately; the small bit of my mind that still feels human draws me to her, as ever. As I approach her, I expect Mauth to pull at me or take over my body, as he did when I encountered the Shrike. But though I feel him there in my mind, still a part of me, he does nothing.
Laia has seen me. “Elias!” She runs to me, throwing herself into my arms, almost sobbing. As she does, my arms come up around her of their own accord, as if it’s something I’ve done many times. I feel strange. No, not strange.
I feel nothing.
“It wasn’t the ring,” she is saying. “I don’t know what the last piece of the Star is, but there might still be time to find out. Will you help me?”
Yes, I want to say.
“No” is what comes out of my mouth.
Shock fills her eyes. And then, just like in the Mariner village weeks ago, she goes completely still. Everything does.
Elias.
The voice in my head is not my own, nor is it the jinn’s.
Do you know me?
“I—I don’t.”
Long have I waited for this day, for you to release the last shreds that bound you to the world of the living.
“Mauth?”
The same, Elias. Look.
My body remains before Laia, frozen in time. But my mind travels to a familiar place. I know this sallow yellow sky. This black sea that roils with unknowable creatures just under the surface. I saw this place once before, when Shaeva pulled me from the raid.
A blurred figure approaches, hovering just above the water, like me. I know who he is without him saying so. Mauth.
Welcome to my dimension, Elias Veturius.
“What the ten bleeding hells,” I say shakily, pointing to the sea, “are those things?”
Do not concern yourself with them, Mauth says. They are a discussion for another day. Look. He waves his hand, and a tapestry of images unspools before me.
The images begin with the Scholars’ war on the jinn and unravel from there, threads of darkness blooming like spilled ink, darkening all they touch. I see how the crimes of the Scholar king reached far beyond what he ever imagined.
I see the truth: that without the jinn in this world, there is no balance. They were the destined gatekeepers between the worlds of the living and the dead. And no one, no matter how skilled, can replace an entire civilization.
They must return—even if that means war. Even if it means destruction. For without them, the ghosts will continue to build up, and whether in five years or fifty or five hundred, they will escape again. And when that happens, they will destroy the world.
“Why can’t you just set the jinn free? Make them . . . forget what happened?”
I require a conduit—a being from your world to harness my power. The amount of power required to restore a civilization would destroy any conduit I chose, human or wraith, jinn or efrit.
I understand then that there is only one path forward: freedom for the jinn. But that freedom will come at a price.
“Laia,” I whisper. “The Blood Shrike. They—they will suffer. But—”
You dare to put those you love before all of humanity, child? Mauth asks me softly. You dare to be so selfish?
“Why should Laia and the Shrike pay for what a Scholar monster did a thousand years ago?”
There is a price for greed and violence. We do not always know who will pay it. But for good or ill, it will be paid.
I cannot stop what is to come. I cannot change it. Bleeding hells.
You can give those you once loved a world free of ghosts. You can do your duty. You can give them a chance at surviving the onslaught that must come. You can give them a chance to win, one day.
“But not today.”
Not today. You have released your ties to strangers, to friends, to family, to your true love. Now surrender to me, for it is your destiny. It is the meaning of your name, the reason for your existence. It is time.
It is time.
I know the moment everything changes. The moment Mauth joins with me so completely that I cannot tell where I end and the magic begins. I am back in my body, in Antium, standing before Laia. It’s as if no time has passed at all since she asked for my aid and I rejected her.
When I look down into that beautiful face, I no longer see the girl I loved. I see someone lesser. Someone who is aging, dying slowly, like all humans. I see a mortal.
“E-Elias?”
The girl—Laia—speaks, and I turn to her.
“The jinn have a part to play in this world, and they must be set free.” I speak gently because she is a mortal, and she will take this news hard. “The world must be broken before it can be remade,” I say, “or else the balance will never be restored.”
“No,” she says. “Elias, no. This is the jinn we are speaking of. If they are free—”
“I cannot keep the balance alone.” It is unfair to expect Laia to understand. She is only a mortal, after all. “The world will burn,” I say. “But it will be reborn from the ashes.”