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I reach Aish the next night, well after sunset. I haven’t been here in years—not long ago it was nothing but a seasonal trading post built around an oasis. But since I came here as a Blackcliff Fiver, Aish has burgeoned into a permanent settlement.

Like most Tribal cities, its population is fluid. But the Commandant’s assault on Sadh has swelled the city with refugees. The whitewashed buildings, built three and four stories high, are lined with archers. The many gates are flung open, each more crowded than the last with some people seeking shelter and others fleeing.

North of the walls, the Nasur encampment is in disarray. A steady stream of wounded trickles in—mostly women and children—all speaking of the fall of the city of Sadh.

“The Martials take no slaves, nor prisoners,” a white-haired woman tells the Nasur Kehanni. “They just kill.”

Briefly, I wonder if Laia ever arrived here. She was headed for Aish. You’re here for Aubarit, Soul Catcher. Not Laia.

Tribe Nasur is not the only one taking refuge north of the city gates. I recognize the green and gold wagons of Tribe Nur, and the green and silver of Tribe Saif. As I survey the vast encampment, searching for the Fakira’s wagon, a familiar, dark-haired figure hurries past.

She holds two injured children, and at the sight of her, I nearly call out. I should know her from my own memories, but instead it is the memories Cain gave me of Laia and Helene and Keris that tell me who she is.

Mamie Rila. My adoptive mother.

She hands the children over to a Tribal healer and hurries back the way she came. Then, quite suddenly, she stops short. Tentatively, she searches the darkness.

“E-Elias?”

“Banu al-Mauth now, Mamie Rila.” I emerge into the light.

She stiffens and bows her head. “Of course.” Her voice is low, but it cannot hide her bitterness. “Why are you here, Banu al-Mauth?”

“I must speak with Aubarit Ara-Nasur.”

She considers for a moment, then nods. “If any here see you . . .” She sighs. “They will think you are here to help. Come.”

Mamie avoids the chaotic center of the camp and heads to the outer circle of wagons. The warriors of Tribe Nasur stand guard in the empty spaces, glaring out at the dark, waiting perhaps for the shine of a Martial blade, or worse, the swift-moving flames that herald approaching jinn.

“There.” Mamie nods past the guards, to a wagon nestled in the shadows of Aish’s wall.

“Thank you.” I leave her, slipping past Tribe Nasur guards and toward Aubarit’s wagon. Multicolored lamps twinkle brightly within, and when I rap on the door, it opens almost immediately.

“Banu al-Mauth!”

Aubarit holds a shroud in her hands, upon which she has sewn the geometric patterns of her tribe, traditional for a burial. She drops into a curtsy, flustered at my sudden arrival, and moves aside to let me in. “Forgive me, I did not know—”

“Sit, Fakira.” I take salt from the bowl beside her door and put it to my lips. “Be at ease.”

She sits at the edge of her bench, fingers twisted deeply within the shroud, the exact opposite of “at ease.”

“Would you like some—” She gestures to the hot tea on a table beside her bench, pulling another cup from the cupboard above, but I shake my head.

“Aubarit, I need to know if you—”

“Before you begin, Banu al-Mauth,” the girl says, “you must forgive us. There have been so many dead—but there are not enough Fakirs. You must be inundated, but the war—”

“How many dead since yesterday?”

“We’ve buried two dozen,” she whispers. “I was only able to do rites for half. The rest—their souls were already gone. I—I did not want to send you so many—”

The import of her words turns my blood to ice.

“The Waiting Place doesn’t have too many ghosts, Fakira,” I say. “It has too few. I passed only a dozen ghosts in the last week. I thought you and the other Fakirs had passed on those killed in Keris Veturia’s assault. But if you only did the rites for half, and if the other Fakirs are similarly inundated, then there should be hundreds of ghosts pouring into the Waiting Place.”

The Fakira nearly drops the shroud, her fear palpable. “The wall—”

“It holds. The ghosts are not escaping into the human world. If what you say is true, they are not arriving at all. Those who do enter don’t wish to move on. Not because of the suffering they endured in life, but because they fear what lies on the other side.”

A brief terror shines in Aubarit’s eyes, but I don’t have time for her fear. “They speak of a great maelstrom,” I say. “A hunger that wishes to devour them. What do the Mysteries say of this maelstrom? This hunger?”

Aubarit’s dark skin pales, her sprinkling of freckles standing out starkly. “I have heard of no maelstrom in the Mysteries. There is the Sumandar a Dhuka, the Sea of Suffering—”

“What is that?”

“I—I—”

At Blackcliff, our Centurions would slap us when we were too gripped by fear to carry out an order. Now I understand why.

“Speak, Fakira!”

“And though the Sea of Suffering churns, ever restless, verily does Mauth preside, a bulwark against its hunger.”

Laia’s voice whispers in my mind. I saw something, Soul Catcher. An ocean filled with—skies, I do not know.

“What else do you know about this sea?”

“It is the repository of human suffering,” Aubarit says. “All the sorrow and pain you take from the spirits and give to Mauth—it goes into the Sea. As you stand guardian between the ghosts and the world of the living, Mauth is the sentinel between the Sea of Suffering and our world.”

Aubarit puts down her tea, more agitated with every word. “But the Mysteries are vast, Banu al-Mauth. We have no magic to aid us in their learning, only words passed down through the centuries. We do not even know their source. Your answer might be in a part of the Mysteries called the Signs—but I never learned them. My grandfather died before he could teach me.”

Him and a dozen other Fakirs. The Nightbringer’s handiwork.

“Are there any Fakirs who know the Signs in their entirety, Aubarit?”

“Fakir An-Zia,” she says. “I do not know if he escaped Sadh.”

“There must be some way—” I stop at the sound of a hurried knock at the wagon door.

“Fakira.” I recognize Mamie’s voice from outside. “Banu al-Mauth, come quickly.”

I pull open the door. “Return later,” I bark, but she blocks the door before I can shut it.

“Fire on the horizon,” she says. “We must flee, or else take shelter in Aish.”

Aubarit clutches the shroud close. “Fire—”

“Jinn, Fakira.” Mamie grabs the girl’s arm and pulls her from the wagon. “The jinn are coming.”

XXII: The Blood Shrike

Thank the skies for Heera’s warning, for when the first fur-clad Karkaun comes roaring toward me, my daggers are unsheathed and sinking into his gut before I can get a good look at his face. The next impales himself on my waiting scim, and if this is all they have, I will fight every Karkaun in this city until Madam Heera’s brothel splits at the seams from their eviscerated corpses.

I kick the bowl with Heera’s blood. Curse those bastards for thinking they could use her so. Skies know how long she had to suffer before delivering her warning.

“Back, you filth!” Faris bellows from outside.

The barbarians have found him and Septimus. As Karkauns spill from the bedrooms and hallways, I make my way back to the stairs. These are not their best warriors. Just the vanguard sent to try to kill us, to overwhelm us with sheer numbers.

“Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi! Ik tachk mort fid iniqant fi!”

Above, the chanting quickens, and Grímarr’s voice rises above the others.

The back door splinters and bursts open, and a dead barbarian comes flying through. Faris’s giant frame fills the doorway and he stalks in, shoving aside Karkauns until he’s beside me.

“What in the hells is this, Shrike?”

“Grímarr is preparing a rite,” I say above the din. “I’m his guest of honor. Where’s Septimus?”

A tall Karkaun rushes me. “You dare wield steel, Martial whore!” he screams, scim held high. Too high. I run him through and then take off his head.

“Outside picking them off.” Faris kicks the Karkaun’s head to the side, his scims flying at the enemies still pouring into the hallway and down the stairs. “They have us surrounded.”

“We need to get up there,” I say. “He’s just biding his time until he’s done with this skies-forsaken chant.”

We fight our way back toward the stairs. But the barbarians keep coming, slipping on the blood-slicked ground, the deaths of their fellows only feeding their furor.

“Front door, Faris,” I scream at him. “Break a bleeding path!”

He barrels through the Karkauns and I follow in his wake, stabbing and slashing until we spill out into a street littered with bodies—Septimus’s handiwork. Through the open window above, Grímarr’s chanting reaches a fever pitch. “IK TACHK MORT FID INIQANT FI!”