“The message isn’t for them. Go.”

When Marcus was Emperor, he hung bodies on a whitewashed wall at the south end of the square. I make for that wall, Faris following. As we reach it, I hand Grímarr’s stinking arm to my friend. He grins and impales it high up with a spear from one of the fallen guards. I take the blood-sodden cloak and, beneath the arm, leave my message. LOYAL TO THE END. It is a call to arms and a reminder that I have not forgotten my people. That we will fight.

“Ikfan Dem!”

The shout comes from yards away. The Karkaun patrol.

Faris hauls me from the wall and I wince, putting a hand to my neck where the bite wound still bleeds. Arrows ping near my head.

“Come on,” he says. “There’s a grate on the other side of the square. Leads right to the tunnels. We can make it if we’re fast.”

We weave swiftly through the pyres. But there are too many barbarians, and there is too little cover.

“Shrike!” Faris calls a warning just as an arrow slices through the air. My back jerks as the shaft cuts through my soft clothing and into my shoulder. Within seconds, my shirt is soaked with blood. Another arrow lances me through the thigh.

“F-Faris.” I drop to my knees, and though he has arrows sticking out of his arm and shoulder, he hauls me up and we stagger, step by torturous step. Twice more, his body jolts as he’s struck. But he keeps going, dragging me with him past the pyres, across an open stretch of cobblestone, and into a narrow street littered with bones and glass and rubbish.

“There.” I see a dull disk of copper embedded into the stones just ahead. “The grate.” I collapse, pawing at it. My head spins. I’ll survive this, if only I can get away. Get somewhere I can heal.

“Can’t—open it—”

Faris grabs the grate and wrenches it up. The howls of the Karkauns close in.

My friend glances toward the square, then at me. If we go down this grate together, they will follow us almost immediately, and they will catch us.

“Shrike,” Faris says. “Listen to me—”

“Don’t say it,” I tell him. “Don’t you bleeding say it, Faris Candelan.”

“We can’t both survive,” he says. His skin is blanched whiter than bone, body shuddering from loss of blood. “They’ll be here in seconds. But if I stay, I can give you the time to get away.”

“I’m hit too. I might not make it.” My head feels fuzzy, and the shouts are louder now. Too loud.

“You’ll make it. Go.”

“Captain Faris Candelan, I order you to get down into that tunnel, now—”

“I’m done,” he says. “I’ve got one good battle left in me. Let me fight it. The Empire needs its Shrike. It doesn’t need me.” His pale eyes bore into me, and I cannot speak.

No. No. I’ve known Faris since we were six, starving in Blackcliff’s culling pen. It’s Faris who could make Elias laugh in his darkest moods, who helped keep me sane when Marcus ordered us to hunt him. Faris who took me to Madam Heera’s for the first time and who protected my sister. Not Faris. Please, not Faris.

“I said, I order—” I do not finish. He grabs me by the straps on my armor and shoves me down the grate. I land heavily, knees buckling.

“Faris, you idiot—”

For a moment, his silhouette is all I see, backlit by dawn breaking above.

“It was an honor to serve by your side, Helene Aquilla,” he says. “Give my best to Elias, if you see him. And for skies’ sake, put Harper out of his misery. Poor bastard deserves a roll in the hay after all you’ve put him through.”

I burst into wild laughter, my face wet with salt or blood, I know not which. The Karkauns bay like hounds, and Faris lifts his scim and shoves the grate closed with his boot. Blades clash, and I hear him roar a battle cry as he fights his last.

“Loyal to the end!”

I stumble toward a torch flickering just ahead. Where did it come from? Who bleeding cares. Get to it. Just as I reach it, the sounds of fighting above cease. I listen for long minutes, hoping the grate will move. Hoping my friend will appear.

But he doesn’t.

He’s dead. Bleeding hells. Faris is dead. Dead because of me, like my parents and sister and Cook and Demetrius and Leander and Tristas and Ennis, and I do not deserve to live when they all died.

Perhaps death will find me too, down here in the dark veins of a city that I should have saved.

But no. I cannot die. Too much is at stake. And too much has been lost already. The Karkauns will find their dead countrymen. They will find Faris. They will come after me.

The Empire needs its Shrike. The last thing I want to do is move, but I drag myself to my hands and knees. I hold my bleeding body and crawl, hoping to the skies that my friend did not just give his life for nothing.

XXIII: Laia

On the second day of my captivity, the jinn aims us south, and within hours, the Duskan Sea is lost to view. Soon, we are deep within the Tribal desert. Eerie rock formations rise into the sky, each a hundred wind-blasted shades of the sun. Purple rain clouds lay heavy on the horizon, and the freezing wind carries the sharp, almost medicinal smell of creosote.

Every few hours, the jinn ranges ahead on her mount. Before she goes, she reinforces the compulsion she’s already placed upon us by again demanding silence.

But on the morning of the third day, she forgets.

Most of the soldiers do not notice, and ride onward with dead eyes, bodies swaying to the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves. Only Mask Novius, riding beside me, jerks his head up as she leaves. A muscle pops on his jaw as he strains against the jinn woman’s control.

I watch him surreptitiously. His mask gleams in the dreary winter sunlight, and though he stares straight ahead, I sense he is aware of my every move.

Rehmat will not or cannot help me. I have no magic. I tried to contact Darin—to no avail. We travel at unnatural speeds. If I do not act soon, I will be in Aish—and the Nightbringer’s hands—by nightfall tomorrow. Skies only know what he will do with me. Not kill me, perhaps. But there are things worse than death. My mother’s fate as the Commandant’s slave taught me that.

Far ahead, the jinn is a distant silhouette on the horizon. With utmost care, I rest my left palm where Novius can see it.

Help, I trace slowly. I have a plan.

A minute passes. Then another. You will not set her free or aid in her escape. He cannot break free of the jinn. Perhaps I was a fool to think that any of us could.

After a few minutes, though, I hear a strange sound. Like a roar through a mouth with a hand held over it.

Novius looks at me now, fury etched into every crag of his face. I realize that it is he who has made the sound. That he has broken free, at least a little bit, from the jinn’s control.

Quite suddenly, he drives his horse into mine. If I could, I would cry out. My mount stumbles, throwing its head back in agitation, lifting its front legs. I grab for the pommel, but it slips out of my fingers. My back meets the desert floor with such force that I nearly bite through my tongue.

The Mask might hate being controlled, but he’s a Martial, through and through. I glare at him and he meets my gaze with that same barely quelled rage. He dismounts, grabs me by my bound arms, and shoves me toward my horse.

In the distance, the jinn wheels her steed around and gallops back toward us.

“What is this?” Her beast whinnies in complaint as she yanks him to a halt. “What happened?” She looks at me. “Speak, girl! And you will not deceive me.”

“I—I fell off my horse.”

“Why did you fall off your horse? Was it on purpose? A distraction? Tell the truth!”

“Not on purpose,” I say honestly. “I lost my balance.” Unwillingly, I glance over at the Mask. The jinn narrows her eyes.

“Did Novius speak to you? Are you two planning something?”

“No,” I say, thanking the skies that the Mask’s muffled bellow could hardly be called speech.

The jinn observes me for long moments before turning away. Novius helps me back onto my horse, and the jinn rides ahead again, remaining close enough that I cannot write a message to Novius.

But far enough that I can hide the scroll he slipped me into my sleeve.

* * *

???

I do not get a chance to read the scroll that night—the jinn watches too closely. The next morning, a powerful, dry gale churns up a dust storm. The jinn urges the horses onward, until visibility is so poor that they groan and snort. She forces them toward an outcropping of rock, where we settle down to wait. An hour later, with the sun a rusty disk overhead, the sandstorm has not abated.

The jinn appears wan, almost sickly as she crouches beside a boulder. The rest of the soldiers stand beside their horses, unnaturally still, like Mariner windup dolls frozen in place.

As the wind blasts us, the jinn’s blazing eyes remain fixed on me. I distract myself by thinking of the last time I traveled this desert. Izzi was still alive. It’s been so long since I thought about my friend—her gentle manner and quiet rebellion. The way she loved Cook like a mother. She was another sister, even if not by blood.