“My gift as a jinn was foretelling.” Rehmat keeps pace with me easily, lighting the way, though I wish she wouldn’t. Darkness is what I want right now. Darkness in which to nurse my pain.
“I saw one path forward, Laia. Before our war with the Scholars, I befriended the Jaduna. We shared much lore over the centuries. When I learned that the Meherya would turn, I went to them, hoping their magic could help me stop it.”
She opens her hands and looks down at her form. “All they could offer was this. They said that upon my death, they would draw out my soul and nest me within their own people. A hundred men and women volunteered. It was a testament to our years of friendship that they would do such a thing, not knowing the effect it would have on their progeny. They found my broken body after the battle and took me to their home, far to the west.”
“So you lived in them,” I say. “Like a disease.”
“Like gold eyes.” She is as quiet as a breeze. “Or brown skin. They traveled to Martial lands and Scholar lands and Tribal lands. The bloodlines spread. And with each generation, I grew more removed from wakefulness and watchfulness. Until all that was left was the spark of magic. In some, like you and the Blood Shrike and Musa of Adisa, the magic was awoken under duress. And in others, like Tas of the North, or Darin or Avitas Harper, the magic sleeps. But all of you have kedim jadu in you.”
“Ancient magic,” I mutter. “All that time you were lurking? Did you try to influence us?”
“Never,” she swears. “Blood magic has conditions. For my rebirth, I had to agree to three sacrifices. The first: that my life as a jinn remain in the past—I may never speak of my time with the Nightbringer, my deeds as queen, or even—even my children.”
The misery in her voice at the last is clear. I think of Mother, who struggled to speak of my father or Lis, so deep were her wounds.
“The second,” Rehmat continues, “that I remain dormant until one of the kedim jadu directly defied the Nightbringer. And the third: that I have no corporeal body, unless one of the kedim jadu allowed me to use them as a conduit.”
Skies know, I’ll never make that mistake again. “Why did you want to stay away from the jinn? Can they hurt you?”
“Not exactly—”
“You still feel for them.” I cast the accusation too swiftly for her to refute it. “That’s why you disappeared in the Waiting Place and when I was with Khuri. You’re not afraid of them. You’re afraid of yourself around them.”
“That’s not—”
“Please don’t lie,” I say. “The jinn were your family. You loved them. I felt that within you. That sense of—of yearning. Is that why you do not want me to get the scythe? Why you always say defeat instead of kill? Because you love him and don’t want him dead?”
“Laia—his losses, what he has suffered—it is incalculable.”
“I do not love my family any less than he loved his.” I turn on her, and if she had a body, it would currently sport a black eye.
“I lost my mother,” I say. “My father. My sister. My friends. My grandmother. My grandfather. I was betrayed by the Resistance. Betrayed by the first boy I ever loved. Abandoned by Elias. You think I don’t want to sink a dagger into the Commandant’s heart? You think I don’t want to see the Martials suffer for what they have done to my people? I understand loss. But you do not fix loss with mass murder.”
“Your love is powerful,” Rehmat says. “It is your love that woke me—your love of your people. Your desire to save them. But the Nightbringer is not human, Laia. Can you compare the rage of a storm to the rage of man? When Mauth created the Meherya, he created a creature that could pass on ghosts for millennia, despite all of their pain, all of their sadness. Do you know what Meherya means?”
“No,” I say. “And I don’t care. I do wonder what your name means. Traitor, perhaps?”
“Meherya means Beloved.” She ignores my barb. “Not just because we loved him, but because of the love he offered. To his kin. To the ghosts. To the humans he encountered. For thousands of years.”
I think of all those the Nightbringer loved in order to get back the Star that would set his people free. I remember how he loved me, as Keenan. Something occurs to me then, and my face heats.
“Did you—you know that he and I—that we—”
“I know,” Rehmat says after a pause. “And I understand.”
“Beloved,” I whisper. The word makes me desperately sad. Because even if that’s who he was once, that is not who he is anymore.
“Love and hate, Laia,” Rehmat says. “They are two sides of the same coin. The Nightbringer’s hate burns as brightly as his love. Mauth does not love or hate. So he was not prepared when his son turned against him. But we can imprison the Meherya,” she says. “Bind him. My magic is the only force on this earth strong enough to contain him—”
“No,” I say. “The Nightbringer must die.”
“His death will usher in only more despair. You must trust me, child.”
“Why?” I say. “You deceived me. And now you will not tell me his weaknesses. You won’t tell me anything about him. Instead I go to the Tribes to beg for scraps of his story, which may or may not exist.”
“I cannot speak of my time with him. If I could, I would tell you all. What I can say is that he was the Beloved. His strength is in his name. And his weakness. His past and his present. You must understand both to defeat him.”
“To defeat him,” I say, “I need that scythe. And if you want me to trust you again, you’ll help me get it. You know how he thinks. You know him so well you spent a thousand years hiding just for the chance to defeat him.”
“I do not know him anymore.”
“Then I suppose we are finished,” I say. “And I’m doing this alone.”
I walk swiftly away from her, the soft sand dragging at my feet. A gust of wind blows the smell of roasting meat and horse to me. When I get to the top of the hill, I spot dim lights far ahead—the Tribal encampment.
“What if your theft of the scythe is part of his plan?” Rehmat comes around in front of me, so that I cannot walk forward without going through her. “A trap, a way to outwit you.”
“Then you will help me outwit him first.”
She considers me, drifting like a dandelion in the wind. Finally, she nods.
“I will help you get the scythe,” she says. “This, I vow. And—and kill him if that is what you wish.”
“Good.” I nod. I am glad then that she is not in my head anymore. For if she was, she would know that for all of her persuasive words, I no longer trust a single thing she says.
XXXVII: The Soul Catcher
The Tribes who escaped Aish left many of their wagons and fled into the labyrinthine desert canyons north of the city. It requires not inconsiderable skill to track them.
Still, after a couple of days, I manage it. Which means their enemies could follow them too.
I find Aubarit on the edge of the camp, sitting atop her wagon seat. She picks at a bowl of stew, listless despite the fact that it smells of cumin and garlic and coriander, and sets my stomach to growling. The walls on either side of the camp are high and the nearby stream rages, heavy from the rains.
“You need to hide your trail,” I tell her, and she glances up in surprise as I step out of the dark. “The only reason the Martials haven’t found you is that they’re too busy burying bodies.”
The Fakira does not smile, and her shoulders are stiff. “I thought matters of the human world were not yours to worry over, Banu al-Mauth.”
“They aren’t,” I say. “But matters of the Waiting Place are. And right now, the two are one and the same.”
The Fakira calls over one of her Tribesmen and speaks to him in Sadhese. He glances at me curiously before leaving.
“Junaid will see to our tracks,” she says. “You have not asked about Mamie Rila, Banu al-Mauth, or Tribe Nur or your own Tribe.”
“I have no Tribe, Aubarit,” I remind her. “However, I do have a problem. One that only the Tribes can help me with.” Admitting it is frustrating. But it is the truth and cannot be avoided. “Who escaped Aish?”
“Tribe Nasur. Tribe Nur. Tribe Saif. Tribe Rahim. A few others. They are scattered through the canyons, wherever the water is. In the immediate vicinity, there are perhaps three thousand.”
“Call the Kehannis and the Zaldars.” I refer to the Tribal leaders. “Call the Fakirs and Fakiras. Tell them the Banu al-Mauth has need of them.”
“Many are still in mourning.” Aubarit cannot hide her shock at my callousness, but I shake my head.
“There is no time to mourn,” I say. “Not if they wish to survive and not if they wish their dead to pass on in peace instead of torment. Harness their anger, Fakira. Call them to me.”