His body shifts into his old human form. The air, already leaden, goes still. Far away, in a place beyond the ken of any human, a barrier tears open. Mauth’s power, deeply drained, fades entirely as the Sea of Suffering bursts through his wall.

I windwalk to Laia, snatching her away from the Nightbringer as he dissolves, transforming into a viscous gray smoke. A figure kneels within the pall, head tilted back, staring up at the sky. The Nightbringer’s spirit, flame eyes dim, seemingly at peace.

Then the Sea of Suffering breaks through him, and he explodes into a vast, spinning cyclone. Darin’s body disappears into the maelstrom, then two of the jinn who flitted too close, trees, rocks—

“Rehmat!” My feet slip, and though I windwalk, the pull of the storm is too powerful. A glowing figure appears and, without my having to explain, she merges with Laia. With all my strength, I shove them at the woods, at the trees that bend toward the maelstrom but have not yet broken.

The maelstrom drags my body back, away from Laia. I fight the pull, trying desperately to dig my heels into the ground, but the plateau is smooth, gray rock, and I find no grip. The Sea of Suffering rumbles. Hungry. So hungry.

My will is not weak. I will not die now, not like this. The maelstrom will not steal my life from me. It will not consume me. For I am the Banu al-Mauth, Chosen of Death. I am the Soul Catcher, the Guardian at the Gates.

But all my willpower is nothing against the force of the Sea of Suffering. It wants me and it will have me, for I am mere bones, blood, and pain, held together by skin and sinew. Laia. Laia, run. I see her, battling Rehmat as she tries to get back to me, as the jinn queen forces her away.

Our eyes meet for one frantic moment. Then the Sea of Suffering drags me into darkness and claims me, body and soul.

LXIV: Laia

Darin’s body disappears into the cyclone. But I have no time to mourn the loss, because I am suddenly aware that Elias is far too close to the storm. I reach for him, screaming when Rehmat holds me back.

You cannot save him, Laia. Her voice is anguished, for she, of all creatures, understands what this means to me. He gave his life for yours. Do not let it be for nothing.

I shout his name. Gray eyes meet gold.

He disappears between one moment and the next, as if he never existed. I lose the feeling in my body, and it is only Rehmat, infusing me with strength and forcing me to hold on to a tree branch, who keeps me from being pulled in after Elias.

“Let me go,” I cry, for the Nightbringer has won. Our battle is over. What have I done? What have I unleashed into this world?

My voice is lost—I can only reel at the knowledge that the Nightbringer is not dead, but transformed into the very suffering he sought to release into the world.

A collective scream from below as the maelstrom sweeps down from the plateau, a ravening gray funnel. Within minutes, it tears through Keris’s army, sucking up hundreds, then thousands of soldiers. With each life it claims, it grows larger, feeding off the suffering. A deep, eerie roar sounds from within it, the rage and pain of eons.

We cannot stop it. It will consume all because of me. Because I killed the Nightbringer and gave him what he wanted.

I thought I knew what it was to be alone. All those nights as a child in the great quiet of the Scholar’s Quarter, wishing for my parents and my sister. The silence of Blackcliff, when I thought I’d never see Darin again.

But this loneliness is different. Devouring. The loneliness of a girl responsible for the breaking of the world.

The world must be broken before it can be remade, or else the balance will never be restored.

Elias spoke so to me, months ago, outside this very forest. The world must be broken before it can be remade.

Before it can be remade.

“Rehmat,” I say. “You said you were his chains.”

It is what I saw, long ago in my visions. But he is gone now, Laia. Lost in the Sea of Suffering. I failed you. Forgive me, but I failed you. I did not see his intent until it was too late.

“I should have trusted you, Rehmat.” I walk to the edge of the plateau. “Because you’ve been with me my whole life. Because you’re a part of me. I trust you now. But you must trust me as well. It was a jinn and a human who began this madness a thousand years ago. A jinn and a human must stop it. I must go to him.”

Let me go with you.

“When I am ready,” I tell her as she steps out of me, “I will call you. Will you come, Rehmat of the Sher Jinnaat?”

“I will, Laia of Serra.”

I turn toward the raging cyclone and summon it with a word.

“Meherya.”

It shifts toward me, enraged and hungry, lured by my pain. I wait until it has reached the promontory, until it is close enough to touch.

Then I cast myself into the dark.

LXV: The Soul Catcher

The Martial man who walks beside me through Blackcliff’s halls is familiar, though I’ve never met him. He has deep brown skin and black hair that falls in waves down his shoulders. It is held back by a dozen thin braids, wrapped in the way of the northern Gens.

His eyes are the color of spring’s first shoots, and despite his height, which nears my own, and the imposing breadth of his shoulders, there is a kindness in his face that makes me feel immediately at ease. Though in life he was a Mask, he does not wear one now.

“Hail, my son,” he says softly. “It is good to see your face.” His eyes travel over me. “You’re tall like your grandfather. You have his cheekbones too. My hair, though. My face. A bit of my skin. And . . .” He meets my gaze.

“Her eyes,” I say. “You’re Arius Harper.” My father, I do not add.

He inclines his head.

I’m wary of him. All I know about my father is what Avitas told me: Arius Harper loved the snow and never got used to the warm Serran summers. His smile made you feel like the sun had just come out after a long, cold winter. His hands were big and gentle when teaching a young boy to hold a slingshot.

Yet months ago in a dungeon beneath Blackcliff, Keris Veturia spoke one line that has stayed with me.

I wasn’t about to let the son kill me after the father had failed.

“You were married when you met my mother.”

He nods, and we pass from one of Blackcliff’s dim halls into another. “Renatia and I married young,” he says. “Too young, like most Martials. The marriage was arranged, as is common with the northern Gens. We . . . understood each other. When she fell in love with another, I told her to follow her heart. And she did the same for me.”

“But you and Keris—did you—” Bleeding hells. How do you ask your father if he forced himself on your mother?

“Keris was not always as she is now,” my father says. “She was a Skull when I met her. Nineteen. I was a combat Centurion here.” He glances at the oppressive brick walls around us. “She fell in love with me. And I with her.”

“The Commandant—” Is not capable of love, I want to say. But clearly, that was not always true.

“The Illustrians who killed me made her watch.” My father says the words as if he speaks of someone else. “They told her that as a Plebeian, I was not worthy of her. She tried to stop them, but there were too many. It destroyed her. She gave in to her pain.”

My father and I leave the dimly lit halls of Blackcliff and step out into the belltower courtyard. I suppress a shudder. My blood irrigated these stones. Mine, and so many others.

“Mauth demanded I give up my emotions before he let me use his magic,” I say. “After I did, he helped me suppress them. Washed them away. And I wanted that. Because it let me forget all of the terrible things I’ve done.”

“You cannot forget,” my father says. “You must not forget. Mauth erred when he took love from you. When he took anger and joy and regret and sadness and passion.”

“He did it because Cain’s greed and the Meherya’s love led to ruin,” I tell my father. “But now Mauth wants the balance restored. He wants the jinn returned. And they will not listen to me.”

“Why would they? You cannot convince them unless you first open yourself to all of the joy—” My father touches my shoulder. I see Mamie sing a story, feel Laia’s lips on mine, hear the Blood Shrike’s joyful laugh.

“And all the suffering,” my father adds, and now I see Cain wrench me from Tribe Saif. I scream at the pain of my first whipping, weep as I stab a young man—my first kill.

I want the death to end. It does not. Demetrius and Leander die by my hand. Laia and I escape Serra and I execute soldier after soldier. Kauf burns, and prisoners die in the ensuing havoc. The ghosts escape the Waiting Place and kill thousands.

Murderer! The cave efrit in the Serran catacombs points and screams. Killer! Death himself! Reaper walking!

I feel sick. For though I know my sins, I have not faced them. Every time they came to the forefront of my mind, Mauth eased them away.

“How do I go on?” I ask my father. “When I’ve wrought such devastation? When all I have to give is death?”