“Blood Shrike.”

I whirl to find the Nightbringer standing just behind me. His hand rises and flicks, and the Karkauns stop, held back by the jinn’s immense power. He surveys the carnage with dispassion. Then he turns to me but does not speak.

“Whatever you want from me, take it,” I say. “Just save them—please—”

“I want a bit of your soul, Shrike.”

“You—” I shake my head. I do not understand. “Take my life,” I say. “If that is the price—”

“I want a bit of your soul.”

I rack my mind desperately. “I don’t—I don’t have—”

A memory comes to me, a ghost out of the darkness: Quin’s voice, weeks ago, when I gave him Elias’s mask.

They become part of us, you know. It is only when they join with us that we become our truest selves. My father used to say that after the joining, a mask held a soldier’s identity—and that without it, a bit of his soul was stripped away, never to be recovered.

A bit of his soul . . .

“It’s just a mask,” I say. “It’s not—”

“The Augurs themselves placed the last piece of a long-lost weapon in your mask,” the Nightbringer says. “I have known it since the day they gave it to you. All that you are, all that they molded you into, all that you have become—it was all for this day, Blood Shrike.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your love of your people runs deep. It was nurtured through all the years spent at Blackcliff. It grew deeper when you saw the suffering in Navium and healed the children in the infirmary. Deeper when you healed your sister and imbued your nephew with the love you have of your country. Deeper still when you saw the strength of your countrymen as they prepared for the siege. It fused with your soul when you fought for them on the walls of Antium. And now it culminates in your sacrifice for them.”

“Take off my head then, for I cannot remove it,” I say, sobbing. “It is part of me, a living part of my body. It has sunk into my skin!”

“That is my price,” the Nightbringer says. “I will not take from you. I will not threaten you or coerce you. The mask must be offered with love in your heart.”

I look back over my shoulder at the Pilgrim Road. Hundreds make their way up, and I know thousands more are in the caves. We have already lost so many. We cannot lose more.

You are all that holds back the darkness.

For the Empire. For the mothers and fathers. For the sisters and brothers. For the lovers.

For the Empire, Helene Aquilla. For your people.

I grab at my face and tear. I claw at my skin, howling, wailing, begging the mask to release me.

I don’t want you anymore, I just want my people to be safe. Release me, please, release me. For the Empire, release me. For my people, release me. Please—please—

My face burns. Blood pours from where I have already clawed at the mask. Within, some essential part of me cries out at the recklessness with which I tear it away.

A mask holds a soldier’s identity . . .

But I don’t care about my identity. I don’t even care if I am a soldier anymore. I just want my people to live, to survive to fight another day.

The mask lets me go. Blood pours down my neck, my cheeks, into my eyes. I cannot see. I can hardly move. I retch from the searing agony of it.

“Take it.” My voice is as raw as the Cook’s. “Take it and save them.”

“Why do you offer it to me, Shrike? Say it.”

“Because they are my people!” I hold it out to him, and when he does not take it, I shove it into his hands. “Because I love them. Because they do not deserve to die because I failed them!”

He inclines his head, a gesture of deep respect, and I sag to the ground. I wait for him to wave his hand and wreak havoc. Instead he turns and walks away, rising into the air like a leaf.

“No!” Why isn’t he fighting the Karkauns? “Wait, I trusted you! Please—you said—you have to help me!”

He looks over his shoulder at something behind me—beyond me. “I have, Blood Shrike.”

With that, he is gone, a dark cloud carried away by the wind. The power that held back the Karkauns fails, and they tumble forward toward me, more than I can count. More than I can fight.

“Come back.” I have no voice. It wouldn’t matter if I did. The Nightbringer is gone. Skies, where is my war hammer, my scim, anything—

But I have no weapons. No strength left in my body.

I have nothing.

LVI: Laia

When I emerge from the tunnels and into the bright sunlight, I grimace at the reek of blood. A massive pile of bodies sits a hundred yards away, at the base of a narrow gap. Through it, I can make out the city of Antium.

And beside the bodies, on her knees with the dark-cloaked Nightbringer standing before her, is the Blood Shrike.

I do not know what the Nightbringer says to the Blood Shrike. I only know that when she cries out, it sounds just like Nan did when she heard about my mother’s death. Like I did when I understood how that jinn beast had betrayed me.

It is a cry of loneliness. Of betrayal. Of despair.

The jinn turns. Looks in my direction. Then he disappears on the wind.

“Girl.” Cook scrambles up behind me, having swept the tunnels at my side to make sure that no one else lingered. The last Scholars have long since disappeared. It is only us now. “Let’s go! They’re coming!”