Beyond the soldier, dozens of Scholar children are being herded toward a makeshift holding pen. A cloud of embers explodes into the sky as, behind them, two more tents go up in flames. I shudder at the way the fire growls and vaunts, as if it is celebrating the screams rising from my people.

“It’s the prophecy,” Darin whispers. “Do you remember? The sparrows will drown, and none will know it. The Scholars must be the sparrows, Laia. The Mariners have always been called the sea people. They are the flood.”

“We cannot let it happen.” I make myself say the words. “They’re suffering because of us. This is the only home they have. And we’re taking it away from them.”

Darin immediately understands my intent. He shakes his head, taking a step back, movements jerky and panicked. “No,” he says. “We can’t. How are we supposed to find the Beekeeper if we’re in prison? Or dead? How are we supposed to—” His voice chokes off, and he shakes his head again and again.

“I know they will lock us up.” I grab him, shake him. I need to break through his terror. I need him to believe me. “But I swear to the skies that I will get us out. We cannot let the camp burn, Darin. It’s wrong. The Mariners want us. And we’re right here.”

A scream erupts from behind us. A Scholar man claws at a Mariner guard, howling as she removes a child from his grasp.

“Don’t hurt her,” he begs. “Please—please—”

Darin watches, shuddering. “You’re—you’re right.” He fights to get the words out, and I am relieved and proud and broken-hearted because I feel sick at the thought of watching my brother dragged back to a prison. “I’ll have no one else die for me. Especially not you. I’ll turn myself in. You’ll be safe—”

“Not a chance,” I say. “Never again. Where you go, I go.”

I drop my invisibility, and vertigo nearly levels me. My sight darkens to a dank room with a light-haired woman within. I cannot see her face. Who is she?

When my vision clears, only a few seconds have passed. I shake the strange images away and leave the shelter of the tents.

The Mariner soldier’s instinct is excellent. For though we are a good thirty feet from her, the moment we step into the light, her head swivels toward us. The plume and angled eye holes of her helmet make her look like an angry hawk, but her hand is light on her scim as she watches our approach.

“Laia and Darin of Serra.” She doesn’t sound surprised, and I know then that she expected to find us here—that she knew we had arrived in Adisa. “You are under arrest for conspiracy to commit crimes against the kingdom of Marinn. You will come with me.”

XII: Elias

Though the sun hasn’t yet set, the Tribal encampment is quiet when I approach. The cook fires are doused, the horses sheltered beneath a canvas tarp. The red-and-yellow-painted wagons are sealed tight against the driving late spring rain. Wan lamplight flickers within.

I move slowly, though not out of wariness. Mauth tugs at me, and it requires all my strength to ignore that summons.

A few hundred yards west of the caravan, the Duskan Sea breaks against the rocky shore, its roar nearly drowning out the mournful cries of white-headed gulls above. But my Mask’s instincts are as sharp as ever, and I sense the approach of the Kehanni of Tribe Nasur long before she appears—along with the six Nasur Tribesmen guarding her.

“Elias Veturius.” The Kehanni’s silver dreadlocks hang to her waist, and I can clearly make out the elaborate storyteller’s tattoos on her dark brown skin. “You are late.”

“I am sorry, Kehanni.” I don’t bother giving her an excuse. Kehannis are as skilled at trapping lies as they are at telling stories. “I beg your forgiveness.”

“Bah.” She sniffs. “You begged to meet with me too. I do not know why I consented. Martials took my brother’s son a week ago, after they raided our grain stores. My respect for Mamie Rila is all that keeps me from gutting you like a pig, boy.”

I’d like to see you try. “Have you heard from Mamie?”

“She is well-hidden and recovering from the horrors your ilk inflicted upon her. If you think I will tell you where she is, you are a bigger fool than I suspected. Come.”

She jerks her head toward the caravan, and I follow. I understand her rage. The Martials’ war on the Tribes is evident in every burned-out wagon littering the countryside, every ululating wail rising from Tribal villages as families mourn those taken.

The Kehanni moves quickly, and as I trail her, Mauth’s pull grows stronger, a physical wrench that makes me want to sprint back to the Waiting Place, three leagues distant. A sense of wrongness steals over me, as if I’ve forgotten something important. But I can’t tell if it is my own instinct prickling or if Mauth is manipulating my mind. More than once in the past few weeks, I’ve felt someone—or something—flitting at the edges of the Waiting Place, entering and then leaving, as if trying to gauge a reaction. Every time I’ve felt it, I’ve windwalked to the border. And every time, I’ve found nothing.

The rain has, at least, silenced the jinn. Those fiery bastards hate it. But the ghosts are troubled, forced to remain in the Waiting Place longer than they should because I cannot pass them through fast enough. Shaeva’s warning haunts me.