“Silence, A’vni!” An older woman glares at A’vni before turning her dark gaze on me.

“Look at me, girl,” the old woman says, and though I do not wish to do her bidding, her voice compels me. What magic is this? Was she, too, touched by an efrit? As she forces my face toward her, I claw at the arms of my chair and kick out.

“Hold her!”

“D’arju—” A’vni protests, but D’arju waves her off and bores into my mind with her gaze. Her brown irises burn against the kohl rimming them. The fight oozes out of me. She’s hypnotized me and I cannot break her grip.

“We mean you no harm,” D’arju says. “If we did, we’d have left you for the Nightbringer.”

She is not expecting an answer, but I fight through her control and force out the words. “So he could watch Keris murder me slowly?”

“He’s not hunting you to kill you,” D’arju says. “He’s hunting you so he can crack you open and understand what lives inside you.”

I try not to let my alarm show. What lives inside me?

“An old magic, child.” D’arju answers my unspoken question. “Waiting for a thousand years for someone with the strength to wake it.” The woman smiles with a fierce joy that makes me trust her a touch more. “I thought it would be Mirra of Serra. Or Isadora Teluman or perhaps Ildize Mosi. But—”

“But even the ancient can be wrong,” A’vni says archly, and the other Jaduna chuckle. I expect D’arju to get angry, but she smiles. And something she said finally sinks in.

“You—you knew my mother?”

“Knew her! I trained her, or tried to. She never liked being told what to do. Ildize was more biddable, though that may have just been her Mariner civility. Isadora I never knew—but the power in that girl!” D’arju whistles. “A shame the Empire got to her before we did.”

My mind spins. “Power,” I say. “You mean the power efrits gave?”

D’arju snorts. “If your power came from an efrit then I’m a jinn. Silence, now. Let me work.”

The old woman drags my stare to hers again, and my mind seems to bend and strain—a slow, torturous pulling, as if some part of me was immersed in a thousand-year-old swamp and is finally clawing its way into the light. When it emerges, I find I have been nudged into a back room of my own head.

“Peace be upon thee, Rehmat.” D’arju’s voice trembles, and I know instantly that while she might be looking at me, she is not speaking to me. “Thy servants are here. Our vow is fulfilled.”

“Peace be upon thee, Jaduna. Thy duty is complete. I discharge thee from thy vow.”

The words come out of my mouth. It is my lips that move. But the low voice is not mine. I have never used the word thee in my life. Besides which, the voice sounds nothing like me. It is not human. It is more like what a sandstorm would sound like, if a sandstorm spoke archaic Serran.

“So this is our warrior,” Rehmat says, no longer so formal. “The final manifestation of your long-ago sacrifice.”

“It was no sacrifice to nest you within our people, great one,” D’arju says.

“A hundred Jaduna accepted my power into their very bones, child.” Rehmat’s deep growl brooks no disagreement. “It was a great sacrifice. You did not know how it would affect your children, or theirs. But it is done. I live now in thousands upon thousands.”

“I confess, great one,” D’arju says, “I did not think Laia of Serra would be the one to wake you. The Blood Shrike might have been a more fitting champion, or the Beekeeper. The smith Darin, perhaps.”

“Even Avitas Harper,” another of the Jaduna says. “Or the young demon killer Tas.”

“But they did not defy the Nightbringer. Laia did. Rejoice,” Rehmat says, “For the path is set. Now our young warrior must walk it. But if she is to defy the Meherya, I cannot live within her mind.”

Meherya. The Nightbringer.

D’arju shakes her head vehemently. “She must be one with you—”

“She must choose me. If a falcon refuses to fly, can she be one with the aether?”

Now A’vni speaks up, clasping her hands together so they do not tremble. “But—but no vessel can hold you, great one.”

“I need no vessel, child. Only a conduit.”

Oh skies. That doesn’t sound promising. I fight for control of my own mind, my body. But they both remain firmly in control of this voice. Rehmat. A strange name—one I have never heard of.

“Will it hurt her?” A’vni asks, and if she had not helped kidnap me, I might have been thankful for her concern.

“I live in her blood.” Rehmat sounds almost sad. “Yes. It will hurt. Hold her.”

“What in the skies—” For a brief moment, I return to myself and thrash against the Jaduna. A’vni winces, but pins me down with the others.

When Rehmat speaks again, it is only to me: I am sorry for this, young warrior.

Fire tears through me, up and down every limb, as if my nerves are being ripped from my skin and salted. If I could scream, I would never stop. But the Jaduna have gagged me, and I strain against them, wondering what I have done to deserve this. For surely, this is my end.

A vaguely human figure emerges from my body. It reminds me a little of when the ghuls took my brother’s form to frighten me long ago in Serra, at Spiro Teluman’s forge. But where ghul-spawned simulacrums are bits of night, this creature is a slice of the sun.

My muscles turn to jelly. All I can do is squint against the brightness, trying to make out details of the shape, but it is not a she or he or they, and it is neither young nor old. With one last flare, its glow dulls until it is bearable.

D’arju drops to her knees in front of the apparition. When it offers the Jaduna a glowing hand, D’arju’s fingers pass right through it. Whatever Rehmat is, it is not corporeal.

“Rise, D’arju,” Rehmat says in that same deep voice. “Take thy kin and go. A human approaches.”

I try to sit up and fail. What human? I try to say, but it just sounds like “Whhffff.”

The Jaduna file out silently, all but A’vni. “Can we not aid her?” she says. “It is a lonely battle she must fight, Rehmat.”

“Your kindness does you credit, A’vni,” Rehmat says. “Fear not. Our young warrior is not alone. There are others whose fates are twined with hers. They shall be her armor and her shield.”

I do not hear A’vni’s response. For when I blink, the Jaduna are gone. Rehmat is gone. I do not feel tired, or weak, and the pain that wracked my body minutes ago has faded to a dull ache. I am still in the villa—from the jewelry scattered on the dresser, it must belong to the Jaduna.

Was it a dream? If so, how did I get to this room? Why do I not have any marks on me from my fight with the Commandant and the Nightbringer?

Forget it. Get out of here.

Alarm bells still blare and the shouts from the street are so loud I can make them out through the shuttered window. “Search the next street. Find them!”

The door slams open, and a woman walks in. I drop into a crouch behind the chair, blade in hand, but the woman throws back her hood.

“Laia! Bleeding hells.” The Blood Shrike has changed into Mariner sea leathers, and though her hair is still covered, she looks more like herself. “I’ve been looking all over for you. What happened?”

“I . . . I was—”—taken by Jaduna, who performed some sort of rite that led to a . . . thing coming out of me, but now it is gone and I have no idea what any of it means.

“I got into a fight with the Nightbringer,” I say. “Escaped out a window.”

The Shrike nods approvingly. “Same. The window bit, that is. Tell me what happened on the way. We need to meet the others at the gate. Guards all over the place—”

I raise my hand, for I’ve seen a flash of iridescence—one of Musa’s wights. A moment later, a scroll appears between my fingers.

Northeast gate compromised. Soldiers everywhere. What the bleeding hells did you two do? Get to the harbor. I’ll find you.

“Nice that he managed to fit in a scolding but not which harbor,” the Shrike mutters.

“It’ll be Fari Harbor,” I say. “Where we disembarked when we first got here. But we have to get through half the city first. And if the streets are crawling with soldiers—”

The Shrike offers a grim smile. “Streets are for amateurs, Laia of Serra. We’ll take the rooftops.”

VIII: The Soul Catcher

The jinn tear Cain from my hands and the Augur crashes to the ground a few yards away. I’m certain the force of it will break his frail body in half. But he rises to his elbows as three jinn close in around him, blocking his escape.

“He belongs to us.” The jinn in command steps between the Augur and me. Rain sluices down her heavy cowl and her flame eyes burn with hate. “Go back to your ghosts. He is not worth your trouble, Soul Catcher.”

Perhaps not. But Cain knows something about the dreams. He knows about a threat to the Waiting Place. He has information I need. Curse you, old man.