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“I—I begged the jinn already,” I say. “I told them the balance couldn’t be restored without them. They didn’t listen.”
“Because it was the Soul Catcher who asked them.” My father takes me by the shoulders, and his strength flows into me. “But that is not all of you. Tell me, who are you?”
“I am the Banu al-Mauth.” I do not understand him. “I pass the ghosts—”
“Who are you, son of mine?”
“I—” I had a name. What was my name? Laia said it. Over and over she said it. But I cannot recall it anymore.
“Who are you?”
“I am—I—”Who am I?“I am born of Keris Veturia,” I say. “Son to theKehanniwho told the Tale. Beloved to Laia of Serra. Friend to the Blood Shrike. I am brother to Avitas Harper and Shan An-Saif. Grandson to Quin Veturius. I am—”
Two words echo in my head, the last words Cain spoke to me before dying. Words that stir my blood, words that my grandfather taught me whenI was a boy of six and he gave me my name. Words that were burned into me at Blackcliff.
“Always victorious.”
Some door bursts open inside me, and Blackcliff fades. The great maelstrom drags at me, as if the conversation with my father had never happened, as if there were only seconds between when the Sea of Suffering took me and now.
I fight my way out, toward a light coruscating distantly. The Sea is so close that I feel it dragging at my feet, but I battle my way up to the world of the living, screaming those two words over and over.
Always victorious.
Always victorious.
Always victorious.
LXVI:Keris Veturia
The Blood Shrike will die as her sisters died. As her parents died. Throat slit, a slow enough death that she will walk into the hereafter knowing I defeated her.
Part of me rages against how easily she fell. All she had to do was not love. If she hadn’t loved, she’d have been a worthy foe. I’d never have been able to hurt her, no matter who I killed.
Far away, a deep, earth-shuddering growl resounds. I ignore it.
The Shrike clutches her side as I approach, and she is a small, broken thing. A version of myself, if I had allowed defeat to enter my veins like a poison. Me, if I’d let myself love or care.
Give me a foe who challenges me, I shout in my mind.A foe who makes my body scream, who forces me to think faster, to fight harder.
“You sad creature,” I say. “Look at you. On your knees in the mud. Your army dies around you, and not one of them is brave enough to come to your aid. You weak, broken bird, mourning a man who was dead the moment he called out your name. You are a fool, Helene Aquilla. I thought I trained you better.”
She gazes up at me with fading blue eyes, her crown braid dark with blood and mud.
“Lovey.”
The word is a whisper, a breath from the Shrike’s mouth. My fingers go numb, and my belly twists as if crawling with snakes. I do not recognize the feeling. Not fear, certainly.
How did she learn that name?
“That’s what she called you.” The Shrike clutches her side ineffectually. If I do not kill her now, she will simply bleed to death.
Suddenly, I do not want her dead. Not yet.
I close the distance between us and crouch to grab her throat.
“Who told you that name?” I hiss. “A Scholar? A Martial—”
“No one living,” the Shrike whispers. “A ghost told me. Karinna Veturia. She waits here in the Forest of Dusk, Keris. She has waited for more than thirty years.”
