A Sky Beyond the Storm

“I wish I could live a thousand lives so I could fall in love with you a thousand times,” he says. “But if all we get is this one, and I share it with you, then I will never want for anything

My shoulders droop. The tale is over, and it has taken its toll. No one says a word after I finish, and I wonder, briefly, if I have made some sort of error in the telling.

Then the Tribes erupt, clapping, shouting, stamping their feet, crying, “Aara! Aara!”

More. More.

In the long buildings that edge the caravanserai, figures shift in the shadows, sun eyes flashing. They disappear the moment I look at them—all but one. Beneath her hood, I catch a glimpse of dark blue eyes and white hair, a scarred face and a hand lifted to her heart.

Mother.

After the fires have dimmed and festivalgoers have gone to their homes and wagons, I leave the caravanserai and make my way into the desert. It is the darkest hour of the night, when even ghosts take their rest. Nur gleams with thousands of lamps, a constellation in the heart of the sands.

“Laia.”

I know her voice, but more than that, I know the feel of her, the comfort of her presence, the cinnamon scent of her hair.

“You did not have to come,” I say to her. “I know it’s hard to get away.”

“It was your first story.” She does not stutter anymore, and exudes a gravitas that reminds me of my father. She has begun to forgive herself. “I did not wish to miss it.”

“How are the jinn?”

“Grumpy,” Mother says. “A bit lost. But starting to find their way, even
without the Meherya.” She squeezes my hand. “They liked your story.”

We walk in silence for a time, and then stop atop a large dune. The galaxy burns bright, and we watch the stars wheel above in their unknowable dance, letting ourselves appreciate their beauty. She puts her arm around me, and I sink into her, closing my eyes.

“I miss them,” I whisper.

“As do I,” she says. “But they’ll be there, little cricket, on the other side. Waiting for us when our time comes.” She says it with a longing I understand. “But not yet.” Mother nudges me pointedly. “We have much left to do in this world. I must go. The spirits call.” She nods over my shoulder. “And there’s someone waiting for you.”

Elias approaches after Mother has already windwalked away. “She’s about a thousand times better at soul catching than I ever was,” he says.

“You were excellent at it.” I turn for Nur and hook my arm into his, reveling in his solidity, his strength. “You just hated it.”

“And now that I’m free,” he says, “I was thinking I need to find something to do. I can’t very well loiter about the caravan while you’re hard at work becoming a Kehanni. I’d never hear the end of it.”

“You will be maddeningly wonderful at whatever you choose, Elias. But what do you want?”

He answers swiftly enough that I know he’s been thinking on this for a long while.

“Tas wants to learn scimcraft along with a few other children in the Saif caravan,” he says. “And our future emperor will eventually need lessons in a dozen subjects.”

The thought of Elias teaching Tas, the Saif children, and Zacharias makes my heart melt a bit. “You’ll be an incredible teacher,” I chuckle.
“Though I feel for those children. They will not get away with anything.”

Elias pulls away from me, and I realize after a moment that he is holding an object, spinning it so fast that I cannot get a look at it.

“Before any of that, I—ah—have something for you.” He stops and lifts his hands to reveal an armlet—intricately carved with apricot blossoms and cherry blossoms and Tala blossoms, a veritable garden of fruit. Along the edges, in vivid script, he has inscribed the names of my family. Words fail me, and I reach out to take it, but he does not give it to me. Not yet.

“I wish I could live a thousand lives so I could fall in love with you a thousand times,” he says. “But if all we get is this one, and I share it with you, then I will never want for anything, if—if you—would—if you—” He stops, hands gripped so tight around the armlet that I fear he’ll break it.

“Yes. Yes.” I take it from him and put it on. “Yes!” I cannot say it enough.

He pulls me up into a kiss that reminds me of why I want to spend my life with him, of all of the things I want with him. Adventures, I told him. Meals. Late nights. Rainy walks.

Later—much later—I lift my cloak from the earth and shake the dust off.

“You can’t complain.” He runs his hand through his hair, and a torrent of sand pours out. His smile is a white flash in the night. “You did say you wanted me to talk you out of your clothes in inappropriate places.”

He dodges my shove with a laugh, and I pull him to his feet.

Elias laces his fingers through mine as we walk. He tells me what he hopes to do on his first full day home, his baritone thrumming in my veins like the sweetest, deepest oud playing a song that I wish to hear forever. What a small thing it seems, to walk with the one you love. To look forward to a day with them. I marvel at the simplicity of this moment.

Later, when Mamie Rila calls us for Laia’s story, and as we settle with Zacharias and the rest of Tribe Saif onto the rugs and cushions strewn across the caravanserai, I lean in to Musa.

“I am glad you are staying,” I say. “And I will be thankful for your company.”

“Good.” Musa flashes me his brilliant smile, and for once, it is not mocking. “Because you still owe me a favor, Empress. And I plan to collect.”

My answering laugh is one of delight. Delight that I can feel a thrill when a man I care for makes me smile. That I can look forward to a story told by my friend. That I can find hope in the eyes of the little boy I hold in my arms.

That despite all I have survived, or perhaps because of it, there is still joy in my heart.

“Do you know the story you will tell?” Mamie asks me as we make our way to the Kehanni’s stage, where a massive crowd has gathered. Aubarit and Gibran spread blankets and rugs, while Spiro—who has made his home in Nur—helps Afya pass mugs of steaming tea from hand to hand.

“I know the story I wish to tell,” I say. “But—it’s not very fitting for the Moon Festival.”

“The tale chooses you, Laia of Serra,” Mamie says. “Why do you wish to tell this one?”

The crowd fades for a moment, and I hear the Meherya in my mind. Do not forget the story, Laia of Serra.

“This tale is the gibbet in the square,” I say. “The blood on the cobblestones. It is the K carved into a Scholar girl’s skin. The mother who waited
thirty years for her child. The agony of a family destroyed. This tale is a warning. And it is a promise kept.”

“Then it must be told.” Mamie makes her way to her own spot in the packed crowd.

“Empress?” He waits for an answer to his question, and I shake myself.

“I don’t want to keep you in the Empire”—I can’t quite look at him—“if you don’t want to stay.”

“Do you want me to stay?” Despite the arrogance that he wears like armor, I hear a thread of vulnerability in his voice that makes me look up into his dark eyes.

“Yes,” I say to his uncertainty. “I want you to stay, Musa.”

He lets out a breath. “Thank the skies,” he says. “I don’t actually like bees very much. Little bastards always sting me. And anyway, you need me around.”

I scoff and step on his foot. “I do not need you.”

“You do. Power is a strange thing.” He glances out at Afya and Spiro,
clapping and spinning a few feet away, and at Mamie, feeding a gleeful Zacharias yet another moon cake. “It can twist loneliness into despair if there is not someone nearby to keep an eye out.”

“I’m not lonely!” A lie, though Musa is too much a gentleman to call me on it.

“But you are alone, Empress.” A shadow passes across his face, and I know he thinks of his wife, Nikla, dead six months now. “As all those in power are alone. You don’t have to be.”

His words sting. Because they are true. His usually mirthful face softens as he watches me.

“It should have been him dancing with you,” Musa says, and at the raw emotion in his voice, my eyes heat.

In that moment, I ache for Harper’s hands. His grace and his rare smile. The way I could look at him level, because I was nearly his height. His steady, quiet love. I never danced with him. I should have.

Part of me wants desperately to shove my memories of him into the same dark room where my parents and sister live. The room that houses all my pain.

But that room should not exist anymore. My family deserves to be remembered. Mourned. Often, and with love. And so does Harper.

A tear spills down my cheek. “It should be her beside you,” I tell Musa.

“Alas.” The Scholar spins me in a circle, then pulls me back. “We’re the ones who survived, Empress. Unlucky, perhaps, but that’s our lot. And since we’re here, we might as well live.”

Learning what his spirit said to Elias—a message my friend brought to me himself—offered me no comfort. I paced the streets of Antium late at night,
cursing my actions, reliving the battle. Tormenting myself with what I could have done.

But as the days turned into weeks and months, I grew accustomed to the pain—the same way I learned to live with the scars on my face. And instead of hating my heart, I began to marvel at its strength, at the fact that it thuds on insistently. I am here, it seems to say. For we are not done, Helene. We must live.

“Before she died,” I say, “Livvy told me I’d have to reckon with all that I tried to hide from myself. She said it would hurt. And”—I meet my old friend’s gaze—“it does.”

“Pardon me, Elias.” Musa appears, moon cake in hand. I promptly steal it from him. I’m starving. “May I cut in?”

Elias bows his head, and Musa waits patiently as I devour the moon cake. The second I’m done, he takes my hand and pulls me close.

Very close.

“This is a bit inappropriate.” I glance up at him and find myself slightly breathless.

“Do you like it?” Musa arches a fine, dark eyebrow. Surprised, I consider his question.

“Yes,” I say.

He shrugs. “Then who cares.”

“I hear Adisa’s new king reinstated your lands and title,” I say. “When does your caravan leave?”

“Why, Empress? Are you trying to get rid of me?”

Am I? Musa has been invaluable in court, charming Illustrian Paters as easily as he has Scholars. When we broke up the estates of Keris’s top allies, it was Musa who suggested we award them to Scholars and Plebeians who fought in the Battle of Antium.

And when grief threatens to consume me, it is Musa who appears with a meal and insists we eat it out in the sunshine. Musa who drags me to the palace kitchens to bake bread with him, and Musa who suggests a visit to Zacharias, even if it means canceling two weeks of court.

“Dex is Commandant now, I hear.”

“Commander,” I correct him. “There will not be another Commandant.”

“No.” Elias is thoughtful. “I suppose not. No whipping post either, I hope?”

“Dex said Silvius used it for kindling,” I say. “They’ll welcome our first class of female recruits in a month. Interested in a teaching position?”

Elias laughs. The drums pound a bit faster, and as one, we quicken the pace of our dance. “Maybe one day. I’ve already had a letter from your Blood Shrike.” He raises an eyebrow, referring to his grandfather. “He wants the heir to Gens Veturia back in Serra. With a Scholar wife, if you’d believe it.”

“She’d have to say yes first.” I smile at the way his brow furrows in concern. “But indeed, Quin would say that.” I glance around and find Musa moving through the crowd toward us. “The Scholars have quite the advocate at court these days.”

Mamie Rila marches up to me.

“No more politics, Empress.” She jerks a chin at my guards, and when I nod, they make themselves scarce. “Even empresses must dance. Though you should have worn a dress.” She frowns at my armor, and then shoves me toward a slightly disheveled Elias, who has just appeared at the stage himself.

“Where’s Laia?” I look behind him. “I’d rather dance with her.”

“She’s preparing to tell a tale.” He takes my hands and pulls me to the center of the stage. “It’s her first one, and she’s nervous. You’re stuck with me.”

“She’ll be incredible,” I say. “I heard her tell Zacharias a story last night. He was rapt.”

“Where is he?”

“With Tas, eating moon cakes.” I nod to a cart near Mamie’s wagon, where the young Scholar boy, who appears to have grown a foot since I last saw him, grins as my nephew stuffs a cake into his mouth. Musa, keeping them company, hands over another.