An Ember in the Ashes (29 page)

“She’s the one.” The Augur doesn’t break eye contact, seemingly mesmerized by my anger. “Bring her.”

“Where are you taking me?” The legionnaires bind my hands. “What’s going on?”
They’ve learned about the spying. They must have.

“Quiet.” The Augur draws up his hood, and we follow him into the storm. When I scream and try to tear free, one of the soldiers gags and blindfolds me. I expect the Commandant to accompany us, but instead she slams the door behind me. At least they haven’t taken Izzi. She’s safe. But for how long?

Within seconds, I’m soaked to the skin. I struggle against the legionnaires,
but all I succeed in doing is ripping my dress so that it’s barely decent. Where are they taking me?
The dungeons, Laia. Where else?

I hear Cook’s voice, telling the story of the Resistance spy who came before me.
Commandant caught him. Tortured him in the school’s dungeon for days. Some nights we could hear him. Screaming.

What will they do to me? Will they take Izzi too? Tears leak from my eyes. I was supposed to save her. I was supposed to get her out of Blackcliff.

After endless minutes of trudging through the storm, we stop. A door opens, and a moment later, I’m airborne. I land hard on a chilly stone floor.

I try to stand and scream through the gag, straining at the bonds around my wrists. I try to work off my blindfold so I can at least see where I am.

To no avail. The lock clicks, footsteps retreat, and I’m left alone to await my fate.

M
y blade cuts through Helene’s leather armor, and part of me screams,
Elias, what have you done? What have you done?

Then the dagger shatters, and while I’m still staring at it in disbelief
,
a powerful hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me off Helene.

“Aspirant Aquilla.” Cain’s voice is cold as he flicks open the top of Helene’s tunic. Glimmering beneath is the Augur-forged shirt Hel won in the Trial of Cunning. Except, like the mask, it’s no longer separate from her. It’s melded to her, a second, scim-proof skin. “Do you not recall the rules of the Trial? Battle armor is forbidden. You are disqualified.”

My battle rage fades, leaving me feeling like my insides have been whittled away. I know that this image will haunt me forever, staring down at Helene’s frozen face, the sleet thick around us, the screaming wind that can’t drown out the sound of death.

You nearly killed her, Elias. You nearly killed your best friend.

Helene doesn’t speak. She stares at me and puts her hand to her heart, as if she can still feel that dagger coming down.

“She didn’t think to remove it,” a voice speaks from behind me. A slight shadow emerges from the mist: a female Augur. Other shadows follow, creating a circle around Hel and me.

“She didn’t think of it at all,” the female Augur says. “She’s worn it since the day we gave it to her. It’s joined with her. Like the mask. An honest error, Cain.”

“But an error nonetheless. She has forfeited the victory. And even if she had not . . . ”

I would have won anyway. Because I would have killed her.

The sleet slows to a drizzle, and the mist on the battlefield clears, revealing the carnage. The amphitheater is strangely quiet, and I notice then that the stands are filled with students and Centurions, generals and politicians. My mother watches from the front row, unreadable as ever. Grandfather stands a few rows behind her, his hand tight on his scim. The faces of my platoon are a blur. Who survived? Who died?

Tristas, Demetrius, Leander: dead. Cyril, Darien, Fortis: dead.

I drop to the ground beside Helene. I say her name.

I’m sorry I tried to kill you. I’m sorry I gave the order to kill your platoon. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
The words don’t come. Only her name, whispered over and over in the hopes that she will hear, that she will understand. She looks past my face into the roiling sky as if I’m not there.

“Aspirant Veturius,” Cain says. “Rise.”

Monster, murderer, devil. Dark, vile creature. I hate you. I hate you.
Am I speaking to the Augur? To myself? I don’t know. But I do know that freedom isn’t worth this. Nothing is worth this.

I should have let Helene kill me.

Cain says nothing of the bedlam in my mind. Maybe, in a battlefield choked with the tormented thoughts of broken men, he cannot hear mine.

“Aspirant Veturius,” he says, “as Aquilla has forfeited, and you, of all Aspirants, have the most men left alive, we, the Augurs, name you victor in the Trial of Strength. Congratulations.”

Victor.

The word thuds to the ground like a scim falling from a dead hand.

»»»

T
welve men from my platoon survive. The other eighteen lie in the back room of the infirmary, cold beneath thin white sheets. Helene’s platoon fared worse, with only ten survivors. Earlier, Marcus and Zak fought each other, but no one seems to know much about that battle.

The men of the platoons knew who their enemy would be. Everyone knew what this Trial would be—everyone but the Aspirants. Faris tells me this. Or maybe Dex.

I don’t remember how I arrive at the infirmary. The place is chaos, the head physician and his apprentices overwhelmed as they try to save wounded men. They shouldn’t bother. The blows we dealt were killing blows.

The healers realize the truth soon enough. By the time night falls, the infirmary is quiet, occupied by bodies and ghosts.

Most of the survivors have left, half ghost themselves. Helene is spirited away to a private room. I wait outside her door, throwing black looks at the apprentices trying to get me to leave. I have to speak to her. I have to know if she’s all right.

“You didn’t kill her.”

Marcus. I don’t draw a weapon at the sound of his voice, though I have a dozen at hand. If Marcus decides to kill me in this moment, I won’t lift a finger to stop him. But for once, there’s no venom in him. His armor is spattered with blood and mud, like mine, but he seems different. Diminished, like something vital has been torn out of him.

“No,” I say. “I didn’t kill her.”

“She was your enemy on the battlefield. It’s not a victory until you
defeat your enemy. That’s what the Augurs said. That’s what they told me. You were supposed to kill her.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“He died so easily.” Marcus’s yellow eyes are troubled, his lack of malice so profound that I barely recognize him. I wonder if he actually sees me or if he just sees a body—someone alive, someone listening.

“The scim—it tore through him,” Marcus says. “I wanted to stop it. I tried, but it was too fast. My name was his first word, did you know? And—and his last. Just before the end, he said it.
Marcus
,
he said
.
”

It dawns on me then. I haven’t seen Zak among the survivors. I haven’t heard anyone speak his name.

“You killed him,” I say softly. “You killed your brother.”

“They said I had to defeat the enemy commander.” Marcus raises his eyes to mine. He seems confused. “Everyone was dying. Our friends. He asked me to end it. To make it stop. He begged me. My brother. My little brother.”

Revulsion rises inside me like bile. I’ve spent years loathing Marcus, thinking of him as nothing more than a snake. Now I can only pity him, though neither of us deserves pity. We are murderers of our own men—of our own blood. I’m no better than he is. I watched and did nothing as Tristas died. I killed Demetrius, Ennis, Leander, and so many others. If Helene hadn’t unwittingly broken the rules of the Trial, I’d have killed her too.

The door to Helene’s room opens, and I rise, but the physician shakes his head.

“No, Veturius.” He’s pale and subdued, all his bluster gone. “She’s not ready for visitors. Go, lad. Go get some rest.”

I almost laugh. Rest.

When I turn back to Marcus, he is gone. I should find my men. Check on them. But I can’t face them. And they, I know, won’t want to see me. We will never forgive ourselves for what we did today.

“I
will
see Aspirant Veturius,” a quarrelsome voice says from the hallway outside the infirmary. “That’s my grandson, and I damn well want to make sure he’s— Elias!”

Grandfather shoves past a frightened apprentice as I walk out the infirmary door, pulling me to him, his arms strong around me. “Thought you were dead, my boy,” he says into my hair. “Aquilla’s got more spit than I gave her credit for.”

“I nearly killed her. And the others. I killed them. So many. I didn’t want to. I—”

I’m going to be sick. I turn from him and retch right there, at the door of the infirmary, not stopping until there’s nothing left to get out.

Grandfather calls for a glass of water, waiting quietly as I drink it down, his hand never leaving my shoulder.

“Grandfather,” I say. “I wish . . . ”

“The dead are dead, my boy, and at your hand.” I don’t want to hear the words, but I need them, for they are the truth. Anything less would be an insult to the men I killed. “No amount of wishing will change it. You’ll be trailing ghosts now. Like the rest of us.”

I sigh and look down at my hands. I can’t stop them from shaking. “I have to go to my quarters. I have to get—get cleaned up.”

“I can walk you—”

“That won’t be necessary.” Cain appears from the shadows, as welcome as a plague. “Come, Aspirant. I would speak to you.”

I follow the Augur with heavy steps. What do I do? What do I say to a creature who cares nothing for loyalty or friendship or life?

“I find it hard to believe,” I say quietly, “that you didn’t realize Helene was wearing scim-proof armor.”

“Of course we realized it. Why do you think we gave it to her? The Trials are not always about action. Sometimes, they are about intent. You weren’t meant to kill Aspirant Aquilla. We only wanted to know if you would.” He glances at my hand, which I didn’t even realize was inching toward my scim. “I’ve told you before, Aspirant. We cannot die. Besides, haven’t you had enough of death?”

“Zak. And Marcus.” I can barely speak. “You made him kill his own brother.”

“Ah. Zacharias.” Sadness flits across Cain’s face, infuriating me further. “Zacharias was different, Elias. Zacharias had to die.”

“You could have picked anyone—anything for us to fight.” I don’t look at him. I don’t want to retch again. “Efrits or wights. Barbarians. But you made us fight each other. Why?”

“We had no choice, Aspirant Veturius.”

“No choice.” A terrible anger consumes me, virulent as a sickness. And though he is right, though I have had enough of death, in this moment all I want is to plunge my scim through Cain’s black heart. “You created these Trials. Of course you had a choice.”

Cain’s eyes flash. “Do not speak of things you do not understand, child. What we do, we do for reasons beyond your comprehension. “

“You made me kill my friends. I almost killed Helene. And Marcus—he killed his brother—his twin—because of
you.
”

“You’ll be doing far worse before this is over.”

“Worse? How much worse can this get? What will I have to do in the Fourth Trial? Murder children?”

“I’m not talking about the Trials,” Cain says. “I’m talking about the war.”

I stop mid-stride. “What war?”

“The one that haunts our dreams.” Cain keeps walking, gesturing for me to follow. “Shadows gather, Elias, and their gathering cannot be stopped. Darkness grows in the heart of the Empire, and it will grow more still, until it covers this land. War comes. And it must come. For a great wrong must be righted, a wrong that grows greater with every life destroyed. The war is the only way. And you must be ready.”

Riddles, always riddles with the Augurs. “A wrong,” I say through gritted teeth. “What wrong? When? How can a war fix it?”

“One day, Elias Veturius, these mysteries will be made clear. But not this day.”

He slows as we enter the barracks. Every door is closed. I hear no curses, no sobs, no snores, nothing. Where are my men?

“They sleep,” Cain says. “For this night, they will not dream. Their sleep will not be haunted by the dead. A reward for their valor.”

A paltry gesture. They still have tomorrow night to wake up screaming. And all the nights after.

“You have not asked about your prize,” Cain says, “for winning the Trial.”

“I don’t want a prize. Not for this.”

“Nonetheless,” the Augur says as we arrive at my room, “you will have
it. Your door will be sealed until dawn. No one will disturb you. Not even the Commandant.” He drifts out of the barracks doors, and I watch him go, wondering uneasily about his talk of war and shadows and darkness.

I’m too exhausted to think long on it. My whole body aches. I just want to sleep and forget this ever happened, even if it’s just for a few hours. I push the questions out of my head, unlock the door, and enter my quarters.

W
hen the door to my cell opens, I bolt toward the sound, determined to escape into the hallway beyond. But the chill in the room has penetrated my bones. My limbs are too heavy, and a hand catches me easily about the waist.

“Door’s sealed by an Augur.” The hand releases me. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

My blindfold is pulled off, and a Mask stands before me. I know him instantly. Veturius. His fingers brush my wrists and neck as he unbinds my hands and pulls off my gag. For a second, I’m bewildered. He saved my life all those times so he could interrogate me now? I realize that some naïve sliver of me hoped that he was better than this. Not good, necessarily. Just not evil.
You knew this, Laia
,
a voice chides me.
You knew he was playing a sick game.

Veturius kneads his neck awkwardly, and that’s when I notice that his leather armor is covered in blood and muck. He has bruises and cuts all over, and his fatigues hang in dull, tattered strips. He looks down at me, and his eyes glint in brief, hot rage before cooling into something else—shock? Sadness?

“I won’t tell you anything.” My voice is high and thin, and I grit my teeth.
Be like Mother. Don’t show fear
. I grab my armlet with one hand. “I didn’t do anything wrong. So you can torture me all you want, but it won’t do you any good.”

Veturius clears his throat. “That’s not why you’re here.” He is rooted to the stone floor, regarding me as if I am a puzzle.

I glare back at him. “Why did that—that red-eyed
thing
bring me to this cell, if I’m not to be interrogated?”

“Red-eyed thing.” He nods. “Good description.” He looks around the chamber as if seeing it for the first time. “This isn’t a cell. It’s my room.”

I eye the narrow cot, the chair, the cold hearth, the ominous black bureau, the hooks on the wall—for torture, I assumed. It’s bigger than my quarters, though just as spare. “Why am I in your room?”

The Mask goes to the bureau and rifles through it. I tense—what’s in there?

“You’re a prize,” he says. “My victory prize for winning the Third Trial.”

“A prize?” I say. “Why would I be—”

The knowledge sweeps through me suddenly, and I shake my head—as if that will make a difference. I’m keenly aware of the amount of skin showing through my ripped dress, and I try to draw the remnants of cloth together. I take a step back, straight into the chill, rough stone of the wall. It’s as far away as I can get, but it won’t be far enough. I’ve seen Veturius fight. He is too fast, too big, too strong.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” He turns from the bureau, looking at me with an odd sympathy in his eyes. “That’s not how I am.” He holds out a clean, black cloak. “Take this—it’s freezing.”

I eye the cloak. I’m so cold. I’ve been cold since the Augur threw me in here hours ago. But I can’t take what Veturius offers. There’s a trick in this. There must be. Why would I have been chosen as his prize if not for
that
?
After a moment, he sets the cloak on the cot. I can smell the rain on him, and something darker. Death.

Silently, he starts a fire in the hearth. His hands tremble.

“You’re shaking,” I observe.

“I’m cold.”

The wood catches, and he feeds the fire patiently, absorbed in the task. There are two scims strapped to his back, only a few feet away. I can grab one if I’m fast enough.

Do it! Now, while he’s distracted!
I lean forward, but just as I’m about to lunge, he turns. I freeze, teetering ridiculously.

“Take this instead.” Veturius takes a dagger from his boot and tosses it to me before turning back to the flames. “It’s clean, at least.”

The dagger’s warm heft is comforting in my hand, and I test the edge on my thumb. Sharp. I sink back against the wall and eye him warily.

The fire eats away at the cold in the room. When it is burning brightly, Veturius unstraps his scims and leans them against the wall, well within my reach.

“I’ll be in there.” He nods to a closed door in the corner of the room, one I’d assumed led to a torture chamber. “That cloak won’t bite, you know. You’re stuck here until dawn. Might as well make yourself comfortable.”

He opens the door and disappears into the bathing chamber beyond. A moment later, I hear water pour into a tub.

The silk of my dress steams in the heat of the fire, and with one eye on the bath door, I let its warmth seep into me. Then I consider Veturius’s cloak. My skirt is ripped to my thigh, and a sleeve of my shirt hangs by a few threads. The laces of my bodice are torn, revealing far too much of me. I look uneasily toward the bath. He’ll finish soon.

Eventually, I pick up the cloak and wrap it around myself. It is made of thick, finely woven cloth that is softer to the touch than I expect. I recognize the smell—his smell—spice and rain. I inhale deeply before jerking
my nose away as the door rattles and Veturius emerges with his bloodied armor and weapons.

He’s scrubbed the mud from his skin and changed into clean fatigues.

“You’ll get tired standing all night,” he says. “You can sit on the bed. Or take the chair.” When I don’t move, he sighs. “You don’t trust me—I get it. But if I wanted to hurt you, I’d already have done it. Please, sit down.”

“I’m keeping the knife.”

“You can have a scim too. I have a pile of weapons I never want to see again. Take them all.”

He drops into the chair and begins cleaning his greaves. I sit stiffly on his bed, ready to bring up the knife if I have to. He is close enough to touch.

He says nothing for a long time, his movements heavy and tired. Beneath the shadow of his mask, his full mouth seems harsh, his jaw unyielding. But I remember his face from the festival. It’s a handsome face, and even the mask can’t hide that. His diamond-shaped Blackcliff tattoo is a dark shadow on the back of his neck, parts of it tinged silver where the metal of his mask cleaves to his skin.

He looks up, sensing my gaze, and then glances quickly away. But not before I see telltale redness in his eyes.

I loosen my white-knuckled grip on the knife. What could upset a Mask, an Aspirant, enough to bring him to tears?

“What you told me about living in the Scholars’ Quarter,” he says, breaking the quiet of the room, “with your grandparents and your brother. That was true, once.”

“Until a few weeks ago. The Empire raided us. A Mask came. Killed my grandparents. Took my brother.”

“And your parents?”

“Dead. A long time ago now. My brother’s the only one left. But he’s in the death cells in Bekkar Prison.”

Veturius glances up at me. “Bekkar doesn’t have death cells.”

His comment is offhand and so unexpected that it takes a moment to sink in. He looks back down at his work, blind to the impact his words have had on me. “Who told you he was in a death cell? And who told you he was in Bekkar?”

“I . . . heard a rumor.”
Idiot, Laia. You walked into this
. “From . . . a friend.”

“Your friend’s wrong. Or confused. Serra’s only death cells are in Central. Bekkar’s much smaller and usually filled with swindling Mercators and Plebeian drunks. It’s no Kauf, that’s for sure. I would know. I’ve done guard duty at both. “

“But if Blackcliff, say, got attacked . . . ” My mind races as I think of what Mazen told me. “Isn’t it Bekkar that provides your . . . security?”

Veturius chuckles without smiling. “Bekkar, protecting Blackcliff? Don’t let my mother hear. Blackcliff has three thousand students bred for war, Laia. Some are young, but unless they’re green, they’re dangerous. The school doesn’t need backup, least of all from a pack of bored auxes who spend their days taking bribes and racing roaches.”

Could I have misheard Mazen? No, he said Darin was in the death cells in Bekkar and that the prison provided Blackcliff’s security backup, all of which Veturius has just refuted. Is Mazen’s information bad, or is he lying to me? Once, I’d have given him the benefit of the doubt, but Cook’s suspicions . . . and Keenan’s . . . and my own weigh heavy on me. Why would Mazen lie? Where is Darin, really? Is he even alive?

He is alive. He must be. I’d know if my brother was dead. I’d feel it.

“I’ve upset you,” Veturius says. “I’m sorry. But if your brother’s in Bekkar, he’ll be out soon. No one stays in there more than a few weeks.”

“Of course.” I clear my throat and try to wipe the confusion from my face. Masks can smell a lie. They can sense deceit. I have to act as normal as I can. “It was just a rumor.”

He gives me a swift look, and I hold my breath, thinking he is about to question me further. But he just nods and raises his leather greaves, now clean, to the firelight before hanging them from the hooks embedded into the wall.

So that’s what those hooks are for.

Is it possible Veturius won’t hurt me? He’s pulled me from death so many times. Why do that if he wishes violence upon me?

“Why did you help me?” I blurt out. “Down in the dunes after the Commandant marked me, and at the Moon Festival, and when Marcus attacked me—every time, you could have turned away. Why didn’t you?”

He looks up, thoughtful. “The first time, I felt bad. I let Marcus hurt you the day I met you, outside the Commandant’s office. I wanted to make up for it.”

I make a small noise of surprise. I didn’t even think he noticed me that day.

“And then later—at the Moon Festival and with Marcus—” He shrugs. “My mother would have killed you. Marcus too. I couldn’t just let you die.”

“Plenty of Masks have stood and watched as Scholars died. You didn’t.”

“I don’t enjoy others’ pain,” he says. “Maybe that’s why I’ve always hated Blackcliff. I was going to desert, you know.” His smile is sharp as a scim and as joyless.

“I had it all planned out. I dug a path from that hearth”—he points—“to the entrance of the West Branch tunnel. The only secret entrance in the whole of Blackcliff. Then I mapped my way out of here. I was going to use tunnels the Empire thinks are caved in or flooded. I stole food, clothing, supplies. I drained my inheritance so I could buy what I needed on the way. I planned to escape through the Tribal lands and take a ship south from Sadh. I was going to be free—from the Commandant, Blackcliff, the Empire. So stupid. As if I could ever be free of this place.”

I almost stop breathing as his words sink in.
The only secret entrance in the whole of Blackcliff.

Elias Veturius has just given me Darin’s freedom.

That is, if Mazen is telling the truth. I’m not so sure anymore. I want to laugh at the absurdity of it—Veturius giving me the key to my brother’s freedom, just as I realize that such information might not mean anything.

I’ve been silent too long.
Say something.

“I thought being chosen for Blackcliff was an honor.”

“Not for me,” he says. “Coming to Blackcliff wasn’t a choice. The Augurs brought me here when I was six.” He picks up his scim and slowly wipes it clean. I recognize the intricate etchings on it—it’s a Teluman blade. “I lived with the Tribes back then. I’d never met my mother. I’d never even heard the name Veturius.”

“But how . . . ” Veturius as a child. I’ve never considered it. I’ve never wondered if he knew his father, or if the Commandant raised him and loved him. I’ve never wondered, because he’s never been anything more than a Mask.

“I’m bastard-born,” Veturius says. “The only mistake Keris Veturia has ever made. She bore me and then exposed me in the Tribal desert. It’s where she was stationed. That would have been the end of me, but a Tribal scouting
party happened along. Tribesmen think baby boys are good luck, even abandoned ones. Tribe Saif adopted me, raised me as one of their own. Taught me their language and stories, dressed me in their clothes. They even gave me my name. Ilyaas. My grandfather changed it when I came to Blackcliff. Turned it into something more appropriate for a son of Gens Veturia.”

The tension between Veturius and his mother is suddenly clear. The woman never even wanted him. Her ruthlessness astounds me. I’d helped Pop bring dozens of newborns into the world. What kind of person could leave something so small, so precious, to die of heat and starvation?

The same person who could carve a
K
into a girl for opening a letter. The same person who would dash out a five-year-old’s eye with a poker.

“What do you remember from that time?” I ask. “From when you were a child? From before Blackcliff?”

Veturius frowns and puts a hand to his temple. The mask shimmers strangely at his touch, like a pool rippling beneath a drop of rain.

“I remember everything. The caravan was like a small city—Tribe Saif is dozens of families strong. I was fostered by the tribe’s
Kehanni
, Mamie Rila.”

He speaks for a long time, and his words weave a life before my eyes, the life of a dark-haired, curious-eyed child who snuck out from lessons so he could go adventuring, who waited eagerly at the edge of camp for the men of the Tribe to return from their merchant forays. A boy who scrapped with his foster brother one minute and laughed with him the next. A child without fear, until the Augurs came for him and plunged him into a world ruled by it. But for the Augurs, it could be Darin he is speaking of. It could be me.

When he falls silent, it’s as if a warm, gold haze has been lifted from the room. He has a
Kehanni
’s skill at storytelling. I look up at him, surprised to see not the boy but the man he has become. Mask. Aspirant. Enemy.

“I’ve bored you,” he says.

“No. Not at all. You—you were like me. You were a child. A normal child. And that was taken from you.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Well, it certainly makes you harder to hate.”

“Seeing the enemy as a human. A general’s ultimate nightmare.”

“The Augurs brought you to Blackcliff. How did it happen?”

This time, his pause is longer, heavy with the taint of a memory better forgotten.

“It was autumn—the Augurs always bring a new crop of Yearlings in when the desert winds are at their worst. The night they came to the Saif encampment, the Tribe was happy. Our chief had just returned from a successful trade, and we had new clothes and shoes—even books. The cooks slaughtered two goats and spit-roasted them. The drums beat, the girls sang, and stories poured from Mamie Rila for hours.