An Ember in the Ashes (34 page)

I
watch Teluman working from his open door for long minutes before I summon up the courage to enter his shop. He hammers a strip of heated metal with careful, measured strokes, his brightly tattooed arms sweating from the strain.

“Darin’s in Kauf.”

He stops mid-swing and turns. The alarm in his eyes at my words is strangely comforting. At least there is one other person who cares about my brother’s fate as much as I do.

“He was sent there ten days ago,” I say. “Just after the Moon Festival.” I raise my still-cuffed wrists. “I have to go after him.”

I hold my breath as he considers. Teluman helping me is the first step in a plan that depends almost entirely on other people doing what I ask of them.

“Lock the door,” he says.

It takes him nearly three hours to break the cuffs off, and he says almost nothing the entire time, except to occasionally ask me if I need anything. When I’m free of the cuffs, he offers me a salve for my chafed wrists and then disappears into the back room. A moment later he emerges with a beautifully decorated scim—the same blade he used to scare the ghuls away the day I met him.

“This is the first true Teluman blade I made with Darin,” he says. “Take it to him. When you free him, you tell him Spiro Teluman will be waiting in the Free Lands. You tell him we have work to do.”

“I’m afraid,” I whisper. “Afraid I’ll fail. Afraid he’ll die.” The fear flares
through me then, as if by speaking of it I’ve breathed life into it. Shadows gather and pool near the door. Ghuls.

Laia
,
they say.
Laia.

“Fear is only your enemy if you allow it to be.” Teluman hands me Darin’s blade and nods to the ghuls. I turn and, as Teluman speaks, advance upon them.

“Too much fear and you’re paralyzed,” he says. The ghuls aren’t cowed yet. I raise the scim. “Too little fear and you’re arrogant.” I strike out at the closest ghul. It hisses and skitters under the door. Some of its fellows back away, but others lunge at me. I force myself to stand fast, to meet them with the edge of the blade. Moments later, the few that were brave enough to remain flee with wrathful hisses. I turn back to Teluman. He finds my eyes.

“Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don’t let it control you. Don’t let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”

The sky is dark when I leave the smithy with Darin’s scim hidden beneath my skirt. Martial squads patrol the streets in force, but I avoid them easily in my black dress, blending into the night like a wraith.

As I walk, I remember how Darin tried to defend me from the Mask during the raid, even when the man gave him the chance to run. I imagine Izzi, small and frightened yet determined to befriend me though she knew well what the cost could be. And I think of Elias, who could have been miles away from Blackcliff by now, free as he always wanted, if he’d only let Aquilla kill me.

Darin, Izzi, and Elias put me first. No one made them do it. They did
it because they felt it was the right thing to do. Because whether they know what
Izzat
is or not, they live by it. Because they are brave.

My turn to do right
,
a voice says in my head. Not Darin’s words anymore, but my own. That voice has always been my own.
My turn to live by Izzat.
Mazen said I didn’t know what
Izzat
was. But I understand it better than he ever will.

By the time I navigate the treacherous hidden trail and scramble up to the Commandant’s courtyard, the school is still and quiet. The lamps in the Commandant’s study are lit, and voices drift out her open window, too faint to hear. That suits me fine—not even the Commandant can be in two places at once.

The slaves’ quarters are dark but for one light. I hear muffled sobbing. Thank the skies. The Commandant hasn’t taken her for interrogation yet. I peer through the curtain of her room. She isn’t alone.

“Izzi. Cook.”

They sit on the cot together, Cook with her arm around Izzi. When I speak, their heads jerk up, faces blanching like they’ve been confronted with a ghost. Cook’s eyes are red, her face wet, and when she sees me, she lets out a cry. Izzi throws herself at me, hugging me so tightly I think she’ll break a rib.

“Why, girl?” Cook wipes her tears away almost angrily. “Why come back? You could have run. Everyone thinks you’re dead. There’s nothing here for you.”

“But there
is
something here.” I tell Cook and Izzi all that has happened since this morning. I tell them the truth about Spiro Teluman and Darin and what the two of them were trying to do. I tell them of Mazen’s betrayal. Then I tell them my plan.

After I finish, they sit silently. Izzi fiddles with her eyepatch. Part of me
wants to take her by the shoulders and beg her for help, but I can’t coerce her into doing this. This has to be her choice. Cook’s choice.

“I don’t know, Laia.” Izzi shakes her head. “It’s dangerous . . . ”

“I know,” I say. “I’m asking so much of you. If the Commandant catches us—”

“Contrary to what you might think, girl,” Cook says, “the Commandant is not all-powerful. She underestimated you, for one. She misread Spiro Teluman—he is a man and so, in her mind, is only capable of a man’s base appetites. She hasn’t connected you to your parents. She makes mistakes, like anyone else. The only difference is that she doesn’t make the same mistake twice. Keep that in mind and you just might be able to outwit her.”

The old woman considers for a moment. “I can get what we need from the school’s armory. It’s well stocked.” She stands up, and when Izzi and I stare at her, she lifts her eyebrows.

“Well, don’t just sit there like lumps on a log.” She gives me a kick, and I yelp. “Move.”

«««

H
ours later, I awake to Cook’s hand on my shoulder. She bends down beside me, her face barely visible in the predawn gloom.

“Get up, girl.”

I think of another dawn, the one after my grandparents were killed and Darin was taken. That day, I thought my world was ending. In a way, I was right. Now it’s time to remake my world. Time to redo my ending. I put my hand to my armlet. This time, I will not falter.

Cook slumps against the entry to my room, sliding a hand across her eyes. She’s been up nearly all night, as I have. I didn’t want to sleep at all, but in the end, she insisted on it.

“No rest, no wits,” she said when forcing me to my cot just an hour before. “And you’ll need all your wits if you want to get out of Serra alive.”

Hands shaking, I pull on the combat boots and fatigues Izzi filched from the school’s supply closets. I buckle Darin’s scim to a belt Cook rustled up and pull my skirt over it all. Elias’s knife stays attached to the strap on my thigh. My mother’s armlet is hidden beneath a loose, long-sleeved tunic. I think at first to wear a scarf, to cover the Commandant’s mark, but in the end I decide against it. Though I once hated the sight of the scar, I view it with a sort of pride now. As Keenan said, it means I survived her.

Beneath the tunic, hanging diagonally across my chest, is a soft leather satchel filled with flatbread, nuts, and fruit sealed in oilskin, along with a canteen of water. Another package holds gauze, herbs, and oils for healing. I shove Elias’s cloak on top of it all.

“Izzi?” I ask Cook, who watches me silently from the door.

“On her way.”

“You won’t change your mind? You won’t come?”

Her silence is her answer. I look into her blue eyes, distant and familiar all at once. I have so many questions for her. What’s her name? What happened with the Resistance that was so horrible she can’t speak of them without stuttering and convulsing? Why does she hate my mother so much? Who
is
this woman who is more closed, even, than the Commandant? Unless I ask her now, I will never know the answers. After this, I doubt I’ll see her again.

“Cook—”

“Don’t.”

The word, though quietly spoken, is like a door slamming in my face.

“Are you ready?” she asks.

The belltower tolls. In two hours, the dawn drums will beat.

“Doesn’t matter if I’m ready,” I say. “It’s time.”

W
hen the dungeon door rattles, my skin prickles, and I know even before opening my eyes who will escort me to the gallows.

“Morning, Snake,” I greet him.

“Get up, bastard,” Marcus says. “It’s nearly dawn, and you have an appointment.”

Four unfamiliar Masks and a squad of legionnaires stand behind him. Marcus looks at me like I’m a roach, but strangely, I don’t mind. My sleep was dreamless and deep, and I rise languidly, stretching as I meet the Snake’s eyes.

“Chain him,” Marcus says.

“Doesn’t the great Emperor have more important things to do than escort a mere criminal to the gallows?” I ask. The guards clamp an iron collar around my neck and hobble my legs. “Shouldn’t you be out scaring small children or killing your relatives?”

Marcus’s face darkens, but he doesn’t rise to the bait. “I wouldn’t miss this for anything.” His yellow eyes glitter. “I’d have raised the ax myself, but the Commandant thought it unseemly. Besides, I’d much rather watch my Blood Shrike do it.”

It takes a moment before I realize that he means for Helene to kill me. He’s watching me, waiting for my disgust, but it never comes. The thought of Helene taking my life is strangely comforting. I’d rather die by her hand than an unknown executioner’s. She’ll make it clean and quick.

“Still listening to what my old lady tells you, eh?” I say. “Guess you’ll always be her lapdog.”

Anger flashes across Marcus’s face, and I grin. So, the trouble’s already begun. Excellent.

“The Commandant is wise,” Marcus says. “I keep her counsel and will do so as long as it suits me.” He drops the formal posturing and leans close, the smugness rolling off him so thickly that I think I’ll choke on it. “She helped me with the Trials from the beginning. Your own mother told me what was coming, and the Augurs never even knew.”

“So what you’re saying is that you cheated and you still barely managed to win.” I applaud slowly, my chains clanking. “Well done.”

Marcus seizes my collar and slams my head into the wall. I groan before I can help myself, feeling as if a great chunk of stone has been driven into my skull. The guards unleash a volley of punches to my stomach, and I drop to my knees. But when they back away, satisfied that I’ve been cowed, I dive forward and take Marcus out at the waist. He’s still sputtering when I snatch a dagger from his belt and hold it to his throat.

Four scims whip out of their scabbards, eight bows notch, and all are pointed at me.

“I’m not going to kill you,” I say, nestling the blade into his neck. “Just wanted you to know I could. Now take me to my execution,
Emperor
.”

I drop the knife. If I’m going to die, it will be because I refused to murder a girl. Not because I slit the Emperor’s throat.

Marcus shoves me away, grinding his teeth in rage.

“Get him up, you idiots,” he roars at the guards. I can’t help but laugh, and he strides out of my cell, seething. The Masks lower their scims and haul me to my feet.
Free, Elias. You’re almost free
.

Outside, the stones of Blackcliff are gentled by the dawn, and the cool
air warms quickly, promising a scorching day. A wild wind races through the dunes and breaks upon the granite of the school. I might not miss these walls as a dead man, but I will miss the wind and the scents it carries, of faraway places where freedom can be found in life instead of death.

Minutes later, we arrive at the belltower courtyard, where a platform has been erected for my beheading.

Blackcliff’s students dominate the yard, but there are other faces here too. I see Cain beside the Commandant and Governor Tanalius. Behind them, the heads of Serra’s Illustrian houses stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the city’s top military brass. Grandfather isn’t here, and I wonder if the Commandant’s moved against him yet. She will at some point. She’s spent years coveting rulership of Gens Veturia.

I straighten my shoulders and hold my head high. When the ax comes down, I will die the way Grandfather would want me to: proudly, like a Veturius.
Always victorious.

I turn my attention to the platform, where death awaits me in the form of a polished ax held by my best friend. She glows in her ceremonials, looking more like an empress than a Blood Shrike.

Marcus breaks off, and the crowd shifts back as he moves to stand beside the Commandant. The four Masks march me up the platform stairs. I think I catch a flash of movement beneath the gallows, but before I can look again, I’m on the platform beside Helene. The few people who had been speaking fall silent as Hel turns me to face the crowd.

“Look at me,” I whisper, needing, suddenly, to see her eyes. The Augurs made her swear fealty to Marcus. I understand that. It’s a consequence of my failure. But now, preparing me for death, she is cold-eyed and hardhanded.
Not a single tear. Did we never laugh together as Yearlings? Did we never fight our way out of a Barbarian camp, or fall into joyful hysterics after successfully robbing our first farmhouse, or carry each other when one of us was too weak to go on alone? Did we never love each other?

She ignores me, and I make myself look away from her and into the crowd. Marcus leans toward the governor, listening to something he says. It’s strange not to see Zak at his back. I wonder if the new Emperor misses his twin. I wonder if he will think rulership is worth the death of the only human who ever understood him.

On the other side of the courtyard, Faris stands taller and wider than everyone else, his eyes bewildered as a lost child’s. Dex is beside him, and I’m surprised at the streak of wetness that runs down his rigid jaw.

My mother, meanwhile, looks more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her. And why not? She’s won.

Beside her, Cain watches me, his cowl thrown back.
Lost
,
he said, just a few weeks ago,
like a leaf in the wind.
And so I am. I won’t forgive him for the Third Trial. But I can thank him for helping me understand what true freedom is. He nods in acknowledgment, reading my thoughts one last time.

Helene removes the metal collar. “Kneel,” she says.

My mind snaps back to the platform, and I submit to her order.

“Is this how it ends, Helene?” I’m surprised at how civil I sound, as if I’m asking her about a book she’s read but that I have yet to finish.

Her eyes flicker, so I know she hears me. She says nothing, just checks the chains on my legs and arms and then nods to the Commandant. My mother reads the charges against me, which I don’t pay much attention to, and pronounces the punishment, which I also ignore. Dead is dead, no matter how it happens.

Helene steps forward and lifts her ax. It will be one clean sweep, left to right. Air. Neck. Air. Elias dead.

Now it hits me. This is it. This is the end. Martial tradition says a soldier who dies well dances among the stars, battling foes for all eternity. Is that what awaits me? Or will I slip into endless darkness, unbroken and quiet?

Uneasiness latches onto me, like it’s been waiting around a corner all this time and only now has the gall to emerge. Where do I fix my eyes? On the crowd? The sky? I want comfort. I know I won’t find any.

I look at Helene again. Who else is there? She’s only two feet away, her hands loose around the ax handle.

Look at me. Don’t make me face this alone.

As if she’s heard my thoughts, her eyes meet mine, that familiar pale blue offering me solace, even as she lifts the ax. I think of the first time I looked into those eyes, as a freezing six-year-old getting pummeled in the culling pen.
I’ll watch your back
,
she’d said, with all the gravitas of a Cadet.
If you watch mine. We can make it if we stick together.

Does she remember that day? Does she remember all the days since?

I’ll never know. As I stare into her eyes, she brings the ax down. I hear the whoosh as it cuts through the air and feel the burn of steel biting into my neck.