An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes 1)

He’d have had you in the stocks by now. As it is, the Black Guard chose not to investigate once I reminded them that the Farrars are lowborn Plebeian scum and you’re from the finest house in the Empire. Are you listening to me?”

“Of course I am. ” I act affronted, but since I’m half eyeing the Mercator girl and half looking into the garden for Helene, Grandfather isn’t convinced.

“I wanted to find Hel—”

“Don’t you dare get distracted by Aquilla,” Grandfather says. “How she managed to be named Aspirant in the first place I don’t understand. Women have no place in the military. ”

“Aquilla’s one of the best fighters at the school. ” At my defense of her, Grandfather slams his hand on an antique entryway table so hard that a vase falls from it and shatters. The Mercator girl yelps and scurries away. Grandfather doesn’t blink.

“Rubbish,” Grandfather says. “Don’t tell me you have feelings for the wench. ”

“Grandfather—”

“She belongs to the Empire. Though I suppose if you were named Emperor, you could set her aside as Blood Shrike and marry her instead. She’s an Illustrian of strong stock, so at least you’d have a passel of heirs—”

“Grandfather. Stop. ” I am uncomfortably aware of the heat rising in my neck at the prospect of making heirs with Helene. “I don’t think of her like that. She’s a—she’s—”

Grandfather lifts a silver eyebrow as I stammer like a fool. I am full of it, of course. Students don’t get much in the way of women at Blackcliff, unless they rape a slave or pay a whore, neither of which I’ve ever had any interest in. I’ve had plenty of diversions during leave—but leave comes once a year.

Helene is a girl, a pretty girl, and I spend most of my time around her. Of course I’ve thought of her in that way. But it doesn’t mean anything.

“She’s a comrade-in-arms, Grandfather,” I say. “Could you love a fellow soldier the way you loved Grandmother?”

“None of my fellows were tall blonde girls. ”

“Am I done here? I’d like to celebrate my graduation. ”

“One more thing. ” Grandfather disappears, returning a few moments later with a long package wrapped in black silk. “These are for you,” he says. “I was planning to leave them to you when you became Pater of Gens Veturia. But they’ll serve you better now. ”

When I open the package, I nearly drop it.

“Ten burning hells. ” I stare at the scims in my hands, a matched set with intricate black etchings that probably have no equal in the Empire. “These are Teluman scims. ”

“Made by the current Teluman’s grandfather. Good man. Good friend. ”

Gens Teluman has produced the most talented Empire smiths for centuries. The current Teluman smith spends months fashioning the Masks’ Serric steel armor every year. But a Teluman scim—a true Teluman scim, able to cut through five bodies at once—is forged every few years, at the most. “I can’t take these. ”

I try to give the blades back, but Grandfather plucks my own scims from where I’ve slung them on my back and replaces them with the Teluman blades.

“They are a fitting gift for an Emperor,” he says. “See that you earn them. Always victorious. ”

“Always victorious. ” I echo the Veturia motto, and Grandfather leaves to attend to his guests. Still reeling from the gift, I head to the food tent, hoping to find Helene. Every few feet, people stop to chat with me. Someone shoves a plate of spiced kabobs into my hand. Someone else, a drink. A pair of older Masks bemoan the fact that the Trials didn’t take place in their time, while a group of Illustrian generals discuss Emperor Taius in hushed tones, as if his spies might be watching. No one speaks of the Augurs with anything less than reverence. No one would dare.

When I finally escape the crowd, Helene’s nowhere in sight, though I spot her sisters, Hannah and Livia, eyeing a bored-looking Faris.

“Veturius,” Faris grunts at me, and I’m relieved that he doesn’t treat me with the same fawning awe as everyone else. “I need you to introduce me. ”

He looks pointedly at a knot of silk-clad, bejeweled Illustrian girls lurking near the edges of the tent, some of whom are watching me in a disturbingly predatory way. I know a few of the girls well—too well, actually, for all that whispering they are doing to come to any good.

“Faris, you’re a Mask. You don’t need an introduction. Just go talk to them.

If you’re that nervous, ask Dex or Demetrius to go with you. Have you seen Helene?”

He ignores my question. “Demetrius didn’t come. Probably because fun is against his moral code. And Dex is drunk. Loosening up for once in his life, thank the skies. ”

“What about Trist—”

“Too busy drooling at his fiancé. ” Faris nods to one of the tables, where Tristas sits with Aelia, pretty and black-haired. He looks happier than I’ve seen him all year. “And Leander confessed his love to Helene—”

“Again?”

“Again. She told him to piss off before she broke his nose a second time, and he went looking for solace in the back garden with some redhead. You’re my last hope. ” Faris looks lasciviously at the Illustrian girls. “If we remind them that you’ll be Emperor, I bet we could get two each. ”

“Now there’s a thought. ” I actually consider this for a moment before remembering Helene. “But I have to find Aquilla. ”

At that moment, she walks into the tent and past the knot of girls, stopping when one speaks to her. She glances at me before whispering something.

The girl’s jaw drops open, and Helene turns back around and leaves the tent.

“I’ve got to catch Helene,” I say to Faris, who has noticed Hannah and Livia and is smiling invitingly at them while smoothing back his cowlick.

“Don’t get too drunk,” I advise. “And unless you want to wake up without your manhood, stay away from those two. They’re Hel’s little sisters. ”

The smile drops off Faris’s face, and he moves determinedly out of the tent. I hurry after Helene, spotting a flash of blonde heading through Grandfather’s vast gardens and toward a rickety shed at the back of the house. The light of the party tents doesn’t reach this far, and I have only starlight by which to navigate. I keep my plate, toss my drink, and pull myself atop the shed one-handed before clambering onto the sloped roof of the house.

“You could have picked an easier spot to get to, Aquilla. ”

“It’s quiet up here,” she says from the darkness. “Plus you can see all the way to the river. Did you bring any for me?”

“Piss off. You probably had two plates while I shook hands with all those stuffed shirts. ”

“Mother says I’m too skinny. ” She spears a pastry off my plate with a dagger. “What took you so long to get up here, anyway? Paying court to your bevy of maidens?”

My awkward conversation with Grandfather comes sharply to mind, and a thorny silence descends. Helene and I don’t discuss girls. She teases Faris and Dex and the others about their dalliances, but not me. Never me.