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

There’s a scrape behind me, and the letter falls from my hand as I whip around. My mind screams Commandant! But the hall is empty. I pick up the letter and shove it into my pocket. It seems alive, like a snake or spider I’ve decided to keep as a pet. I touch the seal again before jerking my hand away.

Too dangerous.

But I need something to give the Resistance. Every day when I leave Blackcliff to run the Commandant’s errands, I fear Keenan will pull me aside and demand a report. Every day he doesn’t is a reprieve. Eventually, I’ll run out of time.

I have to get my cloak, so I head to the servants’ quarters in the open-air hallway just outside the kitchen. My room, like Kitchen-Girl’s and Cook’s, is a dank hole with a low entrance and a ragged curtain that serves as a door.

Inside, it’s just wide enough to fit a rope pallet and a crate that serves as a side table.

From here, I can hear the low tones of Cook and Kitchen-Girl speaking.

Kitchen-Girl, at least, has been slightly friendlier than Cook. She’s helped me with my duties more than once, and at the end of my first day, when I thought I’d faint from the pain of the lashes I’d received, I saw her scuttle away from my quarters. When I went in, I found a healing salve and a mug of pain-numbing tea.

That’s as far as her friendship extends. I’ve asked her and Cook questions, discussed the weather, complained about the Commandant. No response.

I’m fairly certain that if I walked into the kitchen stark-naked and squawking like a chicken, I still wouldn’t get a word out of them. I don’t want to approach them again only to hit a wall of silence, but I need someone to tell me who Spiro Teluman is and how to find him.

I enter the kitchen to find them both sweating from the heat of the blazing hearth. Lunch is baking already. My mouth waters, and I long for Nan’s food. We never had much, but whatever we did have was made with love, which I now know transforms simple fare into a feast. Here, we eat the Commandant’s scraps, and no matter how hungry I am, they taste like sawdust.

Kitchen-Girl gives me a glance in greeting, and Cook ignores me. The older woman perches on a rickety stepstool to reach a string of garlic. She looks like she’s about to fall, but when I offer a hand to brace her, she glares daggers at me.

I drop my hand and stand there awkwardly for a moment.

“Can—can you tell me where to find Spiro Teluman?”

Silence.

“Look,” I say. “I know I’m new, but the Commandant told me to make friends. I thought—”

Ever so slowly, Cook turns to me. Her face is gray, as if she might be ill.

“Friends. ” It’s the first word she’s said to me that isn’t an order. The old woman shakes her head and takes her garlic to the counter. The anger in her strokes as she chops it is unmistakable. I don’t know what I’ve done that’s so terrible, but she won’t help me now. I sigh and leave the kitchen. I’ll have to ask someone else about Spiro Teluman.

“He’s a swordsmith,” I hear a soft voice say. Kitchen-Girl has followed me out. She looks over her shoulder, worried Cook will hear her. “You’ll find him along the river, in the Weapons Quarter. ” She quickly turns, ready to walk away, and it’s this more than anything else that makes me speak to her. I haven’t had a conversation with a normal person in ten days; I’ve barely said anything other than “Yes, sir” and “No, sir. ”

“I’m Laia. ”

Kitchen-Girl freezes. “Laia. ” She turns the word over in her mouth.

“I’m—I’m Izzi. ”

For the first time since the raid, I smile. I’d nearly forgotten the sound of my own name. Izzi looks up toward the Commandant’s room.

“The Commandant wants you to make friends so she can use them against you,” she whispers. “That’s why Cook is upset. ”

I shake my head—I don’t understand.

“It’s how she controls us. ” Izzi fingers her eye patch. “It’s the reason Cook does whatever she asks. The reason why every slave in Blackcliff does what she asks. If you do something wrong, she won’t always punish you. Sometimes, she’ll punish the people you care about instead. ” Izzi’s so quiet I have to lean forward to hear her. “If—if you want to have friends, make sure she doesn’t know. Make sure it’s secret. ”

She slips back into the kitchen, quick as a cat in the night. I leave for the couriers’ office, but I can’t stop thinking about what she’s told me. If the Commandant is sick enough to use the slaves’ friendships against them, then it’s no wonder Izzi and Cook keep their distance. Is that how Izzi lost her eye?

Is that how Cook got her scars?

The Commandant hasn’t punished me in any permanent way—yet. But it’s only a matter of time. The Emperor’s letter in my pocket seems suddenly heavier, and I close my hand over it. Do I dare? The faster I get information, the faster the Resistance can save Darin and the faster I can leave Blackcliff.

I debate with myself all the way to the school’s gates. When I approach, the leather-armored auxes, who usually delight in tormenting slaves, barely notice me. They’re intent on two horsemen making their way up to the school. I use the distraction to slip quietly past.

Though it’s still early morning, the desert heat has set in, and I fidget under the itchy weight of the cloak I’ve taken to wearing. Every time I put it on, I think of Aspirant Veturius, of that unabashed fire that burned in him when he first turned to me, of his smell when he stepped close, distractingly clean and masculine. I think of his words, spoken almost thoughtfully. Can I give you some advice?

I don’t know what I expected of the Commandant’s son. Someone like Marcus Farrar, who left me with a collar of bruises that ached for days? Someone like Helene Aquilla, who spoke to me as if I was less than dirt?

At the very least, I thought he’d look like his mother—blonde and wan and cold to the bone. But he is black-haired and gold-skinned and though his eyes are the same pale gray as the Commandant’s, there is no trace there of the gimlet flatness that defines most Masks. Instead, when he’d met my gaze for a jolting moment, I’d seen life bursting through, chaotic and alluring beneath the shadow of the mask. I’d seen fire and desire, and my heart had thumped faster.

And his mask. So strange that it sits atop his face like a thing apart. Is it a sign of weakness? It can’t be—I keep hearing he’s Blackcliff’s finest soldier.

Stop, Laia. Stop thinking of him. If he’s thoughtful, then there’s devilry behind it. If there’s fire in his eyes, it’s a lust for violence. He’s a Mask. They’re all the same.

I wind my way down from Blackcliff, out of the Illustrian Quarter and into Execution Square, home to the city’s largest open-air market as well as one of only two couriers’ offices. The gallows that give the square its name sit empty.

But then, the day’s just begun.

Darin once drew the Execution Square gallows, complete with bodies hanging from the gibbet. Nan saw the image and shuddered. Burn it, she’d said. Darin nodded, but later that night, I caught him working on it in our room.

“It’s a reminder, Laia,” he’d said in his quiet way. “It would be wrong to destroy it. ”