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

The crowds move through the square sluggishly, wilted by the heat. I have to push and elbow to make any headway, eliciting grumbles from irritated merchants and a shove from a hatchet-faced slaver. As I dart under a palanquin marked with the symbol of an Illustrian house, I spot the courier’s office a dozen yards away. I slow, my fingers straying toward the letter to the Emperor. Once I hand it over, there’s no getting it back.

“Bags, purses, and satchels! Silk-stitched!”

I need to open the note. I need to have something for the Resistance. But where can I do it without anyone noticing? Behind one of the stalls? In the shadows between two tents?

“We use the finest leather and hardware!”

The seal will lift cleanly enough, but I can’t be jostled. If the letter tears or the seal is smudged, the Commandant will probably cut off my hand. Or my head.

“Bags, purses, and satchels! Silk-stitched!”

The bag-seller is right behind me, and I’ve a mind to tell him off. Then I smell cedarwood and glance over my shoulder to see a shirtless Scholar man, his muscled torso tanned and sweating. His hair, flaming red, glows below a black cap. Shock and recognition jolt my stomach. It’s Keenan.

His brown eyes meet mine, and as he continues to yell out his wares, he tilts his head ever so slightly toward a side alley leading out of the square. My hands sweat in uneasy anticipation, and I make my way to the alley. What will I say to him? I have nothing—no leads, no information. Keenan doubted me from the beginning, and I am about to prove him right.

Dust-coated brick houses rise four stories on either side of the alley, and the noises of the market fade. Keenan is nowhere to be seen, but a woman draped in rags detaches herself from a wall and approaches me. I eye her warily until she lifts her head. Through the filthy tangle of dark hair, I recognize Sana.

Follow, she mouths.

I want to ask her about Darin, but she’s already hurrying away. She leads me through alley after alley, not stopping until we’re close to Cobbler Row, nearly a mile from Execution Square. The air is dense with the chattering of shoemakers and the gamy scents of leather and tannin and dye. I think we’re going to enter the row, but Sana turns instead into the narrow space between two buildings. She heads down a set of basement stairs so grimy that they look like the inside of a chimney.

Keenan opens the door at the base of the stairs before Sana can knock.

He’s replaced the leather bags with the black shirt and brace of knives he was wearing the first time I met him. A lock of red hair falls into his face, and he looks me over, his gaze lingering on my bruises.

“Thought she might have a tail,” Sana says as she pulls off the cloak and wig. “But she didn’t. ”

“Mazen’s waiting. ” Keenan puts a hand on my back to nudge me forward into the narrow hallway. I wince and recoil—my lashes are still painful.

His eyes cut sharply to me and I think he’s going to say something, but instead he drops his hand awkwardly, brow slightly furrowed, and leads us down the hallway and through a door. Mazen sits at a table in the room beyond, his scarred face lit by a lone candle.

“Well, Laia. ” He lifts his gray eyebrows. “What do you have for me?”

“Can you tell me about Darin first?” I ask, finally able to voice the question that has plagued me for a week and a half. “Is he all right?”

“Your brother’s alive, Laia. ”

A sigh gusts out of me, and I feel like I can breathe again.

“But I can’t tell you any more until you tell me what you have. We did make a deal. ”

“Let her at least sit,” Sana pulls out a chair for me, and almost before I’m in it, Mazen leans forward.

“We have little time,” he says. “Whatever you’ve got, we need. ”

“The Trials started about—about a week ago. ” I scramble to connect the few scraps of information I do have. I’m not ready to give him the letter—not yet. If he breaks the seal or tears it, I’m done for. “That’s when the Aspirants disappeared. There are four of them. Their names—”

“We know all that. ” Mazen dismisses my words with the wave of a hand.

“Where were they taken? When does the Trial end? What’s the next one?”

“We’ve heard that two of the Aspirants returned today,” Keenan says. “Not long ago, in fact. Maybe half an hour. ”

I think of the guards talking excitedly at Blackcliff’s gate as two horsemen came up the road. Laia, you fool. If I’d paid closer attention to the auxes’ gossip, I might have learned which Aspirants had survived the Trial. I might have had something useful to tell Mazen.

“I don’t know. It’s been so—so hard,” I say. Even as I speak, I hear how pathetic I sound and hate myself for it. “The Commandant killed my parents. She has this wall with posters of every rebel she’s caught. My parents were up there—their faces—”

Sana’s eyes widen, and even Keenan looks slightly sick, his aloofness falling away for a moment. I wonder why I’m telling Mazen this. Perhaps because some part of me wonders if he knew the Commandant killed my parents—if he knew and sent me to Blackcliff anyway.

“I didn’t know,” Mazen says, sensing my unasked question. “But it’s all the more reason that this mission must succeed. ”

“I want to succeed more than anyone, but I can’t get into her office. She never has visitors, so I can’t eavesdrop on her—”

Mazen holds up a hand to stop me. “What do you know, exactly?”

For one frantic moment I consider lying. I’ve read a hundred tales of heroes and the trials they face—what harm if I invent one and pass it off as truth? But I can’t bring myself to do it. Not when the Resistance is placing their trust in me.

“I. . . nothing. ” I stare at the floor, ashamed at the incredulity on Mazen’s face. I reach for the letter but don’t pull it out. Too risky. Maybe he’ll give you another chance, Laia. Maybe you can try again.

“What, exactly, have you been doing all this time?”

“Surviving, from the looks of it,” Keenan says. His dark eyes flash to mine, and I can’t tell if he’s defending or insulting me.

“I was loyal to the Lioness,” Mazen says. “But I can’t waste my time helping someone who won’t help me. ”

“Mazen, for skies’ sake,” Sana sounds aghast. “Look at the poor girl—”

“Yes. ” Mazen eyes the bruises on my neck. “Look at her. She’s a mess. The mission’s too difficult. I made a mistake, Laia. I thought you’d take risks. I thought you were more like your mother. ”

The insult levels me faster than a blow from the Commandant. Of course he’s right. I’m nothing like my mother. She’d have never been in this position to begin with.

“We’ll see about getting you out. ” Mazen shrugs and stands. “We’re done here. ”

“Wait. . . ” Mazen can’t abandon me now. Darin is lost if he does. Reluctantly, I take out the Commandant’s letter. “I have this. It’s from the Commandant to the Emperor. I thought you could look at it. ”

“Why didn’t you say that to begin with?” He takes the envelope, and I want to tell him to be careful. But Sana beats me to it, and Mazen gives her a brief, annoyed look before gently lifting the seal.