A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes 2)

I force myself not to look away.

"Blood Shrike." The Commandant turns and salutes. Immediately, her men follow suit. Her voice is soft, but as ever, she manages to mock my title while keeping her face and expression flat. She glances at Harper and he offers a bare nod in acknowledgement. Then she addresses me. "Shouldn't you be scouring the lands to the south for Veturius?"

"Shouldn't you be hunting Scholar rebels along the River Rei?"

"The revolution along the Rei has been crushed," the Commandant says. "My men and I have been purging the countryside of the Scholar threat."

I eye the prisoners shaking in terror before her. Three are twice my father's age. Two are children.

"These civilians do not look like rebel fighters to me."

"It is such thinking, Shrike, that encourages revolts in the first place. These civilians harbored Resistance rebels. When brought to the garrison for questioning, they--along with the rebels--attempted to stage an escape. No doubt they were encouraged in their insurgency by rumors of a Martial rout in Nur."

I flush at her pointed remark, seeking a retort and finding none. Your failure has weakened the Empire. The words are unspoken. And they are not wrong. The Commandant curls her lip and shifts her gaze over my shoulder, to my men.

"A ragged bunch," she observes. "Tired men make for failed missions, Blood Shrike. Did you not learn that lesson at Blackcliff?"

"I had to divide my forces to cover more ground." Though I try to keep my voice as unfeeling as hers, I know I sound like a sullen Cadet defending an unsound battle strategy to a Centurion.

"So many men to hunt a traitor," she says. "Yet you've had no luck. One would think you do not truly wish to find Veturius."

"One would be wrong," I grind out from a clenched jaw.

"One would hope," she says with a soft derision that brings an enraged flush to my cheeks. She turns back to her prisoners. One of the children is next, a dark-haired boy with freckles across his nose. The sharp tang of urine permeates the air, and the Commandant looks down at the boy and cocks her head.

"Afraid, little one?" Her voice is almost gentle. I want to retch at the lie in it. The boy trembles, staring at the blood-soaked dirt before him.

"Stop." I step forward. Bleeding skies, what are you doing, Helene? The Commandant looks at me with a mild sort of curiosity.

"As Blood Shrike," I say, "I order--"

The Commandant's first scim whistles through the air, divesting the child of his head. At the same time, she draws her second scim, plunging it through the heart of the second child. Knives appear in her hands, and she flings them--zing-zing-zing--one by one into the throats of the last three prisoners.

In the space of two breaths, she has executed them all.

"Yes, Blood Shrike?" She turns back to me. On the surface, she is patient, attentive. No hint of the madness that I know roils deep within. I survey her men--well over a hundred of them watching the altercation with cold-eyed interest. If I challenge her now, there is no telling what she will do. Attack, possibly. Or try to butcher my men. She certainly won't submit to censure.

"Bury the bodies." I suppress my emotions and flatten my voice. "I don't want the garrison's water supply contaminated by corpses."

The Commandant nods, her face still. The consummate Mask. "Of course, Shrike."

I order my men into the garrison and retire to the empty Black Guard barracks, dropping into one of the dozen hard bunks along the walls. I am filthy from a week on the road. I should bathe, eat, rest.

Instead, I find myself staring at the ceiling for a solid two hours. I keep thinking of the Commandant. Her insult to me was clear--and my inability to respond displayed my weakness. But though I'm upset by that, I'm more disturbed at what she did to the prisoners. At what she did to the children.

Is this what the Empire has become? Or is this what it always was? a quiet voice within asks.

"I brought you food."

I jerk upright, hit my head on the bunk above me, and curse. Harper drops his pack on the floor and nods to a steaming plate of golden rice and spiced minced meat on a table by the door. It looks delicious, but I know that right now, anything I eat will taste of ashes.

"The Commandant left about an hour ago," Harper says. "She's headed north."

Harper removes his armor, laying it neatly beside the door before digging around in the closet for fresh fatigues. He turns his back to me and changes. When he strips off his shirt, he steps into the shadows so I cannot see. I crack a smile at his modesty.

"The food won't jump down your throat on its own, Shrike."

I look suspiciously at the plate, and Harper sighs, pads to the table in bare feet, and tastes the food before handing me the plate. "Eat," he says. "Your mother asked you to. How would it look if the Empire's Blood Shrike fainted dead away from starvation in the middle of a fight?"

Reluctantly, I take the plate and force myself to chew a few morsels of it.

"The old Blood Shrike had tasters." Harper sits on a bunk across from me and rolls his shoulders back. "Usually an aux soldier from some nameless Plebeian family."

"People tried to assassinate the Shrike?"

Harper looks at me like I'm an especially dim Yearling. "Of course. He had the Emperor's ear and was first cousin to Kauf's Warden. There are probably only a handful of secrets in the Empire that he didn't know."

I press my lips together to quell my shudder. I remember the Warden from my time as a Fiver. I remember how he got his secrets: through twisted experiments and mind games.

Harper's eyes cut to me and glitter like the pale jade of the Southern Lands. "Will you tell me something?"

I swallow the bite I've only half chewed. That placidness in his tone--I've learned what it means. He's about to strike.

"Why did you let him go?"

Bleeding skies. "Let who go?"

"I know when you're trying to mislead me, Shrike," Harper says. "Five days in an interrogation room with you, remember?" He leans forward on his bunk, tilting his head mildly, like a curious bird. I am not fooled; his eyes burn with intensity. "You had Veturius in Nur. You let him go. Because you love him? Is he not a Mask, like any other?"

"How dare you!" I slam the plate down and stand. Harper grabs my arm, not releasing when I try to throw him off.

"Please," he says. "I mean no harm. I swear it. I too have loved, Shrike." Old pain flickers and fades in his eyes. I see no lie there. Only curiosity.

I shove away his arm and, still assessing him, sit back down. I look out the open window of the barracks to the wide stretch of scrubby hills beyond. The moon barely lights the room, and the darkness is a comfort.

"Veturius is a Mask like the rest of us, yes," I say. "Bold, brave, strong, swift. But those were afterthoughts for him." The Blood Shrike's ring of office feels heavy on my finger, and I spin it around. I have never spoken of Elias to anyone. Whom would I speak to? My comrades at Blackcliff would have mocked me. My sisters would not have understood.

I want to speak of him, I realize. I crave it.

"Elias sees people as they should be," I say. "Not as they are. He laughs at himself. He gives of himself--in everything he does.

"Like with the First Trial." I shiver at the memory. "The Augurs played with our minds. But Elias didn't falter. He looked death straight in the face and never considered leaving me behind. He didn't give up on me. He's the things that I can't be. He's good. He never would have let the Commandant kill those prisoners. Especially not the children."

"The Commandant serves the Empire."

I shake my head. "What she did doesn't serve the Empire," I say. "Not the Empire I fight for, anyway."

Harper watches me with an unsettling, fixed gaze. I wonder briefly if I've said too much. But then I realize that I don't care what he thinks. He is no friend of mine, and if he reports what I said to Marcus or the Commandant, it will change nothing.

"Blood Shrike!" The shout makes both Harper and me jump, and a moment late

r, the door bursts open to reveal an aux courier panting and coated in dirt from the road. "The Emperor orders you to ride for Antium. Now."

Bleeding skies. I'll never catch Elias if I detour to Antium. "I'm in the middle of a mission, soldier," I say. "And I'm not inclined to leave it half-finished. What's so damned important?"

"War, Blood Shrike. The Illustrian Gens have declared war on each other."

PART II

NORTH

XXV: Elias

For two weeks, the hours pass in a blur of nighttime riding, thieving, and skulking. Martial soldiers swarm over the countryside like locusts, tearing through every village and farmstead, every bridge and shack, in their search for me.

But I am alone, and I am a Mask. I ride hard, and Trera, desert born and bred, eats up the miles.

After a fortnight, we reach the eastern branch of the River Taius, glimmering like the groove of a silver scim beneath the full moon. The night is quiet and bright, without a breath of wind, and I lead Trera up the riverbank until I find a place to cross.

He slows as he splashes through the shallows, and when his hooves hit the northern bank, he tosses his head wildly, his eyes rolling back.

"Whoa--whoa, boy." I drop into the water and pull his bridle forward to get him up the bank. He whinnies and jerks his head. "Did you get bitten? Let's see."

I pull a blanket from one of the saddlebags and rub his legs gently, waiting for him to flinch when the blanket hits the bite. But he just lets me rub him down before turning south.

"This way." I try to urge him north, but he's having none of it. Strange. Up until now, he and I have gotten along fine. He's far more intelligent than any of Grandfather's horses, and he has more stamina too. "Don't worry, boy. Nothing to fear."