Cain’s whole body goes still as he fixates on Zak. The air shifts and grows heavy. The Augur is reading him. I can feel it.

“You and Marcus found each other. ” Cain furrows his brow. “You were. . . led to each other. . . but not by one of the Augurs. Nor by the Commandant. ”

The Augur closes his eyes, as if listening harder, before opening them.

“Well?” I ask. “What did you see?”

“Enough to convince me that the Augurs must heal Aspirant Aquilla. But not enough to convince me that the Farrars commited sabotage. ”

“Why can’t you just look into Zak’s mind like you do everyone else’s and—”

“Our power is not without its limits. We cannot penetrate the minds of those who have learned to shield themselves. ”

I give Zak an appraising look. How in the ten hells did he figure out how to keep the Augurs out of his head?

“You both have an hour to leave school grounds,” Cain says. “I’ll inform the Commandant that I’ve dismissed you from your duties for the day. Go for a walk, go to the market, go to a whorehouse. I don’t care. Don’t return to the school until evening, and don’t come back to the infirmary. Do you understand?”

Zak frowns. “Why do we have to leave?”

“Because your thoughts, Zacharias, are a pit of agony. And yours, Veturius, echo with such deafening vengeance that I can hear nothing else. Neither will allow me to do what I must to heal Aspirant Aquilla. So you will leave. Now. ”

Cain moves aside, and, reluctantly, Zak and I walk out the door. Zak tries to hurry away from me, but I’ve got questions that need answering and I’m not about to let him worm his way out of them. I catch up to him.

“How did you figure out where we were? How did the Commandant know?”

“She has ways. ”

“What ways? What did you show Cain? How did you manage to keep him out of your head at will? Zak!” I pull his shoulder around so he faces me. He throws my hand off but doesn’t walk away.

“All that Tribal rubbish about jinn and efrits, ghuls and wraiths—it’s not rubbish, Veturius. It’s not myth. The old creatures are real. They’re coming for us. Protect her. It’s the only thing you’re good for. ”

“What do you care about her? Your brother’s tormented her for years, and you’ve never said a word to stop him. ”

Zak regards the sand training fields, empty at this early hour.

“You know the worst thing about all this?” he says quietly. “I was so close to leaving him behind forever. So close to being free of him. ”

It’s not what I expect to hear. Ever since we came to Blackcliff, there has been no Marcus without Zak. The younger Farrar is closer to his brother than Marcus’s own shadow.

“If you want to be free of him, then why go along with his every whim? Why not stand up to him?”

“We’ve been together for so long. ” Zak shakes his head. His face is unreadable where the mask hasn’t yet melded. “I don’t know who I am without him. ”

When he walks to the front gates, I don’t follow. I need to clear my head.

I make for the eastern watchtower, where I strap myself into a harness and rappel down to the dunes.

Sand swirls around me. My thoughts are confused. I trudge along the base of the cliffs, watching the horizon pale as the sun rises. The wind grows stronger, hot and insistent. As I walk, it seems like shapes appear in the sands, figures spinning and dancing, feeding off the wind’s ferocity. Whispers ride the air, and I think I hear the piercing staccato of wild laughter.

The old creatures are real. They’re coming for us. Is Zak trying to tell me something about the next Trial? Is he saying that my mother is consorting with demons? Is that how she sabotaged me and Hel? I tell myself that these thoughts are ridiculous. Believing in the Augur’s power is one thing. But jinn of fire and vengeance? Efrits bound to elements like wind, sea, or sand?

Maybe Zak’s just cracked from the strain of the First Trial.

Mamie Rila used to tell stories of the fey. She was our Tribe’s Kehanni, our tale-spinner, and she wove whole worlds with her voice, with the flick of a hand or the tilt of her head. Some of those legends stuck in my head for years—the Nightbringer and his hatred for Scholars. The efrits’ skill at awakening latent magic in humans. Soul-hungry ghuls who feed on pain like vultures on carrion.

But those are just stories.

The wind carries the haunting sound of sobbing to my ears. At first, I think I’m imagining it and chide myself for letting Zak’s talk of the fey get to me.

But then it gets louder. Ahead of me, at the foot of the twisting path that leads up to the Commandant’s house, sits a small crumpled figure.

It’s the slave-girl with the gold eyes. The one Marcus nearly choked to death. The one I saw lifeless on the nightmare battlefield.

She holds her head with one hand and bats at the empty air with the other, muttering through her sobs. She staggers, falls to the ground, then rises laboriously. It’s clear she’s not well, that she needs help. I slow, thinking to turn away. My mind roves back to the battlefield and my first kill’s assertion: that everyone on that field will die by my hand.

Stay away from her, Elias, a cautious voice urges. Have nothing to do with her.

But why stay away? The battlefield was the Augurs’ vision of my future.

Maybe I should show the bastards that I’m going to fight that future. That I won’t just accept it.

I stood by like a fool once before with this girl. I watched and did nothing as Marcus left bruises all over her. She needed help, and I refused to give it.

I won’t make the same mistake again. Without any more hesitation, I walk toward her.

XXI: Laia

It’s the Commandant’s son. Veturius.

Where did he come from? I push at him violently, then immediately regret doing so. A normal Blackcliff student would beat me for touching them without permission—and this is no student, but an Aspirant and the Commandant’s spawn. I have to get out of here. I have to get back to the house.

But the weakness that has plagued me all morning takes firm hold, and I fall to the sand a few feet away, sweating and nauseous.

Infection. I know the signs. I should have let Cook dress the wound last night.

“Who were you talking to?” Veturius asks.

“N-no-no one, Aspirant, sir. ” Not everyone can see them, Teluman had said of the ghuls. It’s clear Veturius can’t.

“You look terrible,” he says. “Come into the shade. ”

“The sand. I have to take it up or she’ll—she’ll—”

“Sit. ” It’s not a request. He picks up my basket and takes my hand, leading me to the shade of the cliffs and setting me down on a small boulder.

When I chance a look at him, he is gazing out at the horizon, his mask catching the dawn light like water catching the sun. Even at a distance of a few feet, everything about him screams violence, from the short black hair to the big hands to the fact that each muscle is honed to deadly perfection. The bandages that encircle his forearms and the scratches that mar his hands and face only make him look more vicious.

He has just one weapon, a dagger at his belt. But then, he’s a Mask. He doesn’t need weapons because he is one, particularly when faced with a slave who barely comes up to his shoulder. I try to scoot away further, but my body is too heavy.

Tags: Sabaa Tahir An Ember in the Ashes Fantasy
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