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

His voice is lost in a whoosh of wind as we drop away. The efrits shriek and streak after us, surrounding and blinding us, tearing my hands from the ropes once more.

“Take them,” Rowan bays at his cohort. Helene’s grip on me loosens as an efrit works his way between us. Another pries the scim from her hand and the bow from her back, shrieking in elation as the weapons drop to the dunes.

Yet another efrit saws at our rope with a sharp rock. I draw my scim and shove it through the creature, twisting, hoping steel will kill the thing. The efrit howls—in pain or anger, I can’t tell. I try to take off its head, but it flits up out of reach, cackling nastily.

Think, Elias! The shadow-assassins had a weakness. The efrits must too.

Mamie Rila told tales about them, I know she did. But I can’t bleeding remember any of them.

“Ahhhh!” Helene’s arms jerk free of me, and she holds on with only her legs. The efrits ululate, doubling their efforts to pull her away. Rowan puts his hands on either side of her face and squeezes, imbuing her with an otherworldly gold light.

“Mine!” the efrit says. “Mine. Mine. Mine. ”

The rope frays. Blood pours from the wound on my thigh. The efrits rip Helene away, and as they do, I spot a niche in the cliff that runs all the way down to the desert floor. Mamie Rila’s face appears in my head, illuminated by the campfire as she chants:

Efrit, efrit of the wind, kill him with a star-steel pin.

Efrit, efrit of the sea, light a fire to make him flee.

Efrit, efrit of the sand, a song is more than he can stand.

I hurl my scim up at the efrit sawing at the ropes and swing forward, plucking Helene from the grip of the efrits and shoving her into the niche, all the while ignoring her yell of surprise and the angry, tearing hands at my back.

“Sing, Hel! Sing!”

She opens her mouth, to shout or sing, I don’t know, because the rope finally gives way and I plummet. Helene’s pale face fades away above me. Then the world goes quiet and white, and I know no more.

XXIII: Laia

Izzi finds me after I leave the kitchen, still shaken by Cook’s warning. The girl offers me a sheaf of papers—the Commandant’s specs for Teluman.

“I offered to take them,” she says. “But she—she didn’t like that idea. ”

No one pays me heed as I make my way through Serra to Teluman’s forge.

No one can see the raw, bloody K beneath the cloak I wear. As I stumble along, it’s clear I’m not the only injured slave. Some Scholar slaves have bruises. Some have whip marks. Others walk as if injured inside, hunched and limping.

While still in the Illustrian Quarter, I pass a large glass display of saddles and bridles and stop short, startled at my own reflection, at the haunted, hollow-eyed creature looking back at me. Sweat soaks my skin, half from fever, half from the unabating heat. My dress clings to my body, my skirt bunching and tangling around my legs.

It’s for Darin. I keep walking. Whatever you’re suffering, he’s suffering worse.

As I near the Weapons Quarter, my feet slow. I remember the Commandant’s words from last night. You’re lucky I want a Teluman blade, girl. You’re lucky he wants a taste of you. I loiter near the smithy door for long minutes before entering. Surely Teluman won’t want to come near me when my skin is the color of whey and I’m sweating buckets.

The shop is as quiet as it was the first time I visited, but the smith is here.

I know it. Sure enough, within seconds of me opening the door, I hear the whisper of footsteps, and Teluman appears from the back room.

He takes one look at me and disappears, returning seconds later with a dripping glass of cool water and a chair. I drop into the seat and drain the water, not stopping to consider if it might be poisoned.

The forge is cool, the water cooler, and for a second, my fevered shaking slows. Then Spiro Teluman slips past me to the forge door.

He locks it.

Slowly, I stand, holding the glass out like an offering, like a trade, like I’ll give him his glass back and he’ll unlock the door and let me go without hurting me. He takes it from my hand, and I wish then that I’d kept it, broken it to use as a weapon.

He looks into the glass. “Who did you see when the ghuls came?”

The question is so unexpected that I’m startled into the truth. “I saw my brother. ”

The smith scrutinizes my face, his brow furrowed as if he’s considering something, making a decision. “You’re his sister then,” he says. “Laia. Darin spoke of you often. ”

“He—he spoke—” Why would Darin speak to this man about me? Why would he speak to this man at all?

“Strangest thing. ” Teluman leans back against the counter. “The Empire tried forcing apprentices on me for years, but I didn’t find one until I caught Darin spying on me from up there. ” The shutters on the high bank of windows are open, revealing the crate-littered balcony of the building next door.

“Dragged him down. Thought I’d haul him to the auxes. Then I saw his sketchbook. ” He shakes his head, not needing to explain. Darin put so much life into his drawings that it seemed if you just reached out, you could pull them from the page.

“He wasn’t just drawing the inside of my forge. He was designing the weapons themselves. Such things I’d only seen in dreams. I offered him the apprentice spot there and then, thinking he’d run, that I’d never see him again. ”

“But he didn’t run,” I whisper. He wouldn’t run—not Darin.

“No. He came into the forge, looked around. Cautious, yes. Not afraid.

I never saw your brother afraid. He felt fear—I’m sure he did. But he never seemed to focus on what could turn out wrong. He only ever thought about how things could turn out right. ”

“The Empire thought he was Resistance,” I say. “All this time, he was working for the Martials? If that’s true, why is he still in jail? Why haven’t you gotten him out?”

“Do you think the Empire would allow a Scholar to learn their secrets?

He wasn’t working for the Empire. He was working for me. And I parted ways with the Empire a long time ago. I do enough for them to keep them off my back. Armor, mostly. Until Darin came, I hadn’t made a true Teluman scim for seven years. ”

“But. . . his sketchbook had pictures of swords—”

“That damn sketchbook. ” Spiro snorts. “I told him to keep it here, but he wouldn’t listen. Now the Empire has it, and there’s no getting it back. ”

“He wrote down formulas in it,” I say. “Instructions. Things—things he shouldn’t have known—”

“He was my apprentice. I taught him to make weapons. Fine weapons. Teluman weapons. But not for the Empire. ”

I swallow nervously as the implications of his words sink in. No matter how clever Scholar uprisings have been, in the end it comes down to steel against steel, and in that battle, the Martials always win.

“You wanted him to make weapons for the Scholars?” That would be treason. When Spiro nods, I can’t believe him. This is a trick, like with Veturius this morning. It’s something Teluman’s planned with the Commandant to test my loyalty.

“If you’d really been working with my brother, someone would have seen. Other people must work here. Slaves, assistants—”