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

“Thank you,” she says to Veturius. Guilt washes over me. She’ll never forgive me, after what she’s been through.

“Izzi. ” I touch her arm. “I’m sorry. If I’d known about the raid, I never—”

“Are you joking?” Izzi says. Her eye darts to Veturius standing behind me, and she smiles, a blaze of white that startles me with its beauty. “I wouldn’t have traded this for anything. Good night, Laia. ”

I stare after her, open-mouthed, as she disappears down the hallway and into her room. Veturius clears his throat. He’s watching me with a strange, almost apologetic expression in his eyes.

“I—uh—have something for you. ” He pulls a bottle from his pocket.

“Sorry I didn’t get it to you earlier. I was. . . indisposed. ” I take the bottle, and when our fingers touch, I pull away quickly. It’s the bloodroot serum. I’m surprised he remembered.

“I’ll just—”

“Thank you,” I say at the same time. We both fall silent. Veturius rubs a hand through his hair, but a second later his entire body goes still, a deer that’s heard the hunter.

“What—” I gasp when his arms come around me, sudden and hard. He pushes me to the wall, heat flaring from his hands and tingling across my skin, sending my heart into a feverish beat. My own reaction to him, confusion tumbled with head-spinning want, shocks me into silence. What is wrong with you, Laia? Then his hands tighten on my back, as if in warning, and he dips his head low to my ear, his breath a bare whisper.

“Do what I tell you, when I tell you. Or you’re dead. ”

I knew it. How could I have trusted him? Stupid. So stupid.

“Push me away,” he says. “Fight me. ”

I shove at him, not needing his encouragement.

“Get away from—”

“Don’t be like that. ” His voice is louder now, sleek and menacing and devoid of anything resembling decency. “You didn’t mind before—”

“Leave her, soldier,” a bored, wintery voice says.

My blood goes cold, and I twist away from Veturius. There, detaching from the kitchen door like a wraith, stands the Commandant. How long has she been watching us? Why is she even awake?

The Commandant steps into the corridor and surveys me dispassionately, ignoring Veturius.

“So that’s where you’d got to. ” Her pale hair is loose around her shoulders, her robe pulled tight. “I just came down. Rang the bell for water five minutes ago. ”

“I—I—”

“I suppose it was only a matter of time. You are a pretty thing. ” She doesn’t reach for her crop or threaten to kill me. She doesn’t even seem angry. Just irritated.

“Soldier,” she says. “Back to the barracks with you. You’ve had her for long enough. ”

“Commandant, sir. ” Veturius breaks away from me with seeming reluctance. I try to squirm away from him, but he keeps a proprietary arm slung around my hips. “You sent her to her quarters for the night. I assumed you were done with her. ”

“Veturius?” The Commandant, I realize, hadn’t recognized him in the dark. She hadn’t cared enough to give him a second look. Her eyes shift to her son in disbelief. “You? And a slave?”

“I was bored. ” He shrugs. “I’ve been stuck in the infirmary for days. ”

My face goes hot. I understand, now, why he put his hands on me, why he told me to fight him. He is trying to protect me from the Commandant.

He must have sensed her presence. She will have no way of proving I haven’t spent the last few hours with Veturius. And since students rape slaves all the time, neither he nor I will be punished.

But it’s still humiliating.

“You expect me to believe you?” The Commandant cocks her head. She senses the lie—she smells it. “You’ve never touched a slave in your life. ”

“With all due respect, sir, that’s because the first thing you do when you get a new slave is take her eye out. ” Veturius tangles his fingers in my hair, and I yelp. “Or carve up her face. But this one. . . ” He yanks my head toward his, a warning in his eyes when he glances down at me. “Is still intact. Mostly. ”

“Please,” I drop my voice. If this is going to work, I need to play along, disgusting as it is. “Tell him to leave me alone. ”

“Get out, Veturius. ” The Commandant’s eyes glitter. “Next time find a kitchen drudge to entertain you. The girl is mine. ”

Veturius gives his mother a short salute before releasing me and sauntering through the gate without so much as a backward glance.

The Commandant looks me over, as if for signs of what she thinks just happened. She jerks my chin up. I pinch myself on the leg hard enough to draw blood, and my eyes fill with tears.

“Would it have been better if I’d cut your face like Cook’s?” she murmurs.

“Beauty’s a curse when one lives among men. You might have thanked me for it. ”

She runs a fingernail across my cheek, and I shudder.

“Well. . . ” she lets me go and walks back to the kitchen door with a smile, a twist of her mouth that is all bitterness and no mirth. The spirals of her strange tattoo catch the moonlight. “There’s time yet for that. ”

XXX: Elias

For three days after the Moon Festival, Helene avoids me. She ignores knocks on her door, leaves the mess hall when I appear, and begs off when I approach her head on. When we’re paired together in training, she attacks me as if I’m Marcus. When I speak to her, she goes suddenly deaf.

I let it go at first, but by the third day, I’m sick of it. On my way to combat training, I’m concocting a plan to confront her—something involving a chair and rope and maybe a gag so she has no choice but to listen to me—when Cain appears beside me as suddenly as a ghost. My scim is half-drawn before I realize who it is.

“Skies, Cain. Don’t do that. ”

“Greetings, Aspirant Veturius. Wonderful weather. ” The Augur looks up at the hot blue sky admiringly.

“Yeah, if you’re not training with double scims under the baking sun,” I mutter. It’s not even noon, and I’m so covered in sweat that I’ve given up and taken off my shirt. If Helene was speaking to me, she’d frown and say it’s not regulation. I’m too hot to care.

“You are healed from the Second Trial?” Cain asks.

“No thanks to you. ” The words are out before I can stop them, but I don’t feel particularly regretful. Multiple attempts on my life have taken a toll on my manners.

“The Trials are not meant to be easy, Elias. That is why they are called the Trials. ”

“I hadn’t noticed. ” I speed up, hoping Cain will piss off. He doesn’t.

“I bring you a message,” he says. “The next Trial will take place in seven days. ”

At least we get some warning this time. “What’s it going to be?” I ask.

“Public flogging? A night locked in a trunk with a hundred vipers?”

“Combat against a formidable foe,” Cain says. “Nothing you can’t handle. ”

“What foe? What’s the catch?” No way the Augur will tell me what I’m up against without leaving something essential out. It’s going to be a sea of wraiths we’re fighting. Or jinn. Or some other beastie they’ve woken from the darkness.