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

“Damn the Trials,” I say to her. “Damn Blackcliff. And damn you too. ”

Then I turn my back on her and head to watch.

XXXV: Laia

Everything hurts—my skin, my bones, my fingernails, even the roots of my hair. My body doesn’t feel like my own anymore. I want to scream.

All I can manage is a moan.

Where am I? What happened to me?

Flashes of it come back. The secret entrance. Marcus’s fists. Then shouts and gentle arms. A clean smell, like rain in the desert, and a kind voice.

Aspirant Veturius, delivering me from my murderers so I can die on a slave’s pallet instead of a stone floor.

Voices rise and fall around me—Izzi’s anxious murmur and Cook’s rasp.

I think I hear the cackle of a ghul. It fades when cool hands coax my mouth open and pour liquid down. For a few minutes, my pain dulls. But it’s still near, an enemy pacing impatiently outside the gates. And eventually, it bursts through, burning and reaving.

I watched Pop work for years. I know what injuries like this mean. I’m bleeding on the inside. No healer, no matter how skilled, can save me. I’m going to die.

The knowledge is more painful than my wounds, for if I die, Darin dies.

Izzi remains in Blackcliff forever. Nothing in the Empire changes. Just a few more Scholars sent to their graves.

The shred of my mind that still clings to life rages. Need a tunnel for Mazen. Keenan will be waiting for a report. Need something to tell him.

My brother is counting on me. I see him in my mind’s eye, huddled in a dark prison cell, his face hollow, his body shaking. Live, Laia. I hear him.

Live, for me.

I can’t, Darin. The pain is a beast that’s taken over. A sudden chill penetrates my bones, and I hear laughter again. Ghuls. Fight them, Laia.

Exhaustion sweeps over me. I’m too tired to fight. And at least my family will be together now. Once I die, Darin will eventually join me, and we’ll see Mother and Father, Lis, Nan and Pop. Zara might be there. And later, Izzi.

My pain fades as a great, warm tiredness descends. It’s so enticing, like I’ve been working in the sun and have come home to sink into a feather bed, knowing nothing will disturb me. I welcome it. I want it.

“I’m not going to hurt her. ”

The whisper is hard as glass, and it cuts into my sleep, yanking me back to the world, back to the pain. “But I will hurt you, if you don’t clear out. ”

A familiar voice. The Commandant? No. Younger.

“If either of you say a word about this to anyone, you’re dead. I swear it. ”

A second later, cool night air pours into my room, and I drag my eyes open to see Aspirant Aquilla silhouetted in the door. Her silver-white hair is pulled back in a messy bun, and instead of armor, she wears black fatigues.

Bruises mar the pale skin of her arms. She ducks into the room, her masked face blank, her body betraying a nervous energy.

“Aspirant—Aquilla—” I choke out. She looks at me as if I smell of rotting cabbage. She doesn’t like me, that much is plain. Why is she here?

“Don’t talk. ” I expect venom, but her voice shakes. She kneels beside my pallet. “Just keep quiet and. . . and let me think. ”

About what?

My ragged breathing is the only sound in the room. Aquilla is so silent that it seems as if she’s fallen asleep sitting up. She stares at her palms. Every few minutes, she opens her mouth, as if to speak. Then she clamps it shut again and wrings her hands.

A wave of pain washes over me, and I cough. The briny taste of blood fills my mouth, and I spit it out on the floor, in too much pain to care what Aquilla thinks.

She takes my wrist, her fingers cool against my skin. I flinch, thinking she means me harm. But she just holds my hand limply, the way you would if you were at the deathbed of a relative you barely knew and liked even less.

She starts to hum.

At first, nothing happens. She feels out the melody the way a blind man feels his way forward in an unfamiliar room. Her hum crests and falls, explores, repeats. Then something changes, and the hum rises into a song that wraps around me with the sweetness of a mother’s arms.

My eyes close, and I drift into the strain. My mother’s face appears, then my father’s. They walk with me at the edge of a great sea, swinging me between them. Above us, the night sky gleams like polished glass, its wealth of stars reflected in the oddly still surface of the water. My toes skim the fine sand below my feet, and I feel as though I’m flying.

I understand now. Aquilla is singing me into death. She’s a Mask, after all. And it’s a sweet death. If I’d known it was this kind, I’d never have been so afraid.

The intensity of the song swells, though Aquilla keeps her voice low, as if she doesn’t want to be heard. A flash of pure fire burns into me from crown to heel, snatching me from the peace of the seashore. I open my eyes wide, gasping. Death is here, I think. This is the final pain before the end.

Aquilla strokes my hair, and warmth flows from her fingers into my body, like spiced cider on a freezing morning. My eyes grow heavy, and I close them again as the fire recedes.

I return to the beach, and this time Lis races ahead of me, her hair a blue-black banner glowing in the night. I stare at her willow-fine limbs and dark blue eyes, and I’ve never seen anything so gorgeously alive. You don’t know how I’ve missed you, Lis. She looks back at me, and her mouth moves—one word, sung over and over. I can’t make it out.

Realization comes slowly. I’m seeing Lis. But it’s Aquilla who’s singing, Aquilla who is commanding me, with just one word repeated in an infinitely complex melody.

Live live live live live live live.

My parents fade—no! Mother! Father! Lis! I want to go back to them, see them, touch them. I want to walk the night shores, hear their voices, marvel at their closeness. I reach for them, but they’re gone, and there’s only me and Aquilla and the stifling walls of my quarters. And that’s when I understand that Aquilla isn’t singing me to a sweet death.

She’s bringing me back to life.

XXXVI: Elias

The next morning at breakfast, I sit apart and speak to no one. A chill, dark fog has rolled in off the dunes, settling heavily over the city.

It matches the blackness of my mood nicely.

I’ve forgotten about the Third Trial, about the Augurs, about Helene. All I can think of is Laia. The memory of her bruised face, her broken body. I try to devise some way to help her. Bribing the head physician? No, he doesn’t have the guts to defy the Commandant. Sneaking a healer in? Who would risk the Commandant’s wrath to save a slave’s life, even for a fat purse?

Does she still live? Maybe her injuries weren’t as bad as I thought. Maybe Cook can heal her.

Maybe cats can fly, Elias.

I’m mashing my food to a pulp when Helene walks into the crowded mess hall. I’m startled at the sloppiness of her hair and the pink shadows beneath her eyes. She spots me and approaches. I stiffen and shove a spoonful of food into my mouth, refusing to look at her.

“The slave is feeling better. ” She lowers her voice so the students around us can’t hear. “I. . . stopped by there. She got through the night. I. . . um. . . well. . . I. . . ”

Is she going to apologize? After refusing to help an innocent girl who hadn’t done anything wrong except be born a Scholar instead of a Martial?