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

"According to the Commandant, Blood Shrike," Marcus says, "Elias Veturius managed to get stuck in Kauf Prison. But you knew that, didn't you?"

He'll know if I lie. I bow my head. "I did, Your Majesty. But--"

"Yet you didn't bring him with you. Though he likely would have been dead by now anyway. Is that correct, Keris?"

"It is, Your Majesty. The boy was poisoned somewhere on his journey," the Commandant says. "The Warden reports that he has been having seizures for weeks. The last I heard, Elias Veturius was a few hours from death."

Seizures? When I saw Elias in Nur, he looked ill, but I assumed it was because of a hard march from Serra.

Then I remember what he said--words that made no sense at the time but that now send a knife through my gut: We both know I'm not long for this world.

And the Warden, after I told him I'd see Elias again: Callow is the hope of our youth. Behind me, Avitas takes a sharp breath.

"The Nightweed she gave me, Shrike," he whispers. "She must have had enough to use on him."

"You"--I turn to the Commandant, and everything falls together--"you poisoned him. But you must have done it weeks ago, when I found your tracks in Serra. When you fought him." Is my friend dead, then? Truly dead? No. He can't be. My mind will not accept it.

"You used Nightweed because you knew it would take him a long time to die. You knew I'd hunt him. And as long as I was out of your way, I wouldn't be able to stop your coup." Bleeding skies. She killed her own son--and she's been playing me for months.

"Nightweed is illegal in the Empire, as everyone here knows." The Commandant looks at me like I'm covered in dung. "Listen to yourself, Shrike. To think that you trained at my school. I must have been blind to let a novice like you graduate."

The throne room buzzes, going silent when I step toward her. "If I'm such a fool," I say, "then explain why every garrison in the Empire is undermanned. Why didn't you ever have enough soldiers? Why aren't there enough on the borders?"

"I needed men to quell the revolution, of course," she says. "The Emperor himself gave those transfer orders."

"But you kept asking for more--"

"This is embarrassing to watch." The Commandant turns to Marcus. "I am ashamed, my lord, that Blackcliff produced someone so weak-minded."

"She's lying," I say to Marcus, but I can well imagine how I must sound-- tense and shrill against the Commandant's cool defense. "Your Majesty, you must believe me--"

"Enough." Marcus speaks in a voice that silences the entire room. "I gave you an order to bring in Elias Veturius, alive, by Rathana, Blood Shrike. You failed to carry out that order. Everyone in this room heard what the punishment for your failure would be." He nods to the Commandant, and she signals her troops.

In seconds, the men of Gens Veturia step forward and seize my parents, my sisters.

I find that my hands and feet have gone numb. It's not supposed to be like this. I'm being true to the Empire. I'm holding my fealty.

"I promised the Paters of our great families an execution," Marcus says. "And unlike you, Blood Shrike, I mean to keep my vow."

LI: Laia

THE MORNING OF RATHANA

When it is still dark outside, Afya and I leave the warmth of the cave and head out toward Kauf in the frigid morning. The Tribeswoman carries Darin's sword for me, and I've strapped on Elias's scims. Skies know he'll need them when we're fighting our way out of the prison.

"Eight guards," I say to Afya. "And then you must sink the spare boats. Do you understand? If you--"

"Skies, shut it, would you?" Afya waves an impatient hand at me. "You're like a Tibbi bird from the south that chirps the same few words over and over until you want to strangle its pretty neck. Eight guards, ten barges to secure, and twenty boats to sabotage. I'm not an idiot, girl. I can handle it. You just make sure you get that fire inside the prison nice and hot. The more Martials we barbecue, the fewer to hunt us down."

We reach the River Dusk, where we must part ways. Afya digs her booted toes into the dirt.

"Girl." She adjusts her scarf and clears her throat quietly. "Your brother. He . . . might not be what he was. I had a cousin sent to Kauf once," she adds. "When he came back, he was different. Be prepared."

The Tribeswoman edges to the shore of the river and flits away into the darkness. Don't die, I think, before turning my attention to the monstrous building behind me.

The invisibility still feels strange, like a new cloak that doesn't quite fit. Though I've practiced for days, I do not understand how the magic works, and the Scholar in me itches to learn more, to find books about it, to speak to others who know how to control it. Later, Laia. If you survive.

When I'm certain I'm not going to reappear at the first sign of trouble, I find a path leading up to Kauf and carefully step in footprints larger than mine. My invisibility doesn't guarantee silence, nor does it hide signs of my passage.

Kauf's studded, spiked portcullis is flung wide open. I see no wagons making their way into the prison--it is too late in the season for traders. When I hear a whip crack, I finally understand why the gates aren't shut. A cry breaks the quiet of the morning, and I see several bent, gaunt figures shuffling out of the gate under the unforgiving eye of a Mask. My hands go for my dagger, though I know I can do nothing with it. Afya and I watched from the woods as pits were dug outside the prison. We watched as the Martials filled those pits with dead Scholars.

If I want the rest of the Scholars in the prison to escape, I cannot reveal my position. But still, I force myself to watch. To bear witness. To remember this image so that these lives are not forgotten.

When the Scholars disappear around the eastern edge of Kauf's wall, I slide through the gates. This path is not unfamiliar to me. Elias and I have exchanged messages for days through Tas, and I've come this way every time. Still, I stiffen as I pass the eight legionnaires who stand watch at the base of Kauf's entry gate. The space between my shoulder blades twinges, and I look up at the battlements, where archers patrol.

As I cross the garishly lit prison yard, I try to avoid looking to the right at the two giant wooden pens where the Martials keep the Scholar prisoners.

But in the end, I cannot help but stare. Two wagons, each half-filled with the dead, are parked beside the closest pen. A group of younger, maskless Martials--Fivers--load in more dead Scholars, those who haven't survived the cold.

Bee and many of the others can get them weapons, Tas had said. Hidden in slop buckets and rags. Not knives or scims, but spearheads, broken arrows, brass beaters.

Though the Martials have already killed hundreds of my people, a thousand Scholars still sit in those pens, awaiting death. They are ill, starved, and half-frozen from the cold. Even if everything goes as planned, I do not know if they have enough strength to take on the prison guards when the time comes, especially with such crude weaponry.

Then again, it's not as if we

have many other choices.

At this hour, there are few soldiers wandering the blindingly bright halls of Kauf. Still, I sneak along the walls and steer clear of the few guards on duty. My eyes flit briefly to the entrances that lead to the Scholar pits. I passed them the first day I came here, when they were still occupied. Moments after, I had to run to find a place to retch.

I make my way down the entry hall, through the rotunda and past the staircase that, according to Helene Aquilla, leads up to Masks' quarters and the Warden's office. Time for you soon enough. A great steel door looms ominously on one side of the rotunda wall. The interrogation block. Darin is down there. Right now. Yards away.

Kauf's drums thud out the time: half past five in the morning. The hallway that leads to the Martial barracks, kitchen, and storage closets is far busier than the rest of the prison. Talk and laughter drifts from the mess hall. I smell eggs, grease, and burned bread. A legionnaire veers out of a room just ahead of me, and I stifle a gasp as he passes within a hair's breadth. He must hear me, because his hand falls to his scim and he looks around.

I don't dare to breathe until he moves on. Too close, Laia.

Go past the kitchens, Helene Aquilla told me. The oil storage is at the very end of the hall. The torch-lighters are always coming and going, so whatever you're planning, you'll have to move quickly.

When I find the closet, I am forced to wait as a sullen-faced aux wrestles out a barrel of pitch and rolls it down the hall. He leaves the door cracked open, and I eye the closet's contents. Drums of pitch line its base like a row of stout soldiers. Above them sit cans the length of my forearm and the width of my hand. Blue-fire oil, the translucent yellow substance the Empire imports from Marinn. It reeks of rotted leaves and sulfur, but it will be more difficult to spot than pitch when I dribble it all over the prison.

It takes me nearly a half hour to empty out a dozen canisters in the back hallways and the rotunda. I stuff each can back in the closet when it is empty, hoping no one notices until it's too late. Then I pack three more cans into my now bulging bag and enter the kitchen. A Plebeian lords over the stoves, bellowing orders at Scholar slave children. The children whiz around, their speed driven by fear. They are, presumably, exempt from the culling going on outside. My mouth twists in disgust. The Warden needs at least a few drudges to continue doing the chores around here.