An Ember in the Ashes (7 page)

T
he morning after the Augur’s visit, I stumble to the mess hall like a Cadet suffering his first hangover, cursing the overly bright sun. What little sleep I got was sabotaged by a familiar nightmare, one in which I wander through a stinking, body-strewn battlefield. In the dream, screams rend the air and somehow I know that the pain and suffering are my fault, that the dead have fallen by my hand.

Not the best way to start a day. Especially graduation day.

I run into Helene as she, Dex, Faris, and Tristas leave mess. She stuffs a rock-hard biscuit into my hand, ignoring my protests, and pulls me away from the hall.

“We’re late.” I barely hear her over the ceaseless beating of the drums, which are ordering all graduates to the armory to pick up our ceremonials—the armor of a full Mask. “Demetrius and Leander already left.”

Helene chatters about how thrilling it will be to put on our ceremonials. Dimly, I listen to her and the others, nodding at appropriate times, exclaiming when necessary. All the while, I’m thinking of what Cain said to me last night.
You will escape. You will leave the Empire. You will live. But you will find no solace in doing so.

Do I trust the Augur? He could be trying to trap me here, hoping I’ll stay a Mask long enough to decide that a soldier’s life is better than an exile’s. I think of how the Commandant’s eyes shine when she whips a student, how Grandfather boasts of his body count. They are my kin; their blood is my blood. What if their lusts for war and glory and power are mine too and I just
don’t know it? Could I learn to revel in being a Mask? The Augur read my thoughts. Does he see something evil inside me that I’m too blind to face?

But then, Cain seemed convinced that I’d meet the same fate if I deserted.
Shadows will bloom in your heart, and you will become everything you hate.

So my choices are to stay and be evil or to run and be evil. Wonderful.

When we are halfway to the armory, Hel finally notices my silence, taking in the rumpled clothing, the bloodshot eyes.

“You all right?” she asks.

“Fine.”

“You look like hell.”

“Rough night.”

“What happ—”

Faris, walking ahead with Dex and Tristas, drops back. “Leave him alone, Aquilla. The man’s tuckered out. Snuck down to the docks to celebrate a bit early, eh, Veturius?” He claps me on the shoulder with a big hand and laughs. “Could have invited a fellow along.”

“Don’t be disgusting,” Helene says.

“Don’t be a prude,” Faris retorts.

A full-scale argument ensues, during which Helene’s disapproval of prostitutes is vehemently shouted down by Faris while Dex argues that leaving school grounds to visit a brothel isn’t strictly forbidden. Tristas points to the tattoo of his fiancée’s name and declares neutrality.

Amid the swiftly flung insults, Helene’s gaze slides to me repeatedly. She knows I don’t frequent the docks. I avoid her eyes. She wants an explanation, but where would I even begin?
Well, you see, Hel, I wanted to desert today, but this damned Augur showed up and now . . .

When we arrive at the armory, students spill out the front doors, and Faris and Dex disappear into the crush. I’ve never seen the Senior Skulls so . . . happy. With liberation just a few minutes away, everyone is smiling. Skulls I barely ever speak to greet me, clap me on the back, joke with me.

“Elias, Helene.” Leander, his nose crooked from the time Helene broke it, calls us over. Demetrius stands beside him, grim as always. I wonder if he feels any joy today. Maybe he’s just relieved to leave the place where he watched his brother die.

When he sees Helene, Leander self-consciously runs his hand over his curly hair—which sticks up all over the place no matter how short he cuts it. I try not to smile. He’s liked her for ages, though he pretends not to. “Armorer already called your names.” Leander nods to two stacks of armor and weaponry behind him. “We grabbed your ceremonials for you.”

Helene goes for hers like a jewel thief for rubies, holding the bracers to the light, exclaiming at how Blackcliff’s diamond symbol is seamlessly hammered into the shield. The close-fitting armor is forged by the Teluman smithy—one of the oldest in the Empire—and is strong enough to turn away all but the finest blades. Blackcliff’s final gift to us.

Once the armor is on, I strap on my weaponry: scims and daggers of Serric steel, razor-sharp and graceful, especially compared to the dull, utilitarian weapons we’ve used until now. The last piece is a black cape held in place by a chain. When I’m done, I look up to see Helene staring at me.

“What?” I say. Her expression is so intent that I glance down, assuming I’ve put my chest plate on backward. But everything is where it should be. When I look back up, she’s standing before me, adjusting my cape, her long fingers brushing my neck.

“It wasn’t straight.” She dons her helmet. “How do I look?”

If the Augurs made my armor to accentuate my body’s power, they made Hel’s to accentuate her beauty.

“You look . . . ”
Like a warrior goddess. Like a jinni of air come to bring us all to our knees. Skies, what the hell is wrong with me?
“Like a Mask,” I say.

She laughs, girlish and preposterously alluring, drawing the attention of other students: Leander, who jerks his gaze away and rubs his crooked nose guiltily when I catch him looking, Faris, who grins and mutters something to an appraising Dex. Across the room, Zak stares too, the expression on his face something between longing and puzzlement. Then I see Marcus beside Zak, watching his brother as his brother watches Hel.

“Look, boys,” Marcus says. “A bitch in armor.”

My scim is half-drawn when Hel puts a hand on my arm, her eyes flashing fire at me.
My fight
.
Not yours.

“Go to hell, Marcus.” Helene finds her cape a few feet away and dons it. The snake ambles over, his eyes creeping down her body, leaving no doubt as to what he’s thinking.

“Armor doesn’t suit you, Aquilla,” he says. “I’d prefer you in a dress. Or nothing at all.” He lifts a hand to her hair, wrapping a loose tendril gently around his finger before yanking it hard, pulling her face toward his.

It takes me a second to recognize the snarl that splits the air as my own. I’m a foot from Marcus, my fists hungry for his flesh, when two of his toadies, Thaddius and Julius, grab me from behind, wrenching my arms back. Demetrius is beside me in a second, his sharp elbow jutting into Thaddius’s face, but Julius aims a kick at Demetrius’s back, and he goes down.

Then, in a flash of silver, Helene’s holding one knife to Marcus’s neck and the other to his groin.

“Let go of my hair,” she says. “Or I’ll relieve you of your manhood.”

Marcus releases the ice-blonde curl and whispers something in Helene’s ear. And just like that, her confident air dissolves, the knife at Marcus’s throat falters, and he grabs her face in his hands and kisses her.

I’m so disgusted that for a moment all I can do is gape and try not to vomit. Then a muffled scream erupts from Helene, and I tear my arms from Thaddius and Julius. In a second, I’m past them both, shoving Marcus away from Helene, landing blow after satisfying blow on his face.

Between my punches, Marcus is laughing, and Helene is wiping at her mouth frenziedly. Leander pulls at my shoulders, rabidly demanding a turn at the Snake.

Behind me, Demetrius is back on his feet trading punches with Julius, who overpowers him, shoving his pale head to the ground. Faris comes hurtling out of the crowd, his giant body thudding into Julius and knocking him down, a bull ramming through a fence. I spot Tristas’s tattoo and Dex’s dark skin, and all hell breaks loose.

Then someone hisses “Commandant!” Faris and Julius lurch to their feet, I shove away from Marcus, and Helene stops clawing at her face. The Snake staggers up slowly, his eyes darkening into twin pools of bruise.

My mother cuts through the Skulls, coming straight for Helene and me.

“Veturius. Aquilla.” She spits our names like fruit gone bad. “Explain.”

“No explanation, Commandant, sir,” Helene and I say at the same time.

I look past her, into the distance as I’ve been trained to, and her cold glare bores into me with the delicacy of a blunt knife. From his spot behind the Commandant, Marcus smirks, and I clench my jaw. If Helene is whipped because of his depravity, I’ll hold off on deserting just so I can kill him.

“Eighth bell is minutes away.” The Commandant turns her gaze to the rest of the armory. “You will compose yourselves and report to the amphitheater.
Any more incidents like this and those involved will be shipped to Kauf, forthwith. Understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

The Skulls file out quietly. As Fivers, we all did six months’ guard duty at Kauf Prison, far to the north. None of us would risk being sent there for something as stupid as a graduation-day brawl.

“Are you all right?” I ask Hel when the Commandant’s out of earshot.

“I want to rip my face off and replace it with one that’s never been touched by that swine.”

“You need someone else to kiss you is all,” I say, before realizing how that sounds. “Not . . . uh . . . not that I’m volunteering. I mean—”

“Yeah, I got it.” Helene rolls her eyes. Her jaw goes tight, and I wish I’d kept my mouth shut about the kissing. “Thanks, by the way,” she says. “For punching him.”

“I’d have killed him if the Commandant hadn’t shown up.”

Her eyes are warm when she looks at me, and I’m about to ask her what Marcus whispered in her ear when Zak passes us. He fiddles with his brown hair and slows, as if he wants to say something. But I look at him with murder in my eyes, and after a few seconds, he turns away.

Minutes later, Helene and I join the Senior Skulls lining up outside the amphitheater’s entrance, and the armory brawl is forgotten. We march into the amphitheater to the applause of family, students, city officials, the Emperor’s emissaries, and an honor guard of nearly two hundred legionnaires.

I meet Helene’s eyes and see my own astonishment mirrored there. It is surreal to be here on the field instead of watching enviously from the stands. The sky above burns brilliant and clean without a single cloud from horizon to horizon. Flags festoon the theater’s heights, the red-and-gold pennant of
Gens Taia snapping in the wind beside the black, diamond-emblazoned standard of Blackcliff.

My grandfather, General Quin Veturius, head of Gens Veturia, sits in a shaded box in the front row. About fifty of his closest relatives—brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews—are arrayed around him. I don’t have to see his eyes to know he’s taking my measure, checking the angle of my scim, scrutinizing the fit of my armor.

After I was chosen for Blackcliff, Grandfather took one look at my eyes and recognized his daughter in them. He brought me into his home when Mother refused to bring me into hers. No doubt she was enraged that I had survived when she assumed she was rid of me.

I spent every leave training with Grandfather, enduring beatings and harsh discipline but gaining, in return, a distinct edge over my classmates. He knew I would need that edge. Few of Blackcliff’s students have uncertain parentage, and none had ever been raised among the Tribes. Both facts made me an object of curiosity—and ridicule. But if anyone dared treat me poorly because of my background, Grandfather put them in their place, usually with the point of his sword—and quickly taught me to do the same. He can be as heartless as his daughter, but he’s the only relative I have who treats me like family.

Though it’s not regulation, I lift my hand in salute as I pass him, gratified when he nods in return.

After a series of formation drills, the graduates march to the wooden benches at the center of the field and draw scims, holding them high. A low rumble starts up, growing until it sounds like a thunderstorm has been unleashed in the amphitheater. It’s the other Blackcliff students, pounding on
their stone seats and roaring with a mix of pride and envy. Beside me, Helene and Leander both fail to suppress grins.

Amid the noise, silence descends in my head. It’s a strange silence, infinitely small, infinitely large, and I’m locked inside it, pacing, circling the question.
Do I run? Do I desert?
Far away, like a voice heard underwater, the Commandant orders us to return
scims and sit. She delivers a terse speech from a raised dais, and when it comes time to take our oaths to the Empire, I only know to stand because everyone around me does.

Stay or run?
I ask myself.
Stay or run?

I think my mouth moves along with everyone else’s as they vow their blood and bodies to the Empire. The Commandant graduates us, and the cheer that erupts out of the new Masks, raw and relieved, is what wrenches me from my thoughts. Faris rips off his school tags and throws them into the sky, followed by the rest of us. They fly into the air, catching the sun like a flock of silver birds.

Families chant their graduates’ names. Helene’s parents and sisters call out
Aquilla!
Faris’s family calls out
Candelan!
I hear
Vissan! Tullius! Galerius!
And then I hear a voice rising above all the rest.
Veturius! Veturius!
Grandfather stands in his box, backed by the rest of the family, reminding everyone here that one of the Empire’s most powerful gens has seen a son graduate today.

I find his eyes, and for once, there’s no criticism there, only a fierce pride. He grins at me, wolfish and white against the silver of his mask, and I find myself smiling back before confusion floods me and I look away. He won’t be smiling if I desert.

“Elias!” Helene throws her arms around me, eyes shining. “We did it! We—”

We spot the Augurs in the same moment, and her arms fall away. I’ve never seen all fourteen at once, and my stomach dips. Why are they here? Their hoods are thrown back, revealing their unsettlingly stark features, and, led by Cain, they ghost across the grass and form a half circle around the Commandant’s dais.

The cheers of the audience fade into a questioning hum. My mother watches, her hand idle on her scim hilt. When Cain mounts the dais, she steps aside as if she expected him.