A Torch Against the Night (42 page)

“On the way.” I step into the canoe and grab an oar. “We’re already out of time.”

K
eenan is the Nightbringer. A jinn. A demon.

Though I repeat the words in my head, they do not penetrate. Cold seeps into my bones, and I look down, surprised to find I’ve fallen to my knees in the snow.
Get up, Laia.
I cannot move.

I hate him. Skies, I hate him.
But I loved him. Didn’t I?
I reach for my armlet, as if pawing at myself will make it reappear. Keenan’s transformation flashes through my mind—then the mockery in his warped voice.

He’s gone,
I tell myself
. You’re still alive. Elias and Darin are in the prison, and they have no way out. You have to save them. Get up.

Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength.

Part of me wants to mull over every moment spent with that
thing
. Did he oppose my mission with Mazen because he wanted me alone and weak? Did he save Izzi because he knew I’d never forgive him if he left her behind?

No thinking. No considering. You must act. Move. Get. Up.

I stand. Though I am at first unsure of where I am going, I make myself walk away from the cave. The snowdrifts reach my knees, and I plow through, shivering, until I find the trail Helene Aquilla and her men must have left. I follow it to a trickle of a stream and walk along the waterway.

I don’t realize where I am walking until a figure steps out from the trees in front of me. The sight of the silver mask threatens to make my stomach plunge, but I harden myself and draw my dagger. The Mask puts up his hands.

“Peace, Laia of Serra.”

It is one of Aquilla’s Masks. Not the fair-haired one or the handsome one. This one reminds me of the freshly sharpened edge of an ax. This is the one who walked right past Elias and me in Nur.

“I have to speak to the Blood Shrike,” I say. “Please.”

“Where is your redheaded friend?”

“Gone.”

The Mask blinks. I find his lack of cold implacability unnatural. His pale green eyes are almost sympathetic. “And your brother?”

“Still in Kauf,” I say warily. “Will you take me to her?”

He nods. “We’re breaking camp,” he says. “I was scouting for the Commandant’s spies.”

I halt. “You—you have Elias—”

“No,” the Mask says. “Elias is still inside. We have something pressing to attend to.”

More pressing than catching the Empire’s top fugitive?
A slow ember of hope kindles in my belly. I thought I’d have to lie to Helene Aquilla and tell her I wouldn’t interfere with her extraction of Elias. But she’s not planning on leaving Kauf with him anyway.

“Why did you trust Elias, Laia of Serra?” The Mask’s question is too unexpected for me to hide my surprise. “Why did you save him from execution?”

I consider lying, but he’d know. He’s a Mask.

“Elias saved my life so many times,” I say. “He broods and makes questionable choices that put his own life at risk, but he’s a good person.” I glance over at the Mask, who stares impassively ahead. “One—one of the best.”

“But he killed his friends during the Trials.”

“He didn’t want to,” I say. “He thinks about it all the time. He’ll never forgive himself, I think.”

The Mask is silent, and the wind carries the moans and sighs of Kauf to our ears. I clench my jaw.
You’re going to have to go in there
,
I tell myself.
So get used to it.

“My father was like Elias,” the Mask says after a moment. “My mother said he always saw the good when no one else did.”

“Was—was he a Mask too?”

“He was. Strange trait for a Mask, I suppose. The Empire tried to train it out of him. Perhaps they failed. Perhaps that’s why he died.”

I do not know what to say, and the Mask remains silent also, until Kauf’s ominous black bulk appears in the distance.

“I lived there for two years.” He nods at the prison. “Spent most of my time in the interrogation cells. Hated it at first. Twelve-hour guard shifts, seven days a week. I became numb to the things I heard. It helped that I had a friend.”

“Not the Warden.” I inch a bit away from him. “Elias told me about him.”

“No,” the Mask says. “Not the Warden, nor any of the soldiers. My friend was a Scholar slave. A little girl who called herself Bee, because she had a scar shaped like a ziberry fruit on her cheek.”

I stare at him, nonplussed. He doesn’t seem like the type of man to befriend a child.

“She was so thin,” the Mask says. “I used to sneak her food. At first, she feared me, but when she realized I didn’t mean her harm she started talking to me.” He shrugs. “After leaving Kauf I wondered about her. A few days ago, when I took a message to the Warden from the Shrike, I went looking for Bee. Found her, too.”

“Did she remember you?”

“She did. In fact, she told me a very peculiar story of a pale-eyed Martial locked in the interrogation block of the prison. He refuses to fear the Warden, she said. He befriended one of her companions. Gave him a Tribal name: Tas. The children whisper of this Martial—carefully, of course, so the Warden doesn’t hear. They’re good at keeping secrets. They’ve taken word of this Martial to the Scholar movement within the prison—to those men and women who still hold out hope that they’ll one day escape.”

Bleeding skies.

“Why are you telling me this?” I look around, nervous.
A trap? A trick?
It’s obvious that the Mask is speaking of Elias. But what is his purpose?

“I can’t tell you why.” He sounds almost sad. “But strange as it sounds, I think that one day you, of all people, will understand best.”

He shakes himself and meets my eyes. “Save him, Laia of Serra,” he says. “From all that you and the Blood Shrike have told me, I think that he is worth saving.”

The Mask watches me, and I nod at him, not understanding but relieved that he is, at least, more human and less Mask.
“I’ll do my best.”

We reach the Blood Shrike’s clearing. She fastens a saddle onto her horse, and when she hears our footsteps and turns, her silver face tightens. The Mask quickly makes himself scarce.

“I know you don’t like me,” I say before she can tell me to get lost. “But I’m here for two reasons.” I open my mouth, trying to find the right words, and decide that simplest is best. “First, I need to thank you. For saving me. I should have said it before.”

“You’re welcome,” she grunts. “What do you want?”

“Your help.”

“Why in the bleeding skies would I help you?”

“Because you’re leaving Elias behind,” I say. “You don’t want him dead. I know that. So help me save him.”

The Blood Shrike turns back to her horse, yanking a cloak from one of her saddlebags and pulling it on.

“Elias won’t die. He’s probably trying to break your brother out right now.”

“No,” I say. “Something went wrong in there.” I step closer to her. Her stare cuts like a scim. “You owe me nothing. I know that. But I heard what he said to you at Blackcliff.
Don’t forget us.
” The devastation in her eyes at the memory is sudden and raw, and guilt twists in my stomach.

“I won’t leave him,” I say. “Listen to that place.” Helene Aquilla looks away from me. “He deserves better than to die in there.”

“What do you want to know?”

“A few things about layout, locations, and supplies.”

She scoffs. “How in the hells are you going to get in? You can’t pose as a slave. Kauf’s guards know the faces of their Scholar slaves, and a girl who looks like you won’t be quickly forgotten. You won’t last five minutes.”

“I have a way in,” I say. “And I’m not afraid.”

A violent gust of wind sends blonde strands fluttering like birds around her silver face. As she sizes me up, her expression is unreadable. What does she feel? She is more than just a Mask—I learned that the night she brought me back from the brink of death.

“Come here,” she sighs. She kneels down and begins to draw in the snow.

«««

I
’m tempted to pile Keenan’s things outside and light a fire, but the smoke would only attract attention. Instead, I hold his bag away from myself, as if it’s diseased, and walk a few hundred yards from the cave, until I find a stream running swiftly down to the River Dusk. His pack lands with a splash in the water, and his weapons soon follow. I could do with a few more knives, but I don’t want anything that belonged to him.

When I return to the cave, I sit down, cross my legs, and decide that I will not move until I have mastered my invisibility.

I realize that each time I succeeded, Keenan was out of sight and often far away. All that self-doubt I felt when he was around—could he have planted it on purpose, to suppress my power?

Disappear!
I scream the word in my mind, queen of the desolate landscape therein ordering her ragged troops to a last stand. Elias, Darin, and all the rest I must save depend on this one thing, this power, this magic that I
know
lives within.

A rush pours through my body, and I steady myself, looking down to see that my limbs shimmer, translucent, as they did during the raid on Afya’s caravan.

I whoop, loud enough that the echo in the cave startles me, and the invisibility falls away.
Right. Work on that, Laia.

All that day, I practice, first in the cave and then out in the snow. I learn my limits: A branch I hold while invisible is also invisible. But anything living or anchored to the earth appears to float in midair.

I am so deep within my own head that at first, I don’t hear the footsteps. Someone speaks, and I spin around, scrambling for a weapon.

“Oh, calm down, girl.” I recognize the haughty tone even before she lowers her hood. Afya Ara-Nur.

“Skies, you’re jumpy,” she says. “Though I can’t say I blame you. Not when you have to listen to that racket.” She waves her hand in the general direction of the prison. “No Elias, I see. No brother either. And … no redhead?”

She raises her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation, but I just stare at her, wondering if she’s real. Her riding clothes are stained and filthy, her boots wet with snow. Her braids are tucked beneath a scarf, and it doesn’t look like she has slept in days. I could kiss her, I’m so happy to see her.

She sighs and rolls her eyes. “I made a promise, girl, all right? I vowed to Elias Veturius that I would see this through. A Tribeswoman breaking a sacred vow is foul enough. But to do it when another woman’s life is at stake? That is unforgiveable—as my little brother reminded me every hour of every day for three days straight, until I finally agreed to follow you.”

“Where is he?”

“Almost to the Tribal Lands.” She sits on a nearby rock and massages her legs. “At least, he better be. Last thing he said to me was that your friend Izzi didn’t trust the redhead.” She looks at me expectantly. “Was she right?”

“Skies,” I say. “Where do I even begin?”

Night has fallen by the time I finish filling Afya in on the past few weeks. I leave out a few things—in particular the night in the cellar safe house.

“I know I failed,” I say. She and I sit in the cave now, sharing a meal of flatbread and fruit that she has brought. “I made stupid decisions—”

“When I was sixteen,” Afya interrupts, “I left Nur to carry out my first trade. I was the oldest, and my father spoiled me. Instead of forcing me to spend interminable hours learning to cook and weave and other boring rubbish, he kept me close and taught me about the business.

“Most of our Tribe thought he indulged me. But I knew I wanted to be
Zaldara
of Tribe Nur after my father. I didn’t care that there hadn’t been a female chieftain for more than two hundred years. I only knew that I was my father’s heir and that if I wasn’t chosen, the role of
Zaldar
would go to one of my greedy uncles or useless cousins. They’d marry me off to some other Tribe, and that would be that.”

“You pulled it off beautifully,” I guess with a smile. “And now look at you.”

“Wrong,” she says. “The trade was a disaster. A travesty. A humiliation for both myself and my father. The Martial I planned to sell to seemed honest enough—until he manipulated me and tricked me out of my goods for a fraction of what they were worth. I returned from the trade a thousand marks poorer, with my head low and my tail between my legs. I was convinced my father would have me married off within a fortnight.

“Instead, he smacked the back of my head and barked at me to stand up straight.
Do you know what he said? Failure doesn’t define you. It’s what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.
”

Afya stares hard at me. “So you’ve made a few bad decisions. So have I. So has Elias. So has everyone attempting to do something difficult. That doesn’t mean that you give up, you fool. Do you understand?”

I mull over her words and recall the past few months. It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail.

I nod at Afya. Immediately she claps me on the shoulder.

“Good,” she says. “Now that that’s out of the way, what’s your plan?”

“It’s—” I search for a word that will make my idea not look like complete lunacy, but realize that Afya would see right through me. “It’s insane,” I finally say. “So insane that I can’t imagine how it will work.”

Afya lets out a peal of high laughter that rings through the cave. She is not mocking me—there is genuine amusement on her face as she shakes her head.

“Skies,” Afya says. “I thought you told me you loved stories. Have you
ever
heard a story of an adventurer with a sane plan?”