An Ember in the Ashes (5 page)

The rest of the table hoots, and Leander, one of Hel’s soldiers, calls for Faris to finish his story. Beside me, Dex is arguing with Hel’s second lieutenant, Tristas. He’s an earnest, dark-haired boy with a deceptively innocent look to his wide blue eyes, and his fiancée’s name,
AELIA
, tattooed in block letters on his bicep.

Tristas leans forward. “The Emperor’s nearly seventy, and he has no male issue. This year might be
the
year. The year the Augurs choose a new Emperor. A new dynasty. I was talking to Aelia about it—”

“Every year, someone thinks it’s the year.” Dex rolls his eyes. “Every year, it’s not. Elias, tell him. Tell Tristas he’s an idiot.”

“Tristas, you’re an idiot.”

“But the Augurs say—”

I snort quietly, and Helene gives me a sharp look.
Keep your doubts to
yourself, Elias.
I busy myself with piling food on two plates and shove one toward her. “Here,” I say. “Have some slop.”

“What is it, anyway?” Hel pokes at the mash and takes a tentative sniff. “Cow dung?”

“No whining,” Faris says through a mouthful of food. “Pity the Fivers. They have to come back to this after four years of happily robbing farmhouses.”

“Pity the Yearlings,” Demetrius counters. “Can you imagine another twelve years? Thirteen?”

Across the hall, most of the Yearlings smile and laugh like everyone else. But some watch us, the way starving foxes might watch a lion—hungry for what we have.

I imagine half of them gone, half the laughter silenced, half the bodies cold. For that is what will happen in the years of deprivation and torment ahead of them. And they will face it either by living or dying, either by accepting or questioning. The ones who question are usually the ones who die.

“They don’t seem to care much about Barrius.” The words are out of my mouth before I can help myself. Beside me, Helene’s body stiffens like water freezing into ice. Dex frowns in disapproval, a comment dying on his lips, and silence falls across our table.

“Why would they be upset?” Marcus, sitting one table away with Zak and a knot of cronies, speaks up. “That scum got what he deserved. I only wished he’d lasted longer so he could have suffered more.”

“No one asked what you think, Snake,” Helene says. “Anyway, kid’s dead now.”

“Lucky him.” Faris picks up a forkful of food and lets it plop unappetizingly back onto his steel plate. “At least he doesn’t have to eat this swill anymore.”

A low chuckle runs up and down the table, and conversation picks up again. But Marcus smells blood, and his malevolence taints the air. Zak turns his gaze to Helene and mutters something to his brother. Marcus ignores him, fixing his hyena eyes on me. “You were damn broken up over that traitor this morning, Veturius. Was he a friend?”

“Piss off, Marcus.”

“Been spending a lot of time down in the catacombs too.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Helene’s hand is on her weapon, and Faris grabs her arm.

Marcus ignores her. “You gonna do a runner, Veturius?”

My head comes up slowly.
It’s a guess. He’s guessing.
There’s no way he could know. I’ve been careful, and
careful
at Blackcliff translates to
paranoid
for most people.

Silence falls at my table, at Marcus’s.
Deny it, Elias. They’re waiting.

“You were squad leader on watch this morning, weren’t you?” Marcus says. “You should have been thrilled to see that traitor go down. You should have brought him in. Say he deserved it, Veturius. Say Barrius deserved what he got.”

It should be easy. I don’t believe it, and that’s what matters. But my mouth won’t move. The words won’t come. Barrius didn’t deserve to be whipped to death. He was a child, a boy so afraid of staying at Blackcliff that he’d risked everything to escape it.

The silence spreads. A few Centurions look up from the head table. Marcus stands, and, quick as a flood, the mood of the hall changes, turning curious and expectant.

Son of a whore
.

“Is this why your mask hasn’t joined with you?” Marcus says. “Because you’re not one of us? Say it, Veturius. Say the traitor deserved his fate.”

“Elias,” Helene whispers. Her eyes plead.
Fall in. Just for one more day.

“He—”
Say it, Elias. Doesn’t change anything if you do.
“He deserved it.”

I meet Marcus’s eyes coolly, and he grins, like he knows how much the words cost.

“Was that so hard, bastard?”

I’m relieved when he insults me. It gives me the excuse I’ve wanted so badly. I spring toward him fists-first.

But my friends are expecting it. Faris, Demetrius, and Helene are on their feet, holding me back, an irritating wall of black and blond keeping me from beating that damn grin off Marcus’s face.

“No, Elias,” Helene says. “The Commandant will whip you for starting a fight. Marcus isn’t worth that.”

“He’s a bastard—”

“That’d be you, actually,” Marcus says. “At least I know who my father is.
I
wasn’t raised by a pack of camel-stroking Tribesmen.”

“You Plebeian trash—”

“Senior Skulls.” The Scim Centurion has made his way to the foot of the table. “Is there a problem?”

“No, sir,” Helene says. “Go, Elias,” she murmurs. “Go get some air. I’ll handle this.”

My blood still burning, I shove through the mess doors and find myself in the belltower courtyard before I even know where I’m going.

How the hell did Marcus figure out that I’m going to desert? How much
does he know? Not too much, or I’d have been called to the Commandant’s office by now. Damn him, I’m close. So close.

I pace the courtyard, trying to calm myself. The desert heat has faded, and a crescent moon hangs low on the horizon, thin and red as a cannibal’s smile. Through the arches, Serra’s lights glow dully, tens of thousands of oil lamps dwarfed by the vast darkness of the surrounding desert. To the south, a pall of smoke mutes the shine of the river. The smell of steel and forge wafts past, ever-present in a city known solely for its soldiers and weaponry.

I wish I could have seen Serra before all this, when it was capital of the Scholar Empire. Under the Scholars, the great buildings were libraries and universities instead of barracks and training halls. The Street of Storytellers was filled with stages and theaters instead of an arms market where the only stories told now are of war and death.

It’s a stupid wish, like wanting to fly. For all their knowledge of astronomy and architecture and mathematics, the Scholars crumbled beneath the Empire’s invasion. Serra’s beauty is long gone. It’s a Martial city now.

Above, the heavens glow, the sky pale with starlight. Some long-buried part of me understands that this is beauty, but I am unable to wonder at it, the way I did when I was a boy. Back then, I clambered up spiky Jack trees to get closer to the stars, sure that a few feet of height would help me see them better. Back then, my world had been sand and sky and the love of Tribe Saif, who saved me from exposure. Back then, everything was different.

“All things change, Elias Veturius. You are no boy now, but a man, with a man’s burden upon your shoulders and a man’s choice ahead of you.”

My knife is in my hands, though I don’t remember drawing it, and I hold it to the throat of the hooded man beside me. Years of training keep
my arm steady as a rock, but my mind races. Where had the man come from? I’d swear on the lives of everyone in my platoon that he hadn’t been standing there a moment ago.

“Who the hell are you?”

He pulls down his hood, and I have my answer.

Augur.

W
e race through the catacombs, Keenan ahead of me, Sana at my heels. When Keenan is convinced we’ve left the aux patrol behind, he slows our pace and barks at Sana to blindfold me.

I flinch at the harshness in his tone. This is what’s become of the Resistance? This band of thugs and thieves? How did it happen? Only twelve years ago, the rebels were at the height of their power, allying themselves with the Tribes and the king of Marinn. They’d lived their code—
Izzat—
fighting for freedom, protecting the innocent, elevating loyalty to their own people above all else.

Does the Resistance remember that code anymore? On the off chance that they do, will they help me? Can they help me?

You’ll make them help you.
Darin’s voice again, confident and strong, like when he taught me to climb a tree, like when he taught me to read.

“We’re here,” Sana whispers after what feels like hours. I hear a series of knocks and the scrape of a door opening.

Sana guides me forward, and a burst of cool air washes over me, fresh as spring after the stench of the catacombs. Light creeps through the edges of my blindfold. The rich green smell of tobacco curls up into my nose, and I think of my father, smoking a pipe as he drew pictures of efrits and wights for me. What would he say if he saw me now, in a Resistance hideout?

Voices mutter and murmur. Warm fingers tangle in my hair, and a moment later, my blindfold falls away. Keenan is right behind me.

“Sana,” he says. “Give her some neem leaf and get her out of here.” He turns to another fighter, a girl a few years older than me who flushes when he speaks to her. “Where’s Mazen? Have Raj and Navid reported yet?”

“What’s neem leaf?” I ask Sana when I’m sure Keenan can’t hear. I’ve never heard of it, and I know most herbs from working with Pop.

“It’s an opiate. It’ll make you forget the last few hours.” At my widening eyes, she shakes her head. “I won’t give it to you. Not yet, anyway. Have a seat. You look a mess.”

The cavern we’re in is so dark, it’s hard to tell how big it is. Blue-fire lanterns, usually found in the finest Illustrian neighborhoods, glow here and there, with pitch torches flickering between them. Clean night air flows through a constellation of gaps in the rock ceiling, and I can barely make out the stars. I must have been in the catacombs for nearly a day.

“It’s drafty.” Sana pulls off her cloak, and her short, dark hair tufts out like a disgruntled bird’s. “But it’s home.”

“Sana. You’re back.” A stocky, brown-haired man approaches, looking at me curiously.

“Tariq,” Sana greets him. “We ran into a patrol. Picked up someone on the way. Grab her some food, would you?” Tariq disappears, and Sana gestures for me to sit on a nearby bench, ignoring the stares coming our way from the dozens of people moving about the cavern.

There are an equal number of men and women here, most in dark, close-fitting clothing and nearly all dripping with knives and scims, as if expecting an Empire raid any moment. Some sharpen weapons, others watch over cook fires. A few older men smoke pipes. The bunks along the cavern wall are filled with sleeping bodies.

As I look around, I push a hank of hair out of my face. Sana’s eyes narrow when she takes in my features. “You look . . . familiar,” she says.

I allow my hair to fall forward again. Sana’s old enough to have been in the Resistance for quite some time. Old enough to have known my parents.

“I used to sell Nan’s jams at market.”

“Right.” She’s still staring. “You live in the Quarter? Why were you—”

“Why is she still here?” Keenan, who’s been busy with a group of fighters in the corner, approaches, pulling back his hood. He’s far younger than I expected, closer to my age than Sana’s—which might explain why she bristles at his tone. Flame-red hair spills over his forehead and into his eyes, so dark at the roots it’s almost black. He is only a few inches taller than me, but lean and strong, with a Scholar’s even, fine features. A hint of ginger stubble shadows his jaw, and freckles spatter his nose. Like the other fighters, he wears nearly as many weapons as a Mask.

I realize I’m staring and glance away, heat rising in my cheeks. Suddenly, the looks he’s been getting from the younger women in the cavern make sense.

“She can’t stay,” he says. “Get her out of here, Sana. Now.”

Tariq returns and, overhearing Keenan, slams a plate of food onto the table behind me. “You don’t tell her what to do. Sana’s not some besotted recruit, she’s the head of our faction, and you—”

“Tariq.” Sana puts a hand on the man’s arm, but the look she gives Keenan could wither stone. “I was giving the girl some food. I wanted to find out what she was doing in the tunnels.”

“I was looking for you,” I say. “For the Resistance. I need your help. My brother was taken in a raid yesterday—”

“We can’t help,” Keenan says. “We’re stretched thin as it is.”

“But—”

“We. Can’t. Help.” He speaks slowly, as if I’m a child. Maybe before the raid, the chill in his eyes would have silenced me. But not now. Not when Darin needs me.

“You don’t lead the Resistance,” I say.

“I’m second-in-command.”

He’s higher up than I expected. But not high enough. I shake my hair out of my face and stand.

“Then it’s not up to you, whether I stay or not. It’s up to your leader.” I try to sound brave, although if Keenan disagrees, I don’t know what I’ll do. Start begging, maybe.

Sana’s smile is sharp as a knife. “Girl’s got a point.”

Keenan moves toward me until he’s standing uncomfortably close. He smells of lemon and wind and something smoky, like cedar. He takes me in from head to toe, and the look would be shameless if it wasn’t for the slight puzzlement in his face, like he’s seeing something he doesn’t quite understand. His eyes are a dark secret, black or brown or blue—I can’t tell. It feels as if they can see right through me to my weak, cowardly soul. I cross my arms and look away, embarrassed of my tattered shift, of the dirt, the cuts, the damage.

“That’s an unusual armlet.” He reaches out a hand to touch it. The tip of his finger grazes my arm, sending a spark skittering across my skin, and I jerk away. He doesn’t react. “So tarnished, I might not have noticed it. It’s silver, isn’t it?”

“I didn’t steal it, all right?” My body aches and my head spins, but I bunch my fists, afraid and angry all at once. “And if you want it, you’ll—you’ll have to kill me to get it.”

He meets my eyes coolly, and I hope he doesn’t call my bluff. He and I both know that killing me wouldn’t be particularly difficult.

“I expect I would,” he says. “What’s your name?”

“Laia.” He doesn’t ask for a family name—Scholars rarely take them.

Sana looks between us, bemused. “I’ll go get Maz—”

“No.” Keenan’s already walking away. “I’ll find him.”

I sit back down, and Sana keeps glancing at my face, trying to puzzle out why I look familiar. If she’d seen Darin, she’d have known right away. He’s the spitting image of our mother—and no one could forget Mother. Father was different—always in the background, drawing, planning, thinking. He gave me his unruly midnight hair and gold eyes, his high cheekbones and full, unsmiling lips.

In the Quarter, no one knew my parents. No one looked twice at Darin or me. But a Resistance camp is different. I should have realized that.

I find myself staring at Sana’s tattoo, and my stomach lurches at the sight of the fist and flame. Mother had one just like it, above her heart. Father spent months perfecting it before inking it into her skin.

Sana sees me staring. “When I got this tattoo, the Resistance was different,” she explains without my asking. “We were better. But things changed. Our leader, Mazen, told us we needed to be bolder, to go on the attack. Most of the young fighters, the ones Mazen trains, tend to agree with that philosophy.”

It’s clear Sana’s not happy about this. I’m waiting for her to say more when a door opens on the far side of the cavern to admit Keenan and a limping, silver-haired man.

“Laia,” Keenan says. “This is Mazen, he’s—”

“Leader of the Resistance.” I know his name because my parents spoke it often when I was a child. And I know his face because it’s on wanted signs all over Serra.

“So, you’re our orphan of the day.” The man comes to a stop before me, waving me back down when I rise to greet him. He has a pipe clenched in
his teeth, and the smoke blurs his ravaged face. The Resistance tattoo, faded but still visible, is a blue-green shadow on the skin below his throat. “What is it you want?”

“My brother Darin’s been taken by a Mask.” I watch Mazen’s face carefully to see if he recognizes my brother’s name, but he gives nothing away. “Last night, in a raid at our house. I need your help to get him back.”

“We don’t rescue strays.” Mazen turns to Keenan. “Don’t waste my time again.”

I try to quash my desperation. “Darin’s no stray. He wouldn’t have even been taken if it wasn’t for your men.”

Mazen swings around. “
My
men?”

“Two of your fighters were interrogated by the Martials. They gave Darin’s name to the Empire before they died.”

When Mazen looks at Keenan for confirmation, the younger man fidgets.

“Raj and Navid,” he says after a pause. “New recruits. Said they were working on something big. Eran found their bodies in the west end of the Scholars’ Quarter this morning. I heard a few minutes ago.”

Mazen swears and turns back to me. “Why would my men give the Empire your brother’s name? How do they know him?”

If Mazen doesn’t know about the sketchbook, I’m not about to tell him. I don’t understand what it means myself. “I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe they wanted him to join. Maybe they were friends. Whatever the reason, they led the Empire to us. The Mask who killed them came for Darin last night. He—” My voice fails, but I clear my throat and force myself to keep talking. “He killed my grandparents. He took Darin to jail. Because of
your
men.”

Mazen takes a long draw on his pipe, contemplating me, before shaking his head. “I’m sorry for your loss. Truly. But we can’t help you.”

“You—you owe me a blood debt. Your men gave up Darin—”

“And paid for it with their lives. You can’t ask for more than that.” The little interest Mazen took in me disappears. “If we helped every Scholar taken by the Martials, there’d be nothing left of the Resistance. Maybe if you were one of our own . . . ” He shrugs. “But you’re not.”

“What about
Izzat
?” I grab his arm, and he pulls away, anger flashing in his eyes. “You’re bound to the code. Bound to aid any who—”

“The code applies to our own. Members of the Resistance. Their families. Those who have given everything for our survival. Keenan, give her the leaf.”

Keenan takes one of my arms, holding on tightly even when I try to throw him off.

“Wait,” I say. “You can’t do this.” Another fighter comes to restrain me. “You don’t understand. If I don’t get him out of prison, they’ll torture him—they’ll sell him or kill him. He’s all I have—he’s the only one left!”

Mazen keeps walking.