An Ember in the Ashes (9 page)

We’re escorted through the gates, and moments later, the slaver is circling me, sweating in the heat. He’s as tall as the Tribesman but twice as broad, with a paunch that strains the buttons of his gold brocade shirt.

“Not bad.” The slaver snaps his fingers, and a slave-girl appears from the
recesses of his mansion bearing a tray of drinks. The slaver slurps one down, pointedly not offering anything to the Tribesman. “The brothels will pay well for her.”

“As a whore, she won’t fetch more than a hundred marks,” the Tribesman says in his hypnotic lilt. “I need two hundred.”

The slaver snorts, and I want to strangle him for it. The shaded streets of his neighborhood are littered with sparkling fountains and bow-backed Scholar slaves. The man’s house is a bloated hodgepodge of arches and columns and courtyards. Two hundred silvers is a drop in the bucket for him. He probably paid more for the plaster lions flanking his front door.

“I hoped to sell her as a house slave,” the Tribesman continues. “I heard you were looking for one.”

“I am,” the slaver admits. “Commandant’s been on my back for days. Hag keeps killing off her girls. Temper like a viper.” The slaver eyes me the way a rancher eyes a heifer, and I hold my breath. Then he shakes his head.

“She’s too small, too young, too pretty. She won’t last a week in Blackcliff, and I don’t want the bother of replacing her. I’ll give you one hundred for her and sell her to Madam Moh over dockside.”

A bead of sweat trickles down the Tribesman’s otherwise serene face. Mazen ordered him to do whatever it took to get me into Blackcliff. But if he drops his price suddenly, the slaver will be suspicious. If he sells me as a whore, the Resistance will have to get me out—and there is no guarantee they can do so quickly. If he doesn’t sell me at all, my attempt to save Darin will fail.

Do something, Laia.
Darin again, fanning my courage.
Or I’m dead.

“I press clothes well, Master.” The words are out before I can reconsider. The Tribesman’s mouth drops open, and the slaver regards me as if I’m a rat who has begun juggling.

“And, um . . . I can cook. And clean and dress hair,” I trail off into a whisper. “I’d—I’d make a good maid.”

The slaver stares me down, and I wish I’d kept my mouth shut. Then his eyes grow shrewd, almost amused.

“Afraid of whoring, girl? Don’t see why, it’s an honest enough trade.” He circles me again, then jerks my chin up until I am looking into his reptilian green eyes. “You said you can dress hair and press clothes? Can you barter and handle yourself in the market?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You can’t read, of course. Can you count?”

Of course I can count.
And I can read too, you double-chinned pig.

“Yes, sir. I can count.”

“She’ll have to learn to keep her mouth shut,” the slaver says. “I’ve got to eat the cost of cleanup. Can’t send her to Blackcliff looking like a chimney sweep.” He considers. “I’ll take her for one hundred and fifty silver marks.”

“I can always take her to one of the Illustrian houses,” the Tribesman suggests. “Underneath all that dirt, she’s a fine-looking girl. I’m sure they’d pay well for her.”

The slaver narrows his eyes. I wonder if Mazen’s man has erred, trying to bargain higher.
Come on, you miser
,
I think at the slaver
. Cough up a little extra.

The slaver pulls out a sack of coins. I fight to hide my relief.

“A hundred and eighty marks then. Not a copper more. Take off her chains.”

Less than an hour later, I’m locked inside a ghost wagon that is heading for Blackcliff. Wide silver bands that mark me as a slave adorn each wrist. A chain leads from the collar around my neck to a steel rail inside the wagon.
My skin still smarts from the scrubbing I got from two slave-girls, and my head aches from the tight bun they tamed my hair into. My dress, black silk with a corset-tight bodice and diamond-patterned skirt, is the finest thing I’ve ever worn. I hate it on sight.

The minutes crawl by. The inside of the wagon is so dark that I feel as if I’ve gone blind. The Empire throws Scholar children into these wagons, some as young as two or three, ripped screaming from their parents. After that, who knows what happens to them. The ghost wagons are so named because those who disappear into them are never seen again.

Don’t think of such things
,
Darin whispers to me.
Focus on the mission. On how you’ll save me.

As I go over Keenan’s instructions again in my head, the wagon begins to climb, moving achingly slow. The heat seeps into me, and when I feel as if I’ll faint from it, I think up a memory to distract myself—Pop sticking his finger in a fresh jam pot three days ago and laughing while Nan whacked him with a spoon.

Their absence is a wound in my chest. I miss Pop’s growling laugh and Nan’s stories. And Darin—how I miss my brother. His jokes and drawings and how he seems to know everything. Life without him isn’t just empty, it’s scary. He’s been my guide, my protector, my best friend for so long that I don’t know what to do without him. The thought of him suffering torments me. Is he in a cell right now? Is he being tortured?

In the corner of the ghost wagon, something flickers, dark and creeping.

I want it to be an animal—a mouse or, skies, even a rat. But then the creature’s eyes are on me, bright and ravenous. It is one of the
things.
One of the shadows from the night of the raid.
I’m going crazy. Bleeding, bat crazy.

I close my eyes, willing the thing to disappear. When it doesn’t, I swat at it with trembling hands.

“Laia
 . . . 
”

“Go away. You’re not real.”

The thing inches close.
Don’t scream, Laia
,
I tell myself, biting down hard on my lip.
Don’t scream.

“Your brother suffers, Laia.”
Each of the creature’s words is deliberate, as if it wants to make sure I don’t miss a single one
. “The Martials pull pain from him slowly and with relish.”

“No. You’re in my head.”

The creature’s laugh is like breaking glass.
“I’m real as death, little Laia. Real as shattered bones and traitorous sisters and hateful Masks.”

“You’re an illusion. You’re my . . . my guilt.” I grab Mother’s armlet.

The shadow flashes its predator’s grin, and now it’s only a foot away. But then the wagon comes to a stop, and the creature gives me a last malevolent look before disappearing with a dissatisfied hiss. Seconds later, the wagon door swings open, and the forbidding walls of Blackcliff are before me, their oppressive weight driving the hallucination from my mind.

“Eyes down.” The slaver unchains me from the rail, and I force my gaze to the cobbled street. “Only speak to the Commandant if she speaks to you. Don’t look her in the eyes—she’s flogged slaves for less. When she gives you a task, carry it out quickly and well. She’ll disfigure you in the first few weeks, but you’ll thank her for it eventually—if the scarring’s bad enough, it’ll keep the older students from raping you too often.

“The last slave lasted two weeks,” the slaver continues, oblivious to my growing terror.
“
Commandant wasn’t happy about it. My fault, of course—I should have given the girl some fair warning. Went batty when the
Commandant branded her, apparently. Threw herself off the cliffs. Don’t you do the same.” He gives me a hard look, like a father warning an errant child not to wander off. “Or the Commandant will think I’m supplying her with inferior goods.”

The slaver nods a greeting to the guards stationed at the gates and pulls my chain as if I’m a dog. I shuffle after him.
Rape
 . . .
disfigurement
 . . .
branding. I can’t do it, Darin. I can’t.

A visceral urge to flee sweeps through me, so powerful that I slow, stop, pull away from the slaver. My stomach roils, and I think I’ll be sick. But the slaver yanks the chain hard, and I stumble forward.

There’s nowhere to run
,
I realize as we pass beneath Blackcliff’s iron-spiked portcullis and into the fabled grounds.
There’s nowhere to go. There’s no other way to save Darin.

I’m in now. And there is no going back.

H
ours after I’m named an Aspirant, I dutifully stand beside Grandfather in his cavernous foyer to greet guests arriving for my graduation party. Though Quin Veturius is seventy-seven years old, women blush when he looks them in the eye, and men wince when he deigns to shake their hands. The lamplight paints his thick mane of white hair gold, and the way he towers over everyone else, the way he nods at those entering his home, makes me imagine a falcon watching the world from an updraft.

By eighth bell, the mansion is packed with the finest Illustrian families, along with a few of the wealthiest Mercators. The only Plebeians are the stable hands.

My mother wasn’t invited.

“Congratulations, Aspirant Veturius,” a mustached man who might be a cousin says as he shakes my hand in both of his, using the title the Augurs bestowed on me during graduation. “Or should I say,
your Imperial Majesty
.” The man dares to meet Grandfather’s gaze with an obsequious grin. Grandfather ignores him.

It’s been like this all night. People whose names I don’t know are treating me as if I’m their long-lost son or brother or cousin. Half of them probably are related to me, but they’ve never bothered acknowledging my existence before this.

The bootlickers are interspersed with friends—Faris, Dex, Tristas, Leander—but the person I wait most impatiently for is Helene. After I took the oath, the families of the graduates flooded the field, and she was swept away in a tide of Gens Aquilla before I had a chance to speak to her.

What is she thinking about the Trials? Are we competing against each other for emperorship? Or will we work together, as we have since entering Blackcliff? My questions lead to more questions, most urgently how becoming the leader of an Empire I loathe can possibly result in my attaining “true freedom—of body and of soul.”

One thing is certain: As much as I want to escape Blackcliff, the school isn’t done with me yet. Instead of a month of leave, we only get two days. Then the Augurs have demanded that all students—even graduates—return to Blackcliff to serve as witnesses to the Trials.

When Helene finally arrives at Grandfather’s house, parents and sisters in tow, I forget to greet her. I’m too busy staring. She salutes Grandfather, slender and shining in her ceremonials, her black cloak fluttering lightly. Her hair, silver in the candlelight, pours down her back like a river.

“Careful, Aquilla,” I say as she approaches. “You almost look like a girl.”

“And you almost look like an Aspirant.” Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, and instantly, I know something’s off. Her earlier elation has evaporated, and she’s jittery, the way she is before a battle she thinks she won’t win.

“What’s wrong?” I ask. She tries to get past me, but I take her hand and pull her back. There’s a storm in her eyes, but she forces a smile and gently untangles her fingers from mine. “Nothing’s wrong. Where’s the food? I’m starving.”

“I’ll come with you—”

“Aspirant Veturius,” Grandfather booms. “Governor Leif Tanalius wishes a word.”

“Best not keep Quin waiting,” Helene says. “He looks determined.” She slips away, and I grit my teeth as Grandfather coerces me into a stilted
discussion with the governor. I repeat the same boring conversation with a dozen other Illustrian leaders over the next hour, until at long last, Grandfather steps away from the unending stream of guests and pulls me aside.

“You’re distracted when you can ill afford to be,” he says. “These men could be very helpful.”

“Can they take the Trials for me?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Grandfather says in disgust. “An Emperor is not an island. It takes thousands to run the Empire effectively. The city governors will report to you, but they’ll mislead and manipulate you at every step, so you’ll need a spy network to keep them in check. The Scholars’ Resistance, border raiders, and the more troublesome of the Tribes will see a change in dynasty as an opportunity to sow disorder. You’ll need the full support of the military to put down any hint of rebellion. In short, you need these men—as advisers, ministers, diplomats, generals, spymasters.”

I nod distractedly. There’s a Mercator girl in a tantalizingly flimsy dress eyeing me from the door leading to the crowded garden. She’s pretty. Really pretty. I smile at her. Maybe after I find Helene . . .

Grandfather grabs my shoulder and steers me away from the garden, which I’ve been inching toward. “Pay attention, boy,” he says. “The drums carried news of the Trials to the Emperor this morning. My spies tell me he left the capital as soon as he heard. He and most of his house will be here in a matter of weeks—the Blood Shrike too, if he wants to keep his head.” At my look of surprise, Grandfather snorts. “Did you think Gens Taia would go down without a fight?”

“But the Emperor practically worships the Augurs. He visits them every year.”

“Indeed. And now they’ve turned against him by threatening to usurp his dynasty. He’ll fight—you can count on it.” Grandfather narrows his eyes. “If you want to win this, you need to wake up. I’ve already wasted too much time cleaning up your messes. The Farrar brothers are telling anyone who will listen that you nearly let a deserter escape yesterday, that your mask not joining with you is a sign of disloyalty. You’re lucky the Blood Shrike is in the north. He’d have had you in the stocks by now. As it is, the Black Guard chose not to investigate once I reminded them that the Farrars are lowborn Plebeian scum and you’re from the finest house in the Empire. Are you listening to me?”

“Of course I am.” I act affronted, but since I’m half eyeing the Mercator girl and half looking into the garden for Helene, Grandfather isn’t convinced. “I wanted to find Hel—”

“Don’t you dare get distracted by Aquilla,” Grandfather says. “How she managed to be named Aspirant in the first place I don’t understand. Women have no place in the military.”

“Aquilla’s one of the best fighters at the school.” At my defense of her, Grandfather slams his hand on an antique entryway table so hard that a vase falls from it and shatters. The Mercator girl yelps and scurries away. Grandfather doesn’t blink.

“Rubbish,” Grandfather says. “Don’t tell me you have feelings for the wench.”

“Grandfather—”

“She belongs to the Empire. Though I suppose if you were named Emperor, you could set her aside as Blood Shrike and marry her instead. She’s an Illustrian of strong stock, so at least you’d have a passel of heirs—”

“Grandfather. Stop.” I am uncomfortably aware of the heat rising in my
neck at the prospect of making heirs with Helene. “I don’t think of her like
that
. She’s a—she’s—”

Grandfather lifts a silver eyebrow as I stammer like a fool. I am full of it, of course. Students don’t get much in the way of women at Blackcliff, unless they rape a slave or pay a whore, neither of which I’ve ever had any interest in. I’ve had plenty of diversions during leave—but leave comes once a year. Helene is a girl, a pretty girl, and I spend most of my time around her. Of course I’ve thought of her in
that
way. But it doesn’t mean anything.

“She’s a comrade-in-arms, Grandfather,” I say. “Could you love a fellow soldier the way you loved Grandmother?”

“None of my fellows were tall blonde girls.”

“Am I done here? I’d like to celebrate my graduation.”

“One more thing.” Grandfather disappears, returning a few moments later with a long package wrapped in black silk. “These are for you,” he says. “I was planning to leave them to you when you became Pater of Gens Veturia. But they’ll serve you better now.”

When I open the package, I nearly drop it.

“Ten burning hells.” I stare at the scims in my hands, a matched set with intricate black etchings that probably have no equal in the Empire. “These are Teluman scims.”

“Made by the current Teluman’s grandfather. Good man. Good friend.”

Gens Teluman has produced the most talented Empire smiths for centuries. The current Teluman smith spends months fashioning the Masks’ Serric steel armor every year. But a Teluman scim—a true Teluman scim, able to cut through five bodies at once—is forged every few years, at the most. “I can’t take these.”

I try to give the blades back, but Grandfather plucks my own scims from where I’ve slung them on my back and replaces them with the Teluman blades.

“They are a fitting gift for an Emperor,” he says. “See that you earn them.
Always victorious.
”

“Always victorious.”
I echo the Veturia motto, and Grandfather leaves to attend to his guests. Still reeling from the gift, I head to the food tent, hoping to find Helene. Every few feet, people stop to chat with me. Someone shoves a plate of spiced kabobs into my hand. Someone else, a drink. A pair of older Masks bemoan the fact that the Trials didn’t take place in their time, while a group of Illustrian generals discuss Emperor Taius in hushed tones, as if his spies might be watching. No one speaks of the Augurs with anything less than reverence. No one would dare.

When I finally escape the crowd, Helene’s nowhere in sight, though I spot her sisters, Hannah and Livia, eyeing a bored-looking Faris.

“Veturius,” Faris grunts at me, and I’m relieved that he doesn’t treat me with the same fawning awe as everyone else. “I need you to introduce me.” He looks pointedly at a knot of silk-clad, bejeweled Illustrian girls lurking near the edges of the tent, some of whom are watching me in a disturbingly predatory way. I know a few of the girls well—too well, actually, for all that whispering they’re doing to come to any good.

“Faris, you’re a Mask. You don’t need an introduction. Just go talk to them. If you’re that nervous, ask Dex or Demetrius to go with you. Have you seen Helene?”

He ignores my question. “Demetrius didn’t come. Probably because fun is against his moral code. And Dex is drunk. Loosening up for once in his life, thank the skies.”

“What about Trist—”

“Too busy drooling at his fiancée.” Faris nods to one of the tables, where Tristas sits with Aelia, pretty and black-haired. He looks happier than I’ve seen him all year. “And Leander confessed his love to Helene—”

“Again?”

“Again. She told him to piss off before she broke his nose a second time, and he went looking for solace in the back garden with some redhead. You’re my last hope.” Faris looks lasciviously at the Illustrian girls. “If we remind them that you’ll be Emperor, I bet we could get two each.”

“Now there’s a thought.” I actually consider this for a moment before remembering Helene. “But I have to find Aquilla.”

At that moment, she walks into the tent and past the knot of girls, stopping when one speaks to her. She glances at me before whispering something. The girl’s jaw drops open, and Helene turns back around and leaves the tent.

“I’ve got to catch Helene,” I say to Faris, who has noticed Hannah and Livia and is smiling invitingly at them while smoothing back his cowlick. “Don’t get too drunk,” I advise. “And unless you want to wake up without your manhood, stay away from those two. They’re Hel’s little sisters.”

The smile drops off Faris’s face, and he moves determinedly out of the tent. I hurry after Helene, spotting a flash of blonde heading through Grandfather’s vast gardens and toward a rickety shed at the back of the house. The light of the party tents doesn’t reach this far, and I have only starlight by which to navigate. I keep my plate, toss my drink, and pull myself atop the shed one-handed before clambering onto the sloped roof of the house.

“You could have picked an easier spot to get to, Aquilla.”

“It’s quiet up here,” she says from the darkness. “Plus you can see all the way to the river. Did you bring any for me?”

“Piss off. You probably had two plates while I shook hands with all those stuffed shirts.”

“Mother says I’m too skinny.” She spears a pastry off my plate with a dagger. “What took you so long to get up here, anyway? Paying court to your bevy of maidens?”

My awkward conversation with Grandfather comes sharply to mind, and a thorny silence descends. Helene and I don’t discuss girls. She teases Faris and Dex and the others about their dalliances, but not me. Never me.

“I—uh—”

“Would you believe Lavinia Tanalia had the nerve to ask me if you’d ever spoken of her? I about shoved a kabob skewer through that bursting bodice of hers.” The barest frisson of tension tinges Helene’s voice, and I clear my throat.

“What’d you say to her?”

“I told her you called out her name every time you visited the dock girls. Shut her right up.”

I burst into laughter, understanding now the horrified look on Lavinia’s face. Helene smiles, but her eyes are sad. She seems lonely, suddenly. When I tilt my head to capture her gaze, she looks away. Whatever is wrong, she’s not ready to tell me.

“What will you do if you become Empress?” I ask. “What will you change?”

“You’re going to win, Elias. And I’ll be your Blood Shrike.” She speaks with such conviction that for a second, it’s like she’s speaking some old truth, like she is telling me the color of the sky. But then she shrugs and looks away. “But if I won, I’d change everything. Expand trade south, bring women into
the army, open up relations with the Mariners. And I’d—I’d do something about the Scholars.”

“You mean the Resistance?”

“No. What happens in the Quarter. The raids. The killing. It’s not . . . ” I know she wants to say that it’s not right. But that would be sedition. “Things could be better,” she says. There’s a challenge in her face when she looks at me, and I lift my eyebrows. Helene never struck me as a Scholar sympathizer. I like her more for it.

“What about you?” she asks. “What would you do?”

“Same as you, I guess.” I can’t tell her that I have no interest in ruling and never will. She won’t understand. “Maybe I’d just let you run things while I lounged in my harem.”

“Be serious.”

“I’m very serious.” I grin at her. “The Emperor does have a harem, right? Because that’s the only reason I took the oath—” She shoves me—practically off the roof—and I beg for mercy.

“It’s not funny.” She sounds like a Centurion, and I try to arrange my face in an appropriately sober manner. “Our lives are on the line here,” she says. “Promise me you’ll fight to win. Promise me you’ll give the Trials everything you’ve got.” She grabs a strap on my armor. “Promise!”