An Ember in the Ashes

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 armoury, 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 armoury, 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. ‘Armourer already called your names.’ Leander nods to two stacks of armour 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 armour 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 armour 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 backwards. 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 armour 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 armour.’

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.

‘Armour 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 towards 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 armoury. ‘You will compose yourselves and report to the amphitheatre. 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 amphitheatre’s entrance, and the armoury brawl is forgotten. We march into the amphitheatre to the applause of family, students, city officials, the Emperor’s emissaries, and an honour 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 theatre’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 armour.

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 centre 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 amphitheatre. 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.

Cain raises his hand for silence, and in seconds, the crowd goes mute. From where I sit on the field, he’s a bizarre spectre, so frail and ashen. But when he speaks, his voice rings out across the amphitheatre with a force that makes everyone sit up.

‘From among the battle-hardened youth there shall rise the Foretold,’ he says. ‘The Greatest Emperor, scourge of our enemies, commander of a host most devastating. And the Empire shall be made whole.

‘So the Augurs foretold five hundred years ago as we drew the stones of this school from the shuddering earth. And so the foretelling shall come to pass. The line of Emperor Taius XXI will fail.’

A near-mutinous buzz rolls through the crowd. If anyone but an Augur had questioned the Emperor’s line, he’d have already been struck down. The legionnaires of the honour guard bristle, hands on their weapons, but at one look from Cain, they settle back, a pack of barely cowed dogs.

‘Taius XXI shall have no direct male issue,’ Cain says. ‘Upon his death, the Empire will fall unless a new Warrior Emperor is chosen.

‘Taius the First, Father of our Empire and Pater of Gens Taia, was the finest fighter of his time. He was tested, tempered, and tried before he was deemed fit to rule. The people of the Empire expect no less of their new leader.’

Bleeding, burning skies. Behind me, Tristas elbows an open-mouthed Dex triumphantly. We all know what Cain will say next. But I still don’t believe what I’m hearing.

‘Thus, the time for the Trials has come.’

The amphitheatre explodes. Or at least it sounds like it’s exploded because I’ve never heard anything so loud. Tristas bellows, ‘I told you!’ at Dex, who looks as if someone’s smashed him over the head with a hammer. Leander shouts, ‘Who? Who?’ Marcus laughs, a smug cackle that makes me yearn to stab him. Helene has a hand clapped over her mouth, her eyes comically wide as she grasps for words.

Cain’s hand comes up again, and again, the crowd falls deathly silent.

‘The Trials are upon us,’ he says. ‘To ensure the future of the Empire, the new Emperor must be at the peak of his strength, as Taius was when he took the throne. Thus do we turn to our battle-hardened youth, our newest Masks. But not all shall vie for this great honour. Only the greatest of our graduates are worthy, the strongest. Only four. Of these four Aspirants, one will be named the Foretold. One will swear fealty and serve as the Blood Shrike. The others will be lost, as leaves on the wind. This, too, we have seen.’

My blood begins to pound in my ears.

‘Elias Veturius, Marcus Farrar, Helene Aquilla, Zacharias Farrar.’ He calls our names in the order we’re ranked. ‘Rise and come forward.’

The amphitheatre is dead quiet. Numbly, I stand, shutting out the searching looks of my classmates, the glee on Marcus’s face, the indecision on Zak’s. The field of battle is my temple. The swordpoint is my priest …

Helene’s back is ramrod straight, but she looks to me, to Cain, to the Commandant. At first, I think she’s frightened. Then I notice the shine in her eyes, the spring in her step.

When Hel and I were Fivers, a Barbarian raiding party took us prisoner. I was trussed like a festival-day goat, but they tied Helene’s hands in front of her with twine and propped her on the back of a pony, assuming she was harmless. That night, she used the twine to garrotte three of our jailers and broke the necks of the other three with her bare hands.

‘They always underestimate me,’ she said afterwards, sounding puzzled. She was right, of course. It’s a mistake even I make. Hel’s not frightened, I realize. She’s euphoric. She wants this.

The walk to the stage takes too little time. In seconds, I’m standing in front of Cain with the others.

‘To be chosen as an Aspirant for the Trials is to be granted the greatest honour the Empire has to offer.’ Cain looks at each one of us, but it seems like his gaze lingers longest on me. ‘In exchange for this great gift, the Augurs require an oath: that as Aspirants, you will see the Trials through until the Emperor is named. The penalty for breaking this oath is death.

‘You must not undertake this oath lightly,’ Cain says. ‘If you wish, you may turn and leave this podium. You will remain a Mask, with all the respect and honour accorded to those of that title. Another will be chosen in your place. It is, in the end, your choice.’

Your choice. Those two words shake me to my marrow. Tomorrow you will have to make a choice. Between deserting and doing your duty. Between running from your destiny and facing it.

Cain doesn’t mean doing my duty as a Mask. He wants me to choose between taking the Trials and deserting.

You devious, red-eyed devil. I want to be free of the Empire. But how can I find freedom if I take the Trials? If I win and become Emperor, I’ll be tied to the Empire for life. And if I swear fealty, I’ll be chained to the Emperor as the second-in-command – the Blood Shrike.

Or I’ll be a leaf lost in the wind, which is just a fancy Augur way of saying dead.

Reject him, Elias. Run. By this time tomorrow, you’ll be miles away.

Cain watches Marcus, and the Augur’s head is tilted as if he’s listening to something beyond our ken.

‘Marcus Farrar. You are ready.’ It’s not a question. Marcus kneels and draws his sword, offering it up to the Augur, his eyes glinting with a strangely exultant zeal, as if he’s already been named Emperor.

‘Repeat after me,’ Cain says. ‘I, Marcus Farrar, swear by blood and by bone, by my honour and the honour of Gens Farrar, that I will dedicate myself to the Trials, that I will see them through until the Emperor is named or my body lies cold.’

Marcus repeats the vow, his voice echoing in the breathless silence of the amphitheatre. Cain closes Marcus’s hands over his blade, pressing until blood drips from his palms. A moment later, Helene kneels, offering her sword, repeating the vow, her voice singing out across the field as clearly as a bell at dawn.

The Augur turns to Zak, who looks at his brother for a long moment before nodding and taking the oath. Suddenly, I’m the only one of the four Aspirants still standing, and Cain is before me, awaiting my decision.

Like Zak, I hesitate. Cain’s words come back to me: You are woven through our dreams. A thread of silver in a tapestry of night. Is becoming Emperor my destiny, then? How can such a destiny lead to freedom? I have no desire to rule – the very idea of doing so is repellent to me.

But then my future as a deserter is no more appealing. You will become everything you hate – evil, merciless, cruel.

Do I trust Cain when he says I will find freedom if I take the Trials? At Blackcliff we learn to classify people: civilian, combatant, enemy, ally, informer, defector. Based on that, we decide our next steps. But I have no understanding of the Augur. I don’t know his motivations, his desires. The only thing I have is my instinct, which tells me that in this matter, at least, Cain wasn’t lying. Whether his prediction is true or not, he trusts that it is. And since my gut tells me to trust him, albeit grudgingly, there’s only one decision that makes sense.

My eyes never leaving Cain’s, I drop to my knees, draw my sword, and run the blade across my palm. My blood falls to the dais in a rapid drip.

‘I, Elias Veturius, swear, by blood and by bone …’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Laia

The Commandant of Blackcliff Military Academy.

My curiosity for the spy mission withers. The Empire trains the Masks at Blackcliff – Masks like the one who murdered my family and stole my brother. The school sprawls atop Serra’s eastern cliffs like a colossal vulture, a jumble of austere buildings enclosed by a black granite wall. No one knows what happens behind that wall, how the Masks train, how many there are, how they are chosen. Every year, a new class of Masks leaves Blackcliff, young, savage, and deadly. For a Scholar – especially a girl – Blackcliff is the most dangerous place in the city.

Mazen goes on. ‘She lost her personal slave—’

‘The girl threw herself off the cliffs a week ago,’ Keenan retorts, defying Mazen’s glare. ‘She’s the third slave to die in the Commandant’s service this year.’

‘Quiet,’ Mazen says. ‘I won’t lie to you, Laia. The woman’s unpleasant—’

‘She’s insane,’ Keenan says. ‘They call her the Bitch of Blackcliff. You won’t survive the Commandant. The mission will fail.’

Mazen’s fist comes down on the table. Keenan doesn’t flinch.

‘If you can’t keep your mouth shut,’ the Resistance leader growls, ‘then leave.’

Tariq’s jaw drops as he looks between the two men. Sana, meanwhile, watches Keenan with a thoughtful expression. Others in the cavern stare too, and I get the feeling that Keenan and Mazen don’t disagree very often. Keenan scrapes his chair back and leaves the table, disappearing into the muttering crowd behind Mazen.

‘You’re perfect for the job, Laia,’ Mazen says. ‘You have all the skills the Commandant would expect from a house slave. She’ll assume you’re illiterate. And we have the means to get you in.’

‘What happens if I’m caught?’

‘You’re dead.’ Mazen looks me straight in the eye, and I feel a bitter appreciation for his honesty. ‘Every spy we’ve sent to Blackcliff has been discovered and killed. This isn’t a mission for the fainthearted.’

I almost want to laugh. He couldn’t have picked a worse person for it. ‘You’re not doing a very good job selling it.’

‘I don’t have to sell it,’ Mazen says. ‘We can find your brother and break him out. You can be our eyes and ears in Blackcliff. A simple exchange.’

‘You trust me to do this?’ I ask. ‘You hardly know me.’

‘I knew your parents. That’s enough for me.’

‘Mazen.’ Tariq speaks up. ‘She’s just a girl. Surely we don’t need to—’

‘She invoked Izzat,’ Mazen says. ‘But Izzat means more than freedom. It means more than honour. It means courage. It means proving yourself.’

‘He’s right,’ I say. If the Resistance is going to help me, I can’t have the fighters thinking I’m weak. A glimmer of red catches my eye, and I look across the cavern to where Keenan leans against a bunk watching me, his hair like fire in the torchlight. He doesn’t want me to take this mission because he doesn’t want to risk the men to save Darin. I put a hand to my armlet. Be brave, Laia.

I turn to Mazen. ‘If I do this, you’ll find Darin? You’ll break him out of jail?’

‘You have my word. It won’t be hard to locate him. He’s not a Resistance leader, so it’s not as if they’ll send him to Kauf.’ Mazen snorts, but mention of the infamous northern prison sends a chill across my skin. Kauf’s interrogators have one goal: to make inmates suffer as much as possible before they die.

My parents died in Kauf. My sister, only twelve at the time, died there too.

‘By the time you make your first report,’ Mazen says, ‘I’ll be able to tell you where Darin is. When your mission is complete, we’ll break him out.’

‘And after?’

‘We prise your slaves’ cuffs off and pull you out of the school. We can make it look like a suicide, so you’re not hunted. You can join us, if you like. Or we can arrange passage to Marinn for you both.’