I lay uselessly, unsure of what to do, when the Augur decides for me. “You move now, you die,” she warns, pulling herself off me. When all eyes are on the tableaux beside us, she lifts me up and staggers toward the amphitheater door.
Dead. Dead. I can practically hear the woman in my head. Pretend you’re dead. My limbs flop, and my head lolls. I keep my eyes closed, but when the Augur misses a step and nearly falls, they fly open of their own accord. No one notices, but for a brief moment, as Aquilla swears her fealty, I catch a glimpse of Elias’s face. And though I’ve seen my brother taken and my grandparents killed, though I’ve suffered beatings and scarrings and visited the night shores of Death’s realm, I know I’ve never felt the type of desolation and hopeless-ness I see in Elias’s eyes at that moment.
The Augur rights herself. Two of her fellows close around her, the way brothers flank a little sister in a rough crowd. Her blood soaks my clothes, blending into the black silk. She’s lost so much that I don’t understand how she can muster the strength to walk.
“Augurs cannot die,” she says through gritted teeth. “But we can bleed.”
We reach the amphitheater gates, and once through, the woman sets me on my feet in an alcove. I expect her to explain why she chose to take that dagger for me, but she just limps away, her brethren supporting her.
I look back through the amphitheater gates to where Elias kneels, chained.
My head tells me I can do nothing for him, that if I try to help him, I’ll die.
But I can’t bring myself to walk away.
“You are unhurt.” Cain has slipped away from the still-packed amphitheater, unnoticed by the tittering crowd. “Good. Follow me.” He catches the look I cast at Elias and shakes his head.
“He is beyond your aid right now,” Cain says. “He has sealed his fate.”
“So that’s it for him?” I’m appalled at Cain’s callousness. “Elias refuses to kill me, and he dies for it? You’re going to punish him for showing mercy?”
“The Trials have rules,” Cain says. “Aspirant Veturius broke them.”
“Your rules are twisted. Besides, Elias wasn’t the only one who violated your instructions. Marcus was supposed to kill me, and he didn’t. You still made him Emperor.”
“He thinks he killed you,” Cain says. “And he revels in the knowledge. That is what matters. Come, you must leave the school. If the Commandant knows you survived, your life is forfeit.”
I tell myself the Augur is right, that I can’t do anything for Elias. But I’m uneasy. I’ve done this before. I’ve left someone behind and lived to regret it every moment after.
“If you do not come with me, your brother will die.” The Augur senses my conflict and presses. “Is that what you want?”
He heads toward the gates, and after a dreadful few moments of indecision, I turn away from Veturius and follow him. Elias is resourceful—he might still find a way to avoid death. But I won’t, Laia, I hear Darin. Not unless you help me.
The legionnaires manning Blackcliff’s gates seem not to see us as we pass out of the school, and I wonder if Cain has used Augur sorcery on them. Why is he helping me? What does he want in exchange?
If he can read my suspicions, he doesn’t let on, instead leading me rapidly through the Illustrian Quarter and deep into the sweltering streets of Serra.
His route is so convoluted that it seems for a time as if he has no destination in mind. No one looks twice at us, and no one speaks of the Emperor’s death or of Marcus’s coronation. The news hasn’t yet leaked out.
The silence between Cain and me stretches until I think it will fall and shatter on the ground. How will I get away from him and find the Resistance?
I dash the thought from my head, lest the Augur pick it out—but then, I’ve already thought it, so it must be too late. I look askance at him. Is he reading all of this? Can he hear every thought?
“It’s not really mind-reading,” Cain murmurs, and I wrap my arms around myself and lean away, though I know doing so won’t shield my thoughts any better.
“Thoughts are complex,” he explains. “Messy. They are tangled as a jungle of vines, layered like the sediment in a canyon. We must weave through the vines, trace the sediment. We must translate and decipher.”
Ten hells. What does he know about me? Everything? Nothing?
“Where to begin, Laia? I know your every sinew is turned toward finding and saving your brother. I know your parents were the most powerful leaders the Resistance ever had. I know you’re falling for a Resistance fighter named Keenan but that you don’t trust him to love you back. I know you’re a Resistance spy.”
“But if you know I’m a spy—”
“I know,” Cain says, “but it matters not.” Ancient sadness flares in his eyes, as if he’s remembering someone long dead. “Other thoughts speak more clearly of who you are, what you are, in your deepest heart. In the night, your loneliness crushes you, as if the sky itself has swooped down to smother you in its cold arms—”
“That’s not—I—”