I put the mask on, trying not to shudder at the eagerness with which it attaches to me. One day left. Then I’ll take it off forever.
The sunset drums thunder as we emerge from the barracks. The blue sky deepens to violet, and the searing desert air cools. Evening’s shadows blend with the dark stones of Blackcliff, making the blockish buildings appear unnaturally large. My eyes rove the shadows, seeking out threats, a habit from my years as a Fiver. I feel, for an instant, as if the shadows are looking back at me. But then the sensation fades.
“Do you think the Augurs will attend graduation?” Hel asks.
No, I want to say. Our holy men have better things to do, like locking themselves up in caves and reading sheep entrails.
“Doubt it,” is all I say.
“I guess it would get tedious after five hundred years.” Helene says this without a trace of irony, and I wince at the sheer idiocy of the idea. How can someone as intelligent as Helene actually think the Augurs are immortal?
But then, she’s not the only one. Martials believe that the Augurs’ “power” comes from being possessed by the spirits of the dead. Masks, in particular, revere the Augurs, for it is the Augurs who decide which Martial children will attend Blackcliff. It is the Augurs who give us our masks. And we’re taught that it was the Augurs who raised Blackcliff in a single day, five centuries ago.
There are only fourteen of the red-eyed bastards, but on the rare occasions that they appear, everyone defers to them. Many of the Empire’s leaders—generals, the Blood Shrike, even the Emperor—make a yearly pilgrimage to the Augurs’ mountain lair, seeking counsel on matters of state. And though it’s clear to anyone with an ounce of logic that they are a pack of charlatans, they’re lionized throughout the Empire not just as immortal, but as oracles and mind-readers.
Most Blackcliff students only see the Augurs twice in our lives: when we’re chosen for Blackcliff and when we’re given our masks. But Helene has always had a particular fascination with the holy men—it’s no surprise that she hoped they’d come to graduation.
I respect Helene, but on this, we don’t agree. Martial myths are as believable as Tribal fables of jinn and the Nightbringer.
Grandfather is one of the few Masks who doesn’t believe in Augur rubbish, and I repeat his mantra in my head. The field of battle is my temple.
The swordpoint is my priest. The dance of death is my prayer. The killing blow is my release. The mantra is all I’ve ever needed.
It takes all my control to hold my tongue. Helene notices.
“Elias,” she says. “I’m proud of you.” Her tone is strangely formal. “I know you’ve struggled. Your mother...” She glances around and drops her voice. The Commandant has spies everywhere. “Your mother’s been harder on you than on any of the rest of us. But you showed her. You worked hard. You did everything right.”
Her voice is so sincere that for a moment, I waver. In two days, she won’t think such things. In two days, she will hate me.
Remember Barrius. Remember what you’ll be expected to do after graduation.
I jostle her shoulder. “Are you turning sappy and girly on me?”
“Forget it, swine.” She punches me on the arm. “I was just trying to be nice.”
My laugh is falsely hearty. They’ll send you to hunt me down when I run.
You and the others, the men I call brothers.
We reach the mess hall, and the cacophony within hits us like a wave—laughter and boasts and the raucous talk of three thousand young men on the verge of leave or graduation. It’s never this loud when the Commandant is in attendance, and I relax marginally, glad to avoid her.
Hel pulls me to one of the dozen or so long tables, where Faris is regaling the rest of our friends with a tale of his latest escapade at the river-side brothels. Even Demetrius, ever haunted by his dead brother, cracks a smile.
Faris leers, glancing between us suggestively. “You two took your time.”
“Veturius was making himself pretty just for you.” Hel shoves Faris’s boulder-like body over, and we sit. “I had to drag him away from his mirror.”
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 fiancé’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—”