An Ember in the Ashes

Sand swirls around me. My thoughts are confused. I trudge along the base of the cliffs, watching the horizon pale as the sun rises. The wind grows stronger, hot and insistent. As I walk, it seems like shapes appear in the sands, figures spinning and dancing, feeding off the wind’s ferocity. Whispers ride the air, and I think I hear the piercing staccato of wild laughter.

 

The old creatures are real. They’re coming for us. Is Zak trying to tell me something about the next Trial? Is he saying that my mother is consorting with demons? Is that how she sabotaged me and Hel? I tell myself that these thoughts are ridiculous. Believing in the Augur’s power is one thing. But jinn of fire and vengeance? Efrits bound to elements like wind, sea, or sand?

Maybe Zak’s just cracked from the strain of the First Trial.

Mamie Rila used to tell stories of the fey. She was our Tribe’s Kehanni, our tale-spinner, and she wove whole worlds with her voice, with the flick of a hand or the tilt of her head. Some of those legends stuck in my head for years—the Nightbringer and his hatred for Scholars. The efrits’ skill at awakening latent magic in humans. Soul-hungry ghuls who feed on pain like vultures on carrion.

But those are just stories.

The wind carries the haunting sound of sobbing to my ears. At first, I think I’m imagining it and chide myself for letting Zak’s talk of the fey get to me.

But then it gets louder. Ahead of me, at the foot of the twisting path that leads up to the Commandant’s house, sits a small crumpled figure.

It’s the slave-girl with the gold eyes. The one Marcus nearly choked to death. The one I saw lifeless on the nightmare battlefield.

She holds her head with one hand and bats at the empty air with the other, muttering through her sobs. She staggers, falls to the ground, then rises laboriously. It’s clear she’s not well, that she needs help. I slow, thinking to turn away. My mind roves back to the battlefield and my first kill’s assertion: that everyone on that field will die by my hand.

Stay away from her, Elias, a cautious voice urges. Have nothing to do with her.

But why stay away? The battlefield was the Augurs’ vision of my future.

Maybe I should show the bastards that I’m going to fight that future. That I won’t just accept it.

I stood by like a fool once before with this girl. I watched and did nothing as Marcus left bruises all over her. She needed help, and I refused to give it.

I won’t make the same mistake again. Without any more hesitation, I walk toward her.

XXI: Laia

It’s the Commandant’s son. Veturius.

Where did he come from? I push at him violently, then immediately regret doing so. A normal Blackcliff student would beat me for touching them without permission—and this is no student, but an Aspirant and the Commandant’s spawn. I have to get out of here. I have to get back to the house.

But the weakness that has plagued me all morning takes firm hold, and I fall to the sand a few feet away, sweating and nauseous.

Infection. I know the signs. I should have let Cook dress the wound last night.

“Who were you talking to?” Veturius asks.

“N-no-no one, Aspirant, sir.” Not everyone can see them, Teluman had said of the ghuls. It’s clear Veturius can’t.

“You look terrible,” he says. “Come into the shade.”

“The sand. I have to take it up or she’ll—she’ll—”

“Sit.” It’s not a request. He picks up my basket and takes my hand, leading me to the shade of the cliffs and setting me down on a small boulder.

When I chance a look at him, he is gazing out at the horizon, his mask catching the dawn light like water catching the sun. Even at a distance of a few feet, everything about him screams violence, from the short black hair to the big hands to the fact that each muscle is honed to deadly perfection. The bandages that encircle his forearms and the scratches that mar his hands and face only make him look more vicious.

He has just one weapon, a dagger at his belt. But then, he’s a Mask. He doesn’t need weapons because he is one, particularly when faced with a slave who barely comes up to his shoulder. I try to scoot away further, but my body is too heavy.

“What’s your name? You never said.” He fills my basket with sand, not looking at me.

I think of when the Commandant asked me this question and the blow I received for answering honestly. “S-Slave-Girl.”

He is quiet for a moment. “Tell me your real name.”

Though calmly spoken, the words are a command. “Laia.”

“Laia,” he says. “What did she do to you?”

How strange, that a Mask can sound so kind, that the deep thrum of his baritone can offer comfort. I could close my eyes and not know I was speaking to a Mask at all.

But I can’t trust his voice. He’s her son. If he is showing concern, there is a reason for it—and not one that favors me.

Slowly, I push back my scarf. When he sees the K, his eyes go hard behind the mask, and for a moment, sadness and fury burn in his gaze. I’m startled when he speaks again.

“May I?” He lifts a hand, and I barely feel it when his fingers brush the skin near my wound.

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