An Ember in the Ashes

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.
XII: Elias
Hours 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.