An Ember in the Ashes

***

Helene and I are bleary-eyed and exhausted the next morning, but we start out well before dawn. We need to reach Walker’s Gap today if we want to get back to Blackcliff by sunset tomorrow.
We don’t speak—we don’t have to. Traveling with Helene is like pulling on a favorite shirt. We spent all of our time as Fivers together, and we fall instinctively back into the pattern of those days, with me taking point and Helene the rear guard.
The storm rolls away north to reveal a blue sky and a land clean and glistening. But the crisp beauty conceals fallen trees and washed-out trails, hillsides treacherous with mud and debris. There’s an unmistakable tension in the air. Just like before, I have the sense that something lies in wait. Something unknown.
Helene and I don’t stop to rest. Our eyes are peeled for bears, lynxes, wayward hunters—any creature that might call the mountains home.
In the afternoon, we climb the rise that leads to the Gap, a fifteen-mile-long river of forest amid the blue-speckled peaks of the Serran Range. The Gap appears almost gentle, carpeted with trees, rolling hills, and the occasional gold burst of a wildflower meadow. Helene and I exchange a glance.
We both feel it. Whatever’s coming, it’s going to be soon.
As we move into the forest, the sense of danger increases, and I catch sight of a furtive movement at the edge of my vision. Helene looks back at me. She’s seen it too.
We alter our route frequently and stay off the trails, which slows our pace but makes an ambush more difficult. As dusk approaches, we haven’t made it out of the pass and are forced to move back to the trail so we can pick our way forward by moonlight.
The sun has just set when the forest falls silent. I shout Helene a warning and have barely enough time to bring my knife up before a dark shape hurtles out of the trees.
I don’t know what I’m expecting. An army of those I killed, coming for revenge? A nightmare creature conjured by the Augurs?
Something that will strike fear into my very bones. Something to test my courage.
I don’t expect the mask. I don’t expect the cold, flat eyes of Zak glaring out at me.
Behind me, Helene screams, and I hear the crash of two bodies hitting the ground. I turn to see Marcus attacking her. Her face is frozen in terror at the sight of him, and she makes no move to defend herself as he pins down her arms, laughing like he did when he kissed her.
“Helene!” At my shout, she snaps out of her daze and strikes out at Marcus, twisting away from him.
Then Zak is on me, raining blows down on my head, my neck. He fights recklessly, almost frenziedly, and I easily evade his assault. I come around behind him, sweeping my dagger in an arc. He spins back to dodge the attack and lunges at me, teeth bared like a dog’s. I duck beneath his arm and sink my dagger into his side. Hot blood sprays across my hand. I wrench the dagger out, and Zak groans and staggers back. Hand on his side, he stumbles into the trees, shouting for his twin.
Marcus, serpent that he is, darts into the forest after Zak. Blood shines on Marcus’s thigh, and I feel a burst of satisfaction. Hel marked him. I give chase, the battle rage rising, blinding me to anything else. Distantly, Helene calls my name. Ahead of me, the Snake’s shadow joins with Zak’s, and they barrel ahead, unaware of how close I am.
“Ten burning hells, Zak!” Marcus says. “The Commandant told us to finish them off before they left the Gap, and you go running into the woods like a scared little girl—”
“He stabbed me, all right?” Zak’s voice is breathless. “And she didn’t tell us we’d be dealing with both of them at once, did she?”
“Elias!”
Helene’s shout barely registers. Marcus and Zak’s conversation leaves me dumbstruck. It’s no surprise that my mother’s in league with the Snake and Toad. What I don’t understand is how she knew that Hel and I would be coming through the Gap.
“We have to finish them.” Marcus’s shadow turns, and I bring my dagger up. Then Zak grabs him.
“We have to get out of here,” he says. “Or we won’t make it back on time. Leave them. Come on.”
Part of me wants to chase after Marcus and Zak and take the answers to my questions out of their hides. But Helene cries out again, her voice faint.
She might be hurt.
When I get back to the clearing, Hel is slumped on the ground, her head tilted to the side. One arm is splayed out uselessly while she paws at her shoulder with the other, trying to stanch the sluggish pulse of blood draining out of her.
I close the distance between us in two strides, tearing off what remains of my shirt, wadding it and pressing down on the wound. She bucks her head, her knotted blonde hair whipping at her back as she cries out, a keening, animal wail.
“It’s all right, Hel,” I say. My hands shake, and a voice in my head screams that it’s not all right, that my best friend is going to die. I keep talking. “You’re going to be fine. I’m going to fix you right up.” I grab the canteen. I need to clean the wound and bind it. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”
“Surprised me. Couldn’t move. I—I saw him on the mountain. He was—he and I—” She shudders, and I understand now. In the desert, I saw images of war and death. Helene saw Marcus. “His hands—everywhere.” She squeezes her eyes shut and draws her legs up protectively.
I’ll kill him, I think calmly, making the decision as easily as I’d choose my boots in the morning. If she dies—so will he.
“Can’t let them win. If they win...” Helene’s words spill from her mouth.
“Fight, Elias. You have to fight. You have to win.”
I cut open her shirt with my dagger, jolted for a moment by the delicacy of her skin. Dark has settled in, and I can barely see the wound, but I can feel the warmth of the blood as it oozes into my hand.
Helene grabs my arm with her good hand as I pour water over the injury.