An Ember in the Ashes

Cook rustles around the cabinets, and a few minutes later, a mug of steaming tea is in my hands. After I drink it down, she sits in front of me, her scars inches from my face. I gaze at them, but they no longer seem grotesque. Is it because I’ve gotten used to seeing them? Or because I have a disfigurement of my own?

“Who’s Darin?” Cook asks. Her sapphire eyes glint, and for a moment, they are hauntingly familiar. “You called for him in the night.”
The tea takes the edge off my dizziness, and I sit up. “He’s my brother.”
“I see.” Cook drips tanroot oil on a square of gauze and dabs it onto the wound. I wince in pain and grip the seat. “And is he in the Resistance too?”
“How could you—” How could you know that? I almost say, but then I recover my wits and press my lips together.
Cook catches the slip and pounces. “It’s not hard to tell. I’ve seen a hundred slaves come and go. Resistance fighters are always different. Never broken. At least not when they first arrive. They have...hope.” She curls her lip, as if she’s speaking of a colony of diseased criminals instead of her own people.
“I’m not with the rebels.” I wish I hadn’t spoken. Darin says my voice goes high when I lie, and Cook seems like the type to notice. Sure enough, her eyes narrow.
“I’m not a fool, girl. Do you have any idea what you’re doing? The Commandant will find you out. She’ll torture you, kill you. Then she’ll punish anyone she thinks you were friends with. That means Iz—Kitchen-Girl.”
“I’m not doing anything wro—”
“There was a woman once,” she interrupts me abruptly. “Joined the Resistance. Learned to mix powders and potions so that the very air would turn to fire and stones to sand. But she got in over her head. Did things for the rebels—horrible things—that she never dreamt she’d do. Commandant caught her like she’d caught so many others. Carved her up good and ruined her face. Made her swallow hot coals and ruined her voice. Then she made the woman a slave in her house. But not before killing everyone the woman knew. Everyone she loved.”
Oh no. The source of Cook’s scars becomes sickeningly clear. She nods, grimly acknowledging the dawning horror on my face.
“I lost everything—my family, my freedom—all for a cause that never had any hope to begin with.”
“But—”
“Before you came here, the Resistance sent a boy. Zain. He was supposed to be a gardener. Did they tell you about him?”
I almost shake my head but stop, crossing my arms instead. She doesn’t acknowledge my silence. She’s not guessing about me. She knows.
“It was two years ago. Commandant caught him. Tortured him in the school’s dungeon for days. Some nights we could hear him. Screaming. When she was done with Zain, she gathered every last slave in Blackcliff. She wanted to know who’d been friends with him. Wanted to teach us a lesson for not turning in a traitor.” Cook’s eyes are fixed on me, unrelenting. “Killed three slaves before she was satisfied that the message had sunk in. Lucky I’d warned Izzi away from the boy. Lucky she listened.”
Cook gathers her supplies and shoves them back into a cabinet. She picks up a cleaver and hacks at a bloody slab of meat waiting on the worktable.
“I don’t know why you ran away from your family to join those rebel bastards.” She flings the words at me like stones. “I don’t care. Tell them you quit. Ask for another mission, somewhere where you won’t hurt anyone. Because if you don’t, you’ll die, and skies only knows what will happen to the rest of us.” She points the cleaver at me, and I shift back in my chair, watching the knife. “Is that what you want?” she says. “Death? Izzi tortured?” She leans forward, spittle flying from her mouth. The knife is inches from my face. “Is it?”
“I didn’t run away,” I burst out. Pop’s body, Nan’s glazed irises, Darin’s flailing limbs all flash before my eyes. “I didn’t even want to join. My grandparents—a Mask came—”
I bite my tongue. Shut it, Laia. I scowl at the old woman, unsurprised to see her glaring back.
“Tell me the truth about why you joined the rebels,” she says, “and I’ll keep my mouth shut about your dirty little secret. Ignore me, and I’ll tell that ice-hearted vulture upstairs exactly what you are.” She drives the cleaver into the worktable and drops into the seat next to me, waiting.
Damn her. If I tell her about the raid and what came after, she might still rat me out. But if I say nothing, I’ve no doubt that she’ll march to the Commandant’s room this instant. She’s just insane enough to do it.
I have no choice.
As I speak of what happened that night, she remains silent and unmoved.
When I finish, my eyes are swollen, but Cook’s mangled face reveals nothing.
I wipe my face on my sleeve. “Darin’s stuck in prison. It’s only a matter of time before they torture him to death or sell him as a slave. I have to get him out before then. But I can’t do it alone. The rebels said if I spied for them, they’d help me.” I stand shakily. “You could threaten to turn my soul over to the Nightbringer himself. Doesn’t matter. Darin’s my only family. I have to save him.”
Cook says nothing, and after a minute passes, I assume she’s chosen to ignore me. Then, as I move to the door, she speaks.
“Your mother. Mirra.” At the sound of Mother’s name, I jerk my head around. Cook is examining me. “You don’t look like her.”
I’m so surprised I don’t bother to deny it. Cook has to be in her seventies.
She’d have been in her sixties when my parents controlled the Resistance.
What was her real name? What had her role been? “You knew my mother?”
“Knew her? Yes, I knew her. Always liked y-y-your father better.” She clears her throat and shakes her head in irritation. Strange. I’ve never heard her stutter. “Kind man. Sm-smart man. Not—not like your m-m-mother.”
“My mother was the Lioness—”