An Ember in the Ashes

He locks it.

Slowly, I stand, holding the glass out like an offering, like a trade, like I’ll give him his glass back and he’ll unlock the door and let me go without hurting me. He takes it from my hand, and I wish then that I’d kept it, broken it to use as a weapon.
He looks into the glass. “Who did you see when the ghuls came?”
The question is so unexpected that I’m startled into the truth. “I saw my brother.”
The smith scrutinizes my face, his brow furrowed as if he’s considering something, making a decision. “You’re his sister then,” he says. “Laia. Darin spoke of you often.”
“He—he spoke—” Why would Darin speak to this man about me? Why would he speak to this man at all?
“Strangest thing.” Teluman leans back against the counter. “The Empire tried forcing apprentices on me for years, but I didn’t find one until I caught Darin spying on me from up there.” The shutters on the high bank of windows are open, revealing the crate-littered balcony of the building next door.
“Dragged him down. Thought I’d haul him to the auxes. Then I saw his sketchbook.” He shakes his head, not needing to explain. Darin put so much life into his drawings that it seemed if you just reached out, you could pull them from the page.
“He wasn’t just drawing the inside of my forge. He was designing the weapons themselves. Such things I’d only seen in dreams. I offered him the apprentice spot there and then, thinking he’d run, that I’d never see him again.”
“But he didn’t run,” I whisper. He wouldn’t run—not Darin.
“No. He came into the forge, looked around. Cautious, yes. Not afraid.
I never saw your brother afraid. He felt fear—I’m sure he did. But he never seemed to focus on what could turn out wrong. He only ever thought about how things could turn out right.”
“The Empire thought he was Resistance,” I say. “All this time, he was working for the Martials? If that’s true, why is he still in jail? Why haven’t you gotten him out?”
“Do you think the Empire would allow a Scholar to learn their secrets?
He wasn’t working for the Empire. He was working for me. And I parted ways with the Empire a long time ago. I do enough for them to keep them off my back. Armor, mostly. Until Darin came, I hadn’t made a true Teluman scim for seven years.”
“But...his sketchbook had pictures of swords—”
“That damn sketchbook.” Spiro snorts. “I told him to keep it here, but he wouldn’t listen. Now the Empire has it, and there’s no getting it back.”
“He wrote down formulas in it,” I say. “Instructions. Things—things he shouldn’t have known—”
“He was my apprentice. I taught him to make weapons. Fine weapons. Teluman weapons. But not for the Empire.”
I swallow nervously as the implications of his words sink in. No matter how clever Scholar uprisings have been, in the end it comes down to steel against steel, and in that battle, the Martials always win.
“You wanted him to make weapons for the Scholars?” That would be treason. When Spiro nods, I can’t believe him. This is a trick, like with Veturius this morning. It’s something Teluman’s planned with the Commandant to test my loyalty.
“If you’d really been working with my brother, someone would have seen. Other people must work here. Slaves, assistants—”
“I’m the Teluman smith. Other than my apprentice, I work alone, as my forefathers did. It’s the reason your brother and I were never caught. I want to help Darin. But I can’t. The Mask who took Darin recognized my work in his sketches. I’ve been questioned about it twice already. If the Empire learns I took your brother as my apprentice, they’ll kill him. Then they’ll kill me, and right now I’m the only chance the Scholars have at casting off their chains.”
“Were you working with the Resistance?”
“No,” Spiro says. “Darin didn’t trust them. He tried to stay away from the fighters. But he used the tunnels to get here, and a few weeks ago, two rebels spotted him leaving the Weapons Quarter. Thought he was a Martial collaborator. He had to show them his sketchbook to keep them from killing him.” Spiro sighs. “Then, of course, they wanted him to join up. Wouldn’t leave him alone. Lucky, in the end. That connection to the Resistance is the only reason either of us is still alive. As long as the Empire thinks he’s holding rebel secrets, they’ll keep him in prison.”
“But he told them he wasn’t with the Resistance,” I say. “When the Mask raided us.”
“Stock answer. Empire expects real rebels to deny membership for days—weeks, even—before giving in. We prepared for this. I taught him how to survive interrogation and prison. As long as he stays here in Serra and out of Kauf, he should be fine.”
For how long, I wonder.
I’m afraid to cut Teluman off, but I’m more afraid not to. If he’s telling the truth, then the more of this I listen to, the more danger I’m in. “The Commandant’s expecting a reply. She’ll send me back for it in a few days. Here.”
“Laia—wait—”
But I shove the papers in his hands, dart to the door, and unlock it. He can easily come after me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he watches as I hurry down the alley. When I turn the corner, I think I hear him curse.
***
At night, I toss restlessly in the tiny box that is my room, the rope of my pallet digging into my back, the roof and walls so close that I can’t breathe. My wound burns, and my mind echoes with Teluman’s words.
Serric steel is the heart of the Empire’s strength. No Martial would give up its secrets to a Scholar. And yet something about Teluman’s rings ring true.
When he spoke of Darin, he captured my brother perfectly—his drawings, the way he thinks. And Darin, like Spiro, told me he wasn’t with the Martials or the Resistance. It all aligns.