An Ember in the Ashes

“Things will never go back to the way they were.” He flips the metal he’s shaping with a pair of tongs and continues hammering. “If the Empire freed Darin tomorrow, he’d come here and start making weapons again. His destiny is to rise, to help his people overthrow their oppressors. And mine is to help him do it.”
I’m so angry at Teluman’s presumption that I don’t think before I speak.

“So now you’re the savior of the Scholars, after spending years creating the weapons that have destroyed us?”
“I live with my sins every day.” He throws down the tongs and turns to me. “I live with the guilt. But there are two kinds of guilt, girl: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose. The day I made my last weapon for the Empire, I drew a line in my mind. I’d never make a Martial blade again. I’d never have Scholar blood on my hands again. I won’t cross that line. I’ll die before I cross it.”
His hammer is clenched in his hand like a weapon, his hard-angled face lit with tightly controlled fervor. So this is why Darin agreed to be his apprentice. There’s something of our mother in this man’s ferocity, something of our father in the way he carries himself. His passion is true and contagious.
When he speaks, I want to believe.
He opens his hand. “You have a message?”
I give him the folio. “You said you’d die before you crossed that line. And yet you’re making a weapon for the Commandant.”
“No.” Spiro peruses the folio. “I’m pretending to make a weapon for her so she’ll keep sending you with messages. As long as she thinks my interest in you will get her a Teluman blade, she won’t do you any irreparable harm. I might even be able to persuade her to sell you to me. Then I’ll break those damned things off,” he nods to my cuffs, “and set you free.” At my surprise, Spiro looks away, as if embarrassed. “It’s the least I can do for your brother.”
“He’s going to be executed,” I whisper. “In a week.”
“Executed?” Spiro says. “Not possible. He’d still be in Central Prison if he was to be executed, and he was moved from there. Where, I don’t yet know.”
Teluman’s eyes narrow. “How did you learn he was to be executed? Who have you been talking to?”
I don’t answer. Darin might have trusted the smith, but I can’t bring myself to. Maybe Teluman really is a revolutionary. Or maybe he’s a very convincing spy.
“I have to go,” I say. “Cook’s expecting me back.”
“Laia, wait—”
I don’t hear the rest. I’m already out the door.
As I walk back to Blackcliff, I try to push his words from my head, but I can’t. Darin’s been moved? When? Where? Why didn’t Mazen mention it?
How is my brother? Is he suffering? What if the Martials have broken his bones? Skies, his fingers? What if—
No more. Nan once said that there’s hope in life. If Darin’s alive, nothing else matters. If I can get him out, the rest can be fixed.
My path back takes me through Execution Square, where the gibbets are conspicuously empty. No one has been hung for days. Keenan said the Martials are saving the executions for the new Emperor. Marcus and his brother will enjoy such a spectacle. What if one of the others wins? Would Aquilla smile as innocent men and women twist at the end of a rope? Would Veturius?
Ahead of me, the crowd slows to a standstill as a Tribal caravan twenty wagons long ambles across the square. I turn to go around it, but everyone else has the same idea, resulting in a mess of swearing, shoving, mired bodies.
And then, amid the chaos: “You’re all right.”
I recognize his voice instantly. He wears a Tribal vest, but even with the hood up, his hair trickles out like a tongue of flame.
“After the raid,” Keenan says, “I wasn’t sure. I’ve been watching the square all day, hoping you’d come through.”
“You got out too.”
“All of us did. Just in time. The Martials took more than a hundred Scholars last night.” He cocks his head. “Your friend escaped?”
“My...ah...” If I say Izzi’s all right, I’m as good as admitting that I brought her with me to an information drop. Keenan regards me with his unflinching stare. He’ll know a lie a mile away.
“Yes,” I say. “She escaped.”
“She knows you’re a spy.”
“She’s helped me. I know I shouldn’t have let her, but—”
“But it just happened. Your brother’s life is at risk here, Laia. I understand.” A fight breaks out behind us, and Keenan rests a hand on my back, turning me so he’s between me and the flying punches. “Mazen’s set a meeting eight days from now, in the morning. Tenth bell. Come here, to the square. If you need to meet before, wear a gray scarf over your hair and wait on the south side of the square. Someone will be watching for you.”
“Keenan.” I think of what Teluman said about Darin. “Are you sure my brother’s in Central Prison? That he’s to be executed? I heard he’s been moved—”
“Our spies are reliable,” Keenan says. “Mazen would know if he’d been transferred.”
My neck prickles. Something’s not right. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Keenan rubs the stubble on his face, and my unease swells. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Laia.”
Ten hells. I turn his face toward me, forcing him to meet my eyes. “If it affects Darin,” I say, “I need to worry about it. Is it Mazen? Has he changed his mind?”
“No.” Keenan’s tone does little to reassure me. “I don’t think so. But he’s been...strange. Quiet about this mission. Hiding the spy reports.”
I try to justify this. Perhaps Mazen is worried the mission will be compromised. When I say as much, Keenan shakes his head.