An Ember in the Ashes

She’s taught me many things, this woman who bore me. Control is one of them. I tamp down my fury and disgust, emptying myself of all feeling. She frowns, a slight twist of her mouth, and raises a hand to her neck, her fingers following the whorls of a strange blue tattoo poking out of her collar.

I expect her to approach and demand to know why I’m still here, why I challenge her with my stare. She doesn’t. Instead, she watches me for a moment longer before turning and disappearing beneath the arches.
The belltower tolls six, and the drums thud. All students report to mess.
At the foot of the tower, the legionnaires heave up what’s left of Barrius and carry him away.
The courtyard stands silent, empty except for me staring at a puddle of blood where a boy once stood, chilled by the knowledge that if I’m not careful, I’ll end up just like him.
V: Laia
The silence of the catacombs is as vast as a moonless night, and as eerie. Which isn’t to say that the tunnels are empty; as soon as I drop through the grate, a rat skitters across my bare feet, and a clear, fist-sized spider descends on a thread inches from my face. I bite my hand so I don’t scream.
Save Darin. Find the Resistance. Save Darin. Find the Resistance.
Sometimes I whisper the words. Mostly I chant them in my head. They keep me moving, a charm to ward off the fear nipping at my mind.
I’m not sure, really, what I should be looking for. A camp? A hideout? Any sign of life that isn’t rodent in nature?
Since most of the Empire’s garrisons are located east of the Scholar’s Quarter, I head west. Even in this skies-forsaken place, I can point unfailingly to where the sun rises and where it sets, to the Empire’s capital in the north, Antium, and to Navium, its main port due south. It’s a sense I’ve had for as long as I can remember. When I was a child and Serra should have seemed vast to me, I was always able to find my way.
I take heart from it—at least I won’t be wandering in circles.
For a time, sunshine trickles into the tunnels through the catacomb grates, weakly lighting the floor. I hug the crypt-pocked walls, swallowing my revulsion at the reek of rotting bones. A crypt is a good place to hide if a Martial patrol gets too close. Bones are just bones, I tell myself. A patrol will kill you.
In the daylight, it’s easier to push away my doubts and convince myself that I’ll find the Resistance. But I wander for hours, and eventually, the light fades and night falls, dropping like a curtain over my eyes. With it, fear comes rushing into my mind, a river that’s broken a dam. Every thump is a murderous aux soldier, every scritch a horde of rats. The catacombs have swallowed me as a python swallows a mouse. I shudder, knowing that I have a mouse’s chance of survival down here.
Save Darin. Find the Resistance.
Hunger gathers into a knot in my stomach, and thirst burns my throat. I spot a torch flickering in the distance, and feel a mothlike urge to head toward it. But the torches mark Empire territory, and the aux soldiers who get tunnel duty are probably Plebeians, the most lowborn of the Martials. If a group of Plebes catches me down here, I don’t want to think of what they’ll do.
I feel like a hunted, craven animal, which is exactly how the Empire sees me—how it sees all Scholars. The Emperor says that we are a free people who live under his benevolence. But that’s a joke. We can’t own property or attend schools, and even the mildest transgression results in enslavement.
No one else suffers such harshness. Tribesmen are protected under a treaty; during the invasion, they accepted Martial rule in exchange for free movement for their people. Mariners are protected by geography and the vast amounts of spices, meat, and iron they trade.
In the Empire, only Scholars are treated like trash.
Then defy the Empire, Laia, I hear Darin’s voice. Save me. Find the Resistance.
The darkness slows my footsteps until I’m practically crawling. The tunnel I’m in narrows, the walls crowding closer. Sweat pours down my back, and my whole body quakes—I hate small spaces. My breath echoes raggedly.
Somewhere ahead, water falls in a lonely drip. How many ghosts haunt this place? How many vengeful spirits roam these tunnels?
Stop, Laia. No such things as ghosts. As a child, I spent hours listening to Tribal talespinners weave their legends of the mythical fey: the Nightbringer and his fellow jinn; ghosts, efrits, wraiths, and wights.
Sometimes the tales spilled into my nightmares. When they did, it was Darin who calmed my fears. Unlike Tribesmen, Scholars are not superstitious, and Darin has always had a Scholar’s healthy skepticism. No ghosts here, Laia. I hear his voice in my mind and close my eyes, pretending he’s beside me, allowing myself to be reassured by his steady presence. No wraiths either. There’s no such thing.
My hand goes to my armlet, as it always does when I need strength. It’s nearly black with tarnish, but I prefer it that way; it draws less attention. I trace the pattern in the silver, a series of connecting lines that I know so well I see it in my dreams.
Mother gave me the armlet the last time I saw her, when I was five. It’s one of the few clear memories I have of her—the cinnamon scent of her hair, the sparkle in her storm-sea eyes.
“Keep it safe for me, little cricket. Just for a week. Just until I come back.”
What would she say now, if she knew I’d kept the armlet safe but lost her only son? That I’d saved my own neck and sacrificed my brother’s?
Set it right. Save Darin. Find the Resistance. I release the armlet and stumble on.
Soon after, I hear the first sounds behind me.
A whisper. The scrape of a boot on stone. If the crypts weren’t silent, I doubt I’d have noticed, the sounds are so quiet. Too quiet for an aux soldier.
Too furtive for the Resistance. A Mask?
My heart thumps, and I whirl, searching the tarry blackness. Masks can prowl through darkness like this as easily as if they are part wraith. I wait, frozen, but the catacombs fall silent again. I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I hear nothing.