An Ember in the Ashes

Helene doesn’t speak. She stares at me and puts her hand to her heart, as if she can still feel that dagger coming down.

“She didn’t think to remove it,” a voice speaks from behind me. A slight shadow emerges from the mist: a female Augur. Other shadows follow, creating a circle around Hel and me.
“She didn’t think of it at all,” the female Augur says. “She’s worn it since the day we gave it to her. It’s joined with her. Like the mask. An honest error, Cain.”
“But an error nonetheless. She has forfeited the victory. And even if she had not...”
I would have won anyway. Because I would have killed her.
The sleet slows to a drizzle, and the mist on the battlefield clears, revealing the carnage. The amphitheater is strangely quiet, and I notice then that the stands are filled with students and Centurions, generals and politicians. My mother watches from the front row, unreadable, as ever. Grandfather stands a few rows behind her, his hand tight on his scim. The faces of my platoon are a blur. Who survived? Who died?
Tristas, Demetrius, Leander: dead. Cyril, Darien, Fortis: dead.
I drop to the ground beside Helene. I say her name.
I’m sorry I tried to kill you. I’m sorry I gave the order to kill your platoon. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. The words don’t come. Only her name, whispered over and over in the hopes that she will hear, that she will understand. She looks past my face into the roiling sky as if I’m not there.
“Aspirant Veturius,” Cain says. “Rise.”
Monster, murderer, devil. Dark, vile creature. I hate you. I hate you. Am I speaking to the Augur? To myself? I don’t know. But I do know that freedom isn’t worth this. Nothing is worth this.
I should have let Helene kill me.
Cain says nothing of the bedlam in my mind. Maybe, in a battlefield choked with the tormented thoughts of broken men, he cannot hear mine.
“Aspirant Veturius,” he says, “as Aquilla has forfeited, and you, of all Aspirants, have the most men left alive, we, the Augurs, name you victor in the Trial of Strength. Congratulations.”
Victor.
The word thuds to the ground like a scim falling from a dead hand.
***
Twelve men from my platoon survive. The other eighteen lie in the back room of the infirmary, cold beneath thin white sheets. Helene’s platoon fared worse, with only ten survivors. Earlier, Marcus and Zak fought each other, but no one seems to know much about that battle.
The men of the platoons knew who their enemy would be. Everyone knew what this Trial would be—everyone but the Aspirants. Faris tells me this. Or maybe Dex.
I don’t remember how I arrive at the infirmary. The place is chaos, the head physician and his apprentices overwhelmed as they try to save wounded men. They shouldn’t bother. The blows we dealt were killing blows.
The healers realize the truth soon enough. By the time night falls, the infirmary is quiet, occupied by bodies and ghosts.
Most of the survivors have left, half ghost themselves. Helene is spirited away to a private room. I wait outside her door, throwing black looks at the apprentices trying to get me to leave. I have to speak to her. I have to know if she’s all right.
“You didn’t kill her.”
Marcus. I don’t draw a weapon at the sound of his voice, though I have a dozen at hand. If Marcus decides to kill me in this moment, I won’t lift a finger to stop him. But for once, there’s no venom in him. His armor is spattered with blood and mud, like mine, but he seems different. Diminished, like something vital has been torn out of him.
“No,” I say. “I didn’t kill her.”
“She was your enemy on the battlefield. It’s not a victory until you defeat your enemy. That’s what the Augurs said. That’s what they told me. You were supposed to kill her.”
“Well, I didn’t.”
“He died so easily.” Marcus’s yellow eyes are troubled, his lack of malice so profound that I barely recognize him. I wonder if he actually sees me or if he just sees a body—someone alive, someone listening.
“The scim—it tore through him,” Marcus says. “I wanted to stop it. I tried, but it was too fast. My name was his first word, did you know? And—and his last. Just before the end, he said it. Marcus, he said.”
It dawns on me then. I haven’t seen Zak among the survivors. I haven’t heard anyone speak his name.
“You killed him,” I say softly. “You killed your brother.”
“They said I had to defeat the enemy commander.” Marcus raises his eyes to mine. He seems confused. “Everyone was dying. Our friends. He asked me to end it. To make it stop. He begged me. My brother. My little brother.”
Revulsion rises inside me like bile. I’ve spent years loathing Marcus, thinking of him as nothing more than a snake. Now I can only pity him, though neither of us deserves pity. We are murderers of our own men—of our own blood. I’m no better than he is. I watched and did nothing as Tristas died. I killed Demetrius, Ennis, Leander, and so many others. If Helene hadn’t unwittingly broken the rules of the Trial, I’d have killed her too.
The door to Helene’s room opens, and I rise, but the physician shakes his head.
“No, Veturius.” He’s pale and subdued, all his bluster gone. “She’s not ready for visitors. Go, lad. Go get some rest.”
I almost laugh. Rest.
When I turn back to Marcus, he is gone. I should find my men. Check on them. But I can’t face them. And they, I know, won’t want to see me.
We will never forgive ourselves for what we did today.
“I will see Aspirant Veturius,” a quarrelsome voice says from the hallway outside the infirmary. “That’s my grandson, and I damn well want to make sure he’s—Elias!”
Grandfather shoves past a frightened apprentice as I walk out the infirmary door, pulling me to him, his arms strong around me. “Thought you were dead, my boy,” he says into my hair. “Aquilla’s got more spit than I gave her credit for.”
“I nearly killed her. And the others. I killed them. So many. I didn’t want to. I—”