Be like Mother. Don’t show fear. I grab my armlet with one hand. “I didn’t do anything wrong. So you can torture me all you want, but it won’t do you any good.”
Veturius clears his throat. “That’s not why you’re here.” He is rooted to the stone floor, regarding me as if I am a puzzle.
I glare back at him. “Why did that—that red-eyed thing bring me to this cell, if I’m not to be interrogated?”
“Red-eyed thing.” He nods. “Good description.” He looks around the chamber as if seeing it for the first time. “This isn’t a cell. It’s my room.”
I eye the narrow cot, the chair, the cold hearth, the ominous black bureau, the hooks on the wall—for torture, I assumed. It’s bigger than my quarters, though just as spare. “Why am I in your room?”
The Mask goes to the bureau and rifles through it. I tense—what’s in there?
“You’re a prize,” he says. “My victory prize for winning the Third Trial.”
“A prize?” I say. “Why would I be—”
The knowledge sweeps through me suddenly, and I shake my head—as if that will make a difference. I’m keenly aware of the amount of skin showing through my ripped dress, and I try to draw the remnants of cloth together. I take a step back, straight into the chill, rough stone of the wall. It’s as far away as I can get, but it won’t be far enough. I’ve seen Veturius fight. He is too fast, too big, too strong.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He turns from the bureau, looking at me with an odd sympathy in his eyes. “That’s not how I am.” He holds out a clean, black cloak. “Take this—it’s freezing.”
I eye the cloak. I’m so cold. I’ve been cold since the Augur threw me in here hours ago. But I can’t take what Veturius offers. There’s a trick in this.
There must be. Why would I have been chosen as his prize if not for that?
After a moment, he sets the cloak on the cot. I can smell the rain on him, and something darker. Death.
Silently, he starts a fire in the hearth. His hands tremble.
“You’re shaking,” I observe.
“I’m cold.”
The wood catches, and he feeds the fire patiently, absorbed in the task.
There are two scims strapped to his back, only a few feet away. I can grab one if I’m fast enough.
Do it! Now, while he’s distracted! I lean forward, but just as I’m about to lunge, he turns. I freeze, teetering ridiculously.
“Take this instead.” Veturius takes a dagger from his boot and tosses it to me before turning back to the flames. “It’s clean, at least.”
The dagger’s warm heft is comforting in my hand, and I test the edge on my thumb. Sharp. I sink back against the wall and eye him warily.
The fire eats away at the cold in the room. When it is burning brightly, Veturius unstraps his scims and leans them against the wall, well within my reach.
“I’ll be in there.” He nods to a closed door in the corner of the room, one I’d assumed led to a torture chamber. “That cloak won’t bite, you know. You’re stuck here until dawn. Might as well make yourself comfortable.”
He opens the door and disappears into the bathing chamber beyond. A moment later, I hear water pour into a tub.
The silk of my dress steams in the heat of the fire, and with one eye on the bath door, I let its warmth seep into me. Then I consider Veturius’s cloak. My skirt is ripped to my thigh, and a sleeve of my shirt hangs by a few threads. The laces of my bodice are torn, revealing far too much of me.
I look uneasily toward the bath. He’ll finish soon.
Eventually, I pick up the cloak and wrap it around myself. It is made of thick, finely woven cloth that is softer to the touch than I expect. I recognize the smell—his smell—spice and rain. I inhale deeply before jerking my nose away as the door rattles and Veturius emerges with his bloodied armor and weapons.
He’s scrubbed the mud from his skin and changed into clean fatigues.
“You’ll get tired standing all night,” he says. “You can sit on the bed. Or take the chair.” When I don’t move, he sighs. “You don’t trust me—I get it. But if I wanted to hurt you, I’d already have done it. Please, sit down.”
“I’m keeping the knife.”
“You can have a scim too. I have a pile of weapons I never want to see again. Take them all.”
He drops into the chair and begins cleaning his greaves. I sit stiffly on his bed, ready to bring up the knife if I have to. He is close enough to touch.
He says nothing for a long time, his movements heavy and tired. Beneath the shadow of his mask, his full mouth seems harsh, his jaw unyielding. But I remember his face from the festival. It’s a handsome face, and even the mask can’t hide that. His diamond-shaped Blackcliff tattoo is a dark shadow on the back of his neck, parts of it tinged silver where the metal of his mask cleaves to his skin.
He looks up, sensing my gaze, and then glances quickly away. But not before I see telltale redness in his eyes.
An Ember in the Ashes
Sabaa Tahir's books
- Isla and the Happily Ever After
- Mortal Defiance
- Atlantia
- The Tyrant's Daughter
- Fractured (Guards of the Shadowlands, Book Two)
- In the Band by Jean Haus
- More Than This
- Sanctum (Guards of the Shadowlands, Book 1)
- The Glass Magician
- The Paper Magician
- With the Band
- Four Divergent Stories: The Transfer, The Initiate, The Son, and The Traitor (Divergent Series)
- THE HOBBIT OR THERE AND BACK AGAIN
- The Hunger Games: Official Illustrated Movie Companion
- WASTELANDS(Stories of the Apocalypse)
- An Uncertain Choice
- Panic
- The Infinite Sea
- Illustrated Theory of Everythin
- Cinderella_Ninja Warrior
- Sleeping Beauty
- The Winner's Curse
- Ink My Heart (Luminescent Juliet, Book Two)
- Catching Fire
- Mockingjay
- Sea Horses: Gathering Storm
- The Princess Bride
- Cinder & Ella
- The Princess Bride
- THE LORD OF THE RINGS
- I'll Give You the Sun
- The Truth About Alice
- The Young Elites
- The Impossible Knife of Memory
- The Truth About Alice
- Breath of Yesterday (The Curse Series)
- The Curse_Touch of Eternity (The Curse series)
- The Shadows
- Wire Mesh Mothers
- The Hunger Games
- The Giver (illustrated; gift edition)
- The Maze Runner Files (Maze Runner Trilogy)
- The One
- The Belial Stone (The Belial Series)
- All the Rage
- Love Letters to the Dead
- My Life With the Walter Boys
- The Sheikh's Last Seduction
- Gilded Ashes