An Ember in the Ashes

I’ve never wondered, because he’s never been anything more than a Mask.

“I’m bastard-born,” Veturius says. “The only mistake Keris Veturia has ever made. She bore me and then exposed me in the Tribal desert. It’s where she was stationed. That would have been the end of me, but a Tribal scouting party happened along. Tribesmen think baby boys are good luck, even abandoned ones. Tribe Saif adopted me, raised me as one of their own. Taught me their language and stories, dressed me in their clothes. They even gave me my name. Ilyaas. My grandfather changed it when I came to Blackcliff. Turned it into something more appropriate for a son of Gens Veturia.”
The tension between Veturius and his mother is suddenly clear. The woman never even wanted him. Her ruthlessness astounds me. I’d helped Pop bring dozens of newborns into the world. What kind of person could leave something so small, so precious to die of heat and starvation?
The same person who could carve a K into a girl for opening a letter. The same person who would dash out a five-year-old’s eye with a poker.
“What do you remember from that time?” I ask. “From when you were a child? From before Blackcliff?”
Veturius frowns and puts a hand to his temple. The mask shimmers strangely at his touch, like a pool rippling beneath a drop of rain.
“I remember everything. The caravan was like a small city—Tribe Saif is dozens of families strong. I was fostered by the tribe’s Kehanni, Mamie Rila.”
He speaks for a long time, and his words weave a life before my eyes, the life of a dark-haired, curious-eyed child who snuck out from lessons so he could go adventuring, who waited eagerly at the edge of camp for the men of the Tribe to return from their merchant forays. A boy who scrapped with his foster brother one minute and laughed with him the next. A child without fear, until the Augurs came for him and plunged him into a world ruled by it. But for the Augurs, it could be Darin he is speaking of. It could be me.
When he falls silent, it’s as if a warm, gold haze has been lifted from the room. He has a Kehanni’s skill at storytelling. I look up at him, surprised to see not the boy but the man he has become. Mask. Aspirant. Enemy.
“I’ve bored you,” he says.
“No. Not at all. You—you were like me. You were a child. A normal child. And that was taken from you.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Well, it certainly makes you harder to hate.”
“Seeing the enemy as a human. A general’s ultimate nightmare.”
“The Augurs brought you to Blackcliff. How did it happen?”
This time, his pause is longer, heavy with the taint of a memory better forgotten.
“It was autumn—the Augurs always bring a new crop of Yearlings in when the desert winds are at their worst. The night they came to the Saif encampment, the Tribe was happy. Our chief had just returned from a successful trade, and we had new clothes and shoes—even books. The cooks slaughtered two goats and spit-roasted them. The drums beat, the girls sang, and stories poured from Mamie Rila for hours.
“We celebrated into the night, but finally, everyone slept. Everyone but me. I’d had this strange sense for hours—that some darkness was closing in. I saw shadows outside the wagon, shadows circling the camp. I climbed out of the wagon and saw this...this man. Black clothing and red eyes and skin without any color at all. An Augur. He said my name. I remember thinking he must be part-reptile, because his voice came out of him like a hiss. And that was it. I was chained to the Empire. I was chosen.”
“Were you afraid?”
“Terrified. I knew he was there to take me away. And I didn’t know where, or why. They brought me to Blackcliff. Cut off my hair, took my clothes, and put me in a pen outside with the others for a culling. Soldiers threw us moldy bread and jerky once a day, but back then, I wasn’t very big, so I never got much. Midway through the third day, I was sure I would die. So I snuck out of the pen and stole food from the guards. I shared it with my lookout. Well...” He looks up, considering. “I say share, but really, she ate most of it. Anyway, after seven days, the Augurs opened the pen, and those of us still alive were told that if we fought hard, we would be the guardians of the Empire, and if we didn’t, we’d be dead.”
I can see it. The small bodies of those left behind. The fear in the eyes of those who lived. Veturius as a boy, afraid and starved, determined not to die.
“You survived.”
“I wish I hadn’t. If you’d seen the Third Trial—if you knew what I did...” He polishes the same spot on one of the scims over and over.
“What happened?” I ask softly. He is silent for so long that I think I’ve angered him, that I’ve crossed a line. Then he tells me. He pauses frequently, and his voice goes from broken to flat. He keeps working on the scim, shining it, then sharpening it with a whetstone until it gleams.