An Ember in the Ashes (23 page)

M
y sleep is fitful and scanty, haunted by the Commandant’s threat.
Time enough for that yet.
When I wake before dawn, scraps of nightmare stay with me: my face carved and branded; my brother hanging from the gallows, fair hair fluttering in the wind.

Think of something else.
I close my eyes and see Keenan, remembering how he asked me to dance, so shy and unlike himself. That fire in his eyes as he spun me around—I thought it must mean something. But he left so abruptly. Is he all right? Did he escape the raid? Did he hear Veturius shout out the warning?

Veturius.
I hear his laugh and smell the spice of his body, and I have to force those sensations away and replace them with the truth. He’s a Mask. He’s the enemy.

Why did he help me? He risked imprisonment by doing so—worse than that, if rumors about the Black Guard and their purges are true. I can’t believe he did it solely for my benefit. A lark, then? Some sick Martial game I don’t yet understand?

Don’t stick around to find out, Laia
,
Darin whispers in my head.
Get me out of here.

Footsteps shuffle in the kitchen—Cook making breakfast. If the old woman is up, Izzi won’t be far behind. I dress quickly, hoping to get to her before Cook sets us to our daily drudgery. Izzi will know of a secret entrance to the school.

But Izzi, it turns out, left early on an errand for Cook.

“She won’t be back until noon,” Cook informs me. “Not that it’s your
concern.” The old woman points to a black folio on the table. “Commandant says you’re to take that folio to Spiro Teluman first thing, before attending to your other duties.”

I stifle a groan. I’ll just have to wait to talk to Izzi.

When I get to Teluman’s shop, I’m surprised to see the door open, the forge fire burning. Sweat streams down the smith’s face and into his burn-scarred jerkin as he hammers at a glowing chunk of steel. Beside him stands a Tribal girl clad in sheer, rose-colored robes, their hems embroidered with tiny round mirrors. The girl is murmuring something I can’t hear over the ringing of the hammer. Teluman nods a greeting at me but continues his conversation with the girl.

As I watch them speak, I realize she’s older than I first thought, perhaps in her midtwenties. Her silky black hair, shot through with fiery red, is woven into thin, intricate braids, and her dainty face is vaguely familiar. Then I recognize her: She danced with Veturius at the Moon Festival.

She shakes Teluman’s hand, offers him a sack of coins, and then makes her way out the forge’s back door with an appraising glance in my direction. Her eyes linger on my slaves’ cuffs, and I look away.

“Her name’s Afya Ara-Nur,” Spiro Teluman says when the woman is gone. “She’s the only female chieftain among the Tribes. One of the most dangerous women you’ll ever meet. Also one of the cleverest. Her tribe carries weapons to the Marinn branch of the Scholars’ Resistance.”

“Why are you telling me this?” What’s wrong with him? That’s the type of knowledge that will get me killed.

Spiro shrugs. “Your brother made most of the weapons she’s taking. I thought you’d want to know where they’re going.”

“No, I
don’t
want to know.” Why doesn’t he understand? “I want nothing
to do with . . . whatever it is you’re doing. All I want is for things to go back to the way they were. Before you made my brother your apprentice. Before the Empire took him because of it.”

“You might as well wish away that scar.” Teluman nods to where my cloak has fallen open, revealing the Commandant’s
K
. Hastily, I pull the garment closed.

“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.

“It’s not just that,” he says. “I can’t confirm it, but I think he’s planning something else. Something big. Something that doesn’t involve Darin. But how can we save Darin and take on another mission? We don’t have enough men.”

“Ask him,” I say. “You’re his second. He trusts you.”

“Ah.” Keenan grimaces. “Not exactly.”

Has he fallen out of favor? I don’t get a chance to ask. Ahead of us, the caravan lurches out of the way, and the pent-up crowd surges forward. In the
crush, my cloak rips free. Keenan’s eyes drop to the scar. It’s so prominent, so red and hideous, I think miserably. How could he not
look?

“Ten bleeding hells. What happened?”

“The Commandant punished me. A few days ago.”

“I didn’t know, Laia.” All his aloofness dissolves as he stares at the scar. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have cared?” His eyes jerk to mine, surprised. “Anyway, it’s nothing compared to what it could have been. She took Izzi’s eye. And you should see what she did to Cook. Her entire face . . . ” I shudder. “I know it’s ugly . . . horrible—”

“No.” He says the word like it’s an order. “Don’t think that. It means you survived her. It means you’re brave.”

The crowd moves around me, past me. People elbow and mutter at us. But then it all fades, because Keenan has taken my hand and is looking from my eyes to my lips and back up in a way that needs no translation. I notice a freckle, perfect and round, at the corner of his mouth. A slow warmth uncurls low in my body as he pulls me to him.

Then a leather-clad Mariner shoves past, breaking us apart, and Keenan’s mouth twitches in a brief, rueful smile. He squeezes my hand once. “I’ll see you soon.”

He melts into the crowd, and I hurry back toward Blackcliff. If Izzi knows of an entrance, I still have time to see it for myself and head back here to pass along the information. The Resistance can get Darin out, and I’ll be done with all of this. No more scars or whippings. No more terror and fear.
And maybe
,
a quiet part of me whispers,
I’ll get more than just a few moments with Keenan.

I find Izzi in the back courtyard, scrubbing sheets beside the water pump.

“I only know of the hidden trail, Laia,” Izzi says to my question. “And even that’s not secret. Just so dangerous that most people don’t use it.”

I vigorously crank water from the pump, using the squeal of metal to drown out our voices. Izzi’s mistaken. She has to be. “What about the tunnels? Or . . . do you think one of the other slaves will know something?”

“You saw how it was last night. We only got through the tunnels because of Veturius. As for the other slaves, it’s risky. Some of them spy for the Commandant.”

No—no—no.
What just minutes ago seemed like a wealth of time—eight whole days—is no time at all. Izzi hands me a freshly washed sheet, and I hang it on the line with impatient hands. “A map, then. There must be a map to this place somewhere.”

At this, Izzi brightens. “Maybe,” she says. “In the Commandant’s office—”

“The only place you’ll find a map of Blackcliff,” a raspy voice intrudes, “is in the Commandant’s head. And I don’t think you want to go rummaging around in there.”

I gape like a fish as Cook, as silent-footed as her mistress, materializes from behind the sheet I’ve just hung up.

Izzi jumps at Cook’s sudden appearance, but then, to my shock, she stands and crosses her arms. “There must be something,” she says to the old woman. “How’d she get the map in her head? She must have a point of reference.”

“When she became Commandant,” Cook says, “the Augurs gave her a map to memorize and burn. That’s how it’s always been done at Blackcliff.” At the surprise on my face, she snorts. “When I was younger and even stupider than you, I kept my eyes and ears open. Now my head’s filled with useless knowledge that does no one any good.”

“But it’s not useless,” I say. “You must know of a secret way into the school—”

“I don’t.” The scars on Cook’s face are livid against her skin. “And if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“My brother’s in Central’s death cells. He’s going to be executed in days, and if I don’t find a secret way into Blackcliff—”

“Let me ask you a question, girl,” Cook says. “It’s the Resistance who says your brother’s in prison, the Resistance who says he’s going to be executed, right? But how do they
know
?
And how do
you
know they’re telling the truth? Your brother might be dead. Even if he is in Central’s death cells, the Resistance will never get him out. A blind, deaf stone could tell you that.”

“If he was dead, they’d have told me.” Why can’t she just help me? “I trust them, all right? I
have
to trust them. Besides, Mazen says he has a plan—”

“Bah.” Cook sneers. “The next time you see this Mazen, you ask him where, exactly, your brother is in Central. What cell? You ask him how he knows and who his spies are. Ask him how having an entrance to Blackcliff will help him break into the most fortified prison in the south. After he answers, we’ll see if you still trust the bastard.”