An Ember in the Ashes(109)

“The Commandant’s late.” Hel nods to my mother’s empty seat.
“Wrong, Aquilla,” Marcus says. “She’s right on time.” As he speaks, my mother walks through the gates of the amphitheater. The fourteenth Augur follows her, managing, despite her seeming frailty, to pull a bound and gagged girl behind her. I see a mane of heavy black hair come loose, and my heart seizes—it’s Laia. What’s she doing here? Why is she tied up?
The Commandant takes her seat while the Augur deposits Laia on the dais beside Cain. The slave-girl tries to speak through her gag, but it’s knotted too tightly.
“Aspirants.” As soon as Cain speaks, the stadium falls silent. A flock of seabirds wheels overhead, screeching. Down in the city, a merchant peddles his wares, the singsong strains of his voice reaching even here.
“The final Trial is the Trial of Loyalty. The Empire has decreed that this slave-girl is to die.” Cain gestures to Laia, and my stomach drops as if I’ve jumped from a great height. No. She’s innocent. She’s done nothing wrong.
Laia’s eyes go wide. She tries to back away on her knees. The same Augur who delivered her to the dais kneels behind her and holds her still with an iron grip, like a butcher holding a lamb for slaughter.
“When I tell you to proceed,” Cain goes on calmly, as if he’s not talking about the death of a seventeen-year-old girl, “you will all simultaneously attempt to execute her. Whoever carries out the order will be declared victor of the Trial.”
“This is wrong, Cain,” I burst out. “The Empire has no reason to kill her.”
“Reason does not matter, Aspirant Veturius. Only loyalty. If you defy the order, you fail the Trial. The punishment for failure is death.”
I think of the nightmare battlefield, and my blood goes leaden at the memory. Leander, Demetrius, Ennis—they had all been on that field. I’d killed them all.
Laia had been there too, throat cut, eyes dim, hair a sodden cloud around her head.
But I haven’t done it yet, I think desperately. I haven’t killed her.
The Augur looks at each of us in turn before taking a scim from the legionnaires—one of mine—and laying it on the dais equidistant from Marcus, Helene, and me.
“Proceed.”
My body knows what to do before my mind, and I dive in front of Laia.
If I can place myself between her and the others, she might have a chance.
Because I don’t care what I saw on that nightmare battlefield. I won’t kill her. And I won’t let anyone else kill her either.
I get to her before Helene or Marcus and spin into a crouch, expecting an attack from one or both of them. But instead of coming for Laia, Helene leaps for Marcus, knocking her fist against his temple. He drops like a stone, clearly not expecting her attack, and she shoves him off the dais, then kicks my scim toward me.
“Do it, Elias!” she says. “Before Marcus comes to!”
Then she sees that I’m guarding the girl instead of killing her, and she makes a strange, choked sound. The crowd is silent, holding its breath.
“Don’t do this, Elias,” she says. “Not now. We’re almost there. You’ll be Emperor. Foretold. Please, Elias, think of what you could do for—for the Empire—”
“I told you there’s a line I’m not crossing.” I feel strangely calm as I say it, calmer than I’ve felt in weeks. Laia’s eyes shift from Helene to me rapidly.
“This is that line. I won’t kill her.”
Helene picks up the scim. “Then step aside,” she says. “I’ll do it. I’ll make it quick.” She moves toward me slowly, her eyes never leaving my face.
“Elias,” she says. “She’s going to die no matter what you do. The Empire’s decreed it. If you or I don’t do it, Marcus will—he’ll wake up eventually. We can end this before he does. If she has to die, at least something good will come of it. I’ll be Empress. You’ll be Blood Shrike.” She takes another step.

“I know you don’t want rulership,” she says softly. “Or lordship over the Black Guard. I didn’t understand before. But I—I do now. So if you let me take care of this, I vow, by blood and by bone, that the second I’m named Empress, I’ll release you from your oaths to the Empire. You can go wherever you want. Do whatever you want. You’ll be beholden to no one. You’ll be free.”
I’ve been watching her body, waiting for her muscles to tense in preparation for the attack, but now my eyes snap to hers. You’ll be free. The only thing I’ve ever wanted and she’s handing it to me on a silver platter with a vow I know she’d never break.
For a brief, terrible moment, I consider it. I want it more than anything I’ve wanted in my life. I see myself sailing out of port at Navium, leaving for the southern kingdoms, where no one and nothing have a claim over my body or my soul.
Well, my body, anyway. Because if I allow Helene to kill Laia, I won’t have a soul.
“If you want to kill her,” I say to Helene, “you’ll have to kill me first.”
A tear snakes down her face, and for a second, I see through her eyes. She wants this so badly, and it’s no enemy keeping it from her. It’s me.
We are everything to each other. And I’m betraying her. Again.
Then I hear a thud—the unmistakable sound of steel sinking into flesh.
Behind me, Laia pitches forward so suddenly that the Augur falls with her, her hands still pinning the girl’s limp arms. Laia’s hair is a storm around her, but I can’t see her face, her eyes.