An Ember in the Ashes(11)

“Not our problem.”
Sana doesn’t move, and Keenan shoves the torch into her hands. When he takes me by the arm, Sana gets between us. “We need silver, yes,” she says.
“But not from our own people. Leave her.”
The unmistakable, clipped cadence of Martial voices carries down the tunnel. They haven’t seen the torchlight yet, but they will in just a few seconds.
“Damn it, Sana.” Keenan tries to go around the woman, but she shoves him away with surprising force, and her hood falls back. As the torchlight illuminates her face, I gasp. Not because she’s older than I thought or because of her fierce animosity, but because on her neck, I see a tattoo of a closed fist raised high with a flame behind it. Beneath it, the word Izzat.
“You—you’re—” I can’t get the words out. Keenan’s eyes fall on the tattoo, and he swears.
“Now you’ve done it,” he says to Sana. “We can’t leave her. If she tells them she saw us, they’ll flood these tunnels until they find us.”
He puts out the torch with brute swiftness and grabs my arm, pulling me after him. When I stumble into his hard back, he jerks his head around, and for a second, I catch the angry shine of his eyes. His scent, sharp and smoky, wafts over me.
“I’m sorr—”
“Keep quiet and watch your step.” He’s closer than I realized, his breath warm against my ear. “Or I’ll knock you senseless and leave you in one of the crypts. Now move.” I bite my lip and follow, trying to ignore his threat and instead focus on Sana’s tattoo.
Izzat. It’s Old Rei, the language spoken by Scholars before the Martials invaded and forced everyone to speak Serran. Izzat means many things.
Strength, honor, pride. But in the past century, it’s come to mean something specific: freedom.
This is no band of thieves. It’s the Resistance.
VI: Elias
Barrius’s screams blister my brain for hours. I see his body fall, hear the rasp of his last breath, smell the taint of his blood on the flagstones.
Student deaths don’t usually hit me this way. They shouldn’t—the Reaper’s an old friend. He’s walked with all of us at Blackcliff at some point. But watching Barrius die was different. For the rest of the day, I’m short-tempered and distracted.
My odd mood doesn’t go unnoticed. As I trudge to combat training with a group of other Senior Skulls, I realize Faris has just asked me a question for a third time.
“You look like your favorite whore’s caught the pox,” he says when I mutter an apology. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” I realize too late how angry I sound, how unlike a Skull on the verge of Maskhood. I should be excited—bursting with anticipation.
Faris and Dex trade a skeptical glance, and I stifle a curse.

“You sure?” Dex asks. He’s a rule-follower, Dex. Always has been. Every time he looks at me, I know he’s wondering why my mask hasn’t joined with me yet. Piss off, I want to say to him. Then I remind myself that he’s not prying. He’s my friend, and he’s genuinely worried. “This morning,” he says, “at the whipping, you were—”
“Hey, leave the poor man be.” Helene strolls up behind us, flashing a smile at Dex and Faris and throwing a careless arm around my shoulders as we enter the armory. She nods at a rack of scims. “Go on, Elias, pick your weapon. I challenge you, best of three.”
She turns to the others and murmurs something as I walk away. I lift a blunted practice scim, checking its balance. A moment later, I feel her cool presence beside me.
“What did you tell them?” I ask her.
“That your grandfather’s been hounding you.”
I nod. The best lies come from the truth. Grandfather is a Mask, and like most Masks, he’s never satisfied with anything less than perfection.
“Thanks, Hel.”
“You’re welcome. Repay me by pulling yourself together.” She crosses her arms at my frown. “Dex is your platoon lieutenant, and you didn’t commend him after he caught a deserter. He noticed. Your entire platoon noticed. And at the whipping, you weren’t...with us.”
“If you’re saying that I wasn’t baying for the blood of a ten-year-old, you’d be right.”
Her eyes tighten, enough for me to know that some part of her sympathizes with me, even if she’ll never admit it.
“Marcus saw you stay behind after the whipping. He and Zak are telling everyone that you thought the punishment was too harsh.”
I shrug. As if I care what the Snake and Toad say about me.
“Don’t be an idiot. Marcus would love to sabotage the heir to Gens Veturia a day before graduation.” She refers to my familial house, one of the oldest and most respected in the Empire, by its formal title. “He’s all but accusing you of sedition.”
“He accuses me of sedition every other week.”
“But this time, you did something to earn it.”
My eyes jerk to hers, and for one tense moment, I think she knows everything. But there’s no anger or judgment in her expression. Only concern.
She counts off my sins on her fingers. “You’re squad leader of the platoon on watch, yet you don’t bring Barrius in yourself. Your lieutenant does it for you, and you don’t commend him. You barely contain your disapproval when the deserter’s punished. Not to mention the fact that it’s the day before graduation, and your mask has only just begun to meld with you.”
She waits for a response, and when I give none, she sighs.