An Ember in the Ashes(115)

“She’ll be ready for Mazen’s revolution, Keenan. She’ll crush the Resistance.”
Keenan digs around in his pockets for something. “I have to get Sana out. I have to tell her about the spy. If she can get to Tariq and the other leaders in her faction, she might be able to stop them before they walk into a trap. But first—” He pulls out a small paper packet and a square of leather and hands them to me. “Acid, to break off your cuffs.” He explains how I’m to use them, making me repeat the directions twice. “No mistakes on this—there’s barely enough. It’s very hard to find.
“Lay low tonight. Tomorrow morning at fourth bell, get to the river docks. Find a galley called the Badcat. Tell them you have a shipment of gems for the jewelers of Silas. Not your name, not my name, nothing else. They’ll hide you in the hold. You’ll go upriver to Silas, about a three-week trip. I’ll meet you there. And we’ll figure out what to do about Darin.”
“He’ll die in Kauf, Keenan. He might not even survive the journey there.”
“He’ll survive. The Martials know how to keep people alive when it suits them. And prisoners are taken to Kauf to suffer, not to die. Most prisoners hold out for a few months; some hold out for years.”
Where there is life, Nan used to say, there is hope. My own hope flares, a candle in the dark. Keenan’s getting me out. He’s saving me from Blackcliff.
He’ll help me save Darin.
“My friend Izzi. She’s helped me. But the Commandant knows we talk. I have to save her. I swore to myself that I would.”
“I’m sorry, Laia. I can get you out—no one else.”
“Thank you,” I whisper. “Please, consider your debt to my father paid—”
“You think I’m doing this for him? For his memory?” Keenan leans forward, his eyes nearly black with intensity, his face so close that I can feel his breath against my cheek. “Maybe it started that way. But not now. Not anymore. You and I, Laia. We’re the same. For the first time since I can remember, I don’t feel alone. Because of you. I can’t—I can’t stop thinking about you. I’ve tried not to. I’ve tried to push you out—”
Keenan’s hand travels ever so slowly up my arms and to my face. His other hand follows the curve of my hip. He pushes my hair back, searching my face as if for something he has lost.
And then he is pressing me against the wall, his hand at the small of my back. He kisses me—a hungry kiss, unyielding in its desire. A kiss that has been stored up for days, a kiss that has been stalking me impatiently, waiting to be released.
For a moment, I stand frozen, Elias’s face and the Augur’s voice swirling in my head. Your heart wants Keenan, and yet your body is alight when Elias Veturius is near. I push the words away. I want this. I want Keenan. And he wants me back. I try to lose myself in the feel of his hand tangled with mine, in the silk of his hair between my fingers. But I keep seeing Elias in my mind, and when Keenan pulls away, I can’t meet his gaze.
“You’ll need this.” He hands me Elias’s dagger. “I’ll find you in Silas. I’ll find a way to Darin. I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”
I force myself to nod, wondering why the words bother me so. Seconds later he’s out the shed’s door, and I’m staring at the packet of acid he gave me.
My future, my freedom, all here in a little packet that will break me from these bonds.
What had this envelope cost Keenan? What had passage on the ship cost?
And once Mazen realizes he’s been betrayed by his former lieutenant? What will that cost Keenan?

He only wants to help me. Yet I take no comfort in what he said: I’ll find you in Silas. I’ll find a way to Darin. I’ll take care of everything. I promise.
Once, I’d have wanted that. I’d have wanted someone to tell me what to do, to fix everything. Once, I’d have wanted to be saved.
But what has that gotten me? Betrayal. Failure. It’s not enough to expect Keenan to have all the answers. Not when I think of Izzi, who even now might be suffering at the Commandant’s hands because she chose friendship over self-preservation. Not when I think of Elias, who gave up his own life for mine.
The shed is stifling suddenly, hot and close, and I’m across the floor and out the door. A plan forms in my head, tentative, outlandish, and mad enough that it just might work. I wind my way through the city, across Execution Square, past the docks, and down to the Weapons Quarter. To the forges.
I need to find Spiro Teluman.
XLVI: Elias
Hours pass. Or maybe days. I have no way to know. Blackcliff’s bells don’t penetrate the dungeon. I can’t even hear the drums. The granite walls of my windowless cell are a foot thick, the iron bars two inches wide.
There are no guards. There’s no need for them.
Strange, to have survived the Great Wastes, to have fought supernatural creatures, to have sunk so low as to kill my own friends, only to die now—in chains, still masked, stripped of my name, branded a traitor. Disgraced—an unwanted bastard, a failure of a grandson, a murderer. A nobody. A man whose life means nothing.
Such foolish hope, to have thought that despite being raised to violence I might one day be free of it. After years of whippings and abuse and blood, I should have known better. I should never have listened to Cain. I should have deserted Blackcliff when I had the chance. Maybe I’d have been lost and hunted, but at least Laia would be alive. At least Demetrius and Leander and Tristas would be alive.
Now it’s too late. Laia’s dead. Marcus is Emperor. Helene’s his Blood Shrike. And soon I’ll be dead. Lost as a leaf on the wind.