An Ember in the Ashes(14)

“Tristas, you’re an idiot.”
“But the Augurs say—”
I snort quietly, and Helene gives me a sharp look. Keep your doubts to yourself, Elias. I busy myself with piling food on two plates and shove one toward her. “Here,” I say. “Have some slop.”
“What is it, anyway?” Hel pokes at the mash and takes a tentative sniff.
“Cow dung?”
“No whining,” Faris says through a mouthful of food. “Pity the Fivers.
They have to come back to this after four years of happily robbing farmhouses.”
“Pity the Yearlings,” Demetrius counters. “Can you imagine another twelve years? Thirteen?”
Across the hall, most of the Yearlings smile and laugh like everyone else.
But some watch us, the way starving foxes might watch a lion—hungry for what we have.
I imagine half of them gone, half the laughter silenced, half the bodies cold. For that is what will happen in the years of deprivation and torment ahead of them. And they will face it either by living or dying, either by questioning or accepting. The ones who question are usually the ones who die.
“They don’t seem to care much about Barrius.” The words are out of my mouth before I can help myself. Beside me, Helene’s body stiffens like water freezing into ice. Dex frowns in disapproval, a comment dying on his lips, and silence falls across our table.
“Why would they be upset?” Marcus, sitting one table away with Zak and a knot of cronies, speaks up. “That scum got what he deserved. I only wished he’d lasted longer so he could have suffered more.”
“No one asked what you think, Snake,” Helene says. “Anyway, kid’s dead now.”
“Lucky him.” Faris picks up a forkful of food and lets it plop unappetizingly back onto his steel plate. “At least he doesn’t have to eat this swill anymore.”
A low chuckle runs up and down the table, and conversation picks up again. But Marcus smells blood, and his malevolence taints the air. Zak turns his gaze to Helene and mutters something to his brother. Marcus ignores him, fixing his hyena eyes on me. “You were damn broken up over that traitor this morning, Veturius. Was he a friend?”
“Piss off, Marcus.”
“Been spending a lot of time down in the catacombs too.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Helene’s hand is on her weapon, and Faris grabs her arm.
Marcus ignores her. “You gonna do a runner, Veturius?”
My head comes up slowly. It’s a guess. He’s guessing. There’s no way he could know. I’ve been careful, and careful at Blackcliff translates to paranoid for most people.
Silence falls at my table, at Marcus’s. Deny it, Elias. They’re waiting.
“You were squad leader on watch this morning, weren’t you?” Marcus says. “You should have been thrilled to see that traitor go down. You should have brought him in. Say he deserved it, Veturius. Say Barrius deserved what he got.”
It should be easy. I don’t believe it, and that’s what matters. But my mouth won’t move. The words won’t come. Barrius didn’t deserve to be whipped to death. He was a child, a boy so afraid of staying at Blackcliff that he’d risked everything to escape it.
The silence spreads. A few Centurions look up from the head table.
Marcus stands, and, quick as a flood, the mood of the hall changes, turning curious and expectant.
Son of a whore.
“Is this why your mask hasn’t joined with you?” Marcus says. “Because you’re not one of us? Say it, Veturius. Say the traitor deserved his fate.”
“Elias,” Helene whispers. Her eyes plead. Fall in. Just for one more day.
“He—” Say it, Elias. Doesn’t change anything if you do. “He deserved it.”
I meet Marcus’s eyes coolly, and he grins, like he knows how much the words cost.

“Was that so hard, bastard?”
I’m relieved when he insults me. It gives me the excuse I’ve wanted so badly. I spring toward him fists-first.
But my friends are expecting it. Faris, Demetrius, and Helene are on their feet, holding me back, an irritating wall of black and blond keeping me from beating that damn grin off Marcus’s face.
“No, Elias,” Helene says. “The Commandant will whip you for starting a fight. Marcus isn’t worth that.”
“He’s a bastard—”
“That’d be you, actually,” Marcus says. “At least I know who my father is. I wasn’t raised by a pack of camel-stroking Tribesmen.”
“You Plebeian trash—”
“Senior Skulls.” The Scim Centurion has made his way to the foot of the table. “Is there a problem?”
“No, sir,” Helene says. “Go, Elias,” she murmurs. “Go get some air. I’ll handle this.”
My blood still burning, I shove through the mess doors and find myself in the belltower courtyard before I even know where I’m going.
How the hell did Marcus figure out that I’m going to desert? How much does he know? Not too much, or I’d have been called to the Commandant’s office by now. Damn him, I’m close. So close.
I pace the courtyard, trying to calm myself. The desert heat has faded, and a crescent moon hangs low on the horizon, thin and red as a cannibal’s smile. Through the arches, Serra’s lights glow dully, tens of thousands of oil lamps dwarfed by the vast darkness of the surrounding desert. To the south, a pall of smoke mutes the shine of the river. The smell of steel and forge wafts past, ever-present in a city known solely for its soldiers and weaponry.