An Ember in the Ashes(41)

“I want to succeed more than anyone, but I can’t get into her office. She never has visitors, so I can’t eavesdrop on her—”
Mazen holds up a hand to stop me. “What do you know, exactly?”
For one frantic moment I consider lying. I’ve read a hundred tales of heroes and the trials they face—what harm if I invent one and pass it off as truth? But I can’t bring myself to do it. Not when the Resistance is placing their trust in me.
“I...nothing.” I stare at the floor, ashamed at the incredulity on Mazen’s face. I reach for the letter but don’t pull it out. Too risky. Maybe he’ll give you another chance, Laia. Maybe you can try again.
“What, exactly, have you been doing all this time?”
“Surviving, from the looks of it,” Keenan says. His dark eyes flash to mine, and I can’t tell if he’s defending or insulting me.
“I was loyal to the Lioness,” Mazen says. “But I can’t waste my time helping someone who won’t help me.”
“Mazen, for skies’ sake,” Sana sounds aghast. “Look at the poor girl—”
“Yes.” Mazen eyes the bruises on my neck. “Look at her. She’s a mess. The mission’s too difficult. I made a mistake, Laia. I thought you’d take risks. I thought you were more like your mother.”
The insult levels me faster than a blow from the Commandant. Of course he’s right. I’m nothing like my mother. She’d have never been in this position to begin with.
“We’ll see about getting you out.” Mazen shrugs and stands. “We’re done here.”
“Wait...” Mazen can’t abandon me now. Darin is lost if he does. Reluctantly, I take out the Commandant’s letter. “I have this. It’s from the Commandant to the Emperor. I thought you could look at it.”
“Why didn’t you say that to begin with?” He takes the envelope, and I want to tell him to be careful. But Sana beats me to it, and Mazen gives her a brief, annoyed look before gently lifting the seal.
Seconds later, my heart sinks again. Mazen tosses the letter to the table.
“Useless,” he says. “Look.”
Your Imperial Majesty,
I will make the arrangements.
Ever your servant,
Commandant Keris Veturia
“Don’t give up on me,” I say when Mazen shakes his head in disgust. “Darin doesn’t have anyone else. You were close to my parents. Think of them—please. They wouldn’t want their only son to die because you refused to help.”
“I’m trying to help.” Mazen is unrelenting, and something about the set of his shoulders and the iron in his eyes reminds me of my mother. I understand now why he’s leader of the Resistance. “But you have to help me. This rescue mission will cost more than just lives. We’ll be putting the Resistance itself on the line. If our fighters are caught, we risk them giving up information under interrogation. I’m gambling everything to help you, Laia.” He crosses his arms. “Make it worth my while.”
“I will. I promise I will. One more chance.”
He stares stonily at me for a moment longer before looking to Sana, who nods, and Keenan, who offers a shrug that could mean any number of things.
“One chance,” Mazen says. “Fail me again and we’re done. Keenan, see her out.”
XVI: Elias, SEVEN DAYS EARLIER
The Great Wastes. That’s where the Augurs have left me, in this salt-white flatness that stretches for hundreds of miles, marked by nothing but angry black cracks and the occasional gnarled Jack tree.
The pale outline of the moon sits above me like something forgotten. It’s more than half-full, as it had been yesterday—which means that somehow the Augurs have moved me three hundred miles from Serra in one night. At this time yesterday, I was in Grandfather’s carriage, on my way to Blackcliff.
My dagger is driven through a limp piece of parchment and into the scorched ground beside the tree. I tuck the weapon into my belt—it’s the difference between life and death out here. The parchment is written in an unfamiliar hand.

The Trial of Courage
The belltower. Sunset on the seventh day.
That’s clear enough. If today counts as the first day, I have six full days to reach the belltower or the Augurs will kill me for failing the Trial.
The air’s so dry that breathing burns my nostrils. I lick my lips, already thirsty, and hunch beneath the paltry shade of the Jack tree to consider my predicament.
The stink in the air tells me that the glittering patch of blue to the west of me is Lake Vitan. Its sulfurous stench is legendary, and it’s the only source of water in this wasteland. It’s also pure salt and so completely useless to me. In any case, my path lies east through the Serran Mountain Range.
Two days to get to the mountains. Two more to get to Walker’s Gap, the only way through. A day to get through the Gap and a day to get down to Serra. Six full days exactly, if everything goes as planned.
It’s too easy.
I think back to the foretelling I read in the Commandant’s office. Courage to face their darkest fears. Some people might fear the desert. I’m not one of them.
Which means there’s something else out here. Something that hasn’t revealed itself.
I tear strips of cloth off my shirt and wrap my feet. I have only what I fell asleep with—my fatigues and my dagger. I’m suddenly, fervently grateful that I was too exhausted from combat training to strip before sleeping. Traveling the Great Wastes naked—that would be its own special sort of hell.
Soon the sun sinks into the wild sky of the west, and I stand in the rapidly cooling air. Time to run. I set out at a steady jog, my eyes roving ahead. After a mile, a breeze meanders past, and for a second, I think I smell smoke and death. The smell fades, but it leaves me uneasy.