An Ember in the Ashes(91)

The rest of the day is a blur of failed combat battles, curt conversations, and narrow escapes from Helene. The mist gets so thick I can barely see my hand in front of my face, making training more grueling than usual. When the curfew drums beat, all I want is sleep. I head to the barracks, dead on my feet, when Hel catches up to me.
“How was training?” She appears out of the mist silently as a wraith, and despite myself, I jump.
“Splendid,” I say darkly. Of course, it wasn’t splendid, and Helene knows it. I haven’t fought so poorly in years. What little focus I recovered during last night’s battles with Hel is gone.
“Faris said you missed scim practice this morning. Said he saw you walking to the Commandant’s house.”
“You and Faris gossip like schoolgirls.”
“Did you see the girl?”
“Cook didn’t let me in. And the girl has a name. It’s Laia.”
“Elias...it could never work out between you two.”
My answering laugh echoes weirdly in the mist. “What kind of idiot do you take me for? Of course it couldn’t work. I only wanted to find out if she was all right. So what?”
“So what?” Helene grabs my arm and yanks me to a halt. “You’re an Aspirant. You have a Trial to take tomorrow. Your life will be on the line, and instead you’re mooning over some Scholar.” My hackles rise. She senses it and takes a breath.

“All I’m saying is that there are more important things to think about. The Emperor will be here in days, and he wants us all dead. The Commandant doesn’t seem to know—or care. And I have a bad feeling about the Third Trial, Elias. We have to hope that Marcus gets eliminated. He can’t win, Elias. He can’t. If he does—”
“I know, Helene.” I’ve staked every hope I have on these damned Trials.
“Trust me, I know.” Ten hells. I liked her better when she wasn’t speaking to me.
“If you know, then why are you letting yourself get destroyed in combat?
How can you win the Trial if you don’t have the confidence to defeat someone like Zak? Don’t you understand what’s at stake?”
“Of course I do.”
“But you don’t! Look at you! You’re too befuddled by that slave-girl—”
“It’s not her that’s befuddling me, all right? It’s a million other things.
It’s—this place. And what we do here. It’s you—”
“Me?” She looks bewildered, and that makes me angrier. “What did I do—”
“You’re in love with me!” I shout at her now because I’m so angry at her for loving me, even though the logical part of me knows that I’m being cruelly unfair. “But I’m not in love with you, and you hate me for it. You’ve let that ruin our friendship.”
She just stares, the wound in her eyes raw and growing. Why did she have to fall for me? If she had controlled her emotions, we never would have fought the night of the Moon Festival. We would have spent the last ten days planning for the Third Trial instead of avoiding each other.
“You’re in love with me,” I say again. “But I could never be in love with you, Helene. Never. You’re just like every other Mask. You were willing to let Laia die just because she’s a slave—”
“I didn’t let her die.” Helene’s voice is quiet. “I went to her last night, and I healed her. That’s why she’s alive. I sang to her, sang until my voice was gone and I felt like I’d had the life sucked out of me. Sang until she was well again.”
“You healed her? But—”
“What, you don’t believe I could do something kind for another human? I’m not evil, Elias, no matter what you say.”
“I never said—”
“But you did.” Her voice rises. “You just said I’m like every other Mask.
You just said you could never—never love—” She spins away from me, but after only a few steps, turns back. Trails of mist sweep out behind her like a ghostly dress.
“You think I want to feel this way about you? I hate it, Elias. Watching you flirt with Illustrian girls and sleep with Scholar slaves and find the good in everyone—everyone—but me.” A sob escapes her—the only time I’ve ever heard her cry. She chokes it back. “Loving you is the worst thing that has ever happened to me—worse than the Commandant’s whippings, worse than the Trials. It’s torture, Elias.” She digs a shaking hand into her hair. “You don’t know what it’s like. You have no idea what I’ve given up for you, the deal I made—”
“What do you mean?” I say. “What deal? With who? For what?”
She doesn’t answer. She’s walking—running—away from me. “Helene!”
I chase after her, my fingers brushing the wetness of her face for one tantalizing second. Then the mist swallows her up, and she’s gone.
XXXVII: Laia
“Get her up, damn you.” The Commandant’s orders cut through the fog of my brain, startling me from sleep. “I didn’t pay two hundred marks so she could sleep all day.”
My mind is like tar, my body racked with dull pain, but I’m aware enough to know that if I don’t rise from this pallet, I really am dead. As I grab a cloak, Izzi pushes the curtain to my room aside.
“You’re awake,” she’s obviously relieved. “Commandant’s on the warpath.”
“What...what day is it?” I shiver—it’s cold—far colder than is normal for summer. I have a sudden fear that I’ve been unconscious for weeks, that the Trials are over, that Darin is dead.