An Ember in the Ashes (Ember Quartet #1)(115)

“But you can’t mean—”

“I will keep my vows, Aspirant Aquilla. Will you keep yours?”

She eyes the Augur as one would a traitorous lover, taking the scim when he offers it. “I will.”

“Then kneel now and swear fealty, for we, the Augurs, name Marcus Antonius Farrar Emperor, he who was Foretold, High Commander of the Martial Army, Imperator Invictus, Overlord of the Realm. And you, Aspirant Aquilla, are named his Blood Shrike, his second-in-command, and the sword that executes his will. Your allegiance cannot be broken, unless by death. Swear it.”

“No!” I roar. “Helene, don’t do it!”

She turns to me, and the look in her eyes is a knife twisting inside me. You chose, Elias, her pale eyes say. You chose her.

“Tomorrow,” Cain says, “after Veturius’s execution, we will crown the Foretold.” He looks at the Snake. “The Empire is yours, Marcus.”

Marcus glances over his shoulder with a smile, and I realize with a jolt that it’s something I’ve seen him do hundreds of times. It’s the look he would throw his brother when he’d insulted an enemy, or won a battle, or otherwise wished to gloat. But his smile fades. Because Zak’s not there.

His face goes blank, and he looks down at Helene without conceit or triumph. His utter lack of feeling chills my blood.

“Your fealty, Aquilla,” he says flatly. “I’m waiting.”

“Cain,” I say. “He’s not fit. You know he’s not. He’s mad. He’ll destroy the Empire.”

No one hears me. Not Cain. Not Helene. Not even Marcus.

When Helene speaks, she is everything a Mask should be: calm, collected, impassive.

“I swear fealty to Marcus Antonius Farrar,” she says. “Emperor, he who was Foretold, High Commander of the Martial Army, Imperator Invictus, Overlord of the Realm. I will be his Blood Shrike, his second-in-command, the sword that executes his will, until death. I swear it.”

Then she bows her head and offers the Snake her sword.





PART III


   BODY AND SOUL





XLV: Laia


“If you wish to live, girl, then let them think you dead.”

Above the sudden din of the crowd, I barely hear the Augur’s panting whisper. Mystified by the fact that a Martial holy woman wants, for some reason, to help me, I’m stunned into silence. As her weight crushes me to the dais, the dagger Marcus has flung into her side is jarred loose. Blood seeps across the platform, and I shudder, chillingly reminded of how Nan died, in a pool of blood just like this one.

“Don’t move,” the Augur says. “No matter what happens.”

I do what she says, even as Elias shouts my name and tries to pull her off me. The messenger announces the Emperor’s assassination; Elias is sentenced to death and chained. Throughout, I remain still. But when the Augur named Cain announces the coronation, I stifle a gasp. After the coronation, the death cell prisoners will be executed—which means that unless the Resistance gets him out of prison, Darin will die tomorrow.

Or will he? Mazen says Darin’s in Bekkar’s death cells. Elias says Bekkar doesn’t have death cells.

I want to scream with frustration. I need clarity. The only one who can give it to me is Mazen, and the only way I’m going to find him is if I get out of here. But I can’t exactly stand up and stroll out. Everyone thinks I’m dead. Even if I could leave, Elias just sacrificed his life for mine. I can’t abandon him.

I lay uselessly, unsure of what to do, when the Augur decides for me. “You move now, you die,” she warns, pulling herself off me. When all eyes are on the tableaux beside us, she lifts me up and staggers toward the amphitheater door.

Dead. Dead. I can practically hear the woman in my head. Pretend you’re dead. My limbs flop, and my head lolls. I keep my eyes closed, but when the Augur misses a step and nearly falls, they fly open of their own accord. No one notices, but for a brief moment, as Aquilla swears her fealty, I catch a glimpse of Elias’s face. And though I’ve seen my brother taken and my grandparents killed, though I’ve suffered beatings and scarrings and visited the night shores of Death’s realm, I know I’ve never felt the type of desolation and hopelessness I see in Elias’s eyes at that moment.

The Augur rights herself. Two of her fellows close around her, the way brothers flank a little sister in a rough crowd. Her blood soaks my clothes, blending into the black silk. She’s lost so much that I don’t understand how she can muster the strength to walk.

“Augurs cannot die,” she says through gritted teeth. “But we can bleed.”

We reach the amphitheater gates, and once through, the woman sets me on my feet in an alcove. I expect her to explain why she chose to take that dagger for me, but she just limps away, her brethren supporting her.

I look back through the amphitheater gates to where Elias kneels, chained. My head tells me I can do nothing for him, that if I try to help him, I’ll die. But I can’t bring myself to walk away.

“You are unhurt.” Cain has slipped away from the still-packed amphitheater, unnoticed by the jabbering crowd. “Good. Follow me.” He catches the look I cast at Elias and shakes his head.

“He is beyond your aid right now,” Cain says. “He has sealed his fate.”