An Ember in the Ashes (Ember Quartet #1)(71)

A friend. She’s about to say it, but she looks away, embarrassed.

“I’m to meet with my handler, Izzi. If you come and the Commandant catches you—”

“She’ll punish me. Maybe kill me. I know. But she might do that anyway if I forget to dust her room or if I look her in the eye. Living with the Commandant is like living with the Reaper. And anyway, do you really have a choice? I mean”—she looks almost apologetic— “how else are you planning to get out of here?”

Good point. I don’t want her to get hurt. I lost Zara to the Martials a year ago. I can’t bear the thought of another friend suffering at their hands.

But I don’t want Darin to die either. Every second I waste is a second he is rotting in prison. And it’s not as if I’m forcing her into this. Izzi wants to help. A host of what-ifs parade through my head. I silence them. For Darin.

“All right,” I say to Izzi. “This hidden trail—where does it let out?”

“The docks. Is that where you’re going?”

I shake my head. “I have to get into the Scholars’ Quarter for the Moon Festival. But I can make my way there from the docks.”

Izzi nods. “This way, Laia.”

Please don’t let her get hurt. She ducks into her room for a cloak, then takes my hand and pulls me to the back of the house.





XXVI: Elias


Though the physician excused me from training and watch, my mother doesn’t seem to care. Her note to me is an order to report to training field two for hand-to-hand combat. I pocket the bloodroot serum—it will have to wait—and spend the next two hours attempting to keep the Combat Centurion from beating me to a pulp.

By the time I change into fresh fatigues and leave the training field, tenth bell’s come and gone, and I have a party to go to. The boys—and Helene—will be waiting. I shove my hands in my pockets as I walk. I hope Hel loosens up a little—at least enough to forget that she was so irritated with me earlier. If I want her to set me free from the Empire, making sure she doesn’t hate me seems like a good first step.

My fingers brush up against the bottle of bloodroot in my pocket. You told Laia you’d take it to her, Elias, a voice chides me. Days ago.

But I also said I’d join Hel and the boys in the barracks. Hel’s already mad at me. If she finds out I’m visiting Scholar slave-girls in the dead of night, she won’t be pleased.

I stop and consider. If I’m quick about it, Hel will never know where I’ve been.

The Commandant’s house is dark, but I stick to the shadows anyway. The slaves might be in bed, but if my mother’s asleep, then I’m a swamp jinn. I prowl around to the servants’ entrance, thinking to leave the oil in the kitchen. Then I hear voices.

“This hidden trail—where does it let out?” I recognize the speaker’s murmur. Laia.

“The docks.” That’s Izzi, the kitchen slave. “Is that where you’re going?”

After listening a moment longer, I realize that they’re planning to take the treacherous hidden trail out of the school and into Serra. The trail isn’t watched, solely because no one is stupid enough to risk sneaking out that way. Demetrius and I tried it without ropes on a dare six months ago and nearly broke our necks.

The girls will have a hell of a time making it across. And it will be doubly miraculous if they make it back. I start after them, thinking to tell them that the risk isn’t worth it, not even for the legendary Moon Festival.

But then the air shifts and freezes me in my tracks. I smell grass and snow.

“So,” Helene says from behind me. “That’s who Laia is. A slave.” She shakes her head. “I thought you were better than the others, Elias. I never imagined you would take a slave to your bed.”

“It’s not like that.” I wince at how I sound: like a typical bumbling male, denying wrongdoing to his woman. Except Helene’s not my woman. “Laia’s not—”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Or blind?” There is something dangerous in Helene’s eyes. “I saw how you looked at her. That day when she brought us to the Commandant’s house before the Trial of Courage. Like she was water and you were just dying of thirst.” Hel collects herself. “Doesn’t matter. I’m reporting her and her friend to the Commandant right now.”

“For what?” I’m astounded at Helene, at the depths of her anger.

“For sneaking out of Blackcliff.” Helene’s practically gnashing her teeth. “For defying their master, attempting to attend an illegal festival—”

“They’re just girls, Hel.”

“They’re slaves, Elias. Their only concern is pleasing their master, and in this case, I assure you, their master would not be pleased.”

“Calm down.” I look around, worried someone will hear us. “Laia’s a person, Helene. Someone’s daughter or sister. If you or I had been born to different parents, we might be in her shoes instead of our own.”

“What are you saying? That I should feel sorry for the Scholars? That I should think of them as equals? We conquered them. We rule them now. It’s the way of the world.”

“Not all conquered people are turned into slaves. In the Southern Lands, the Lake People conquered the Fens and brought them into the fold—”