An Ember in the Ashes, Page 86

Page 86

  “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 tittering 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. ”

  “So that’s it for him?” I’m appalled at Cain’s callousness. “Elias refuses to kill me, and he dies for it? You’re going to punish him for showing mercy?”

  “The Trials have rules,” Cain says. “Aspirant Veturius broke them. ”

  “Your rules are twisted. Besides, Elias wasn’t the only one who violated your instructions. Marcus was supposed to kill me, and he didn’t. You still made him Emperor. ”

  “He thinks he killed you,” Cain says. “And he revels in the knowledge. That is what matters. Come, you must leave the school. If the Commandant knows you survived, your life is forfeit. ”

  I tell myself the Augur is right, that I can’t do anything for Elias. But I’m uneasy. I’ve done this before. I’ve left someone behind and lived to regret it every moment after.

  “If you do not come with me, your brother will die. ” The Augur senses my conflict and presses. “Is that what you want?”

  He heads toward the gates, and after a dreadful few moments of indecision, I turn away from Veturius and follow him. Elias is resourceful—he might still find a way to avoid death. But I won’t, Laia, I hear Darin. Not unless you help me.

  The legionnaires manning Blackcliff’s gates seem not to see us as we pass out of the school, and I wonder if Cain has used Augur sorcery on them. Why is he helping me? What does he want in exchange?

  If he can read my suspicions, he doesn’t let on, instead leading me rapidly through the Illustrian Quarter and deep into the sweltering streets of Serra.

  His route is so convoluted that it seems for a time as if he has no destination in mind. No one looks twice at us, and no one speaks of the Emperor’s death or of Marcus’s coronation. The news hasn’t yet leaked out.

  The silence between Cain and me stretches until I think it will fall and shatter on the ground. How will I get away from him and find the Resistance?

  I dash the thought from my head, lest the Augur pick it out—but then, I’ve already thought it, so it must be too late. I look askance at him. Is he reading all of this? Can he hear every thought?

  “It’s not really mind-reading,” Cain murmurs, and I wrap my arms around myself and lean away, though I know doing so won’t shield my thoughts any better.

  “Thoughts are complex,” he explains. “Messy. They are tangled as a jungle of vines, layered like the sediment in a canyon. We must weave through the vines, trace the sediment. We must translate and decipher. ”

  Ten hells. What does he know about me? Everything? Nothing?

  “Where to begin, Laia? I know your every sinew is turned toward finding and saving your brother. I know your parents were the most powerful leaders the Resistance ever had. I know you’re falling for a Resistance fighter named Keenan but that you don’t trust him to love you back. I know you’re a Resistance spy. ”

  “But if you know I’m a spy—”

  “I know,” Cain says, “but it matters not. ” Ancient sadness flares in his eyes, as if he’s remembering someone long dead. “Other thoughts speak more clearly of who you are, what you are, in your deepest heart. In the night, your loneliness crushes you, as if the sky itself has swooped down to smother you in its cold arms—”

  “That’s not—I—”

  But Cain ignores me, his red eyes unfocused, his voice jagged, as if he is speaking his own innermost secrets instead of mine.

  “You fear you will never have your mother’s courage. You fear your cowardice will spell the doom of your brother. You yearn to understand why your parents chose the Resistance over their children. Your heart wants Keenan, and yet your body is alight when Elias Veturius is near. You—”

  “Stop. ” It’s unbearable, this knowledge of me from someone who isn’t me.

  “You are full, Laia. Full of life and dark and strength and spirit. You are in our dreams. You will burn, for you are an ember in the ashes. That is your destiny. Being a Resistance spy—that is the smallest part of you. That is nothing. ”

  I scramble for words but find none. It is wrong that he knows so much of me and I know nothing of him in return.

  “There’s nothing to me that is worth anything, Laia,” the Augur says. “I am an error, a mistake. I am failure and malice, greed and hatred. I am guilty. We are, all of us Augurs, guilty. ” At my confusion, he sighs. His black eyes meet mine, and his description of himself and his kindred fades from my mind like a dream upon waking.

  “We are here,” he says.

  I look around uncertainly. A quiet street stretches in front of me with a row of identical houses on each side. The Mercator Quarter? Or perhaps the Foreign Quarter? I can’t tell. The few people on the streets are too far away to recognize.

  “What—what are we doing here?”

  “If you wish to save your brother, you need to speak with the Resistance,”

  he says. “I have brought you to them. ” He nods to the street before me. “Seventh house on the right. In the basement. The door’s unlocked. ”

  “Why are you helping me?” I ask him. “What trick—”

  “No trick, Laia. I cannot answer your questions except to say that for now, our interests align. I vow to you by blood and by bone that I do not deceive you in this. Go now, quickly. Time will not wait, and I fear you have little enough as it is. ”

  Despite his calm expression, there’s no mistaking the urgency in his voice.

  It fans my own unease. I nod my thanks, wondering at the strangeness of the last few minutes, and go.

  ***

  As the Augur predicted, the back door to the house’s basement is unlocked. I take two steps down the stairs before a scimpoint meets my neck.

  “Laia?” The scim drops, and Keenan moves into the light. His red hair sticks up at odd angles, and a bandage wrapped haphazardly around his bicep is stained with blood. His freckles stand out jarringly against the sick paleness of his skin. “How did you find us? You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe for you. Quick”—he glances over his shoulder—“before Mazen sees—go!”

  “I discovered an entrance to Blackcliff. I have to tell him. And there’s something else—a spy—”

  “No, Laia,” Keenan says. “You can’t—”

  “Who’s there, Keenan?” Footsteps clump toward us, and a second later, Mazen sticks his head in the stairwell.

  “Ah. Laia. You tracked us down. ” The older man shoots a look at Keenan, as if he must be responsible for this development. “Bring her. ”