“Yes, sir!” The shout shakes the flagstones, rabid in its ferocity.
“Legionnaires,” the Commandant says. “Take him to the post.”
The resulting roar from the students jerks Barrius out of his stupor, and as the legionnaires tie him to the whipping post, he writhes and bucks.
His fellow Fourth-Yearlings, the same boys he fought and sweated and suffered with for years, thump the flagstones with their boots and pump their fists in the air. In the row of Senior Skulls in front of me, Marcus shouts his approval, his eyes lit with unholy joy. He stares at the Commandant with a reverence reserved for deities.
I feel eyes on me. To my left, one of the Centurions is watching. Nothing out of the ordinary. I lift my fist and cheer with the rest of them, hating myself.
The Commandant draws her crop, caressing it like a lover. Then she brings it whistling down onto Barrius’s back. His gasp echoes through the AnEmberintheAshes_INT.indd 28
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courtyard, and every student falls silent, united in a shared, if brief, moment of pity. Blackcliff’s rules are so numerous that it’s impossible not to break them at least a few times. We’ve all been tied to that post before. We’ve all felt the bite of the Commandant’s crop.
The quiet doesn’t last. Barrius screams, and the students howl in response, flinging jeers at him. Marcus is loudest of all, leaning forward, practically spitting in excitement. Faris rumbles his approval. Even Demetrius manages a shout or two, his green eyes flat and distant as if he is somewhere else entirely. Beside me, Helene cheers, but there’s no joy in her expression, only a stern sadness. The rules of Blackcliff demand that she voice her anger at the deserter’s betrayal. So she does.
The Commandant seems indifferent to the clamor, fixated as she is on her work. Her arm rises and falls with a dancer’s grace. She circles Barrius as his skinny limbs begin to seize, pausing between each lash, no doubt ponder-ing how she can make the next one more painful than the last.
After twenty-five lashes, she takes him by his limp stalk of a neck and turns him around. “Face them,” she says. “Face the men you’ve betrayed.”
Barrius’s eyes beseech the courtyard, seeking out anyone willing to offer him a shred of pity. He should have known better. His gaze collapses to the flagstones.
The cheers continue, and the crop comes down again. And again. Barrius falls to the white stones, the pool of blood around him spreading rapidly. His eyes flutter. I hope his mind is gone. I hope he can’t feel it anymore.
I make myself watch. This is why you’re leaving, Elias. So you’re never a part of this again.
A gurgling moan trickles from Barrius’s mouth. The Commandant drops AnEmberintheAshes_INT.indd 29
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her arm, and the courtyard is silent. I see the deserter breathing. In once.
Out. And then nothing. No one cheers. Dawn breaks, the sun’s rays tracing the sky above Blackcliff’s ebony belltower like bloodied fingers, tingeing everyone in the courtyard a lurid red.
The Commandant wipes her crop on Barrius’s fatigues before returning it to her belt. “Take him to the dunes,” she orders the legionnaires. “For the scavengers.” Then she surveys the rest of us.
“Duty first, unto death. If you betray the Empire, you will be caught, and you will pay. Dismissed.”
The lines of students dissolve. Dex, who brought the deserter in, slips away quietly, his darkly handsome face slightly sick. Faris lumbers after, no doubt to clap Dex on the back and suggest he forget his troubles at a brothel.
Demetrius stalks off alone, and I know he’s remembering that day two years ago when he was forced to watch his little brother die just like Barrius. He won’t be fit to speak with for hours. The other students drain out of the courtyard quickly, still discussing the whipping.
“—only thirty lashes, what a weakling—”
“—did you hear him gasping, like a scared girl—”
“Elias.” Helene’s voice is soft, as is the touch of her hand on my arm.
“Come on. The Commandant will see you.”
She’s right. Everyone is walking away. I should too.
I can’t do it.
No one looks at Barrius’s bloody remains. He is a traitor. He is nothing. But someone should stay. Someone should mourn him, even if for a moment.
“Elias,” Helene says, urgent now. “Move. She’ll see you.”
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“I need a minute,” I reply. “You go on.”
She wants to argue with me, but her presence is conspicuous, and I’m not budging. She leaves with a last backward glance. When she’s gone, I look up to see the Commandant watching me.
We lock eyes across the long courtyard, and I am struck for the hundredth time at how different we are. I have black hair, she has blonde. My skin glows golden brown, and hers is chalk-white. Her mouth is ever disapproving, while I look amused even when I’m not. I am broad-shouldered and well over six feet, while she is smaller than a Scholar woman, even, with a deceptively willowy form.
But anyone who sees us standing side by side can tell what she is to me.
My mother gave me her high cheekbones and pale gray eyes. She gave me the ruthless instinct and speed that make me the best student Blackcliff has seen in two decades.
Mother. It’s not the right word. Mother evokes warmth and love and sweetness. Not abandonment in the Tribal desert hours after birth. Not years of silence and implacable hatred.
She’s taught me many things, this woman who bore me. Control is one of them. I tamp down my fury and disgust, emptying myself of all feeling. She frowns, a slight twist of her mouth, and raises a hand to her neck, her fingers following the whorls of a strange blue tattoo poking out of her collar.
I expect her to approach and demand to know why I’m still here, why I challenge her with my stare. She doesn’t. Instead, she watches me for a moment longer before turning and disappearing beneath the arches.
The belltower tolls six, and the drums thud. All students report to mess.
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At the foot of the tower, the legionnaires heave up what’s left of Barrius and carry him away.
The courtyard stands silent, empty except for me staring at a puddle of blood where a boy once stood, chilled by the knowledge that if I’m not careful, I’ll end up just like him.
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V: Laia
The silence of the catacombs is as vast as a moonless night, and as eerie. Which isn’t to say that the tunnels are empty; as soon as I drop through the grate, a rat skitters across my bare feet, and a clear, fist-sized spider descends on a thread inches from my face. I bite my hand so I don’t scream.
Save Darin. Find the Resistance. Save Darin. Find the Resistance.
Sometimes I whisper the words. Mostly I chant them in my head. They keep me moving, a charm to ward off the fear nipping at my mind.
I’m not sure, really, what I should be looking for. A camp? A hideout? Any sign of life that isn’t rodent in nature?
Since most of the Empire’s garrisons are located east of the Scholar’s Quarter, I head west. Even in this skies-forsaken place, I can point unfailingly to where the sun rises and where it sets, to the Empire’s capital in the north, Antium, and to Navium, its main port due south. It’s a sense I’ve had for as long as I can remember. When I was a child and Serra should have seemed vast to me, I was always able to find my way.