"You've been carrying too much weight for too long. All this time, Laia, you've led, you've made difficult decisions--and perhaps you weren't ready to. There's no shame in that, and I'll gut anyone who tells me different. You did the best you could. But let go now. Let me carry that weight for you. Let me help you. Trust that I'll do the right thing. Have I steered you wrong yet?"
I shake my head. My disquiet returns. You should believe in yourself more than this, Laia, a voice within says. Not every decision you've made has been a bad one.
But the ones that mattered--the ones where lives hung in the balance--those decisions were wrong. The weight of it is crushing.
"Close your eyes," Keenan says. "Rest now. I'll get us to Kauf. We'll get Darin out. And all will be well."
*
Three nights after we leave the cellar safe house, we stumble upon a half-dug mass grave of Scholars. Men. Women. Children. All tossed carelessly within, like offal. Ahead of us, the snow-capped peaks of the Nevennes Range blot out half the sky. How cruel their beauty seems. Do they not know the evil that has taken place in their shadow?
Keenan quickly urges us past, moving even after the sun is up. When we're well away from the grave and traversing a high, forested bluff, I catch a glimpse of something to the west, in the low hills that lie between us and Antium. Tents, it looks like, and men, campfires. Hundreds of them.
"Skies." I stop Keenan. "Do you see that? Aren't those the Argent Hills? It looks like an entire damned army out there."
"Come on." Keenan pulls me onward, worry driving his impatience and igniting my own. "We need to take cover until nightfall."
But the night only brings more horrors. Hours into our journey, we come so suddenly upon a group of soldiers that I gasp, nearly giving away our position.
Keenan pulls me back with a hiss of breath. The soldiers guard four ghost wagons--so called because once you disappear inside, you might as well be dead. The wagons' high, black sides prevent me from seeing how many Scholars are within. But hands clutch at the bars on the back window, some large and others far too small. More prisoners are loaded into the last wagon as we watch. I think of the grave we passed earlier. I know what will happen to these people. Keenan tries to pull me onward, but I find I am unable to move.
"Laia!"
"We can't just leave them."
"There are a dozen soldiers and four Masks guarding those wagons," Keenan says. "We'd be slaughtered."
"What if I disappeared?" I look back toward the wagons. I can't stop thinking of those hands. "The way I did in the Tribal camp. I could--"
"But you can't. Not since . . ." Keenan reaches out and squeezes my shoulder in sympathy. Not since Izzi died.
At the sound of a shout, I turn back to the wagons. A Scholar boy claws at the face of the Mask who drags him forward.
"You can't keep doing this to us!" the boy screams as the Mask tosses him in the wagon. "We're not animals! One day, we'll fight back!"
"With what?" The Mask chuckles. "Sticks and rocks?"
"We know your secrets now." The boy throws himself against the bars. "You can't stop it. One of your own smiths turned against you, and we know."
The sneer drops off the Mask's face, and he looks almost thoughtful. "Ah yes," he says quietly. "The rats' great hope. The Scholar who stole the secret of Serric steel. He is dead, boy."
I gasp, and Keenan puts a hand over my mouth, holding me steady as I flail, whispering that I cannot make a sound, that our lives depend on it.
"He died in prison," the Mask says. "After we extracted every bit of useful information from his weak, miserable mind. You are animals, boy. Less than that, even."
"He's lying," Keenan whispers, pulling me bodily from the trees. "He's doing it to torment that boy. There's no way the Mask could know if Darin was dead."
"What if he's not lying?" I say. "What if Darin is dead? You've heard the rumors about him. They're spreading further and further. Maybe by killing him, the Empire thinks they can crush those rumors. Maybe--"
"It doesn't matter," Keenan says. "As long as there's a chance that he's alive, then we have to try. Do you hear me? We must keep going. Come on. A lot of ground to cover."
*
Nearly a week after leaving the cellar safe house, Keenan comes trudging back to camp--this one beneath the gnarled, leafless boughs of an oak tree. "The Commandant has gotten as far as Delphinium," he says. "She slaughtered every free Scholar."
"What about slaves? Prisoners?"
"Slaves were left alone--their masters no doubt protested the loss of property." He looks ill as he says it. "She cleared out the prison. Held a mass execution in the city square."
Skies. The darkness of the night feels deeper and quieter somehow, as if the Reaper walks these trees and every living thing knows it but us. "Soon," I say, "there will be no Scholars left."
"Laia," Keenan says. "She's heading to Kauf next."
My head jerks up. "Skies, what if Elias hasn't gotten Darin out? If the Commandant starts killing the Scholars up there--"
"Elias left six weeks ago," Keenan says. "And he seemed damned confident. Perhaps he's already broken Darin out. They might be waiting for us in the cave."
Keenan reaches into his bulging pack. He pulls out a loaf of bread, still steaming, and half a chicken. Skies know what he did to get it. Still, I can't bring myself to eat.
"Do you ever think about those people in the wagons?" I whisper. "Do you ever wonder what happened to them? Do--do you care?"
"I joined the Resistance, did I not? But I can't dwell, Laia. It accomplishes nothing."
But it's not dwelling, I think. It's remembering. And remembering is not nothing.
A week ago, I'd have said the words out loud. But since Keenan took the yoke of leadership from me, I've felt weaker. Diminished. As if I grow smaller by the day.
I should be thankful to him. Despite the Martial-infested countryside, Keenan has safely avoided every patrol and scouting party, every outpost and watchtower.
"You must be freezing." His words are soft, but they pull me from my thoughts. I look down in surprise. I still wear the thick black cloak that Elias gave me a lifetime ago in Serra.
I pull the cloak closer. "I'm all right."
The rebel rummages around in his bag and eventually pulls out a heavy, fur-lined winter cloak. He leans forward and gently unhooks my cloak, letting it fall. Then he drapes the other over my shoulders and secures it.
He doesn't mean ill. I know that. Though I've pulled away from him over the past few days, he's been solicitous as ever.
But a part of me wants to fling the cloak off and put Elias's back on. I know I'm acting the fool, but somehow Elias's cloak made me feel good. Perhaps because more than reminding me of him, it reminded me of who I was around him. Braver. Stronger. Flawed, certainly, but unafraid.
I miss that girl. That Laia. That version of myself that burned brightest when Elias Veturius was near.
The Laia who made mistakes. The Laia whose mistakes led to needless death.
How could I forget? I thank Keenan quietly and stuff the old cloak in my bag. Then I pull the new one closer and tell myself that it's warmer.
XXXVIII: Elias
The night silence of Kauf Prison is chilling. For it is not a silence of sleep, but of death, of men giving up, letting their lives slip away, of finally allowing the pain to wash over them until they fade to nothingness. At dawn, the children of Kauf will lug out the bodies of those who haven't lasted the night.
In the quiet, I find myself thinking of Darin. He was always a ghost to me, a figure we strained toward for so long that though I never met him, I feel tied to him. Now that he's dead, his absence is palpable, like a phantom limb. When I remember that he's gone, hopelessness washes over me anew.
My wrists bleed from my manacles, and I cannot feel my shoulders; my arms have been outstretched all night. But the pain is a sear, not a conflagration. I've dealt with worse. Still, when the blackness of a seizure falls
over me like a shroud, it is a relief.
But it is short-lived, for when I wake in the Waiting Place, my ears are filled with the panicked whispers of spirits--hundreds--thousands--too many.
The Soul Catcher offers me a hand up, her face drawn.
"I told you what would happen in that place." My wounds aren't visible here, but she winces when she looks at me, as if she can see them anyway. "Why didn't you listen to me? Look at you."
"I didn't expect to get caught." Spirits whirl around us, like flotsam spinning about in a gale. "Shaeva, what in the ten hells is going on?"
"You shouldn't be here." Her words are not hostile, as they would have been weeks ago. But they are firm. "I thought I wouldn't see you until your death. Go back, Elias."
I feel the familiar pull in my belly but fight it. "Are the spirits restless?"
"More than usual." She slumps. "There are too many. Scholars, mostly."
It takes me a moment to understand. I feel sick when I do. The whispers I hear--thousands upon thousands--are Scholars murdered by Martials.
"Many move on without my aid. But some are so anguished. Their cries upset the jinn." Shaeva puts her hand to her head. "I have never felt so old, Elias. So helpless. In a thousand years as Soul Catcher, I have seen war before. I watched the fall of the Scholars, the rise of the Martials. Still, I have not seen anything like this. Look." She points to the sky, visible through a space in the Forest canopy.
"The archer and the shield maiden fade." She points out the constellations. "The executioner and the traitor arise. The stars always know, Elias. Of late, they whisper only of the approaching darkness."
Shadows gather, Elias, and their gathering cannot be stopped. Cain spoke those words--and worse--to me just months ago, in Blackcliff.
"What darkness?"
"The Nightbringer," Shaeva whispers. Fear rolls over her, and the strong, seemingly impervious creature I've become accustomed to vanishes. In her place is a frightened child.
In the distance, the trees glow red. The jinn grove.
"He seeks a way to free his brethren," Shaeva says. "He seeks the scattered pieces of the weapon that locked them away here so long ago. Every day he gets closer. I--I sense it, but I cannot see him. I can only feel his malice, like the chill shadow of a Nevennes gale."
"Why do you fear him?" I ask. "If you're both jinn?"
"His power is a hundred times my own," she says. "Some jinn can ride the winds or disappear. Others can manipulate minds, bodies, the weather. But the Nightbringer--he possesses all of these powers. More. He was our teacher, our father, our leader, our king. But . . ." She looks away. "I betrayed him. I betrayed our people. When he learned of it--skies, in centuries of life, I have never known fear like that."
"What happened?" I ask softly. "How did you betray--"
A snarl ripples through the air from the grove. Ssshhhaeva . . .
"Elias," she says, anguished. "I--"
Shaeva! The snarl is a whipcrack, and Shaeva jumps. "You've upset them. Go!"
I back away from her, and the spirits jostle and teem around me. One separates from the rest, small and wide-eyed, her eyepatch still part of her, even in death.
"Izzi?" I say in horror. "What--"
"Begone!" Shaeva shoves me, knocking me back into burning, painful consciousness.
My chains are loose, and I'm curled on the floor, aching and freezing. I feel a fluttering on my arms, and a pair of large, dark eyes regards me, wide and worried. The Scholar boy.
"Tas?"
"The Warden ordered the soldiers to loosen the chains so I could clean your wounds, Elias," Tas whispers. "You must stop thrashing."
Gingerly, I sit up. Izzi. It was her. I'm certain of it. But she can't be dead. What happened to the caravan? To Laia? Afya? For once, I want another seizure to take me. I want answers.
"Nightmares, Elias?" Tas's voice is soft, and at my nod, his brow furrows.
"Always."
"I also have bad dreams." His gaze skitters briefly to mine before breaking away.
I don't doubt it. The Commandant manifests in my memory, standing outside my jail cell months ago, just before I was set to be beheaded. She caught me in the middle of a nightmare. I have them too, she said.
And now, miles and months from that day, I find that a Scholar child condemned to Kauf Prison is no different. So disturbing that the three of us should be linked by this one experience: the monsters crawling through our heads. All the darkness and evil that others perpetrate upon us, all the things we cannot control because we are too young to stop them--they have all stayed with us through the years, waiting in the wings for us to sink to our lowest. Then they leap, ghuls on a dying victim.
The Commandant, I know, is consumed by the darkness. Whatever her nightmares were, she has made herself a thousand times worse.
"Don't let the fear take you, Tas," I say. "You're as strong as any Mask as long as you don't let it control you. As long as you fight."
From the hallway, I hear that familiar cry, the same one I've heard since I was thrown into this cell. It starts as a moan before disintegrating into sobs.
"He is young." Tas nods in the direction of the tormented prisoner. "The Warden spends much of his time with him."
Poor bastard. No wonder he sounds mad half the time.
Tas pours spirits onto my wounded fingernails, and they burn like the hells. I stifle a groan.
"The soldiers," Tas says. "They have a name for the prisoner."
"The Screamer?" I mutter through gritted teeth.
"The Artist."
My eyes snap to Tas's, the pain forgotten.
"Why," I ask quietly, "do they call him that?"
"I have never seen anything like it." Tas looks away, unnerved. "Even with blood as his ink, the pictures he draws on the walls--they are so real, I thought they'd--they'd come to life."
Bleeding, burning hells. It can't be. The legionnaire in the solitary block said he was dead. And I believed him, fool that I am. I let myself forget about Darin.
"Why are you telling me this?" A sudden, horrible suspicion grips me. Is Tas a spy? "Does the Warden know? Did he put you up to it?"
Tas shakes his head rapidly. "No--please listen." He glances at my fist, which, I realized, is clenched. I feel sick that this child would think I'd strike him, and I unfurl it.
"Even here, the soldiers speak of the hunt for the Empire's greatest traitor. And they speak of the girl you travel with: Laia of Serra. And--and the Artist . . . sometimes in his nightmares, he speaks too."
"What does he say?"
"Her name," Tas whispers. "Laia. He cries out her name--and he tells her to run."
XXXIX: Helene
The voices on the wind wrap around me, sending jolts of unease down to my core. Kauf Prison, still two miles distant, makes its presence known through the pain of its inmates.
"About bleeding time." Faris, waiting at the supply outpost outside the valley, emerges from within. He pulls his fur-lined cloak close, gritting his teeth at the freezing wind. "I've been here three days, Shrike."
"There was flooding in the Argent Hills." A trip that should have taken seven days instead took more than a fortnight. Rathana is little more than a week away. No bleeding time. I hope my trust in the Cook was not misplaced.
"The soldiers at the garrison there insisted we go around," I explain to Faris. "A hell of a delay."
Faris takes the reins of my horse as I swing down. "Strange," he said. "The Hills were blocked off on the east side too, but they told me mudslide."
"Mudslide because of the flooding, likely. Let's eat, stock up, and start tracking Veturius."
A blast of warm air from the roaring hearth hits us as we enter the outpost, and I take a seat beside the fire as Faris speaks quietly to the four auxes hovering. As one, they nod vigorously at whatever he's saying, casting nervous glances in my direction. Two disappear into the kitchens while the other two tend to the horses.
"What did you tell them?" I as
k Faris.
"That you'd purge their families if they spoke of our presence to anyone." Faris grins at me. "I assume you don't want the Warden to know we're here."
"Good thinking." I hope we do not need the Warden's aid in tracking Elias. I shudder to think what he'd want in trade.
"We need to scout the area," I say. "If Elias is here, he might not have gone in yet."
Faris's breathing hitches and then continues as before. I glance at him, and he appears suddenly and deeply interested in his meal.
"What is it?"
"Nothing." Faris speaks far too quickly and mutters a curse when he realizes that I've noticed. He sets down his plate.
"I hate this," he says. "And I don't care if the Commandant's spy knows." He gives Avitas a dark look. "I hate that we're like dogs hunting a kill, with Marcus cracking his whip at our backs. Elias saved my life during the Trials. And Dex's too. He knew what it felt like . . . after . . ." Faris looks at me accusingly. "You've never even spoken of the Third Trial."
With Avitas watching my every move, the wise path would be to give a speech about loyalty to the Empire right now.
But I am too tired. And too sick at heart.
"I hate it too." I look down at my half-eaten food, my appetite gone. "Bleeding skies, I hate everything about it. But this isn't about Marcus. It's about the survival of the Empire. If you can't bring yourself to help, then pack your things and go back to Antium. I can assign you to another mission."
Faris looks away, jaw clenched. "I'll stay."
Quietly, I release a sigh. "In that case"--I pick up my fork again--"maybe you can tell me why you clammed up when I said we should scout the area for Elias."
Faris groans. "Damn it, Hel."
"You were stationed at Kauf at the same time as him, Lieutenant Candelan," Avitas says to Faris. "You, Shrike, were not."
True--Elias and I ended up at Kauf at different times when we were Fivers.
"Did he go somewhere when things in the prison were too much?" There's an intensity to Avitas that I've rarely seen. "An . . . escape?"
"A cave," Faris says after a moment. "I followed him once when he left Kauf. I thought--skies, I don't know what I thought. Probably something stupid: that he'd found a hidden stash of ale in the woods. But he just sat inside and stared at the walls. I think . . . I think he was trying to forget the prison."