An Ember in the Ashes: Chapters 1–6

“It's past curfew, and three patrols have gone by. I was worried."

The Martials conquered Scholar lands five hundred years ago, and since then, they've done nothing but oppress and enslave us.

Half a millennium ago, the Scholars crumbled beneath the Martial invasion because our blades broke against their superior steel.

One more day of paranoia and hiding and lying. One day until graduation. Then I'll be free.

Aux soldiers, though not as highly trained as legionnaires and nothing compared to Masks, are still merciless hunters.

Without thought, I translate the disparate beats into the message they are meant to convey.

Like any good Mask-in-training, she takes Blackcliff’s motto to heart: Duty first, unto death.

In the time it takes me to gasp, the Mask has shoved my brother’s face into the sandy ground and pinned his writhing body with a knee.

I’m just a thing to be subdued, used, and discarded.

She’d have died rather than face this humiliation.

My fear has ensnared me.

“Those rebels were taken into custody today,” the Mask says.

He’ll spend weeks in interrogation, and after that they’ll either sell him as a slave or kill him.

He holds my gaze as if he can smell my fear, a cobra enthralling its prey.

More sets of eyes join the first, baleful and slitted.

Only the rebels stand up to the Martials. Elusive as they are, they are the only weapon the Scholars have.

Like all Blackcliff students, I came to the school at the age of six, and in the fourteen years since, I've witnessed punishments thousands of times. My own back is a map of the school's brutality.

By now, even the youngest Yearlings have learned Blackcliff's most essential lessons: Obey, conform, and keep your mouth shut.

They stand as still as statues, their masks long since melded to their features, any semblance of emotion a distant memory.

I'm the only student whose mask hasn't melded to him yet—something my enemies enjoy pointing out. But lately, the mask has started fighting back, forcing the melding process by digging tiny filaments into the back of my neck.

But unlike Helene, the Commandant exudes a deathly chill, as if her gray eyes and cut-glass features were carved from the underbelly of a glacier.

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.

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.

But the torches mark Empire territory, and the aux soldiers who get tunnel duty are probably Plebeians, the most lowborn of the Martials.

The Emperor says that we are a free people who live under his benevolence.

We can't own property or attend schools, and even the mildest transgression results in enslavement.

Unlike Tribesmen, Scholars are not superstitious, and Darin has always had a Scholar's healthy skepticism.

The unmistakable, clipped cadence of Martial voices carries down the tunnel.

Izzat. It’s Old Rei, the language spoken by Scholars before the Martials invaded and forced everyone to speak Serran. Izzat means many things. Strength, honor, pride. But in the past century, it’s come to mean something specific: freedom.

“Marcus saw you stay behind after the whipping. He and Zak are telling everyone that you thought the punishment was too harsh.”

“He’s all but accusing you of sedition.”

Free to report for duty as full-fledged servants of the Empire, after which we’ll lead men to their deaths in the never-ending border wars with Wildmen and Barbarians. Those of us not ordered to the border will be given city commands, where we’ll hunt down Resistance fighters or Mariner spies. We’ll be free, all right. Free to laud the Emperor. Free to rape and kill.

Helene rubs the Blackcliff tattoo on the back of her neck—a four-sided black diamond with curved sides that is inked into every student upon arrival at the school. Helene took it better than most of our class fellows, stoic and tearless while the rest of us whimpered.

Appearing without one’s mask is a whipping offense.

Grandfather is one of the few Masks who doesn't believe in Augur rubbish, and I repeat his mantra in my head. The field of battle is my temple. The swordpoint is my priest. The dance of death is my prayer. The killing blow is my release. The mantra is all I've ever needed.

For that is what will happen in the years of deprivation and torment ahead of them. And they will face it either by living or dying, either by accepting or questioning.

But Marcus smells blood, and his malevolence taints the air.

Under the Scholars, the great buildings were libraries and universities instead of barracks and training halls. The Street of Storytellers was filled with stages and theaters instead of an arms market where the only stories told now are of war and death.

“All things change, Elias Veturius. You are no boy now, but a man, with a man's burden upon your shoulders and a man's choice ahead of you."