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The old creatures are real. They’re coming for us.
Is Zak trying to tell me
something about the next Trial? Is he saying that my mother is consorting with
demons? Is that how she sabotaged me and Hel? I tell myself that these thoughts
are ridiculous. Believing in the Augurs’ power is one thing. But jinn of fire and
vengeance? Efrits bound to elements like wind, sea, or sand? Maybe Zak’s just
cracked from the strain of the First Trial.
Mamie Rila used to tell stories of the fey. She was our Tribe’s
Kehanni
, our
tale-spinner, and she wove whole worlds with her voice, with the flick of a hand
or the tilt of her head. Some of those legends stuck in my head for years—the
Nightbringer and his hatred for Scholars. The efrits’ skill at awakening latent
magic in humans. Soul-hungry ghuls who feed on pain like vultures on carrion.
But those are just stories.
The wind carries the haunting sound of sobbing to my ears. At first, I think
I’m imagining it and chide myself for letting Zak’s talk of the fey get to me. But
then it gets louder. Ahead of me, at the foot of the twisting path that leads up to
the Commandant’s house, sits a small crumpled figure.
It’s the slave-girl with the gold eyes. The one Marcus nearly choked to death.
The one I saw lifeless on the nightmare battlefield.
She holds her head with one hand and bats at the empty air with the other,
muttering through her sobs. She staggers, falls to the ground, then rises
laboriously. It’s clear she’s not well, that she needs help. I slow, thinking to turn
away. My mind roves back to the battlefield and my first kill’s assertion: that
everyone on that field will die by my hand.
Stay away from her, Elias
,
a cautious voice urges.
Have nothing to do with
her.
But why stay away? The battlefield was the Augurs’ vision of my future.
Maybe I should show the bastards that I’m going to fight that future. That I
won’t just accept it.
I stood by like a fool once before with this girl. I watched and did nothing as
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Marcus left bruises all over her. She needed help, and I refused to give it. I won’t
make the same mistake again. Without any more hesitation, I walk toward her.
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I
XXI: Laia
t’s the Commandant’s son. Veturius.
Where did he come from?
I push at him violently, then immediately regret
doing so. A normal Blackcliff student would beat me for touching him without
permission—and this is no student, but an Aspirant and the Commandant’s
spawn. I have to get out of here. I have to get back to the house. But the
weakness that has plagued me all morning takes firm hold, and I fall to the sand
a few feet away, sweating and nauseous.
Infection.
I know the signs. I should have let Cook dress the wound last night.
“Who were you talking to?” Veturius asks.
“N-no-no one, Aspirant, sir.”
Not everyone can see them
,
Teluman had said of
the ghuls. It’s clear Veturius can’t.
“You look terrible,” he says. “Come into the shade.”
“The sand. I have to take it up or she’ll—she’ll—”
“Sit.” It’s not a request. He picks up my basket and takes my hand, leading
me to the shade of the cliffs and setting me down on a small boulder.
When I chance a look at him, he is gazing out at the horizon, his mask
catching the dawn light like water catching the sun. Even at a distance of a few
feet, everything about him screams violence, from the short black hair to the big
hands to the fact that each muscle is honed to deadly perfection. The bandages
that encircle his forearms and the scratches that mar his hands and face only
make him look more vicious.
He has just one weapon, a dagger at his belt. But then, he’s a Mask. He
doesn’t need weapons because he is one, particularly when faced with a slave
who barely comes up to his shoulder. I try to scoot away further, but my body is
too heavy.
“What’s your name? You never said.” He fills my basket with sand, not
looking at me.
I think of when the Commandant asked me this question and the blow I
received for answering honestly. “S-Slave-Girl.”
He is quiet for a moment. “Tell me your real name.”
Though calmly spoken, the words are a command. “Laia.”
“Laia,” he says. “What did she do to you?”
How strange, that a Mask can sound so kind, that the deep thrum of his
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baritone can offer comfort. I could close my eyes and not know I was speaking
to a Mask at all.
But I can’t trust his voice. He’s
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