A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes, #2)

by Sabaa Tahir

When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.

“There’s hope in life,” he says. “A brave girl once told me that. If something happens to me, don’t fear. You’ll find a way.”

“One more thing,” Marcus says, forcing me to turn, my teeth gritted, “don’t even think about telling me that you’re unable to catch Veturius. He’s sly enough to escape the bounty hunters quite easily. But you and I both know that he would never be able to escape you.” Marcus cocks his head, calm, collected, and full of hatred. “Happy hunting, Blood Shrike.”

“I have never hated anyone the way I hate the Commandant. Never.”

“As long as you want to save him, then I will help you. I made a vow. I’m not going to break it.”

Most successful missions are just a series of barely averted disasters.”

Pop used to say that standing by someone during their darkest times creates a bond. A sense of obligation that is less a weight and more a gift.

“I look at you.” His response is swift, his voice low. “Even when I shouldn’t.”

“This is a bad idea,” he murmurs. We’re so close that I can see a long eyelash that’s landed on his cheek. I can see the hints of blue in his hair. “Then why aren’t you stopping it?” “Because I’m a fool.”

Red cuts her off, and I suppress the urge to punch him for doing so.

“And it’s the Mask in me who will get Laia to Kauf so we can get Darin out. She knows that. It’s why she set me free instead of escaping with you.”

“Children are born to break their mothers’ hearts, my boy. Tell me.”

There’s a loneliness to him that makes me ache. He’s dying. He knows it. Perhaps life does not get more lonely than that.

Few people want witnesses to their pain, and grief is the worst pain of all.

“Most people,” Cain says, “are nothing but glimmers in the great darkness of time. But you, Helene Aquilla, are no swift-burning spark. You are a torch against the night—if you dare to let yourself burn.”

“You’re not afraid,” he finally whispers. “Why aren’t you afraid?” “Fear gives him power,” I say. “Like feeding oil to a lamp. It makes him burn brighter. It makes him strong.”

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.

“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.”

“I’m not her spy anymore,” he finally says. “If I were, you’d be dead by now. Because you’re too close to capturing Elias, and her orders were to kill you quietly when you got this close—to make it look like an accident.”

“I processed one myself quite recently. None, however, have been unexpected.”

Laia and Elias are each other’s countermelodies.

That army in the Argent Hills doesn’t belong to Marcus. It belongs to the Commandant. And in less than a week she’s going to use it to murder him and declare herself Empress.

“There was no Keenan, Laia of Serra,” the Nightbringer says. “There was only ever me.”

The Nightbringer’s rage steals my breath. For he cannot simply take back these pieces. Each time he finds one, he must ensure that it is offered freely, in absolute love and trust. For that is the only way he can reassemble the weapon that imprisoned his people, so he might set them free again.

Two actions that allowed the Commandant to unleash an unchecked genocide upon my people. It was the Nightbringer’s revenge for what the Scholars did to his kin centuries before.

“The Nightbringer must have ordered the Warden to kill you,” Shaeva says. “But his human slaves are not as obedient, perhaps, as he would like.”

“The Warden didn’t care about Laia,” I realize. “He wanted to understand the Nightbringer better.

Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength.

“Save him, Laia of Serra,” he says. “From all that you and the Blood Shrike have told me, I think that he is worth saving.”

It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail.

“Because sane plans never work, girl,” she says. “Only the mad ones do.”

“Rise, Elias Veturius.” Tas smacks my face, and I blink at him in surprise. His eyes are fierce. “You gave me a name,” he says. “I want to live to hear it on the lips of others. Rise.”

“I wanted you to take my place,” she says. “To become Soul Catcher.”

“Shaeva,” I say. “Make me your successor. Bring me back to life, the way the Nightbringer did for you.”

“That,” the Cook says, “and to tell you that when you’re ready to take on the Bitch of Blackcliff, I can help. You know how to find me.”

It is time to deal with her.

Be quiet and careful. I do not want a quick assassination, Shrike. I want utter destruction. I want her to feel it. I want the Empire to know my strength.

“about our father.” Our father. Our father. His and Elias’s.

Laia of Serra had the same type of love for her sibling. For the first time since meeting her, I understand her.

But Helene Aquilla is broken. Unmade. Helene Aquilla is dead. The woman in the mirror is not Helene Aquilla. She is the Blood Shrike. The Blood Shrike is not lonely, for the Empire is her mother and her father, her lover and her best friend. She needs nothing else. She needs no one else. She stands apart.

You’re the girl who razed Blackcliff and liberated Kauf. Laia of Serra. The ember waiting to burn down the Empire.”

“Look at you, little sister,” Darin finally whispers. His smile is the sun rising after the longest, darkest night. “Look at you.”