An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1)

by Sabaa Tahir

Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after.

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.

“You are an ember in the ashes, Elias Veturius. You will spark and burn, ravage and destroy. You cannot change it. You cannot stop it.”

Shadows will bloom in your heart, and you will become everything you hate—evil, merciless, cruel. You will be chained to the darkness within yourself as surely as if chained to the walls of a prison cell.”

“You’ll never forget them, not even after years. But one day, you’ll go a whole minute without feeling the pain. Then an hour. A day. That’s all you can ask for, really.” His voice drops. “You’ll heal. I promise.”

“Your fear is good. It makes your story real. Remember: Do not speak.”

I realize in that moment that I cannot be afraid of something if there’s no chance it could ever occur. The knowledge releases me, finally, from the fear that has consumed me for days. “I won’t kill you,” I say. “I swear it. By blood and by bone, I swear it. And I won’t kill any of the others, either. I won’t.”

Blackcliff’s night is different, heavy with a silence that makes you look over your shoulder, a silence that feels like a living thing.

All the beauty of the stars means nothing when life here on earth is so ugly.

But there are two kinds of guilt, girl: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.

Life is hard enough without having to avoid entire rooms in my own head.

My name was his first word, did you know? And—and his last. Just before the end, he said it. Marcus, he said.”

“You killed him,” I say softly. “You killed your brother.” “They said I had to defeat the enemy commander.” Marcus raises his eyes to mine. He seems confused. “Everyone was dying. Our friends. He asked me to end it. To make it stop. He begged me. My brother. My little brother.”

Now I can only pity him, though neither of us deserves pity. We are murderers of our own men—of our own blood. I’m no better than he is.

“The dead are dead, my boy, and at your hand.” I don’t want to hear the words, but I need them, for they are the truth. Anything less would be an insult to the men I killed. “No amount of wishing will change it. You’ll be trailing ghosts now. Like the rest of us.”

“Seeing the enemy as a human. A general’s ultimate nightmare.”

“Scholar slave and Mask, each trying to persuade the other that they’re not evil.

“If you could just be who you are in here”—I place my palm over his heart—“instead of who they made you, then you would be a great Emperor.” I feel his pulse thud against my fingers. “But they won’t let you, will they? They won’t let you have compassion or kindness. They won’t let you keep your soul.” “My soul’s gone.” He looks away. “I killed it dead on that battlefield yesterday.”

“Set you free? Set you free? This is freedom, Elias! When will you understand that? We’re Masks. Our destiny is power and death and violence. It’s what we are. If you don’t own that, then how can you ever be free?”

And though I’ve seen my brother taken and my grandparents killed, though I’ve suffered beatings and scarrings and visited the night shores of Death’s realm, I know I’ve never felt the type of desolation and hopelessness I see in Elias’s eyes at that moment.

“Thoughts are complex,” he explains. “Messy. They are tangled as a jungle of vines, layered like the sediment in a canyon. We must weave through the vines, trace the sediment. We must translate and decipher.”

“You are full, Laia. Full of life and dark and strength and spirit. You are in our dreams. You will burn, for you are an ember in the ashes. That is your destiny. Being a Resistance spy—that is the smallest part of you. That is nothing.”

” I fumble for my knife, every second I’m conscious making me more lucid and, thus, more murderous.

One mistake and you’ve given up your life. Is it not so? Is it not torture?”

You’ll have a chance at true freedom—of body and of soul. And suddenly, I don’t feel bewildered or defeated. This—this—was what Cain spoke of: the freedom to go to my death knowing it’s for the right reason. The freedom to call my soul my own. The freedom to salvage some small goodness by refusing to become like my mother, by dying for something that is worth dying for.

“Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don’t let it control you. Don’t let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”

“Are you ready?” she asks. The belltower tolls. In two hours, the dawn drums will beat. “Doesn’t matter if I’m ready,” I say. “It’s time.”

I won’t forgive him for the Third Trial. But I can thank him for helping me understand what true freedom is.

Is this what happens to everyone when they die? One second, you’re alive, the next, you’re dead, and then BOOM, an explosion that tears apart the very air. A violent welcome to the afterlife, but at least there is one.

She offers me freedom, not realizing that even chained, even facing execution, my soul is already free. It was free when I rejected my mother’s twisted way of thinking. It was free when I decided that dying for what I believed in was worth it.

“In the name of the Emperor—” “The Emperor?” I yank open the door, dagger in hand. “You mean the lowborn, murdering rapist who’s been trying to kill us for weeks?” “That’s the one,”