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 moment Darin called out—that was such a moment. It was a test of courage, of strength. And I failed it.

Sometimes I whisper the words. Mostly I chant them in my head. They keep me moving, a charm to ward off the fear nipping at my mind.

Barrius’s screams blister my brain for hours.

Why can’t I just be like her—like everyone else? Because my mother abandoned me? Because I spent the first six years of my life with Tribesmen who taught me mercy and compassion instead of brutality and hatred? Because my playfellows were Tribeschildren, Mariners, and Scholars instead of other Illustrians?

Above, the heavens glow, the sky pale with starlight. Some long-buried part of me understands that this is beauty, but I am unable to wonder at it, the way I did when I was a boy.

Keenan moves toward me until he’s standing uncomfortably close. He smells of lemon and wind and something smoky, like cedar. He takes me in from head to toe, and the look would be shameless if it wasn’t for the slight puzzlement in his face, like he’s seeing something he doesn’t

quite understand. His eyes are a dark secret, black or brown or blue—I can’t tell. It feels as if they can see right through me to my weak, cowardly soul.

“That’s an unusual armlet.” He reaches out a hand to touch it. The tip of his finger grazes my arm, sending a spark skittering across my skin, and I jerk away. He doesn’t react. “So tarnished, I might not have noticed it. It’s silver, isn’t it?” “I didn’t steal it, all right?” My body aches and my head spins, but I bunch my fists, afraid and angry all at once. “And if you want it, you’ll—you’ll have to kill me to get it.” He meets my eyes coolly, and I hope he doesn’t call my bluff. He and I both know that killing me wouldn’t be particularly difficult.

Impossible, my logical mind insists. Shut it, logical mind. If this man can read minds, then immortality seems like the next reasonable step.

I have stories of my own. She wanted to leave us. She wanted to abandon her children for the Resistance, but Father wouldn’t let her. When they fought, Lis took me and Darin into the forest and sang so we wouldn’t hear them. That’s my first memory—Lis singing me a song while the Lioness raged a few yards away. After my parents left us with Nan and Pop, it took weeks for me to stop feeling jumpy, to get used to living with two people who actually seemed to love each other.

So my choices are to stay and be evil or to run and be evil. Wonderful.

Amid the noise, silence descends in my head. It’s a strange silence, infinitely small, infinitely large, and I’m locked inside it, pacing, circling the question. Do I run? Do I desert?

You’re noticing his eyes, Laia. Which means you’re staring into them. Which means you need to stop.

He goes still, a sudden stillness that draws my eyes up and into his. My breath hitches at what I see laid bare in his gaze: a wrenching knowledge, a bitter understanding of pain that I know well. Here’s someone who has walked paths as dark as mine. Darker, maybe.

“I wish I could do something.” “Try looking a little braver.” “What, like you?” I arrange my face so it’s blank as slate, slump against the wall, and look off into the distance. Keenan actually smiles for a fraction of a second. It takes years off his face.

At the time, I’d wondered how he knew so much. Only now do I understand—Darin always listened more than he spoke, watching, learning.

“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.”