An Ember in the Ashes
Page 89

Fight back, Laia. For Darin. For Izzi. For every Scholar this beast has abused. Fight. A scream bursts from me, and I claw at Marcus’s face, but a punch to my stomach takes the wind out of my lungs. I double over, retching, and his knee comes up into my forehead. The hallway spins, and I drop to my knees. Then I hear him laughing, a sadistic chuckle that stokes my defiance.
Sluggishly, I throw myself at his legs. It won’t be like before, like during the raid when I let that Mask drag me about my own house like some dead thing.
This time, I’ll fight. Tooth and nail, I’ll fight.
Marcus grunts in surprise, losing his footing, and I untangle myself and try to scramble to my feet. But he catches my arm and backhands me. My head strikes the floor, and then he’s kicking me until my flesh is minced. When I stop resisting, he straddles me and pins my arms down.
I release one last scream, but it turns to a whimper as he lays a finger against my mouth. My eyes are closing, swelling shut. I can’t see. I can’t think. Far away, the bells of the clock tower toll eleven.
XXXIV: Elias
At the sound of the scream, I roll out from under Helene and onto my feet, the kiss forgotten. She falls unceremoniously to her back.
The scream echoes again, and I snatch up my scim. A second later, she grabs hers and follows me into the hallway. Outside, the belltower tolls eleven.
A blonde slave-girl is running toward us: Izzi.
“Help!” she shouts. “Please—Marcus is—he’s—”
I’m already running up the darkened corridor, Izzi and Helene behind me. We don’t have to go far. As we turn a corner, we find Marcus hunched atop a prone form, his face stretched into a savage leer. I can’t see who it is, but it’s obvious what he’s planning to do.
He’s not expecting company, which is why we’re able to get him off the slave so quickly. I tackle him and rain down punches, growling in satisfaction at the snap of bone beneath my fist, reveling in the blood that sprays across the wall. As his head whips back, I stand and draw my scim, resting the point on his ribcage between the plates of his armor.
Marcus scrambles to his feet, his arms in the air. “Are you going to kill me, Veturius?” he asks, still grinning despite the blood dripping down his face.
“With a training scim?”
“Might take longer.” I drive it harder into his ribs. “But it’ll do the job.”
“You’re on watch tonight, Snake,” Helene says. “What the hell are you doing in a dark hallway with a slave?”
“Practicing for you, Aquilla.” Marcus licks a little of the blood off his lip before turning to me. “The slave puts up more of a fight than you do, bastard—”
“Shut it, Marcus,” I say. “Hel, check her.”
Helene leans down to see if the slave is breathing—it won’t be the first time Marcus has killed a slave. I hear her groan.
“Elias...”
“What?” I’m getting angrier by the second, almost hoping Marcus will try something. An old-fashioned fistfight to the death will do me good. From the shadows, Izzi watches us, too frightened to move.
“Let him go,” Helene says. I stare at her in shock, but her face is unreadable. “Go,” she says tersely to Marcus, pulling my sword arm down. “Get out of here.”
Marcus smiles at Helene, that grating smirk that makes me want to beat the life from him. “You and me, Aquilla,” he says as he backs away, eyes smoldering. “I knew you’d start to see it.”
“Leave, damn it.” Helene hurls a knife at him, missing his ear by inches.
“Go!”
When the Snake disappears out the door, I turn on Helene. “Tell me there was a reason for that.”
“It’s the Commandant’s slave. Your...friend. Laia.”
I see then the cloud of dark hair, the gold skin, which had been obscured by Marcus’s body before. A sick feeling fills me as I crouch down beside her and turn her over. Her wrist is broken, the bone jutting out against the skin.
Bruises darken her arms and neck. She moans and tries to move. Her hair is a tangled mess, and both of her eyes are blackened and swollen shut.
“I’ll kill Marcus for this,” I say, my voice flat and calm, a calm I don’t feel.
“We have to get her to the infirmary.”
“Slaves are forbidden from seeking treatment in the infirmary,” Izzi whispers from behind us. I’d forgotten she was there. “The Commandant will punish her for it. And you. And the physician.”
“We’ll take her to the Commandant,” Helene says. “The girl’s her property. She has to decide what to do with her.”
“Cook can help her,” Izzi adds.
They’re both right, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I pick Laia up gently, mindful of her wounds. She is light, and I pull her head to my shoulder.
“You’ll be fine,” I murmur to her. “All right? You’re going to be just fine.”
I stride out of the hall, not waiting to see if Helene and Izzi follow. What would have happened if Helene and I hadn’t been nearby? Marcus would have raped Laia and she’d have bled out whatever life she had left on that cold stone floor. The knowledge fans the rage burning within me.
Laia shifts her head and moans. “Damn—him—”
“To the lowest pit of hell,” I mutter. I wonder if she still has the bloodroot I gave her. This is too much for bloodroot, Elias.