A Torch Against the Night (45 page)

I make my way down the entry hall, through the rotunda and past the staircase that, according to Helene Aquilla, leads up to Masks’ quarters and the Warden’s office.
Time for you soon enough.
A great steel door looms ominously on one side of the rotunda wall. The interrogation block.
Darin is down there. Right now. Yards away.

Kauf’s drums thud out the time: half past five in the morning. The hallway that leads to the Martial barracks, kitchen, and storage closets is far busier than the rest of the prison. Talk and laughter drifts from the mess hall. I smell eggs, grease, and burned bread. A legionnaire veers out of a room just ahead of me, and I stifle a gasp as he passes within a hair’s breadth. He must hear me, because his hand falls to his scim and he looks around.

I don’t dare to breathe until he moves on.
Too close, Laia.

Go past the kitchens
,
Helene Aquilla told me.
The oil storage is at the very end of the hall. The torch-lighters are always coming and going, so whatever you’re planning, you’ll have to move quickly.

When I find the closet, I am forced to wait as a sullen-faced aux wrestles out a barrel of pitch and rolls it down the hall. He leaves the door cracked open, and I eye the closet’s contents. Drums of pitch line its base like a row of stout soldiers. Above them sit cans the length of my forearm and the width of my hand. Blue-fire oil, the translucent yellow substance the Empire imports from Marinn. It reeks of rotted leaves and sulfur, but it will be more difficult to spot than pitch when I dribble it all over the prison.

It takes me nearly a half hour to empty out a dozen canisters in the back hallways and the rotunda. I stuff each can back in the closet when it is empty, hoping no one notices until it’s too late. Then I pack three more cans into my now bulging bag and enter the kitchen. A Plebeian lords over the stoves, bellowing orders at Scholar slave children. The children whiz around, their speed driven by fear. They are, presumably, exempt from the culling going on outside. My mouth twists in disgust. The Warden needs at least a few drudges to continue doing the chores around here.

I spot Bee, her thin arms shaking beneath a tray of dirty dishes from the mess hall. I sidle toward her, stopping often to avoid the scurrying bodies around me. She jumps when I speak in her ear, but covers her surprise swiftly.

“Bee,” I say. “In fifteen minutes, light the fire.”

She nods imperceptibly, and I move out of the kitchen and to the rotunda. The drum tower thuds six times. According to Helene, the Warden will head to the interrogation cells in a quarter-hour.
No time, Laia. Move.

I bolt up the rotunda’s narrow stone staircase. It ends in a wood-beamed hallway lined with dozens of doors. Masks’ quarters. Even as I get to work, the silver-faced monsters exit their quarters and head down the stairs. Every time one passes, my stomach clenches and I look down at myself, making sure my invisibility is still intact.

“Do you smell something?” A short, bearded Mask stumps down the hall with a leaner companion, only to stop a few feet from me. He takes a deep sniff of the air. The other Mask shrugs, grunts, and moves on. But the bearded Mask continues to look about, sniffing along the walls like a hound that’s caught a scent. He stops short at one of the beams I’ve anointed with oil, his eyes dropping to the pool gleaming at its base.

“What in the hells …” As he kneels down, I slip behind him, to the end of the hallway. He spins at the sound of my footsteps, his ears keen. I feel my invisibility falter at the rasp of his scim leaving its scabbard. I grab a torch off the wall. The Mask gapes at it. Too late, I realize that my invisibility extends to the wood and pitch, but not the flame itself.

He swings his sword, and startled, I back away. My invisibility drops entirely, a strange rippling that starts at my forehead and cascades down to my feet.

The Mask’s eyes widen, and he lunges.
“Witch!”

I throw myself out of his path, hurling the torch at the nearest pool of oil. It flares with a roar, distracting the Mask, and I use the moment to tear away from him.

Disappear
,
I tell myself.
Disappear!
But I’m going too fast—it’s not working.

But it
must
work, or I’m dead.
Now
,
I scream in my mind. The familiar ripple runs back over me just as a tall, thin figure steps out of a hallway and swivels his triangular head toward me.

Though I wasn’t sure I’d recognize him based on Helene’s description, I know him immediately. The Warden.

The Warden blinks, and I cannot tell if he saw me wink out of sight or not. I don’t wait to find out. I hurl another can of blue-fire oil at his feet, rip two torches off the wall, and throw one down. When he shouts and jumps back, I swerve around him and hurtle down the stairs two by two, dropping the last can of oil as I do and pitching the final torch over my shoulder. I hear the
whoosh
of flame as the stair railing catches fire.

I have no time to look back. Soldiers rush through the rotunda, and smoke pours from the hallway near the kitchens.
Yes, Bee!
I pivot around to the back of the staircase, the spot where Elias said he would meet me.

A heavy thud sounds on the staircase. The Warden has leaped over the fire and stands in the rotunda. He grabs a nearby aux by the collar and snarls at him: “Have the drum tower deliver the evacuation message. Auxes are to herd the prisoners in the yard and muster a cordon of spearmen to prevent escape. Double the perimeter guard. The rest of you”—his crisp roar brings every soldier in earshot to attention—“proceed with the evacuation in an orderly fashion. The prison is under attack from within. Our enemy seeks to sow chaos. Do not let them succeed.”

The Warden turns to the interrogation cells, pulling open the door just as three Masks spill out.

“Bleeding inferno down there, Warden,” one of them says.

“And the prisoners?”

“Only the two, both still in their cells.”

“My medical equipment?”

“We believe Drusius got it out, sir,” another of the Masks says. “I’m certain one of the Scholar brats set the fire, acting in league with Veturius.”

“Those children are subhuman,” the Warden says. “I doubt they are capable of speech, much less a plot to burn down the prison. Go—ensure the cooperation of the remaining prisoners. I will not allow my domain to descend into insanity over a bit of flame.”

“What about the prisoners down there, sir?” The first Mask nods to the stairs leading to the interrogation block.

The Warden shakes his head as smoke billows from the doorway. “If they’re not dead already,” he says, “they will be in seconds. And we need every man in the yard, controlling the prisoners. Lock that door,” he says. “Let them burn.”

With that, the man clears a path through the stream of black-clad soldiers, delivering orders in his high, crisp voice as he goes. The Mask he spoke to slams the interrogation door shut, throws a bolt, and secures it with a padlock. I sneak up behind him—I need his keys. But when I reach for the ring, he senses my tampering and swings his elbow back, connecting with my stomach. As I double over, gasping for air and fighting to maintain my invisibility, he peers over his shoulder but is pulled away by the rush of soldiers pouring out of the prison.

Right. Brute force.
I yank one of Elias’s scims from my back and hack at the padlock, not caring about the racket. It’s hardly noticeable above the roar of the approaching fire. Sparks fly, but the lock holds. Again and again I swing Elias’s blade, screaming in impatience. My invisibility flickers in and out, but I don’t care. I
must
get this lock open. My brother and Elias are down there, burning.

We made it this far
.
We survived Blackcliff and the attacks in Serra, the Commandant, the journey here. It cannot end like this. I will not be done in by a bleeding, burning lock.

“Come on!” I scream. The lock cracks, and I put all of my rage into the next blow. Sparks explode, and it finally opens. I sheathe the sword, and fling the door wide.

Almost immediately, I drop, choking on the foul smoke pouring out. Through squinted, tear-filled eyes, I stare at what should be a staircase.

There is nothing but a wall of flame.

E
ven if the Soul Catcher hadn’t welcomed me to the realm of death, an emptiness yawns at my core. I
feel
dead.

“I died choking in a prison stairwell, steps from salvation?”
Damn it!
“I need more time,” I say to the Soul Catcher. “A few hours.”

“I do not choose when you die, Elias.” She helps me up, her face pained, as if she genuinely mourns my death. Behind her, other spirits jostle in the trees, watching.

“I’m not ready, Shaeva,” I say. “Laia is up there waiting for me. Her brother is beside me, dying. What did we fight for if it was just going to end like this?”

“Few are ready for death,” Shaeva sighs. She’s given this speech before. “Sometimes even the very old, who have lived full lives, fight against its cold grasp. You must accept—”

“No.” I look around for some way to get back. A portal or weapon or tool I can use to change my fate.
Stupid, Elias. There is no way back. Death is death.

Nothing is impossible.
My mother’s words. If she were here, she’d bully, threaten, or trick the Soul Catcher into giving her the time she wanted.

“Shaeva,” I say, “you’ve ruled these lands for a thousand years. You know everything about death. There must be some way to go back, just for a little while.”

She turns away, her back stiff and unyielding. I pivot around her, my ghost form so swift that I see the shadow that passes across her eyes.

“When the seizures began,” I say, “you told me you were watching me. Why?”

“It was a mistake, Elias.” Shaeva’s eyelashes glint with moisture. “I saw you as I saw all humans: lesser, weak. But I was
wrong
.
I—I should never have brought you here. I opened a door that should have remained shut.”

“But
why
?”
She’s dancing around the truth. “Why did I catch your attention in the first place? It’s not as if you spend all your time making moon-eyes at the human world. You’re too busy with the spirits.”

I reach for her hands, startled when they pass through her.
Ghost, Elias, remember?

“After the Third Trial,” she says, “you sent many to their deaths. But they were not angry. I found it strange, since murder usually results in restless spirits. But these spirits didn’t rage about you. Other than Tristas, they moved on quickly.

“I didn’t understand why. I used my power to see into the human world.” She laces her fingers together and fixes her black gaze upon me. “In the catacombs of Serra, you ran into an cave efrit.
Murderer,
it called you.”

“If your sins were blood, child, you would drown in a river of your own making,”
I say. “I remember.”

“What it said mattered less than your reaction, Elias. You were …” She frowns, contemplating. “Horrified. The spirits you sent to their deaths were at peace because you
mourned
them. You bring pain and suffering to those you love. But you do not wish to. It is as if your very fate is to leave a trail of destruction. You are like me. Or rather, like I was.”

The Waiting Place suddenly feels colder. “Like you,” I say flatly.

“You are not the only living creature to have wandered my woods, Elias. Shamans come here sometimes. Healers too. To the living or the dead, the wailing is unbearable. Yet you didn’t mind it. It took me decades to learn to communicate with the spirits. But you picked it up after a few visits.”

A hiss cuts through the air, and I spot the all too familiar glow of the jinn grove getting brighter. For once, Shaeva ignores it.

“I tried to keep you from Laia,” she says. “I wanted you to feel isolated. I wanted something from you, and so I wished you to be fearful. But after I waylaid you on your journey to Kauf, after you spoke my name, something awoke inside me. Some remnant of my better self. I realized how wrong I was to ask anything of you. Forgive me. I was so tired of this place. I only wished for release.”

The glow grows brighter. The trees seem to tremble.

“I don’t understand.”

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

At first I think I’ve misheard her. “Is that why you asked me to help Tristas move on?”

She nods. “You are human,” she says. “Thus you have limits the jinn do not. I had to see if you could do it. To be Soul Catcher, you must know death intimately, but you cannot worship it. You must have lived a life in which you wished to protect others but found that all you could do was destroy. Such a life instills remorse. That remorse is a doorway through which the power of the Waiting Place can enter you.”

Shaaeeva …

She swallows. I’m certain she hears the call of her kindred. “The Waiting Place is sentient, Elias. The oldest magic there is. And”—she grimaces apologetically—“it likes you. Already, it has begun to whisper its secrets to you.”

I grasp at something she told me before. “You said that when you became Soul Catcher, the Nightbringer killed you,” I say, “but that he brought you back and chained you here. And now, you live.”

“This is no life, Elias!” Shaeva says. “It is living death. Always I am surrounded by the spirits. I am
bound
to this place—”

“Not entirely,” I say. “You left the Forest. You came all the way to get me.”

“Only because you were near my lands. Leaving for more than a few days is torture. The further afield I go, the more I suffer. And the jinn, Elias—you do not understand what it is to deal with my trapped brethren.”

SHAEVA!
They cry out to her now, and she turns toward them.

No!
I shout the word in my head, and the ground beneath me shudders. The jinn fall silent. And I know, suddenly, what I must ask of her.

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