A Torch Against the Night (47 page)

“Men and women of the Empire.” Marcus’s voice echoes from the rafters of the throne room.
What in the bleeding hells is he doing?

“I am but a Plebeian, given the burden of rulership by our esteemed holy men, the Augurs.” He sounds almost humble, and I gape at him as he looks around at the assembly of the Empire’s finest. “But even a Plebeian knows that sometimes an Emperor must show mercy.

“The bond between Shrike and Emperor is one ordained by the Augurs.” He goes to Livia and lifts her to her feet. She looks between Marcus and me, mouth parted, skin blanched to gray.

“It is a bond that must weather the darkest of tempests,” the Emperor says. “My Shrike’s first failure is one such tempest. But I am not unmerciful. Nor do I wish to begin my reign with broken promises. I signed a marriage agreement with Gens Aquilla.” He glances at me, stone-faced. “And so I shall honor it—by marrying Mater Aquilla’s youngest sister, Livia Aquilla, immediately. By joining my line to one of the oldest Gens in the land, I seek to establish my dynasty and bring glory to the Empire once more. We shall put this”—he looks distastefully at the bodies on the ground—“behind us. If, of course, Mater Aquilla accepts.”

“Livia.” I can only mouth my sister’s name. I clear my throat. “Livia would be spared?” At Marcus’s nod, I stand. I force myself to look at my sister, because if she would rather die, then I cannot deny her that, even if it unravels my last bit of sanity. But the reality of what is happening finally hits her. I see my own torment mirrored in her eyes—but I see something else too. My parents’ strength. She nods.

“I—I accept,” I whisper.

“Good,” Marcus says. “We will marry at sunset. The rest of you—get out,” he barks at the courtiers, who watch in horrified fascination. “Sergius.” The Black Guard steps forward. “Take my …
bride
to the east wing of the palace. Make sure she is comfortable. And safe.”

Sergius escorts Livia away. The courtiers file out silently. As I stare at the ground in front of me, at the spreading pool of blood, Marcus approaches.

He stands behind me and runs one finger along the back of my neck. I shudder in disgust, but a second later, Marcus jerks his body away.

“Shut up,” he hisses, and when I glance up, I find he’s not addressing me. Instead, he’s looking over his shoulder—at empty air.
“Stop.”

I watch with a dull sort of fascination as he growls and shakes his shoulders, like he’s shaking off someone’s grasp. A moment later, he turns back to me—but keeps his hands to himself.

“You stupid girl.” His voice is a soft hiss. “I told
you: Never presume that you know more than me. I was well aware of Keris’s little plot. I warned you not to defy me pubicly, and still you barged in, screaming of a coup, making me look
weak
.
If you’d kept your damned mouth shut, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Bleeding skies.
“You—you knew—”

“I always
know.” He digs his hand into my hair, yanking my head up and away from the sight of the blood. “I will
always
win. And now I possess the last living member of your family. If you
ever
disobey an order again, if you fail me, speak against me, or double-cross me, I swear to the skies that I will make her suffer more than you can possibly imagine.”

He releases me violently. His boots are silent as he leaves the throne room.

I am alone, but for ghosts.

I
stumble away from the flames, my invisibility gone.
No! Skies, no!

Darin, Elias, little Tas—they cannot be dead in the inferno. Not after everything. I find that I am sobbing, that my invisibility has fallen. And I don’t care.

“You there! Scholar!” Bootsteps thunder toward me, and I slide back across the polished stone of the rotunda, trying to avoid the grasping hand of a legionnaire who clearly thinks I’m an escaped prisoner. His eyes narrow, and he lunges forward, his fingers fastening onto my cloak, ripping it off. He casts it to the ground as I scramble away, then he hurtles his big body into mine.

“Oof!” The breath leaves my lungs as I hit the bottom steps of the staircase. The soldier tries to flip me on my stomach, to capture my hands.

“Get off!”

“Did you escape the pens? Arrrg!” He jerks when I knee him in the groin. I unsheathe my dagger, drive it into his thigh, and twist. He bellows, and a second later, his weight is yanked off me and he goes flying into the staircase, my blade still embedded in his leg.

A shadow fills the space where he stood, familiar and utterly changed at the same time. “E-Elias?”

“I’m here.” He hauls me to my feet. He is lean as a rail, and his eyes appear to almost glow in the thickening smoke. “Your brother is here. Tas is here. We’re alive. We’re all right. And that was beautifully done.” He nods to the soldier, who has ripped the dagger out of his thigh and is now crawling away. “He’ll be limping for months.”

I leap up and pull him into a hug, something between a sob and a cry erupting from my chest. We are both injured and exhausted and heart-sore, but when I feel his arms around me, when I realize that he is
real
and here and alive, I believe, for the first time, that we have a chance at surviving.

“Where’s Darin?” I pull away from Elias, looking around, expecting my brother to appear out of the smoke. Soldiers rush past us, desperate to escape the fire engulfing the Martial section of the prison. “Here, take your scims.” I shrug out of the cross-body scabbard, and Elias pulls them on. Darin does not appear.

“Elias?” I say, worried now. “Where—” As I speak, Elias kneels, pulling something from the floor onto his shoulder. I think, at first, that it is a filthy bag of sticks.

Then I see the hands.
Darin’s
hands. His skin is scarred, and he’s missing a pinky and a middle finger. Still, I’d know those hands anywhere.

“Skies.” I try to see Darin’s face, but it’s obscured by hanks of long, filthy hair. My brother was never particularly heavy, but he seems so small suddenly—a depleted, nightmare version of himself.
He might not be what he was
,
Afya had warned.

“He’s alive,” Elias reminds me when he sees my face. “He got a knock on the head is all. He’s going to be all right.”

A small figure appears behind Elias, my bloody dagger in hand. He gives it to me, then takes my fingers. “You must not be seen, Laia,” he says. “Hide yourself!”

Tas pulls me down the hall, and I let my invisibility fall over me. Elias starts at my sudden disappearance. I squeeze his hand so he knows I am close. Ahead of us, the prison doors are flung open. A knot of soldiers teems outside.

“You have to open the Scholar pens,” Elias says. “I can’t do it while carrying Darin. The guards would be on me in a second.”

Skies!
I was to set more fires in the prison yard to add to the mayhem.

“We’ll have to do without the extra distraction,” Elias says. “I’ll pretend I’m delivering Darin to the pens. I’ll be right behind you. Tas, stay with Laia—watch her back. I’ll find you.”

“One thing, Elias.” I don’t want to worry him, but he should know. “The Warden might know I’m here. I lost my invisibility upstairs for a moment. I got it back, but he could have seen the change.”

“Then stay away from him,” Elias says. “He’s wily, and from the way he interrogated Darin and me, I’m certain he’d love to get his hands on you.”

Seconds later, we burst out of the prison and into the yard. The cold is like a knife in the face after the stifling heat of the prison.

The yard, though crowded, is devoid of chaos. Prisoners emerging from Kauf are immediately escorted away. Kauf’s guards, many of them coughing, ash-faced, or burned, are ushered into a line, where another soldier assesses them for injuries before assigning them to a task. One of the legionnaires in charge spots Elias and calls out to him.

“You!” he says. “You there!”

“Let me dump this body,” Elias grumbles, the perfect impression of a sullen aux. He pulls his cloak closer and edges away as another group of soldiers tumbles out of Kauf’s inferno.

“Go, Laia,” he whispers under his breath. “Quickly!”

Tas and I bolt toward the Scholar pens, far to our left. Behind us echo the voices of thousands of prisoners: Martials, Tribesmen, Mariners—even Wildmen and Barbarians. The Martials have gathered them into one enormous circle and formed a cordon of spearmen two guards thick around them.

“There, Laia.” Tas shoves the keys he stole into my hands and nods to the north side of the pen. “I will warn the Skiritae!” He veers away, staying close to the edges of the pen and whispering through the wide spaces between its wooden slats.

I spot the door—which is guarded by six legionnaires. The racket of the prison yard is loud enough that they could not possibly hear me approach, but I tread carefully anyway. When I am within three feet of the door, and just inches from the closest legionnaire, he shifts, putting a hand on his sword, and I freeze. I can smell the leather of his armor, the steel tips of the arrows across his back.
Just one more step, Laia. He can’t see you. He has no idea you’re here.

As if handling an angry snake, I remove the key ring from my pocket, holding on to it tightly so it doesn’t jangle. I wait until one of the legionnaires turns to say something to the rest before I put the key in the lock.

It jams.

I wiggle the key, first gently and then a bit harder. One of the soldiers turns toward the door. I look at him, right at his eyes, but he shrugs and turns back.

Patience, Laia
. I take a deep breath and lift the lock. Because it’s attached to something that is grounded in the earth, it does not disappear. I hope no one is looking at this door right now—they’d see a lock floating inches from where it should be, and even the most dimwitted aux would know that’s unnatural. Again, I twist the key.
Almost—

Just then, something fastens on to my arm—a long hand that curls like a feeler around my bicep.

“Ah, Laia of Serra,” someone breathes into my ear. “What a talented girl you are. I am
very
interested in examining your skill further.”

My invisibility falters, and the keys fall to the icy stones with a clatter. I look up to find myself staring into a pointed face with large, watery eyes.

The Warden.

S
haeva warned me that the Waiting Place would pull at me. As I make my way across the freezing prison yard to the pens, I feel it, a yank in my chest, like an invisible hook.

I’m coming
,
I shout in my head.
The more you bully me, the slower I’ll be, so stop it.

The pull lessens slightly, as if the Waiting Place has heard. Fifteen yards to the pens … thirteen … ten …

Then I hear footsteps. The soldier from Kauf’s entrance has caught up with me. From his cautious gait, I can tell that my uniform and the scims across my back haven’t fooled him.
Ten hells.
Ah well. This was always a stretch, as far as disguises go.

He attacks. I try to sidestep him, but Darin’s body has me off balance, and the soldier clips me, knocking me down and sending Darin rolling away.

The legionnaire’s eyes widen when my hood falls back. “Prisoner loose,” he bellows. “Pris—” I snatch a knife from his belt and plunge it into his side.

Too late. The legionnaires at Kauf’s entrance have heard his cry. Four of the spearmen guarding the prisoners break away. Auxes.

I smile.
Not enough to take me down.

I draw my scims as the first soldier approaches, duck under his spear, and slice his wrist. He screams and releases the weapon. I drop him with a blow across the temple, then pivot and halve the spear of the next soldier, felling him with a blade through the stomach.

My blood rises now, my warrior’s instincts at full tilt. I sweep up the fallen soldier’s spear and send it flying into the shoulder of the third aux. The fourth hesitates, and I take him down with a shoulder to his gut. His head cracks against the cobblestones, and he does not move again.

A spear whizzes by my ear, and pain explodes in my head. It’s not enough to stop me.

A dozen spearmen break from the prisoners. They know now that I am more than just an escaped prisoner.

“Run!” I roar at the gaping prisoners, pointing at the gap in the cordon. “Escape! Run!”

Two Martials bolt through the cordon and make for Kauf’s portcullis. For a moment, it seems as if the entire yard watches them, holding its breath. Then a guard shouts, the spell is broken, and all at once, dozens of inmates surge out, not caring if they are impaling their fellows on spears. The Martial spearmen attempt to fill the gap, but there are thousands of prisoners, and they’ve caught the scent of freedom.

The soldiers running toward me slow at the shouts of their comrades. I heave Darin up and race for the Scholar pens. Why in the ten hells aren’t they open yet? There should be Scholars flooding the yard.

“Elias!” Tas darts toward me. “The lock is stuck. And Laia—the Warden—”

I spot the Warden scuttling across the yard with Laia in a chokehold. She kicks at him desperately, but he’s lifted her off the ground, and her face turns red from lack of air.
No! Laia!
I’m already moving for her, but I grit my teeth and force myself to stop. We need those pens open if we want to get the Scholars out and loaded onto the boats.

“Get to her, Tas,” I say. “Distract the Warden. I’ll deal with the lock.”

Tas runs, and I drop Darin beside the Scholar pen. The legionnaires guarding its entrance have bolted toward Kauf’s in an attempt to stop the mass exodus of prisoners, and I turn my attention to the lock. It’s jammed good and tight, and no matter how I twist, it does not open. Within the pens, a man shoves his way forward, only his dark eyes visible through the slats. His face is so filthy that I cannot tell if he is old or young.

“Elias Veturius?” he says in a harsh whisper.

As I unsheathe my scim to break the lock, I venture a guess. “Araj?”