An Ember in the Ashes. Sabaa Tahir
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Sana greets him. ‘We ran into a patrol. Picked up someone on the way. Grab her some food, would you?’ Tariq disappears, and Sana gestures for me to sit on a nearby bench, ignoring the stares coming our way from the dozens of people moving about the cavern.
There are an equal number of men and women here, most in dark, close-fitting clothing and nearly all dripping with knives and scims, as if expecting an Empire raid any moment. Some sharpen weapons, others watch over cook fires. A few older men smoke pipes. The bunks along the cavern wall are filled with sleeping bodies.
As I look around, I push a hank of hair out of my face. Sana’s eyes narrow when she takes in my features. ‘You look … familiar,’ she says.
I allow my hair to fall forward again. Sana’s old enough to have been in the Resistance for quite some time. Old enough to have known my parents.
‘I used to sell Nan’s jams at market.’
‘Right.’ She’s still staring. ‘You live in the Quarter? Why were you—’
‘Why is she still here?’ Keenan, who’s been busy with a group of fighters in the corner, approaches, pulling back his hood. He’s far younger than I expected, closer to my age than Sana’s – which might explain why she bristles at his tone. Flame-red hair spills over his forehead and into his eyes, so dark at the roots it’s almost black. He is only a few inches taller than me, but lean and strong, with a Scholar’s even, fine features. A hint of ginger stubble shadows his jaw, and freckles spatter his nose. Like the other fighters, he wears nearly as many weapons as a Mask.
I realize I’m staring and glance away, heat rising in my cheeks. Suddenly, the looks he’s been getting from the younger women in the cavern make sense.
‘She can’t stay,’ he says. ‘Get her out of here, Sana. Now.’
Tariq returns and, overhearing Keenan, slams a plate of food onto the table behind me. ‘You don’t tell her what to do. Sana’s not some besotted recruit, she’s the head of our faction, and you—’
‘Tariq.’ Sana puts a hand on the man’s arm, but the look she gives Keenan could wither stone. ‘I was giving the girl some food. I wanted to find out what she was doing in the tunnels.’
‘I was looking for you,’ I say. ‘For the Resistance. I need your help. My brother was taken in a raid yesterday—’
‘We can’t help,’ Keenan says. ‘We’re stretched thin as it is.’
‘But—’
‘We. Can’t. Help.’ He speaks slowly, as if I’m a child. Maybe before the raid, the chill in his eyes would have silenced me. But not now. Not when Darin needs me.
‘You don’t lead the Resistance,’ I say.
‘I’m second-in-command.’
He’s higher up than I expected. But not high enough. I shake my hair out of my face and stand.
‘Then it’s not up to you, whether I stay or not. It’s up to your leader.’ I try to sound brave, although if Keenan disagrees, I don’t know what I’ll do. Start begging, maybe.
Sana’s smile is sharp as a knife. ‘Girl’s got a point.’
Keenan moves towards 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. I cross my arms and look away, embarrassed of my tattered shift, of the dirt, the cuts, the damage.
‘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.
‘I expect I would,’ he says. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Laia.’ He doesn’t ask for a family name – Scholars rarely take them.
Sana looks between us, bemused. ‘I’ll go get Maz—’
‘No.’ Keenan’s already walking away. ‘I’ll find him.’
I sit back down, and Sana keeps glancing at my face, trying to puzzle out why I look familiar. If she’d seen Darin, she’d have known right away. He’s the spitting image of our mother – and no one could forget Mother. Father was different – always in the background, drawing, planning, thinking. He gave me his unruly midnight hair and gold eyes, his high cheekbones and full, unsmiling lips.
In the Quarter, no one knew my parents. No one looked twice at Darin or me. But a Resistance camp is different. I should have realized that.
I find myself staring at Sana’s tattoo, and my stomach lurches at the sight of the fist and flame. Mother had one just like it, above her heart. Father spent months perfecting it before inking it into her skin.
Sana sees me staring. ‘When I got this tattoo, the Resistance was different,’ she explains without my asking. ‘We were better. But things changed. Our leader, Mazen, told us we needed to be bolder, to go on the attack. Most of the young fighters, the ones Mazen trains, tend to agree with that philosophy.’
It’s clear Sana’s not happy about this. I’m waiting for her to say more when a door opens on the far side of the cavern to admit Keenan and a limping, silver-haired man.
‘Laia,’ Keenan says. ‘This is Mazen, he’s—’
‘Leader of the Resistance.’ I know his name because my parents spoke it often when I was a child. And I know his face because it’s on wanted signs all over Serra.
‘So, you’re our orphan of the day.’ The man comes to a stop before me, waving me back down when I rise to greet him. He has a pipe clenched in his teeth, and the smoke blurs his ravaged face. The Resistance tattoo, faded but still visible, is a blue-green shadow on the skin below his throat. ‘What is it you want?’
‘My brother Darin’s been taken by a Mask.’ I watch Mazen’s face carefully to see if he recognizes my brother’s name, but he gives nothing away. ‘Last night, in a raid at our house. I need your help to get him back.’
‘We don’t rescue strays.’ Mazen turns to Keenan. ‘Don’t waste my time again.’
I try to quash my desperation. ‘Darin’s no stray. He wouldn’t have even been taken if it wasn’t for your men.’
Mazen swings around. ‘My men?’
‘Two of your fighters were interrogated by the Martials. They gave Darin’s name to the Empire before they died.’
When Mazen looks at Keenan for confirmation, the younger man fidgets.
‘Raj and Navid,’ he says after a pause. ‘New recruits. Said they were working on something big. Eran found their bodies in the west end of the Scholars’ Quarter this morning. I heard a few minutes ago.’
Mazen swears and turns back to me. ‘Why would my men give the Empire your brother’s name? How do they know him?’
If Mazen doesn’t know about the sketchbook, I’m not about to tell him. I don’t understand what it means myself. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘Maybe they wanted him to join. Maybe they were friends. Whatever the reason, they led the Empire to us. The Mask who killed