It’s the Commandant’s son. Veturius.
Where did he come from? I push at him violently, then immediately
regret doing so. A normal Blackcliff student would beat me for touching
him without permission — and this is no student, but an Aspirant and the
Commandant’s spawn. I have to get out of here. I have to get back to the
house. But the weakness that has plagued me all morning takes firm hold,
and I fall to the sand a few feet away, sweating and nauseous.
Infection. I know the signs. I should have let Cook dress the wound last
night.
“Who were you talking to?” Veturius asks.
“N - no - no one, Aspirant, sir.” Not everyone can see them, Teluman had
said of the ghuls. It’s clear Veturius can’t.
“You look terrible,” he says. “Come into the shade.”
“The sand. I have to take it up or she’ll — she’ll — ”
“Sit.” It’s not a request. He picks up my basket and takes my hand,
leading me to the shade of the cliffs and setting me down on a small
boulder.
When I chance a look at him, he is gazing out at the horizon, his mask
catching the dawn light like water catching the sun. Even at a distance of a
few feet, everything about him screams violence, from the short black hair
to the big hands to the fact that each muscle is honed to deadly perfection.
The bandages that encircle his forearms and the scratches that mar his
hands and face only make him look more vicious.
He has just one weapon, a dagger at his belt. But then, he’s a Mask. He
doesn’t need weapons because he is one, particularly when faced with a
slave who barely comes up to his shoulder. I try to scoot away further, but
my body is too heavy.
“What’s your name? You never said.” He fills my basket with sand, not
looking at me.
I think of when the Commandant asked me this question and the blow I
received for answering honestly. “S - Slave - Girl.”
He is quiet for a moment. “Tell me your real name.”
Though calmly spoken, the words are a command. “Laia.”
“Laia,” he says. “What did she do to you?”
How strange, that a Mask can sound so kind, that the de ep thrum of his
baritone can offer comfort. I could close my eyes and not know I was
speaking to a Mask at all.
But I can’t trust his voice. He’s her son. If he is showing concern, there
is a reason for it — and not one that favors me.
Slowly, I push back my scarf. When he sees the K, his eyes go hard
behind the mask, and for a moment, sadness and fury burn in his gaze. I’m
startled when h e speaks again.
“May I?” He lifts a hand, and I barely feel it when his fingers brush the
skin near my wound.
“Your skin’s hot.” He lifts the basket of sand. “The wound is bad. It
needs attention.”
“I know that,” I say. “Commandant wanted sand, and I didn’t have time
to — to — ” Veturius’s face swims for a moment, and I feel strangely
weightless. He’s close then, close enough for me to feel the heat of his
body. The scent of cloves and rain drifts over me. I close my eyes to stop
everything from lurching, but i t doesn’t help. His arms are around me, hard
and gentle all at once, and he lifts me up.
“Let me go!” My strength peaks, and I shove at his chest. What is he
doing? Where is he taking me?
“How else do you plan to get back up the cliffs?” he asks. His broad
strides carry us easily up the winding switchbacks. “You can barely stand.”
Does he actually think I’m stupid enough to acc ept his “help”? This is a
trick he’s plotted with his mother. Some further punishment awaits. I have
to es cape him.
But as he walks, another wave of dizziness hits me, and I clutch his neck
until it passes. If I hold on tight enough, he won’t be able to throw me to the
dunes. Not without getting dragged down himself.
My eyes fall on his bandaged arms, and I remember that the First Trial
ended yesterday.
Veturius catches me looking. “Just scratches,” he says. “Augurs left me
in the middle of the Great Wastes for the First Trial. After a few days
without water, I started falling down a lot.”
“They left you in the Wastes?” I shudder. Everyone’s heard of that place.
It makes the Tribal lands look almost habitable. “And you survived? Did
they at least warn you?”
“They like surprises.”
Even through my sickness, the impact of what he’s said isn’t lost on me.
If the Aspirants don’t know what will happen in the Trials, how can I
possibly find out?
“Doesn’t the Commandant know what you’ll be up against?” Why am I
asking him so many questions? It’s not my place. My head must be addled
from the wound. But if my curiosity bothers Veturius, he doesn’t say so.
“She might. Doesn’t matter. Even if she knows, she wouldn’t tell me.”
His mother doesn’t want him to win? Part of me wonders at their bizarre
relationship. But then I remind myself that they’re Martials. Martials are
different.
Veturius crests the cliff and ducks beneath the clothes fluttering on the
line, heading down the slaves’ corridor. When he carries me into the kitchen
and sets me down on a bench beside the worktable, Izzi, scrubbing the
floor, drops her brush and stares open - mouthed. Cook’s glance falls to my
wound, and she shakes her head.
“Kitche n - Girl,” Cook says. “Take the sand upstairs. If the Commandant
asks about Slave - Girl, tell her she’s taken ill and that I’m tending to her so
she can get back to work.”
Izzi picks up the basket of sand without a sound and disappears. A wave
of nausea breaks over me, and I’m forced to drop my head between my legs
for a few moments.
“Laia’s wound’s infected,” Veturius says when Izzi leaves. “Do you have
bloodroot serum?”
If Cook is surprised that the Commandant’s son is using my given name,
she doesn’t show i t. “Bloodroot’s too valuable for the likes of us. I’ve
tanroot and wildwood tea.”
Veturius frowns and gives Cook the same instructions Pop would have.
Wildwood tea three times a day, tanroot to clean the wound, and no
bandage. He turns to me. “I’ll find some bloodroot and bring it to you
tomorrow. I promise. You’ll be all right. Cook knows her remedies.”
I nod, unsure if I should thank him, still waiting for him to reveal his
true purpose for helping me. But he doesn’t say anything else, apparently
satisfie d with my response. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks out
the back door.
Cook rustles around the cabinets, and a few minutes later, a mug of
steaming tea is in my hands. After I drink it down, she sits in front of me,
her scars inches from my face. I gaze at them, but they no longer seem
grotesque. Is it because I’ve gotten used to seeing them? Or because I have
a disfigurement of my own?
“Who’s Darin?” Cook asks. Her sapphire eyes glint, and for a moment,
they are hauntingly familiar. “You called for him in the night.”
The tea takes the edge off my dizziness, and I sit up. “He’ s my brother.”
“I see.” Cook drips tanroot oil on a square of gauze and dabs it onto the
wound. I wince in pain and grip the seat. “And is he in the Resistance too?”
“How could you — ” How could you know that? I almost say, but then I
recover my wits and press my lips together.
Cook catches the slip and pounces. “It’s not hard to tell. I’ve seen a
hundred slaves come and go. Resistance fighters are always different. Never
broken. At least not when they first arrive. They have . . . hope.” She curls
her lip, a s if she’s speaking of a colony of diseased criminals instead of her
own people.
“I’m not with the rebels.” I wish I hadn’t spoken. Darin says my voice
goes high when I lie, and Cook seems like the type to notice. Sure enough,
her eyes narrow.
“I’m not a fool, girl. Do you have any idea what you’re doing? The
Commandant will find you out. She’ll torture you, kill you. Then she’ll
punish anyone she thinks you were friends with. That means Iz — Kitchen Girl.”
“I’m not doing anything wro — ”
“There was a woman once ,” she interrupts me abruptly. “Joined the
Resistance. Learned to mix powders and potions so that the very air would
turn to fire and stones to sand. But she got in over her head. Did things for
the rebels — horrible things — that she never dreamt she’d do. Commandant
caught her like she’d caught so many others. Carved her up good and ruined
her face. Made her swallow hot coals and ruined her voice. Then she made
the woman a slave in her house. But not before killing everyone the woman
knew. Everyone she loved. ”
Oh no. The source of Cook’s scars becomes sickeningly clear. She nods,
grimly acknowledging the dawning horror on my face.
“I lost everything — my family, my freedom — all for a cause that never
had any hope to begin with.”
“But — ”
“Before you came here, the Resistance sent a boy. Zain. He was
supposed to be a gardener. Did they tell you about him?”
I almost shake my head but stop, crossing my arms instead. She doesn’t
acknowledge my silence. She’s not guessing about me. She knows.
“It was two years ago. Comma ndant caught him. Tortured him in the
school’s dungeon for days. Some nights we could hear him. Screaming.
When she was done with Zain, she gathered every last slave in Blackcliff.
She wanted to know who’d been friends with him. Wanted to teach us a
lesson for not turning in a traitor.” Cook’s eyes are fixed on me,
unrelenting. “Killed three slaves before she was satisfied that the message
had sunk in. Lucky I’d warned Izzi away from the boy. Lucky she listened.”
Cook gathers her supplies and shoves them back into a cabinet. She
picks up a cleaver and hacks at a bloody slab of meat waiting on the
worktable.
“I don’t know why you ran away from your family to join those rebel
bastards.” She flings the words at me like stones. “I don’t care. Tell them
you quit. Ask for another mission, somewhere where you won’t hurt
anyone. Because if you don’t, you’ll die, and skies only knows what will
happen to the rest of us.” She points the cleaver at me, and I shift back in
my chair, watching the knife. “Is that what you want?” she says. “Death?
Izzi tortured?” She leans forward, spittle flying from her mouth. The knife
is inches from my face. “Is it?”
“I didn’t run away,” I burst out. Pop’s body, Nan’s glazed irises, Darin’s
flailing limbs all flash before my eyes. “ I didn’t even want to join. My
grandparents — a Mask came — ”
I bite my tongue. Shut it, Laia. I scowl at the old woman, unsurprised to
see her glaring back.
“Tell me the truth about why you joined the rebels,” she says, “and I’ll
ke ep my mouth shut about your dirty little secret. Ignore me, and I’ll tell
that ice - hearted vulture upstairs exactly what you are.” She drives the
cleaver into the worktable and drops into the seat next to me, waiting.
Damn her. If I tell her about the raid and what came after, she m ight still
rat me out. But if I say nothing, I’ve no doubt that she’ll march to the
Commandant’s room this instant. She’s just insane enough to do it.
I have no choice.
As I speak of what happened that night, she remains silent and unmoved.
When I finish, my eyes are swollen, but Cook’s mangled face reveals
nothing.
I wipe my face on my sleeve. “Darin’s stuck in prison. It’s only a matter
of time before they torture him to death or sell him as a slave. I have to get
him out before then. But I can’t do it al one. The rebels said if I spied for
them, they’d help me.” I stand shakily. “You could threaten to turn my soul
over to the Nightbringer himself. Doesn’t matter. Darin’s my only family. I
have to save him.”
Cook says nothing, and after a minute passes, I assume she’s chosen to
ignore me. Then, as I move to the door, she speaks.
“Your mother. Mirra.” At the sound of Mother’s name, I jerk my head
around. Cook is examining me. “You don’t look like her.”
I’m so surprised I don’t bother to deny it. Cook has to b e in her
seventies. She’d have been in her sixties when my parents controlled the
Resistance. What was her real name? What had her role been? “You knew
my mother?”
“Knew her? Yes, I knew her. Always liked y - y - your father better.” She
clears her throat and shakes her head in irritation. Strange. I’ve never heard
her stutter. “Kind man. Sm - smart man. Not — not like your m - m - mother.”
“My mother was the Lioness — ”
“Your mother — isn’t — worth your words.” Cook’s voice drops into a
snarl. “Never — never listened to anything but her own selfishness. The
Lioness.” Her mouth twists around the name. “She’s the reason — the reason
— I’m here.” Her breath heaves now, as if she’s having some sort of fit, but
she barrels on, determined to get out whatever it is she wishes to say. “The
Lioness, the Resistance, and their grand plans. Traitors. Liars. F - fools.” She
stands and reaches for her cleaver. “Don’t trust them.”
“I don’t have a choice,” I say. “I have to.”
“They’ll use you.” Her hands shake, and she grips the counter. She gasps
out the last few words. “They take — take — take. And then — then — they’ll
throw you to the wolves. I warned you. Remember. I warned you.”