In the predawn darkness, the storm churning above Serra strikes with the
wrath of a conquering army. The servants’ corridor swims in a half foot
of rain, and Cook and I swe ep out the water with rush brooms while Izzi
tirelessly stacks sandbags. Rain lashes my face like the icy fingers of a
ghost.
“Nasty day for a Trial!” Izzi calls to me over the downpour.
I don’t know what the Third Trial will be, and I don’t care, exc ept to
hope that it serves as a distraction for the rest of the school while I look for
a secret entrance into Blackcliff.
No one else seems to share my indifference. In Serra, bets over who will
win border on the obscene. The odds, Izzi tells me, have shifted to favor
Marcus instead of Veturius.
Elias. I whisper his name to myself. I think of his face without the mask
and the low, thrilling timbre of his voice when he whispered in my ear at
the Moon Festival. I think of how he moved when he fought with Aquilla,
that sensual beauty that took my breath away. I think of his implacable
anger when Marcus nearly killed me.
Stop, Laia. Stop. He’s a Mask and I’m a slave, and thinking of him in
this way is so wrong that I wonder for a second if the beating Marcus gave
me has muddled my brain.
“Inside, Slave - Girl.” Cook takes my broom, her hair a wild halo in the
storm. “Commandant’s calling.”
I rush upstairs, soaked through and shivering, to find the Commandant
pacing her room with a violent energy, her blonde tresses unbound.
“My hair,” the woman says when I dart into her chambers. “Quickly,
girl, or I’ll have it out of your hide.”
The second I finish, she leaves the room, snatching her weapons from
the wall, not bothering to give me her usual litany of orders.
“Shot out of here like a wolf on the hunt,” Izz i says when I enter the
kitchen. “Went straight for the amphitheater. That must be where the Trial
is. I wonder — ”
“You and the rest of the school, girl,” Cook says. “We’ll find out soon
enough. We’re stuck inside today. Commandant said any slave out on the
grounds will be killed on sight.”
Izzi and I exchange a glance. Cook k ept us up pr eparing for the storm
until past midnight last night, and I’d been planning to look for a secret
entrance today.
“It’s not worth the risk, Laia,” Izzi warns me when Cook tur ns away.
“You still have tomorrow. Rest your mind for a day, and a solution might
present itself.” A rumble of thunder greets her comment. I sigh and nod. I
hope she’s right.
“Get to work, you two.” Cook shoves a rag in Izzi’s hand. “Kitchen - Girl,
you finish the silver, polish the banister, scrub the — ”
Izzi rolls her eye and throws down the cloth. “Dust the furniture, hang
the laundry, I know. Let it wait, Cook. The Commandant’s gone for an
entire day. Can’t we appreciate that, even for a minute?” Cook pres ses her
lips together in disapproval, but Izzi assumes a wheedling tone. “Tell us a
story. Something scary.” She shivers in anticipation, and Cook makes a
strange sound that could be a laugh or a groan.
“Life isn’t scary enough for you, girl?”
Quietly, I slip to the back of the kitchen worktable to press the seemingly
endless stack of the Commandant’s uniforms. It’s been ages since I’ve
heard a good tale, and I long to get lost in one. But if Cook knows that,
she’ll probably ke ep silent on principle.
The ol d woman appears to ignore us. Her hands, small and fine, sift
through jars of spices as she pr epares lunch.
“You won’t give up, will you?” I think at first that Cook is speaking to
Izzi, only to look up and find her regarding me. “You mean to see this
mission to save your brother through to the end. No matter what the cost.”
“I have to.” I wait for her to launch into another of her rants against the
Resistance. But instead, she nods, unsurprised. “I have a story for you,
then,” she says. “It has no hero or heroine. It has no happy ending. But it’s a
story you need to hear.”
Izzi raises an eyebrow and takes up her polishing cloth. Cook shuts one
spice jar and opens another. Then she be gins.
“Long ago,” she says, “when man knew not greed, malice, tribe, nor
clan, jinn walked the earth.”
Cook’s voice is nothing like a Tribal Kehanni’s: It is stern where a talespinner’s would be
gentle, all edges where a tale - spinner’s would be
mellow and curved. But the old woman’s cadence reminds me of the
Tribespeople anyway, and I’m pulled into the tale.
“Immortal the jinn were.” Cook’s eyes are quiet, as if she’s lost in an
inner musing. “Created of sinless, smokeless fire. They rode the winds and
read the stars, and their beauty was the beauty of the wild places.
“Though the jinn could manipulate the minds of lesser creatures, they
were honorable and occupied themselves with the raising of their young and
the protection of their mysteries. Some were fascinated by the untempered
race of man. But the leader of the jinn, the King - of - No - Name, who was
oldest and wisest of them, counseled his people to avoid men. So they did.
“As centuries passed, men grew strong. They befriended the race of wild
elementals, the efrits. In their innocence, the efrits showed men the paths to
greatness, granting them powers of healing and fighting, of swiftness and
fortune - telling. Villages became cities. Cities rose into kingdoms.
Kingdoms fell and were melded into empires.
“From this ever - changing world arose the Empire of the Scholars,
strongest among men, dedicated to their creed: Through knowledge,
transcendence. And who had more knowledge than the jinn, the oldest
creatures of the earth?
“In an attempt to learn the secrets of the jinn, the Scholars sent
delegations to negotiate with the King - of - No - Name. They received a gentle
but firm response.
“We are jinn. We are apart.
“But the Scholars hadn’t created an empire by giving up at the first
rejection. They sent cunning messengers, raised to oration the way Masks
are raised to war. When that failed, they sent wise men and artists,
spellcasters and politicians, teachers and healers, royalty and commoners.
“The response was the same. We are jinn. We are apart.
“Soon, hard times s truck the Scholar Empire. Famine and plague took
whole cities. Scholar ambition turned to bitterness. The Scholar Emperor
grew angry, believing that if only his people had the knowledge of the jinn,
they could rise again. He gathered the finest Scholar minds into a Coven
and set them to one task: mastery of the jinn.
“The Coven found dark allies among the fey — cave efrits, ghuls,
wraiths. From these twisted creatures, the Scholars learned to trap the jinn
with salt and steel and summer rain still warm from the heavens. They
tormented the old creatures, seeking the source of their power. But the jinn
k ept their secrets.
“Enraged at the evasion of the jinn, the Coven no longer cared for fey
secrets. They sought now only to destroy the jinn. Efrits, ghuls, and wraiths
abandoned the Scholars, understanding the full extent of man’s thirst for
power. Too late. The fey had given their knowledge freely and in trust, and
the Coven used that knowledge to create a weapon that would conquer the
jinn forever. They called it the Star.
“The fey watched in horror, desperate to stop the doom they helped
unleash. But the Star gave the humans unnatural power, and so the lesser
creatures fled, disappearing into the de ep places to wait out the war. The
jinn stood fast, but they were too few. The Coven cornered them and used
the Star to lock th em forever in a grove of trees, a living, growing prison,
the only place powerful enough to bind such creatures.
“The power unleashed by the jailing destroyed the Star — and the Coven.
But the Scholars rejoiced, for the jinn were defeated. All but the greatest of
them.”
“The king,” Izzi says.
“Yes. The King - of - No - Name es caped imprisonment. But he had failed to
save his people, and his failure drove him mad. It was a madness he carried
with him like a cloud of ruin. Wherever he went, darkness fell, de eper than
a midnight ocean. The king was at long last given a name: the
Nightbringer.”
My head snaps up.
My Lord Nightbringer . . .
“For hundreds of years,” Cook says, “the Nightbringer plagued mankind
however he could. But it was never enough. Like rats, men scurried into
their hiding places when he came. And like rats, they emerged as soon as he
was gone. So he began to plan. He allied himself with the Scholars’ ancient
enemy, the Martials, a cruel people exiled to the northern reaches of the
continent. He whisper ed to them the secrets of steelcraft and statecraft. He
taught them to rise above their brutish roots. Then he waited. Within a few
generations, the Martials were ready. They unleashed the invasion.
“The Scholar Empire fell quickly, its people enslaved, broken. But still
alive. And so the Nightbringer’s thirst for revenge remains unquenched. He
lives now in the shadows, where he lures and enslaves the lesser of his
brethren — the ghuls, the wraiths, the cave efrits — to punish them for their
betrayal so long ag o. He watches, he waits, until the time is right, until he
can exact his full revenge.”
As Cook’s words die away, I realize I’m holding the press midair. Izzi
gapes, her polishing forgotten. Lightning flashes outside, and a gust of wind
rattles the windows and doors.
“Why do I need to know this story?” I ask.
“You tell me, girl.”
I take a de ep breath. “Because it’s true, isn’t it?”
Cook smiles her twisted smile. “You’ve seen the Commandant’s
nighttime visitor, I take it.”
Izzi looks between us. “What visitor?”
“He — he called himself the Nightbringer,” I say. “But it can’t be — ”
“He’s exactly what he says he is,” Cook says. “Scholars want to close
their eyes to the truth. Ghuls, wraiths, wights, jinn — they’re just stories.
Tribal myths. Campfire tales. Such arrogance.” She sneers. “Such pride.
Don’t you make that mistake, girl. Open your eyes to it, or you’ll end up
like your mother. Nightbringer was right in front of her, and she never even
knew it.”
I set the press down. “What do you mean?”
Cook speaks quietly, as if she’s afraid of her own words. “He infiltrated
the Resistance,” she says. “Took human form and p - posed as — as a fighter.”
She clenches her jaw and huffs before going on. “Got close to your mother.
Manipulated and used her.” Cook pauses again, her face growing pi nched
and pale. “Y - your fath - father caught on. N - Nightbringer — had — help. A trtrai - traitor.
Out - outwitted Jahan and — and sold your parents to Keris — no —
I — ”
“Cook?” Izzi jumps up as the old woman grabs her head with one hand
and staggers back into the wall with a moan. “Cook!”
“Away — ” The older woman shoves Izzi in the chest, nearly knocking
her to the floor. “Get away!”
Izzi raises her hands, her voice pitched low as if she’s speaking to a
frightened animal. “Cook, it’s all right — ”
“Get to work!” Cook draws he rself upright, the brief quiet in her eyes
shattered, r eplaced with something close to madness. “Leave me be!”
Izzi pulls me from the kitchen hurriedly. “She gets like that sometimes,”
she says once we’re out of earshot. “When she talks about the past.”
“What’s her name, Izzi?”
“She’s never told me. I don’t think she wants to remember it. Do you
think it’s true? What she said about the Nightbringer? And about your
mother?”
“I don’t know. Why would the Nightbringer go after my parents? What
did they ever do to him?” But even as I ask the question, I know the answer.
If the Nightbringer hates the Scholars as much as Cook says, then it’s no
wonder he sought to destroy the Lioness and her lieutenant. Their
movement was the only hope the Scholars ever had.
Izzi and I return to our work, each of us silent, our heads filled with
thoughts of ghuls and wraiths and smokeless fire. I find that I can’t stop
wondering about Cook. Who is she? How well did she know my parents?
How did a woman who crafted explosives for the Resistance end up a
slave? Why not just blow the Commandant to the tenth ring of hell?
Something occurs to me suddenly, something that makes my blood run
cold.
What if Cook is the traitor?
Everyone caught with my parents was killed — everyone who would
know anything about the betrayal. And yet Cook’s told me things about that
time that I’ve never heard before. How would she know, unless she was
there?
But why would she be a slave in the Commandant’s house if she’d
handed over Keris’s biggest catch?
“Perhaps someone in the Resistance will know who Cook is,” I say that
evening as Izzi and I trudg e to the Commandant’s bedroom with buckets
and dusters. “Perhaps they’ll remember her.”
“You should ask your red - haired fighter,” Izzi says. “He seems like a
sharp one.”
“Keenan? Maybe . . . ”
“I knew it,” Izzi crows. “You like him. I can tell by how you say his
name. Keenan.” She grins at me, and a blush races up my neck. “He’s a
looker,” she comments. “Which you’ve noticed, I take it.”
“Don’t have time for that. I’ve got other things on my mind.”
“Oh, stop,” Izzi says. “You’re human, Laia. You’re allowed to like a boy.
Even Masks have crushes. Even I — ”
We both freeze as the front door rattles downstairs. The latch clicks
open, and wind gusts through the house with a bone - chilling shriek.
“Slave - Girl!” The Commandant’s voice cracks up the stairwell. “Come
here.”
“Go.” Izzi shoves me to my feet. “Quick!”
Duster in hand, I hurry down the stairs, where the Commandant is
waiting for me, flanked by two legionnaires. Instead of her usual disgust,
her silver face is almost thoughtful as she regards me, as if I’ve t ransformed
into something unexpectedly fascinating.
I notice a fourth figure then, lurking in the shadows behind the
legionnaires, his skin and hair as white as bones bleached in the sun. An
Augur.
“Well” — the Commandant throws a wary look at the Augur — “is she the
one?”
The Augur gazes at me with black eyes that swim in a sea of blood red.
Rumor says the Augurs can read minds, and the things in my head are
enough to take me straight to the gallows for treason. I force myself to think
of Pop and Nan and Darin . A great, familiar grief fills my senses. Read my
mind then. I meet the Augur’s gaze. Read the pain your Masks have caused
me.
“She’s the one.” The Augur doesn’t break eye contact, seemingly
mesmerized by my anger. “Bring her.”
“Where are you taking me?” The legionnaires bind my hands. “What’s
going on?” They’ve learned about the spying. They must have.
“Quiet.” The Augur draws up his hood, and we follow him into the
storm. When I scream and try to tear free, one of the soldiers gags and
blindfolds me. I expect the Commandant to accompany us, but instead she
slams the door behind me. At least they haven’t taken Izzi. She’s safe. But
for how long?
Within seconds, I’m soaked to the skin. I struggle against the
legionnaires, but all I succeed in doing is ripping my dress so that it’s barely
decent. Where are they taking me? The dungeons, Laia. Where else?
I hear Cook’s voice, telling the story of the Resistance spy who came
before me. Commandant caught him. Tortured him in the school’s dungeon
for days. Some nights we could hear him. Screaming.
What will they do to me? Will they take Izzi too? Tears leak from my
eyes. I was supposed to save her. I was supposed to get her out of
Blackcliff.
After endless minutes of trudging through the storm, we stop. A door
opens, and a moment later, I’m airborne. I land hard on a chilly stone floor.
I try to stand and scream through the gag, straining at the bonds around
my wrists. I try to work off my blindfold so I can at least see where I am.
To no avail. The lock clicks, footst eps retreat, and I’m left alone to await
my fate.