The silence of the catacombs is as vast as a moonless night, and as
eerie. Which isn’t to say that the tunnels are empty; as soon as I drop
through the grate, a rat skitters across my bare feet, and a clear, fist - sized
spider descends on a thread inches from my face. I bite my hand so I don’t
scream.
Save Darin. Find the Resistance. Save Darin. Find the Resistance.
Sometimes I whisper the words. Mostly I chant them in my head. They
ke ep me moving, a charm to ward off the fear nipping at my mind.
I’m not sure, really, what I should be looking for. A camp? A hideout?
Any sign of life that isn’t rodent in nature?
Since most of the Empire’s garrisons are located east of the Scholars’
Quarter, I head west. Even in this skies - forsaken place, I can point
unfailingly to where the sun rises and where it sets, to the Empire’s capital
in the north, Antium, and to Navium, its main port due south. It’s a sense
I’ve had for as long as I can remember. When I was a child and Serra
should have seemed vast to me, I was always able to find my way.
I take heart from it — at least I won’t be wandering in circles.
For a time, sunshine trickles into the tunnels through the catacomb
grates, weakly lighting the floor. I hug the crypt - pocked walls, swallowing
my revulsion at the reek of rotting bones. A crypt is a good place to hide if
a Martial patrol gets too close. Bones are just bones, I tell myself. A patrol
will kill you.
In the daylight, it’s easier to push away my doubts and convince myself
that I’ll find the Resistance. But I wander for hours, and eventually, the
light fades and night falls, dropping like a curtain over my eyes. With it,
fear comes rushing into my mind, a river that’s broken a dam. Every thump
is a murderous aux soldier, every scritch a horde of rats. The catacombs
have swallowed me as a python swallows a mou se. I shudder, knowing that
I have a mouse’s chance of survival down here.
Save Darin. Find the Resistance.
Hunger gathers into a knot in my stomach, and thirst burns my throat. I
spot a torch flickering in the distance, and feel a mothlike urge to head
toward it. But the torches mark Empire territory, and the aux soldiers who
get tunnel duty are probably Plebeians, the most lowborn of the Martials. If
a group of Plebes catches me down here, I don’t want to think of what
they’ll do.
I feel like a hunted, cr aven animal, which is exactly how the Empire sees
me — how it sees all Scholars. The Emperor says that we are a free people
who live under his bene volence. But that’s a joke. We can’t own property or
attend schools, and even the mildest transgression results in enslavement.
No one else suffers such harshness. Tribesmen are protected under a
treaty; during the invasion, they acc epted Martial rule in exchange for free
movement for their people. Mariners are protected by geography and the
vast amounts of spices, meat, and iron they trade.
In the Empire, only Scholars are treated like trash.
Then defy the Empire, Laia, I hear Darin’s voice. Save me. Find the
Resistance.
The darkness slows my footst eps until I’m practically crawling. The
tunnel I’m in narrows, the walls crowding closer. Sweat pours down my
back, and my whole body quakes — I hate small spaces. My breath echoes
raggedly. Somewhere ahead, water falls in a lonely drip. How many ghosts
haunt this place? How many vengeful spirits roam these tunnels?
Stop, Laia. No such things as ghosts. As a child, I spent hours listening
to Tribal tale - spinners weave their legends of the mythical fey: the
Nightbringer and his fellow jinn; ghosts, efrits, wraiths, and wights.
Sometimes the tales spilled into my nightmares. When they did, it was
Darin who calmed my fears. Unlike Tribesmen, Scholars are not
superstitious, and Darin has always had a Scholar’s healthy sk epticism. No
ghosts here, Laia. I hear his voice in my mind and close my eyes,
pretending he’s beside me, allowing myself to be reassured by his steady
presence. No wraiths either. There’s no such thing.
My hand goes to my armlet, as it always does when I need strength. It’s
nearly black with tarnish, but I prefer it that way; it draws less attention. I
trace the pattern in the silver, a series of connecting lines that I know so
well I see it in my dreams.
Mother gave me the armlet the last time I saw her, when I was five. It’s
one of the few clear memories I have of her — the cinnamon scent of her
hair, the sparkle in her storm - sea eyes.
“Ke ep it safe for me, little cricket. Just for a week. Just until I come
back.”
What would she say now, if she knew I’d k ept the armlet safe but lost
her only son? That I’d saved my own neck and sacrificed my brother’s?
Set it right. Save Darin. Find the Resistance. I release the armlet and
stumble on.
Soon after, I hear the first sounds behind me.
A whisper. The scrape of a boot on stone. If the crypts weren’t silent, I
doubt I’d have noticed, the sounds are so quiet. Too quiet for an aux soldier.
Too furtive for the Resistance. A Mask?
My heart thumps, and I whirl, searching the tarry blackness. Masks can
prowl through darkness like this as easily as if they are part wraith. I wait,
frozen, but the catacombs fall silent again. I don’t move. I don’t breathe. I
hear nothing.
Rat. It’s just a rat. A really big one, maybe . . .
When I dare to take another st ep, I catch a whiff of leather and
woodsmoke — human smells. I drop and search the floor with my hands for
a weapon — a rock, a stick, a bone — anything to fight off whoever is
stalking me. Then tinder hits flint, a hiss splits the air, and a moment later, a
torch catches fire with a whoosh.
I stand, shielding my face with my hands, the impression of the flame
pulsing behind my lids. When I force my eyes open, I make out a halfdozen hooded
figures in a circle around me, all with loaded bows pointed at
m y heart.
“Who are you?” one of the figures says, st epping forward. Though his
voice is cool and flat as a legionnaire’s, he doesn’t have the breadth and
height of a Martial. His bare arms are hard with muscle, and he moves with
fluid grace. A knife rests in one hand like it’s an extension of his body, and
he holds the torch in his other. I try to find his eyes, but they’re hidden
beneath the hood. “Speak.”
“I — ” After hours of silence, I can barely manage a croak. “I’m looking
for . . . ”
Why didn’t I think this through? I can’t tell them I’m looking for the
Resistance. No one with half a brain would admit to seeking out the rebels.
“Check her,” the man says when I don’t go on.
Another of the figures, slight and womanly, slings her bow on her back.
The torch sputters behind her, casting her face into de ep shadow. She looks
too small to be a Martial, and the skin of her hands doesn’t have the dark
hue of a Mariner’s. She’s probably either a Scholar or a Tribeswoman.
Maybe I can reason with her.
“Please,” I say. “Let me — ”
“Shut it,” the man who’d spoken before says. “Sana, anything?”
Sana. A Scholar name, short and simple. If she were Martial, her name
would have been Agrippina Cassius or Chrysilla Aroman or something
equally long and pompous.
But just because she’s a Scholar doesn’t mean I’m safe. I’ve heard
rumors of Scholar thieves lurking in the catacombs, popping through grates
to grab, raid, and usually kill whoever is nearby before dropping back into
their lair.
Sana runs her hands over my legs and arms. “An armlet,” she says.
“Might be silver. I can’t tell.”
“You’re not taking that!” I jerk away from her, and the thieves’ bows,
which had dropped a notch, come back up. “Please, let me go. I’m a
Scholar. I’m one of you.”
“Get it do ne,” the man says. Then he signals to the rest of his band, and
they begin to slip back into the tunnels.
“Sorry about this.” Sana sighs, but she has a dagger in her hand now. I
retreat a st ep.
“Don’t. Please.” I knot my fingers together to hide their tremor. “It was
my mother’s. It’s the only thing I have left of my family.”
Sana lowers the knife, but then the leader of the thieves calls to her and,
seeing her hesitation, stalks toward us. As he does, one of his men signals to
him. “Keenan, heads up. Aux p atrol.”
“Pair and scatter.” Keenan lowers his torch. “If they follow, lead them
away from base, or you’ll answer for it. Sana, get the girl’s silver and let’s
go.”
“We can’t leave her,” Sana says. “They’ll find her. You know what
they’ll do.”
“Not our problem.”
Sana doesn’t move, and Keenan shoves the torch into her hands. When
he takes me by the arm, Sana gets between us. “We need silver, yes,” she
says. “But not from our own people. Leave her.”
The unmistakable, clipped cadence of Martial voices carries down the
tunnel. They haven’t seen the torchlight yet, but they will in just a few
seconds.
“Damn it, Sana.” Keenan tries to go around the woman, but she shoves
him away with surprising force, and her hood falls back. As the torchlight
illuminates her face, I gasp. Not because she’s older than I thought or
because of her fierce animosity, but because on her neck, I see a tattoo of a
closed fist raised high with a flame behind it. Beneath it, the word Izzat.
“You — you’re — ” I can’t get the words out. Keenan’s eyes fall on the
tattoo, and he swears.
“Now you’ve done it,” he says to Sana. “We can’t leave her. If she tells
them she saw us, they’ll flood these tunnels until they find us.”
He puts out the torch with brute swiftness and grabs my arm, pulling me
after him. When I stumble into his hard back, he jerks his head around, and
for a second, I catch the angry shine of his eyes. His scent, sharp and
smoky, wafts over me.
“I’m sorr — ”
“Ke ep quiet and watch your st ep.” He’s closer than I realized, his breath
warm against my ear. “Or I’ll knock you senseless and leave you in one of
the crypts. Now move.” I bite my lip and follow, trying to ignore his threat
and instead focus on Sana’s tattoo.
Izzat. It’s Old Rei, the language spoken by Scholars before the Martials
invaded and forced everyone to speak Serran. Izzat means many things.
Strength, honor, pride. But in the past century, it’s come to mean something
specific: freedom.
This is no band of thieves. It’s the Resistance.