An Ember in the Ashes. Sabaa Tahir

right?’ I ask Hel when the Commandant’s out of earshot.

      ‘I want to rip my face off and replace it with one that’s never been touched by that swine.’

      ‘You need someone else to kiss you is all,’ I say, before realizing how that sounds. ‘Not … uh … not that I’m volunteering. I mean—’

      ‘Yeah, I got it.’ Helene rolls her eyes. Her jaw goes tight, and I wish I’d kept my mouth shut about the kissing. ‘Thanks, by the way,’ she says. ‘For punching him.’

      ‘I’d have killed him if the Commandant hadn’t shown up.’

      Her eyes are warm when she looks at me, and I’m about to ask her what Marcus whispered in her ear when Zak passes us. He fiddles with his brown hair and slows, as if he wants to say something. But I look at him with murder in my eyes, and after a few seconds, he turns away.

      Minutes later, Helene and I join the Senior Skulls lining up outside the amphitheatre’s entrance, and the armoury brawl is forgotten. We march into the amphitheatre to the applause of family, students, city officials, the Emperor’s emissaries, and an honour guard of nearly two hundred legionnaires.

      I meet Helene’s eyes and see my own astonishment mirrored there. It is surreal to be here on the field instead of watching enviously from the stands. The sky above burns brilliant and clean without a single cloud from horizon to horizon. Flags festoon the theatre’s heights, the red-and-gold pennant of Gens Taia snapping in the wind beside the black, diamond-emblazoned standard of Blackcliff.

      My grandfather, General Quin Veturius, head of Gens Veturia, sits in a shaded box in the front row. About fifty of his closest relatives – brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews – are arrayed around him. I don’t have to see his eyes to know he’s taking my measure, checking the angle of my scim, scrutinizing the fit of my armour.

      After I was chosen for Blackcliff, Grandfather took one look at my eyes and recognized his daughter in them. He brought me into his home when Mother refused to bring me into hers. No doubt she was enraged that I had survived when she assumed she was rid of me.

      I spent every leave training with Grandfather, enduring beatings and harsh discipline but gaining, in return, a distinct edge over my classmates. He knew I would need that edge. Few of Blackcliff’s students have uncertain parentage, and none had ever been raised among the Tribes. Both facts made me an object of curiosity – and ridicule. But if anyone dared treat me poorly because of my background, Grandfather put them in their place, usually with the point of his sword – and quickly taught me to do the same. He can be as heartless as his daughter, but he’s the only relative I have who treats me like family.

      Though it’s not regulation, I lift my hand in salute as I pass him, gratified when he nods in return.

      After a series of formation drills, the graduates march to the wooden benches at the centre of the field and draw scims, holding them high. A low rumble starts up, growing until it sounds like a thunderstorm has been unleashed in the amphitheatre. It’s the other Blackcliff students, pounding on their stone seats and roaring with a mix of pride and envy. Beside me, Helene and Leander both fail to suppress grins.

      Amid the noise, silence descends in my head. It’s a strange silence, infinitely small, infinitely large, and I’m locked inside it, pacing, circling the question. Do I run? Do I desert? Far away, like a voice heard underwater, the Commandant orders us to return scims and sit. She delivers a terse speech from a raised dais, and when it comes time to take our oaths to the Empire, I only know to stand because everyone around me does.

      Stay or run? I ask myself. Stay or run?

      I think my mouth moves along with everyone else’s as they vow their blood and bodies to the Empire. The Commandant graduates us, and the cheer that erupts out of the new Masks, raw and relieved, is what wrenches me from my thoughts. Faris rips off his school tags and throws them into the sky, followed by the rest of us. They fly into the air, catching the sun like a flock of silver birds.

      Families chant their graduates’ names. Helene’s parents and sisters call out Aquilla! Faris’s family calls out Candelan! I hear Vissan! Tullius! Galerius! And then I hear a voice rising above all the rest. Veturius! Veturius! Grandfather stands in his box, backed by the rest of the family, reminding everyone here that one of the Empire’s most powerful gens has seen a son graduate today.

      I find his eyes, and for once, there’s no criticism there, only a fierce pride. He grins at me, wolfish and white against the silver of his mask, and I find myself smiling back before confusion floods me and I look away. He won’t be smiling if I desert.

      ‘Elias!’ Helene throws her arms around me, eyes shining. ‘We did it! We—’

      We spot the Augurs in the same moment, and her arms fall away. I’ve never seen all fourteen at once, and my stomach dips. Why are they here? Their hoods are thrown back, revealing their unsettlingly stark features, and, led by Cain, they ghost across the grass and form a half circle around the Commandant’s dais.

      The cheers of the audience fade into a questioning hum. My mother watches, her hand idle on her scim hilt. When Cain mounts the dais, she steps aside as if she expected him.

      Cain raises his hand for silence, and in seconds, the crowd goes mute. From where I sit on the field, he’s a bizarre spectre, so frail and ashen. But when he speaks, his voice rings out across the amphitheatre with a force that makes everyone sit up.

      ‘From among the battle-hardened youth there shall rise the Foretold,’ he says. ‘The Greatest Emperor, scourge of our enemies, commander of a host most devastating. And the Empire shall be made whole.

      ‘So the Augurs foretold five hundred years ago as we drew the stones of this school from the shuddering earth. And so the foretelling shall come to pass. The line of Emperor Taius XXI will fail.’

      A near-mutinous buzz rolls through the crowd. If anyone but an Augur had questioned the Emperor’s line, he’d have already been struck down. The legionnaires of the honour guard bristle, hands on their weapons, but at one look from Cain, they settle back, a pack of barely cowed dogs.

      ‘Taius XXI shall have no direct male issue,’ Cain says. ‘Upon his death, the Empire will fall unless a new Warrior Emperor is chosen.

      ‘Taius the First, Father of our Empire and Pater of Gens Taia, was the finest fighter of his time. He was tested, tempered, and tried before he was deemed fit to rule. The people of the Empire expect no less of their new leader.’

      Bleeding, burning skies. Behind me, Tristas elbows an open-mouthed Dex triumphantly. We all know what Cain will say next. But I still don’t believe what I’m hearing.

      ‘Thus, the time for the Trials has come.’

      The amphitheatre explodes. Or at least it sounds like it’s exploded because I’ve never heard anything so loud. Tristas bellows, ‘I told you!’ at Dex, who looks as if someone’s smashed him over the head with a hammer. Leander shouts, ‘Who? Who?’ Marcus laughs, a smug cackle that makes me yearn to stab him. Helene has a hand clapped over her mouth, her eyes comically wide as she grasps for words.

      Cain’s hand comes up again, and again, the crowd falls deathly silent.

      ‘The Trials are upon us,’ he says. ‘To ensure the future of the Empire, the new Emperor must be at the peak of his strength, as Taius was when he took the throne. Thus do we turn to our battle-hardened youth, our newest Masks. But not all shall vie for this great honour. Only the greatest of our graduates are worthy, the strongest. Only four. Of these four Aspirants, one will be named the Foretold. One will swear fealty and serve as the Blood Shrike. The others will be lost, as leaves on the wind. This, too, we have seen.’

      My blood begins to pound in my ears.

      ‘Elias Veturius, Marcus Farrar, Helene Aquilla, Zacharias Farrar.’ He calls our names in the order we’re ranked. ‘Rise and come forward.’

      The amphitheatre is