Masks. Members of the Black Guard—you’re their commander. Send them out after the Tribes Mamie visited.
It won’t be enough. Thousands of wagons poured out of the city while I put down a staged riot after letting Elias walk away from me. He could be on any of those wagons.
I close my eyes, wanting desperately to break something. You’re such an idiot, Helene Aquilla. Mamie Rila played a tune, and I tossed my arms up and danced to it like a mindless marionette. She wanted me at the storytelling theater. She wanted me to know Elias was there, to see the riot, to call for reinforcements, to weaken the cordon. I was too stupid to realize it until it was too late.
Harper, at least, kept his head. He ordered two squads of soldiers assigned to quell the riot to instead surround Tribe Saif’s wagons. The prisoners he took—including Mamie Rila—are the only hope we have of finding Elias.
I had him. Damn it all. I had him. And then I let him go. Because I don’t want him to die. Because he’s my friend and I love him.
Because I am a damned fool.
All the times I lay awake at night, telling myself that when the time came, I needed to be strong. I needed to take him. It was nothing in the face of seeing him again. Of hearing his voice and feeling his hands on my skin.
He looked so different, all muscle and sinew, like one of his Teluman scims brought to life. But the greatest change was his eyes—the shadows beneath and the sadness within, like he knew something he couldn’t bear to tell me. It gnaws at me, that look in his eyes. More than my failure to catch and kill him when I had the chance. It frightens me.
We both know I’m not long for this world. What did he mean by it? Since healing him in the Second Trial, I’ve felt a bond with Elias—a protectiveness I’ve tried not to think about. It’s born of the healing magic, I’m certain. When Elias touched me, that bond told me that my friend was not well.
“Don’t forget about us,” he said to me in Serra. I close my eyes and allow myself one moment to imagine a different world. In that world, Elias is a Tribal boy, and I am a jurist’s daughter. We meet in a market, and our love isn’t tainted by Blackcliff or by all the things he hates about himself. I hold myself in that world, just for a second.
Then I release it. Elias and I are finished. Now, there is only death.
“Harper,” I say. Dex dismisses the legionnaires, turning his attention to me, and Faris sheathes his scims. “How many members of Tribe Saif did we capture?”
“Twenty-six men, fifteen women, and twelve children, Blood Shrike.”
“Execute them,” Dex says. “Immediately. We need to show what happens when you harbor an Empire fugitive.”
“You can’t kill them.” Faris glares at Dex. “They’re the only family Elias ever—”
“Those people aided and abetted an enemy of the Empire,” Dex snaps. “We have orders—”
“We don’t have to execute them,” Harper says. “They have other uses.”
I catch Harper’s intent. “We should question them. We have Mamie Rila, yes?”
“Unconscious,” Harper says. “The aux who took her was too enthusiastic with the hilt of his sword. She should come around in a day or two.”
“She’ll know who got Veturius out of here,” I say. “And where he’s heading.”
I look at the three of them. Harper has orders to remain with me, so he cannot stay in Nur to question Mamie and her family. But Dex might kill off our prisoners. And more dead Tribesmen are the last thing the Empire needs while the Scholar revolution still rages.
“Faris,” I say. “You’ll handle the interrogations. I want to know how Elias got out and where he’s going.”
“What of the children?” Faris says. “Surely we can release them. They won’t know anything.”
I know what the Commandant would say to Faris. Mercy is weakness. Offer it to your enemies and you might as well fall upon your own sword.
The children will be a powerful incentive for the Tribespeople to tell us the truth. I know this. Yet the idea of using them—hurting them—makes me uneasy. I think of the ravaged house in Serra that Cain showed me. The Scholar rebels who burned down that house showed no mercy to the Martial children who lived there.
Are these Tribal children so different? In the end, they are still children.