A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2) - Sabaa Tahir Page 0,1

up to hide his face.

The soldier approaches, his footsteps heavy. I can smell him—sweat and iron and dirt. Elias’s grip on his knives tightens. His body is coiled like a wildcat waiting to strike. I clamp a hand onto my armlet—a gift from my mother. Beneath my fingers, the armlet’s familiar pattern is a balm.

The soldier reaches the edge of the crypt. He lifts his lantern—

Suddenly, further down the tunnel, a thud echoes. The soldiers spin, draw steel, and hurry to investigate. In seconds, the light from their lantern fades, the sound of their footsteps fainter and fainter.

Elias releases a pent breath. “Come on,” he says. “If that patrol was sweeping the area, there will be more. We need to get to the escape passage.”

We emerge from the crypt, and a tremor rumbles through the tunnels, shaking dust loose and sending bones and skulls clattering to the ground. I stumble, and Elias grabs my shoulder, backing me into the wall and flattening himself beside me. The crypt remains intact, but the ceiling of the tunnel cracks ominously.

“What in the skies was that?”

“It felt like a land tremor.” Elias takes a step away from the wall and eyes the ceiling. “Except Serra doesn’t have land tremors.”

We cut through the catacombs with new urgency. With every step I expect to hear another patrol, to see torches in the distance.

When Elias stops, it is so sudden that I barrel into his broad back. We’ve entered a circular burial chamber with a low, domed ceiling. Two tunnels branch out ahead of us. Torches flicker in one, almost too far away to make out. Crypts pock the chamber walls, each guarded by a stone statue of an armored man. Beneath their helmets, skulls glare out at us. I shiver, stepping closer to Elias.

But he does not look at the crypts, or the tunnels, or the distant torches.

He stares at the little girl in the center of the chamber.

She wears tattered clothing and her hand is pressed to a leaking wound in her side. Her fine features mark her as a Scholar, but when I try to see her eyes, she drops her head, dark hair falling into her face. Poor thing. Tears mark a path down her dirt-streaked cheeks.

“Ten hells, it’s getting crowded down here,” Elias mutters. He takes a step toward the girl, hands out, as if dealing with a scared animal. “You shouldn’t be here, love.” His voice is gentle. “Are you alone?”

She lets out a tiny sob. “Help me,” she whispers.

“Let me see that cut. I can bandage it.” Elias drops to one knee so he’s at her level, the way my grandfather did with his youngest patients. She shies away from him and looks toward me.

I step forward, my instincts urging caution. The girl watches. “Can you tell me your name, little one?” I ask.

“Help me,” she repeats. Something about the way she avoids my eyes makes my skin prickle. But then, she’s been ill-treated—likely by the Empire—and now she faces a Martial who is armed to the roots of his hair. She must be terrified.

The girl inches back, and I glance at the torch-lit tunnel. Torches mean we’re in Empire territory. It’s only a matter of time before soldiers happen by.

“Elias.” I nod at the torches. “We do not have time. The soldiers—”

“We can’t just leave her.” His guilt is plain as day. The deaths of his friends days ago in the Third Trial weigh on him; he doesn’t wish to cause another. And we will, if we leave the girl here alone to die of her wounds.

“Do you have family in the city?” Elias asks her. “Do you need—”

“Silver.” She tilts her head. “I need silver.”

Elias’s eyebrows shoot up. I cannot blame him. It is not what I expected either.

“Silver?” I say. “We don’t—”

“Silver.” She shuffles sideways like a crab. I think I see the too-quick flash of an eye through her limp hair. Strange. “Coins. A weapon. Jewelry.”

She glances at my neck, my ears, my wrists. With that look, she gives herself away.

I stare at the tar-black orbs where her eyes should be, and scrabble for my dagger. But Elias is already in front of me, scims glimmering in his hands.

“Back away,” he snarls at the girl, every inch a Mask.

“Help me.” The girl lets her hair fall into her face once more and puts her hands behind her back, a twisted caricature of a wheedling child. “Help.”

At my clear disgust, her lips curl in a sneer that