An Ember in the Ashes

“The Yearlings look down as we pass; we are upperclassmen, and they are forbidden from even addressing us. They stand poker-straight, scims hanging at precise 45-degree angles on their backs, boots spit-shined, faces blank as stone. By now, even the youngest Yearlings have learned Blackcliff’s most essential lessons: Obey, conform, and keep your mouth shut.

Behind the Yearlings sits an empty space in honor of Blackcliff’s second tier of students, called Fivers because so many die in their fifth year. At age eleven, the Centurions throw us out of Blackcliff and into the wilds of the Empire without clothes, food, or weaponry, to survive as best as we can for four years. The remaining Fivers return to Blackcliff, receive their masks, and spend another four years as Cadets and then two more years as Skulls. Hel and I are Senior Skulls—just completing our last year of training.”

These lines come during the assembly after the deserter from Chapter 1 is caught. Elias strides at Helene’s side to their place among the gathered with the rest of their class, and Tahir uses this as an opportunity to describe the ranks of the school. Yearlings are the youngest and have not yet earned their masks. They are forbidden from addressing upperclassmen to instill the idea that status is everything in the military. The honorary empty space for the Fivers shows how valued soldiers are. Though many don’t survive the Fiver training, Blackcliff honors and appreciates those who make it even that far. The empty space is also a reminder for the Yearlings that they will likely die, and it motivates them either to desert or to work harder. Altogether, this passage shows the long and arduous training process of the Martial soldiers.

“Blackcliff’s rules are so numerous that it’s impossible not to break them at least a few times. We’ve all been tied to that post before. We’ve all felt the bite of the Commandant’s crop.”

Elias thinks this during the whipping. He feels sympathy for the deserter’s punishment, both because he understands why a child would run out of fear and because he’s been whipped and knows the pain. Elias notes that Blackcliff has many complex rules, suggesting that the rules are this way on purpose to force students into receiving punishment. It’s likely the Centurion teachers believe being whipped before one’s peers builds character and also keeps students from forming close attachments, ensuring a soldier’s first loyalty is to the empire. Elias’s loyalty to those he cares about proves this theory isn’t always true.

“Must be nice to believe so fervently in what the Empire spoon-feeds us. Why can’t I just be like her—like everyone else? Because my mother abandoned me? Because I spent the first six years of my life with Tribesmen who taught me mercy and compassion instead of brutality and hatred? Because my playfellows were Tribeschildren, Mariners, and Scholars instead of other Illustrians?”

This section of Elias’s thoughts comes following the whipping and an argument with Helene. Helene has noticed Elias is acting oddly lately, and she reprimands him for not behaving to the standards expected by Skulls about to graduate as full Masks. The opening line of this passage shows that Elias doesn’t believe the empire’s rhetoric and that part of him wishes he could because it would make his life so much simpler. The rest of the quotation speaks to Elias’s past and how being raised away from Martial culture makes him different. Our early experiences have a lasting impression on us, and for Elias, no amount of brainwashing or training can destroy the love and joy he experienced among the tribes.

“I have stories of my own. She wanted to leave us. She wanted to abandon her children for the Resistance, but Father wouldn’t let her. When they fought, Lis took me and Darin into the forest and sang so we wouldn’t hear them. That’s my first memory—Lis singing me a song while the Lioness raged a few yards away.

After my parents left us with Nan and Pop, it took weeks for me to stop feeling jumpy, to get used to living with two people who actually seemed to love each other.”

This passage comes after Laia reveals the truth of her parents to Mazen and the rest of the resistance. Mazen and the other members of the resistance all start talking at once to tell stories about Laia’s parents. All their tales are ones of Laia’s mother being brave or saving someone, but Laia’s memories are different. Rather than a paragon of perfection, Laia remembers her mother being angry and arguing with her father and her mother wanting to help the resistance rather than raise her children. The juxtaposition of these two types of stories shows how a person is different things to different people. They also partially explain Laia’s nervousness and fear. Her early memories include tense situations, which can take a long time to recover from.

“A full-scale argument ensues, during which Helene’s disapproval of prostitutes is vehemently shouted down by Faris while Dex argues that leaving school grounds to visit a brothel isn’t strictly forbidden. Tristas points to the tattoo of his fiancée’s name and declares neutrality.”

The conversation Elias describes here takes place as the Senior Skulls head to their graduation ceremony, and they show that, despite the rigorous training, the students at Blackcliff are still individuals with opinions and personalities. The discussion could be about anything, but Tahir uses sex work because it’s a disputed topic that shows various perspectives. Through the rest of the book, the characters who argue here work together seamlessly, showing that differences of opinion don’t mean people can’t get along and function as a team.

“‘Congratulations, Aspirant Veturius,’ a mustached man who might be a cousin says as he shakes my hand in both of his, using the title the Augurs bestowed on me during graduation. ‘Or should I say, your Imperial Majesty.’ The man dares to meet Grandfather’s gaze with an obsequious grin. Grandfather ignores him.

It’s been like this all night. People whose names I don’t know are treating me as if I’m their long-lost son or brother or cousin. Half of them probably are related to me, but they’ve never bothered acknowledging my existence before this.”

These lines come during the banquet Elias’s grandfather throws to celebrate Elias being named an aspirant for the trials. The interaction here shows the bootlicking that goes on in Martial society, particularly in the upper ranks. Elias was raised away from Martial culture and has only risen to such a position of prominence because his grandfather, one of the most powerful and respected Masks in the military, has named Elias heir to their family. The man who addresses Elias here is given no name or rank because it doesn’t matter. He’s just one person in a crowd of many who wants to get in good standing with the potential next emperor.

“For one frantic moment I consider lying. I’ve read a hundred tales of heroes and the trials they face—what harm if I invent one and pass it off as truth? But I can’t bring myself to do it. Not when the Resistance is placing their trust in me.”

These lines come during Laia’s first meeting with Mazen after being installed at Blackcliff. Her first days as an enslaved Scholar have gone nothing like she expected, and rather than learn information, Laia has gotten more fearful, which has made her too timid to take the risks that would give her information. When Mazen asks what Laia has learned, she reacts with the impulse to lie because stories are easy to create and she’s sure she could fabricate something believable. She doesn’t, which labels her a protagonist and heroic character. Her confidence in spinning a convincing story also speaks to the universal application of most stories: She’s noticed enough similarities in the tales she’s read that she understands what stories people will believe.

“Sometimes, I talk to those I’ve killed. In my head, I hear them whisper back—not accusations, but their hopes, their wants. I wish they would curse me instead. It’s worse, somehow, to hear all that would have been had I not killed them.”

Elias thinks this during the first trial as he wanders the field full of all the people he killed or will kill. Elias’s tendency to talk to the memory of people he has killed is more proof that the empire’s brainwashing and training are not flawless. If Elias fully bought into what his training taught him, he wouldn’t think of his victims as family—only as the enemy who needed to die for the empire to be victorious. Instead, Elias sees them as people with unique lives, hopes, dreams, and sorrows, and this doesn’t allow him to be as comfortable with killing as other Masks. The dialogue Elias has between himself and his memories is imagined, not an actual discussion between himself and a dead spirit, and he makes up lives for people, which makes it more difficult to live with what he’s done. If he made up that his victims hated him, it would be easier because he could channel their hate into purpose.

“Grandfather watches her go, and I wish I knew what he was thinking. What does he see when he looks at her? The little girl she was? The soulless creature she is now? Does he know why she became like this? Did he watch it happen?”

Here, Elias and his grandfather watch the Commandant leave after a terse interaction. Elias can’t decipher his grandfather’s emotions from his facial expression, suggesting his grandfather is proficient at hiding his feelings. This passage also hints at the animosity between the Commandant and her father that is revealed later. Elias’s grandfather has little use for the Commandant because she’s a woman in what he believes is a man’s place. By contrast, Elias has no problem with the Commandant as a woman specifically (only that she isn’t the mother he wants), and he agrees with Helene being admitted to Blackcliff where his grandfather doesn’t. These opposing viewpoints show how people accept something when it’s been part of their entire life. Elias accepts women at Blackcliff because that’s how he’s known the world to be, but his grandfather does not because only men were trained when he attended the school.

“Five years old. For the first time, it sinks in that Izzi has been a slave nearly her whole life. What I’ve gone through for eleven days she has suffered for years.”

This passage of Laia’s thoughts comes after one of the first real conversations she has with Izzi. Izzi reveals she’s been enslaved almost her entire life, which puts Laia’s own situation into perspective. Up until now, Laia has felt sorry for herself and struggled to deal with the day-to-day reality of being enslaved by the Commandant. Learning this truth about Izzi gives Laia a new outlook. If Izzi could live this way for over 10 years, Laia can move on from the past 11 days and take what’s to come to complete her mission for the resistance.

“I thought my brother’s silence meant he was pulling away from us. But maybe silence was his solace. Maybe it was the only way he could fight his outrage at what was happening to his people.”

These lines from Laia’s thoughts come during her second meeting with the blacksmith. She learns Darin was apprenticed to the blacksmith and learning to make weapons to give the Scholars a chance at defeating the Martials and earning their freedom. Laia is surprised to learn such details about her brother, showing how, no matter how much time we spend with a person, there may always be parts of them we don’t know. These lines also illustrate the different ways people deal with the same situation. Rebels are often thought of as vocal about their cause, marching and protesting to make people take notice of what they have to say. While this may be true for many, it isn’t for all. Darin’s response to the harsh treatment of Scholars was a quiet type of resistance. He knew he couldn’t speak out in the current situation, so he channeled his rage into something less noticeable. In this way, he could work against the Martials without drawing attention to himself.

“‘What are you saying? That I should feel sorry for the Scholars? That I should think of them as equals? We conquered them. We rule them now. It’s the way of the world.’ [...] ‘The Empire has rightfully annexed this land. It’s our land. We fought for it, died for it, and now we’re tasked with keeping it. If doing so means we have to keep the Scholars enslaved, so be it.’”

Helene says this to Elias when she catches him letting Izzi and Laia sneak off Blackcliff’s grounds. To Helene, the enslaved Scholars are barely people, and they have no life outside of pleasing whoever enslaves them. Elias sees the enslaved as people who were born or sold into a terrible circumstance, and when he expresses this, Helene argues that the empire has a right to enslave the Scholars and their land because they fought and died for it. Helene’s logic is based on the idea that might is right, and fails to take into consideration who’s might is more right. To her, the empire’s victory is the only proof she needs that the Martials are greater than the Scholars, and the Scholars don’t deserve freedom because they were conquered. Further, Helene says the empire “rightfully” annexed the land, but truthfully, nothing gave them the right to do so other than their own desire for power and dominance. Helene’s thoughts show how the empire has brainwashed her. If questioned too closely, her arguments would likely become circular and without any real substance because her outlook is based in what the empire wants her to believe.

“‘You will survive,’ Keenan says. ‘All of the rebels have lost someone. It’s why they fight. But you and me? We’re the ones who’ve lost everyone. Everything. We’re alike, Laia. So you can trust me when I say that you’re strong, whether you know it or not.’”

Keenan says this to Laia while they dance at the moon festival. This is the moment the two get close, and Laia feels a connection through these words that she desperately wants to believe is real. She’s felt alone since she lost her grandparents and Darin, and she wants to believe Keenan understands her as no one else has in her brief time with the resistance. Keenan’s words speak to the different types of loss. The rebels fight because they’ve lost something to the empire—be it personal freedom, loved ones, or something else. Keenan has been alone for a long time, and Laia has just recently lost everything she held dear. Keenan posits that their loss is more complete and that they will survive where others won’t because they are stronger for their losses.

“We make our way north and east through the catacombs, stopping only to avoid passing Martial patrols. Veturius never falters. When we reach a pile of skulls blocking the passage ahead, he moves a few aside and helps us through the opening. When the tunnel we’re in narrows to a locked grate, he plucks two pins from my hair and picks the lock in seconds. Izzi and I exchange a glance at that—his sheer competence is unnerving.”

Here, Laia and Izzi follow Elias through the catacombs after the Martials raided the festival and Elias revealed himself to the girls. Up until this point, Laia’s perspective has shown Masks either as evil or from afar. Here, she sees Elias up-close while he tries to help them, and for the first time she sees his skills as more than something to fear. His confident navigation of the tunnels and conquering of obstacles makes him more than a soldier, and it’s likely he doesn’t realize how competent he appears to others without his training. Laia may not realize it here, but as unnerved as she is, she’s also impressed and perhaps a bit jealous that she doesn’t have the same skills and competency.

“‘I want nothing to do with . . . whatever it is you’re doing. All I want is for things to go back to the way they were. Before you made my brother your apprentice. Before the Empire took him because of it.’

‘You might as well wish away that scar.’”

This conversation between Laia and the blacksmith comes after the moon festival. Laia is still shaken from the raid at the festival and the Commandant’s threats upon her arrival back at Blackcliff. The blacksmith has just started explaining how he’s helping the resistance, and Laia stops him because she doesn’t want his information to be what persuades the Commandant to torture or kill her. Laia hasn’t yet found her inner strength and still believes that any tiny thing could mean her downfall because she doesn’t have the power to fight back. Her wish for things to go back to the way they were shows how difficult times make us wish for the past when things seemed less confusing. The blacksmith’s response calls to the similarity of physical and emotional wounds. The scar was left by the Commandant, and Laia will have it for the rest of her life, just as she will have her past experiences. Both can shape who she becomes, and it’s her choice how to let them affect her.

“At scim training, Zak comes at me with unusual sloppiness, but instead of obliterating him, I let him knock me on my ass because I’ve caught a glimpse of blonde across the field. What does that lurch in my stomach mean?

When the Hand-to-Hand Centurion screams at me for poor technique, I barely hear him, instead considering what will happen to Hel and me. Is our friendship ruined? If I don’t love her back, will she hate me? How am I supposed to get her on my side for the Trials if I can’t give her what she wants? So many bleeding, stupid questions. Do girls think like this all the time? No wonder they’re so confusing.”

This passage from Elias’s thoughts comes after he realizes Helene is in love with him, and it shows how awareness of something changes how we react to it. Elias noticed clues about Helene’s feelings before this point, but they didn’t affect him in the same way because he didn’t let himself acknowledge what those clues meant. Now that he understands the truth, he overthinks its significance and asks himself questions he never would have considered before. As a result, his performance suffers, and he’s distracted. The final lines of this quotation seem to refer to the difference between boys and girls, but truthfully, they are a fear-based comparison. Elias hopes that girls think this way because it would help him understand why they confuse him. In truth, girls don’t think in any single way as a sex, but this line makes Elias relatable as a boy who’s trying to cope with his attraction to his female best friend.

“Death supplants everything. Friendship, love, loyalty. The good memories I have of these men—of helpless laughter, of bets won and pranks hatched—they are stolen away. All I can remember are the worst things, the darkest things.”

These lines from Elias’s thoughts come during the third trial while he slaughters his friends, and they speak to his emotional state. While he recognizes that not killing Helene’s men will mean his own men suffer, he still can’t reconcile what he’s forcing himself to do. This passage also speaks to the power of death to affect those left alive. Until right before this battle, Elias probably could have recalled any number of positive interactions with any of the people on the battlefield. The moment he was called to kill his friends, though, all he can think about is the darkest moments. This is partly an effect of death reminding Elias of the bad times, but it is also Elias’s reaction to the trial. He has no positive feelings about the contents of the third trial, and so all he can focus on is the negatives.

“‘What war?’

‘The one that haunts our dreams.’ Cain keeps walking, gesturing for me to follow. ‘Shadows gather, Elias, and their gathering cannot be stopped. Darkness grows in the heart of the Empire, and it will grow more still, until it covers this land. War comes. And it must come. For a great wrong must be righted, a wrong that grows greater with every life destroyed. The war is the only way. And you must be ready.’”

Here, Elias converses with one of the Augurs about the trials, the choosing of a new emperor, and the impending war. The ancient wrong the Augur refers to is the Scholars imprisoning the jinn and Nightbringer harnessing the power of the Martial Empire to gain his revenge. The Augurs, including Cain here, have foreseen that a great war is the only way to fix this wrong, which begs the question of why violence is the only way to fix past violent acts. Cain says Elias must be ready, but he never specifies that Elias must lead the charge or do battle. “Ready” could mean many things, and these words foreshadow that Elias will have a part to play. If Elias believes that part is as a soldier, that is his assumption based on context, not actually something he was told.

“Veturius as a child. I’ve never considered it. I’ve never wondered if he knew his father, or if the Commandant raised him and loved him. I’ve never wondered, because he’s never been anything more than a Mask.”

Laia thinks this while she is in Elias’s chambers after the third trial. Elias has hinted at his childhood, and Laia realizes she’s been guilty of the same dehumanizing thoughts the empire perpetuates. The empire teaches its soldiers to dehumanize the Scholars to make enslaving, killing, and controlling them easier. Among one another, the Scholars treat themselves as humans, but they view the Martials, particularly the soldiers, as inhuman monsters whose only purpose is to kill and mistreat. Getting to know Elias destroys Laia’s ability to assume all Martials are heartless replicas of one another. Elias may be a Mask, but he is also a person, as all Masks are, even if many of them believe in the empire’s violent teachings. Dehumanizing is no better when it’s done by those who aren’t in the position of power.

“‘I didn’t run, because Cain told me the only chance I had to be truly free was to take the Trials. I want you to win the Trials, Hel. I want to be named Blood Shrike. And then I want you to set me free.’

‘Set you free? Set you free? This is freedom, Elias! When will you understand that? We’re Masks. Our destiny is power and death and violence. It’s what we are. If you don’t own that, then how can you ever be free?’”

This conversation between Elias and Helene comes right before the fourth trial. They have discussed what they were forced to do in the third trial and how each of them responded to it—Elias unwillingly and Helene with a warrior’s determination. Elias still believes his only path to freedom is physical. He thinks that being set free of the empire will absolve him of everything he’s done, and either knowingly or unwittingly, Helene gives him the truth he doesn’t realize for a few more chapters. Helene’s words speak to how we must own our past actions to be free of them. Elias still struggles with the fears that plagued him during the first trial, and he hopes Helene becoming empress will put the burden of his past violence on her so she can forgive it rather than Elias forgiving himself and vowing to do better in future.

“‘You fear you will never have your mother’s courage. You fear your cowardice will spell the doom of your brother. You yearn to understand why your parents chose the Resistance over their children. Your heart wants Keenan, and yet your body is alight when Elias Veturius is near. You—’

‘Stop.’ It’s unbearable, this knowledge of me from someone who isn’t me.”

This conversation is Laia’s first interaction with an Augur, and it shows how we are uncomfortable with others knowing us deeply. It may be that Laia would be more comfortable if she knew the person better, but it’s equally likely she’d be just as uncomfortable because there are parts of herself that she wants to hide from everyone, regardless of who they are to her. Hearing these deep fears and desires from a stranger—and even more an Augur, someone associated with the most powerful people in the Martial Empire—Laia is uncomfortable and a bit frightened. She still views the empire as her enemy, and the enemy knowing so much about her innermost thoughts cannot be good.

“I’ll take care of everything. I promise.

Once, I’d have wanted that. I’d have wanted someone to tell me what to do, to fix everything. Once, I’d have wanted to be saved.

But what has that gotten me? Betrayal. Failure. It’s not enough to expect Keenan to have all the answers.”

Here, Laia has completed her character arc. Keenan has just promised he’d take care of her and all the troubles she faces by getting her safe passage out of the empire and rescuing Darin for her. While Laia appreciates the sentiment, she now understands that relying on others to take care of everything has gotten her nowhere. She can still ask others for help, as she does in the final chapter before freeing Elias, but she must be actively involved in accomplishing the goals that are important to her if she wants them to be done right and if she wants to feel as if she was the one who did them.

“Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don’t let it control you. Don’t let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.”

The blacksmith says this to Laia while he helps her remove her slave cuffs so she can put her plan to rescue Elias into motion. Prior to these lines, he explained that fear is a delicate balancing act—too much of it is paralyzing and too little makes one arrogant, believing nothing can stop them. That explanation in conjunction with these lines define the book’s theme of Fear Is Inescapable. Fear is always with us, and the blacksmith makes it clear that to use fear as a tool, we must find a balance. Otherwise, fear will harm us one way or another.