I don't claim ownership of any Ember in the Ashes property.
Be warned, there are SERIOUS SPOILERS for A TORCH AGAINST THE NIGHT in this fiction. In fact, those spoilers are the subject of this fiction.
CHAPTER 1
Elias inhaled the thick, ancient air of the Forest of Dusk to calm his frustration. He knew he could get to the forest from anywhere, but it was a lot harder to take the forest along with him, as Shaeva can. The plan was simple: use the forest to locate Spiro Teluman and get to him...if only he could get the dead to cooperate. They were notoriously stubborn.
He reached out along the threads that connected ghosts to their living loved ones. In this case, he was using Spiro's grandfather, and the dead man was furious about it. Elias wouldn't be deterred by a spirit who had stewed too long among the trees. He had questions that needed answering.
Elias thumbed the strange little blade they'd found four days ago tucked in his belt. It looked like nothing more than a stunted letter opener with an ornate handle, but the assassin Elias stripped it from claimed once the blade broke the victim's skin a hidden tip would detach itself and work to kill them of it's own will. He also claimed another tip would magically reappear in it's place once the deed was finished. The trail of bodies murdered by shallow knife wounds Elias had followed lended credence to his claims. Curiously, the beautiful handle was an exact copy of Darin's finest work, and the blade itself looked like Teluman's craftsmanship. Darin was furious and demanded answers, and Elias worried more blades like it were in circulation. He hoped Teluman had some answers.
Finally Elias found the right thread and grabbed hold. The spirit of Spiro's grandfather shrieked like metal grinding metal under the weight of Elias' touch as he clung to it. The trail was sparking smoke, and Elias followed the tendril from the Waiting Place into the world of the living. After days of trying, he felt the two souls link and hold. While the dead were ash and smoke, the living were warm flames, and the light that was Spiro Teluman bloomed in his mind's eye. Elias suppressed his elation and focused on the steady flame the old man had entangled. The Forest of Dusk shifted, and the trees changed. Snowdrifts swelled on what had been bare ground as though they had always been there, and Elias blinked away surprise. It had worked.
Just ahead a campfire burned in a clearing. Someone was settling in for the night. Elias slowed when he saw two military tents erected on either side of the fire and five horses huddled near the tree line. Elias wondered if the old grandfather had connected to the wrong descendant. He crouched down in the snow-laden brush and edged closer. One of the tent flaps swung open and he almost gasped when Helene's silver hair and black armor ducked out.
Faris followed on her heels. A wave of nostalgia swept over him. It was good to see them together. Dex sat nearby, sharing hard tack with the man Darin described as Spiro Teluman. Spiro looked sullen, but unharmed. A chain linked his ankle to Dex's, so he wasn't with them by choice. They must be transporting him back to the Empire to stand trial, but by the position of the stars and the snow on the ground Elias judged they were a long way from home. Elias considered different rescue plans where he and a blacksmith overtake three member of the Black Guard elite and didn't have much luck. As his brain whirred a small question floated by: why were there five horses? Just as the question's importance unfurled in his mind, a thud opened the back of his skull and searing pain shot through. He crumpled face down into the snow. Then there was nothing.
Elias sould and body crawled back to eachother as he regained consciousness in inches. He'd taken a serious blow, and Elias could feel congealed blood sticking to his hair and neck. He remained still and took stock of the situation. His hands and feet were bound, which wasn't something that worried him until he realized he was bound by freezing steel. Elias steadied his breath and waited for his mind to clear before making any moves.
"I know you're awake."
A thin voice cut through Elias' haze and he cracked his eyes. The Mask called Harper was kneeling nearby, but far outside Elias' reach. His scims were far across the clearing and the strange little Teluman blade was sheathed at Harper's hip. It was hard to use Mask tricks on a Mask and pretending to be weak wouldn't work, so Elias sat up in his most defensible position.
"You live." Harper said.
"The Commandant will be disappointed."
"Very."
Harper stared at him, a picture of calm. Elias felt bare beneath Harper's casual scrutiny. He always had. As a cadet, Elias noticed the older boy watched him often with an almost imperceptible frown, like he was trying to make a decision. What he was thinking, Elias couldn't guess. He had a flat, unreadable way about him. Harper was sometimes called by the Commandant outside their lessons, and for a while Elias thought his mother had taken a young lover. He couldn't imagine her caring for anyone, though, so that theory withered and died early. As students, their paths rarely crossed, but when they did Harper would nod to him. Confused and wary, Elias would nod back. On one such occasion Harper had been leaving just as Elias arrived. They exchanged nods.
"That is a true son of the Empire, loyal to me." The Commandant told him as Harper disappeared down the stairs. "He is my eyes. Anything you whisper in his ear, you whisper in mine."
Elias avoided the boy at all costs after that. The Commandant's spies would do him no favors, especially since his own loyalties to the Empire began to fade.
And here they were again, that strange small frown on Harper's face, and Elias looking for ways to avoid him.
Elias tugged on his bonds, looking for weakness. "What do you want?"
"I have questions."
"An interrogation? I've heard that's a specialty of yours."
Harper stood so Elias had to crane his head to look up at him, but otherwise didn't react. "Who told you that?"
"I have my sources." In this case, Elias' source was a persistent ghost with a twin connection so strong he could flit between the Waiting Place and the world of the living at will. Zacharias described Helene's torture in horrifying detail, laying blame for every drop of blood at Elias' feet.
Harper's boots crunched the frozen ground as he circled Elias. He was checking to make sure his captive was still no threat on all sides, like a good Mask. It didn't seem Harper was the kind to make mistakes or leave things to chance. He would get what he wanted and slit Elias' throat, and Helene would never know he had been here. Even worse, Laia would never know what had happened to him. He'd simply disappear.
"What are you doing here? Are you here for the Blood Shrike?"
Elias didn't answer. Harper produced the small knife he'd brought from the Waiting Place and turned it in his hand.
"I recognize this work. Is it Teluman, then? Are you looking for the blacksmith?"
Elias held his silence, but Harper smirked. The treacherous Mask really was as good as Zacharias reported.
"So you're looking for like-minded allies, then. Since you answered that question so easily, tell me this: in the trials, why did you defend the scholar slave?"
Elias' hands curled into fists. It was just someone else asking about Laia. He thought the Nightbringer finished with her, and good riddance. What else does the demon want, and why is this man his messenger?
"Ask your master. Or have the Commandant ask her master. I've nothing to say to you."
"Do you love her? Is that why?"
The fog in Elias' head cleared and the dampened whispers of the dead grew steadily insistent. There was a repeated tug at his core. The Waiting Place was calling him back.
Of course!
He was being stupid. He had weapons at his disposal the Black Guard knew nothing about. Harper was underestimating him. The Mask assessed him as a normal human, but he was the Soul Catcher now. Though Harper believed he had the upper hand, the tables could easily be turned. He could pull them to the Forest of Dusk right now, but if he held out a little longer the Mask might give something away that could help Laia avoid the Nightbringer's attention. He needed Harper to feel overconfident- comfortable. Elias squinted a let his head loll to the side, feigning double-vision.
"Why do you care about the fate of a slave or my feelings about her?"
"I don't." Harper's voice was smooth as a lake in a windless summer. "I want to understand why you made that choice, knowing the cost."
The Nightbringer already knew the truth, so he didn't see how it could hurt repeating it for this soulless minion.
"Because I was tired of killing at someone else's orders. Because she was innocent and needed a defender. Because it was the right thing to do."
Harper crossed his arms and waited for him to continue.
"That's it. Sorry to disappoint."
"Does that make you a good person?"
Elias snorted. "Of course I'm not a good person. I've too much blood on my hands for that. A lifetime of bad choices can't be made right in a moment."
"The others," Harper nodded to the left. Elias assumed that was the direction of his camp, even though he couldn't see it from here. "They think you are good."
"Helene? No. Maybe once but not anymore. Not after-" Hannah's face, twisted in rage, hovered in Elias' mind. Her hateful shrieks often greeted him when he appeared in the Waiting Place.
"The Blood Shrike most of all."
Elias rolled his head to look fully at the Mask, while still acting dazed. Harper's eyes were hollow, like a gourd that has been carved out and dried. The life had long ago been scooped out of them so they could be put to the Commandant's uses. It was like looking into the empty sockets of a skull. Elias reminded himself who Harper served. The Commandant and her lackeys would know he yearned for Helene's forgiveness and use it against him. This was another interrogation tactic. Harper would use hope like a weapon.
"Stop feeding me lies. It won't work, and you don't have much time until your companions realize you're missing. Maybe we could trade? Since you're going to kill me out here anyway, there are some things I'd like to know."
Harper paused. "Fine. I may not answer you."
"Didn't think you would. Maybe an easy one. What are you doing here?" Elias wasn't sure where 'here' was, since the Forest of Dusk didn't come with a map.
Harper considered for a moment, then shrugged. "Looking for your grandfather. We're in search of allies to undermine the Commandant."
Elias laughed. Zacharias had told him everything he needed to know about Harper's alliances. "Sure you are."
"My turn. Why does the Commandant hate you?"
Elias' brow furrowed. This interrogation wasn't following any tactics Elias learned as a Mask. Every question was a surprise, and it made him uneasy since he didn't know what Harper wanted from him. It was the Warden all over again.
The answer to this question was obvious, and Harper wasn't a fool. Everyone knew why his mother loathed him, but there was no harm in saying it out loud. "I'm a living reminder of her greatest moment of weakness. I am her shame."
Harper knelt to eye level, suddenly earnest. "You think she was raped?"
"It's my turn to ask a question."
"I'm not playing a game. You...you think your father took your mother by force, is that true?"
The Mask had forgotten who he was dealing with and leaned within Elias' reach. Elias tensed his muscles, prepared to spring.
"I have no father."