“Malak’s orders!” He sticks his face into mine. “Count yourself lucky, Boy. For some star-forsaken reason, Malak refused to kill you even after Lady Silverspun demanded your head.”
I’m unsettled, but I have no choice but to obey.
I don’t have any trouble waking before first light because the bells ring out early to ensure everything is ready for the students at dawn.
Luckily, that also means that when I exit through the northern gate, none of the students have arrived yet.
I hurry to haul the crate as close to the anvils as I can and fill each bowl with three pieces of coal.
I’ve only just finished filling the last bowl when Lady Silverspun and the students file out onto the field. The students are wearing their white forging clothes. Lady Silverspun is once again dressed in ornate silver armor.
Nobody speaks as the students take their places.
All around us, it’s eerily quiet before dawn. A silence before the darkness will break and the first light of day will shine across the horizon.
I step away from the anvils, aware of Landon Copperstream’s dark glare and the way Lady Silverspun’s lips pinch when she sees me, but my attention is drawn skyward when a cold droplet falls onto my forehead.
It’s another drop of crimson liquid. A color that rain shouldn’t be.
Only moments before, dawn seemed close, but now dark clouds are gathering above me.
Lightning flickers through the clouds and my skin prickles with an energy I still can’t define.
When Thoren and I first stepped onto this field, he described the ground here aswrong.
I sense the strangeness again now as I study the sky and then the ash beneath my boots.
As quickly as I can, I step away from the field, glancing back only once when the second bells ring and the first hammers sound.
There are two empty spots among the rows of students.
One in the same place where the redheaded student stood at the Academy. Another in Asha’s spot.
As I turn my back on them, the horizon in the far distance beckons to me, the snow-capped mountains and all their freedom.
I miss a step as I wonder if Malak deliberately sent me out here this morning, not to unsettle Lady Silverspun or the students, but to remind me that freedom is not mine to take.
A strangled laugh rests on my tongue as I realize that I spent the last hour dishing out coal on an empty field with only the guards up on the wall to watch me and not once did I think of running.
Not once did I contemplate saving myself.
My jaw clenches as I turn back to the city.
I tell myself I can stay on the path I’ve chosen, that freedom will be mine and my brother’s.
I will find a way.
I reach the coal house at the same time that Thoren does, but for the first time since we started working here, Nero isn’t standing at the door. It’s closed and appears locked.
The other workers are milling around, more than one of them shuffling and mumbling. I look for Braddock among them but don’t see him.
“Nero should be here by now,” one of the men says.
“Why is the door closed?” another asks.
I take a step back, a chill settling at the base of my spin.
“No,” I whisper, turning to Thoren, whose shoulders are tense, his quick gaze clearly assessing the group. “That isn’t the important question.”
