An Ember in the Ashes

“Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after. The moment Darin called out—that was such a moment. It was a test of courage, of strength. And I failed it.”

Laia thinks this shortly after fleeing her house when the Mask killed her grandparents and captured Darin. The call she refers to here is Darin yelling for her to run. When he yelled, Laia hesitated, torn between doing as he said to save herself and ignoring him to mount a rescue. Laia believes a strong and brave person would have stayed to fight, even though she knows she would have been captured or killed if she had done so. Laia hasn’t yet found her inner strength and courage, and she doesn’t yet realize that sometimes being brave means getting away from danger to give yourself a chance to fight another time and to save people who can’t be rescued in the moment.

“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.