An Ember in the Ashes

Laia tries to run but doesn’t get far before she collapses. Elias leads her to the shade so she can rest, asking for her real name and treating her nicer than any Martial has so far. Even so, Laia fears trusting him, sure he is only being kind because he will hurt her or bring her to the Commandant. Instead, he brings her to the kitchen, where the cook tends to Laia’s wound.

The cook recognizes Laia as a rebel by the way she acts and warns her to run before she’s found out. The cook came to Blackcliff as a rebel spy. When the Commandant discovered her, she scarred her face and killed her family. The cook has been an enslaved Scholar ever since and has lost everything “all for a cause that never had any hope to begin with” (197). The cook threatens to tell the Commandant that Laia is a spy unless Laia explains why she joined the rebels, so Laia tells the entire story of the raid, Darin’s capture, and her mother’s identity. The cook stutters uncontrollably when she tries to talk about Laia’s mother.