Opening
In these chapters, Laia of Serra agrees to infiltrate Blackcliff as a slave to the Commandant to save her brother, while Elias Veturius steps into the brutal Trials that will choose the next Emperor. Their first encounter crackles with danger and recognition, and every choice tests Fear and Courage, Family and Sacrifice, Duty vs. Conscience, and Freedom vs. Oppression.
What Happens
Chapter XI: Laia
Mazen](/books/an-ember-in-the-ashes/mazen) reveals the Resistance’s plan: Laia must pose as a slave to the Commandant (Keris Veturia) at Blackcliff. Keenan protests, calling the Commandant mad and recounting that her last three slaves died. Mazen invokes Izzat and promises they will find and rescue Darin of Serra if Laia accepts. Terrified but desperate, Laia agrees, and Mazen assigns a reluctant Keenan as her handler and instructs her to gather intelligence on the imminent Trials.
Keenan tends Laia’s wounds from the catacombs. His guarded demeanor softens as she shares her healing knowledge and her dream of becoming a Kehanni storyteller; he even smiles before snapping back to business. With Sana, they arrange for a Tribal operative to sell Laia to a slaver who supplies Blackcliff. Before parting, Keenan gives the Resistance salute: “Death before tyranny.”
The slaver initially plans to send Laia to a brothel, but she lists hard-won household skills until he relents and buys her for the Commandant. Locked in a “ghost wagon,” she endures a nightmare ride filled with hallucinations of a shadow-creature and Darin’s torture. At Blackcliff’s gate, the slaver warns of disfigurement and rape by students and of a former slave who hurled herself from the cliffs. As the gates close, Laia understands there is no turning back.
Chapter XII: Elias
At his grandfather Quin Veturius’s mansion, Elias endures a graduation celebration crawling with Illustrian politicos. The venerable Quin lectures him on alliances and survival beneath a stubborn Emperor and gifts him priceless Teluman scims—blades fit for an Emperor and heavy with expectation. Elias waits for Helene Aquilla, aching for familiar ground.
When Helene arrives, tension rides her every word. On the rooftop, she speaks with surprising compassion for Scholars and vows that, as Empress, she would reform their treatment. She makes Elias promise to fight his hardest; they must stand together against Marcus Farrar and his brother Zak. Under the stars, their loyalty feels ironclad—but fragile.
Elias senses something else, a secret Helene refuses to share. She flips the scrutiny back on him, probing what he was truly doing in the tunnels before graduation. Between them settles an uneasy silence. He hides his desire to desert; she hides an unspoken burden. Their bond meets the hard edge of duty.
Chapter XIII: Laia
Laia steps into the Commandant’s house, all shadows and iron discipline. A skittish one-eyed slave points the way, and then the Commandant herself appears—small, masked, and coiled with menace. When Laia offers her name, the Commandant strikes her: “You have no name. You are a slave.” She gestures to a wall of “Wanted” posters. Laia recognizes her parents, Mirra and Jahan of Serra—Resistance leaders. In a single, sickening moment, Laia realizes the Commandant orchestrated her family’s slaughter and that someone betrayed them.
The Commandant warns that any spy will be exposed and destroyed. In the kitchen, Laia meets Cook, a scarred woman with a locked jaw and no patience. Laia’s first task—bring the Commandant evening tea—ends in disaster: she is seconds late, and the Commandant smashes the cup and lashes Laia four times with a riding crop.
Bleeding, Laia receives quiet help from the one-eyed Kitchen-Girl but can barely stand. She considers slipping back into the office to search for information and instead collapses, grief and terror crashing over her. Keenan’s warning rings in her head: she will not survive this place.
Chapter XIV: Elias
Two days later, Elias and Helene return to Blackcliff with the rest of the recalled students. At the gate, a Scholar slave—Laia—delivers a summons from the Commandant. Elias notices her defiance, murmurs advice to wear a cloak, and follows Helene inside. In the Commandant’s office with Marcus and Zak, the Commandant backhands Laia for tardiness. Rage surges in Elias; Helene restrains him before he does something fatal.
The Commandant outlines the Trials. Four prophecies guide challenges of Courage, Cunning, Strength, and Loyalty. The first Aspirant to win two Trials becomes Emperor; the runner-up becomes Blood Shrike; the other two die. No cheating. Another prophecy hints the current Emperor’s reign approaches its end. Outside, Marcus corners Laia with leering threats. Elias wants to act, but Helene and the Commandant’s eyes hold him in place. He walks away, feeling like a true Mask—heartless and complicit.
That night, Elias dreams—or thinks he does—of a sun-blasted wasteland that smells of rot. He wakes there, alone, the earth scorching his boots. This isn’t sleep. The First Trial has begun.
Chapter XV: Laia
Ten days in, Laia survives the Commandant’s brutality yet gathers nothing useful. While dressing the Commandant’s hair, she risks a glance at a letter mentioning dangers in the south and a warning against the Commandant. Caught, she is dismissed as an illiterate Scholar and sent to deliver two letters: one to the Emperor, another to the smith Spiro Teluman.
In the kitchen, Cook refuses to help. The one-eyed girl—Izzi—quietly maps a route and explains why the slaves keep distant: the Commandant punishes one for another’s faults to weaponize friendship. In the streets, a disguised Keenan spirits Laia to a Resistance safehouse where Mazen and Sana wait. Laia has nothing to report. Mazen calls the mission a failure.
Desperate, Laia offers the sealed letter to the Emperor. Mazen opens it to find a single line: “I will make the arrangements.” Useless, he says—mission over. Laia begs for Darin’s life and one more chance. After a taut pause, Mazen relents.
Character Development
As Blackcliff’s cruelty tightens, characters harden, fracture, and reveal hidden seams of compassion and fear.
- Laia: Driven by love for Darin, she accepts the most dangerous role in the Empire and confronts terror head-on. She endures humiliation and violence, falters under fear, but keeps choosing to act, clawing toward courage.
- Elias: A born killer who despises the Empire’s soul, he accepts the Trials under pressure, pulled between compassion and the Mask’s demanded ruthlessness. His instinct to protect Laia puts his conscience at war with duty.
- The Commandant: A study in controlled sadism. She reduces identity to obedience, turns relationships into weapons, and stands revealed as the architect of Laia’s family’s destruction.
- Helene: Loyal to Elias yet haunted by a secret she refuses to name. Her steely pragmatism keeps Elias alive—but at the cost of his soul.
- Keenan: Cynical and combative, he briefly lets down his guard with Laia, revealing tenderness and shared scars beneath the hardened exterior.
Themes & Symbols
Blackcliff is a crucible that pits the self against the state. Laia’s storyline burrows into the psychic mechanics of Freedom vs. Oppression: the Commandant strips names, isolates bonds, and enforces terror to control. Yet oppression fails to fully erase agency—Laia bargains with a slaver, risks a glance at forbidden letters, and keeps pushing against the cage. Elias’s arc refracts Duty vs. Conscience: he is trained to kill and obey but repeatedly strains toward empathy, even when it damns him as complicit for doing nothing.
These chapters also hinge on the twin engines of Fear and Courage and Family and Sacrifice. Fear stalks every corridor—from a ghost wagon to the Commandant’s crop—but courage appears in small, lethal choices: speaking up to a slaver, meeting a handler in the open, stepping into a Trial that might kill you. Laia’s love for Darin transforms her mission from a political bargain into a personal vow; Elias’s bond with Helene forces him to weigh loyalty against the truth of who he is.
Symbols:
- The Commandant’s Wall of Wanted Posters: A paper graveyard that memorializes the Empire’s campaign to erase Scholars and, for Laia, proof of betrayal and target on her back.
- Teluman Scims: Gleaming inheritors of lineage and expectation, binding Elias to a path of sanctioned violence he longs to escape.
- The Ghost Wagon: A moving tomb that ferries Scholars into oblivion, marking Laia’s descent into Blackcliff’s underworld and the death of her old life.
Key Quotes
“Death before tyranny.” Keenan’s salute crystallizes the Resistance’s creed and challenges Laia to embody it. The words become a touchstone for choices that require risk, pain, and stubborn defiance.
“You have no name. You are a slave.” The Commandant’s line erases identity as the first act of domination. It frames Blackcliff’s core violence: control begins with language, and survival begins with refusing that erasure.
“I will make the arrangements.” The Emperor’s letter is chilling in its brevity. Its vagueness suggests secret machinations above Blackcliff and deepens the political web closing around both Laia and Elias.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters lock the story’s dual engines into motion. Laia’s infiltration personalizes the Resistance’s cause, transforming abstract oppression into intimate terror and resolve. Elias’s entry into the Trials unveils the Empire’s succession crisis and tightens the moral noose around a reluctant heir. Their first meeting at Blackcliff forges a dangerous thread that will tug both plots together. The result is a high-pressure world where every act—delivering a letter, arriving seconds late, walking away—carries the weight of survival, identity, and the futures of two peoples.