The Ash Trials (The Septerra #1)

Chapter 1

1

W ho am I?

In the dark, I didn’t know my name. My present. My past. I was nothing.

I pressed my palms to the stone floor. It was so cold in this dark place, but the air was still. I crawled forward, realizing that I had a body in this darkness and that I could move. I crawled until my hands met cold metal bars.

I was in a cell.

That scared me, just like the suffocating dark scared me. Where had I been before this cell?

The suffocating dark held no answer for me—only a terrifying realization as my question echoed in the emptiness of my mind.

I had no memories.

The fear that rose in my chest was chased away by a sound.

Footsteps echoed, and lanterns illuminated the endless dark that had surrounded me. As my eyes adjusted, I was finally able to look around my dark cell, which held a single dirty cot with a threadbare blanket.

The lantern light grew brighter, and I turned to see two prison guards approaching. The guards wore gold and white uniforms with an upside-down fire insignia emblazoned on them. One was broad and ox-like, the other was smaller and fidgety.

“Looks like she’s finally awake,” the fidgety guard sneered at me, stopping in front of the bars of my cell. The lantern light flickered around the empty hallway. I was in some sort of stone dungeon, the stone arcing above my cell.

“Missing something? Or someone ?” The ox-like one asked. They snickered as I looked down at myself on the dirty floor of the cell.

I was wearing a torn wedding dress. A delicate lace curled along my arms and blossomed from my small frame into petals of soft fabric like a white rose. My dress looked like it had been dragged through the dirt. That I had been dragged through the dirt. Pieces of leaves clung to my long white-blonde hair—still holding the ghost of soft curls. A small dirty handkerchief also sat discarded on my cell. It was embroidered with a strange emblem of a hand gripping a lightning bolt.

“Put up a fight at the altar, did you?” the fidgety one asked.

“Where am I?” I asked. I didn’t recognize my own voice, a realization that made me shiver.

“Better make amends with your fate, girl,” the fidgety one jeered at me. “Because you’ll either die on this island or become gods-blessed.”

“Gods-blessed? Her? The monster we have over on floor six will eat her for lunch in the first trial,” the ox-like one said, spitting at my cell. “That’s if the fire sprites don’t barbecue her on sight.”

“What do you mean, trial ?” I asked, my mouth dry.

“You’ll be fun to watch die,” the ox-like guard said and pulled away.

“What’s going on? Where am I?” I tried to shout after them, but my voice felt so small in. Their footsteps echoed in the stone hallway as they walked away from my cell, taking their light with them as they continued on their way.

I felt an instinct to cling to the bars and claw at the men and… do what , exactly? What had happened between when this dress had looked pristine and now?

Where was I… and who was I? Suffocating terror filled my throat. I clawed at my brain for memories. I had to remember something … but nothing came. The encroaching dark entombed me, and I felt my throat close up, smothering me?—

Another pair of footsteps approached—and then ran toward me, another lantern bringing warmth and light once more to my world. My head shot up to see a large figure standing at the bars of my cell.

“Saffron?” he bellowed, and I swept my eyes over him. The guard standing at my cell had tousled blond hair, deep green eyes the color of a verdant forest, and he was easily twice my size and built like a warrior. He wore a uniform similar to the other guards, but with extra insignias on his uniform that marked a superior rank. His broad chest, strong frame, and those pleading eyes—he was handsome, I realized. The light from the lantern he placed on the ground by my cell bathed every corded muscle of his in its golden light.

I felt myself inching closer to the bars where he stood, gripping them with white knuckles.

“No, it can’t be,” he said, devastation flashing across his face as he grabbed for my left hand. He pushed back my lace sleeve and revealed an upside-down golden flame inked on my skin in a kind of shimmering tattoo. “What did you do, Saffron?”

“ Saffron ,” I said, tasting the name. It felt right. It felt like mine . “I’m Saffron. Who are you?”

The man crouched down to my eye level, as if he were trying to calm a wild animal. “It’s me, Saffron. I’m Callum. It’s me . Don’t you remember?”

The pleading look he gave me cracked a piece of my heart. I reached into my mind with tendrils of curiosity… but I was met with a cold emptiness of nothing . I so badly wanted to remember this man looking at me with such longing in his eyes—but my mind was silent.

“I don’t,” I whispered.

His face fell. “I’m Commander Callum Wells. We grew up together. I’m… I’m a friend. You can trust me.”

A scream echoed down the corridor of cells, and Callum’s gaze shot to the activity just down the hall from my cell.

“Prisoner loose!” a guard called. “We need backup!”

“Stand back,” Callum warned, but I didn’t. I needed to see what was going on.

Callum moved toward the sound of the noise, and I watched him as he started walking down the long hallway to where I saw a cluster of four guards standing. As Callum’s lantern illuminated the darkness, I noticed that all the cells around mine were empty except for this one, which was ten or twenty paces away and at a diagonal from where I was being held.

The guards stood at the ready, their swords drawn.

Clang! A dark figure stepped out from the cell, the door slamming open.

A crash sounded as one of the guards dropped his lantern…

…and started floating , suspended in the air…

…surrounded by a swirling mist of blood . His own blood.

“He’s a blood wielder—don’t bleed in front of him!” Callum yelled at the other guards.

Another guard shot forward, shoving his sword at the blood wielder, but with a sickening crack, the floating guard’s body broke in half, and the rushing blood struck the other guard, flowing into his mouth and ears, drowning him in the dead man’s blood.

I couldn’t tear my eyes from the brutal scene even as my body started to shake from fear. As the guards and Callum stumbled back, the blood wielder dropped his hands. Callum went to one of his men, crouching down as he tried to staunch the bleeding from the fallen guard’s wounds.

But the blood wielder slowly turned toward me. An owl-like swiveling of his head—but with a dead gaze that bore into the depths of my soul.

I knew I needed to step back, get away from the bars, but I was frozen in fear. I couldn’t move, my terror keeping me locked in place.

The blood wielder strolled down the hallway to me, stepping over the bodies of the guards he had slain. He wore a tattered black cloak with a hood. His steps were silent as if he was merely floating above the ground instead of walking upon it.

He reached me and lowered his hood so I could see his face. It was bone-white and deathly pale. I felt my heart speed up, my entire body reacting to the predator before me.

“Saffron, get back!” Callum yelled, jumping from where he had been crouched. He started striding toward the blood wielder, his blade outstretched. But I still couldn’t make myself move as the blood wielder just… sniffed me.

And grinned.

“What’s this? You’re a hollow ? And a pretty one, at that. You didn’t earn your death sentence. But you’ll get one anyways.”

The thin flesh peeled back from his powdery lips into a terrifying smile. But before he could make a move toward me, a sword pierced into his heart from behind. Blood suddenly started dripping from his mouth. He looked down at it, touching it and holding it up.

Callum wrenched the sword out from the blood wielder. “Get away from her.”

“You dare try and stop me?” The blood wielder said as he whirled on Callum. Droplets of blood began to levitate and shift, turning into a bloody, flaming cutlass.

The blood wielder held the cutlass aloft as he made to slash at Callum?—

—only for Callum to drop to one knee, crossing his arms above his head and conjuring a glittering blue shield that seemed to electrify the air around us as it formed out of nothing. As the glowing shield grew and made contact, it blasted back the blood wielder, who hit the far wall with a dull thud .

The fallen blood wielder didn’t move, his cutlass now just a puddle of red beside his slumped body.

Callum lowered his shield, rising to his feet. The two remaining guards ran forward as Callum stood.

“Commander! Are you hurt?” one of them asked.

But Callum ignored the guard and turned to me.

“Saffron, are you okay?” Callum asked, his eyes darting over my body to look for injuries.

“Where am I? What is this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice from shaking.

“You’re in Ashguard.” When the name didn’t register with me, Callum took another step closer to my cell, despair in his eyes. “This is the most remote prison in all of the realm. It holds the most dangerous magical criminals whose powers are too strong to be contained anywhere else. Every single prisoner here has committed heinous crimes, Saffron—and each have been sentenced to death. Including… including you. You shouldn’t be here .”

Sentenced to death . The words clanged through me, and my legs finally gave out as I crumpled to the floor.

“I’m going to die?” I whispered, trying to calm my racing heart.

One of the guards called for him, and Callum looked conflicted. “Not if I can help it,” he said softly. “I have to go, but I’ll be right back. I promise.”

I watched Callum turn and walk away from my cell, his dying lantern light leaving me alone in the dark once more.

My prison was windowless and doused in darkness, but I knew morning must be approaching when the torches that lined the prison hallway flickered to life.

I sat on my small cot, holding my knees to my chest. All night, I had tried to remember something— anything —about who I was and what had led me here. I must not have been a terrible person my entire life if Callum had remembered me not as a criminal, but as a friend.

As the torches flickered and illuminated my cell, I rose and walked to the small mirror above a chamber pot in my small cell—no running water for inmates here. The grimy mirror showed me a stranger, someone I didn’t recognize. The mirror showed me myself, and she meant nothing to me.

I shuddered, but forced myself to keep my gaze on my reflection. I had ice blue eyes and long blonde hair that reached my mid-back. I guessed that I was most likely in my early twenties, but I couldn’t be certain of my age. I could be considered pretty, but I looked battered. Dark circles pressed underneath those shocking blue eyes, and my collarbones poked through my skin. I was too skinny, and the ruined wedding dress hung a bit too loosely on my petite frame. I was to be wed awhile ago, then. How long have I been here?

I was pacing the length of my cell when I heard footsteps once more, and I darted to the cell doors to greet Callum as he strode to me.

“I returned as quickly as I could,” he said in a low voice as he approached my cell. Now that the hallway was lit with the warm glow of the torches, I could better see him. He had a sword strapped to his back with a golden hilt, and a bit of stubble that gave him the look of a man even with his boyish, bright eyes. He carried himself like a man comfortable with having total authority, but there was a softness in his gaze when he looked at me.

Callum held a bundle of fabric under one arm, and in his other hand he carried a bucket and a washcloth. “This is for you. And water to wash off.”

I took the bundle, unwrapping a freshly laundered off-white button-down tunic, a pair of black leggings, and a black cloak. He set down the bucket with the cloth by the cell’s bars.

“This doesn’t look like standard prison attire,” I said.

“Your timing is… impeccable. As always,” he said, brushing back some of the honey-blond hair that had dipped into his face. “The trials are starting in a matter of days. All of the prisoners here are now… contestants … and with that comes certain privileges.”

“I’m a contestant in some sort of trials? What does all this mean? I thought I was brought here to die?” I asked.

“Put on these fresh clothes and I’ll explain. I can’t be away from my men for too long,” he said, turning away from the cell to give me some privacy.

I reached through the bars and dipped the washcloth into the water. I withdrew it to wash away some of the dirt on my hands, grimacing at the layers of grime that came off in the process. “Your men. So you’re a…”

“Commander of the Royal Guard. I’m normally stationed back in Luminaria. But I’m here on the Isle of Embermere to serve the King for the trials.”

I started to peel the lace from my body, tearing off the ruined wedding dress as I spoke. “Who are you? Beyond your name and your rank, I mean.”

“You really don’t remember me?” Callum asked, his back still turned to me.

“Were you who I was to be wed to?”

Silence.

I frowned, wishing that I could see his expression and what was hiding there. “Callum?”

“I was not,” he said, but I noted that his voice wavered. Interesting .

“Do you know how I got here?” I asked as my hand stilled with the washcloth over my chest as the water dripped down my skin.

“I don’t. But whatever happened, it was enough that you’ve been sentenced to your death here in Ashguard.”

“So I’m to die?” I asked.

“You are,” Callum’s voice sounded thick. “Right alongside this entire prison filled with thieves and murderers of the worst kinds.”

A chill settled over my wet skin as I shivered. “Am I… was I… a bad person?” I asked, finishing washing myself. I began slipping into the clean fabric of the shirt and pants.

“The Saffron I knew couldn’t hurt a fly,” he said. “You being here is a misunderstanding, I’m sure of it.”

I tugged on the leggings, finished getting dressed. “You can turn around now.”

He did, and I saw in the light of the lantern that his eyes were glistening. He blinked, his gaze flickering to the discarded shreds of the wedding dress that lay on the floor.

“Did you love him?” he asked.

“Did you miss the part where I don’t remember anything?” I asked, quirking my head as the quip jumped past my lips.

Callum’s eyebrows shot up… and then a small smile crept across his face. “It’s been too long since we saw each other last, Saffron.” But the smile dropped as all of the torches flickered from red to green and back to red again. Callum stiffened, shaking his head. “I don’t have time. Listen, we have to get you out of here?—”

“Aren’t I a contestant now?”

“Not if I can help it. Only one prisoner can win The Ash Trials and earn their freedom—unless the King grants you mercy.”

“Does the King normally show mercy?”

Callum’s expression went dark. “No. But maybe he’ll make an exception.”

“How do I win them, then? These trials?”

Footsteps echoed down the stone hallway, and Callum quickly picked up the bucket by my cell. “I can’t stay any longer. Just… stay alive. I’ll try and figure out why you ended up here in the first place. And keep to yourself at meals. Don’t engage with any of the other wielders or shifters or—well, don’t engage with anyone . They’ll kill you before the trials even start if they realize you’re a hollow.”

“What’s a hollow?”

Callum hesitated. “The word… it refers to humans who are powerless.”

Powerless.

The word echoed in my mind.

“I’m… powerless?”

But Callum was already moving to leave. “You don’t have magic, Saffron. That’s why you have to be careful and stay away from the rest of the prisoners and don’t let them find out . Listen, I have to go. If anyone asks—you don’t know me. It would cause problems for us both if the others knew.”

“Okay,” I whispered as Callum turned and headed away from me, casting one last glance over his shoulder at me—worry in his gaze.

Without magic, without a single memory… how would I survive this place?