An Ember in the Ashes
The Ember in the Ashes series, Book 1
Sabaa Tahir
Razorbill
Fiction, YA Fantasy
Themes: Cutthroat Competitions, Diversity, Dystopias, Girl Power, Magic Workers, Myth-Based Stories, Schools and Institutions, Soldier Stories
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Description
Generations ago, the warrior Martials invaded the kingdom of the Scholars, grinding the people under their
heels and breaking their spirits, even forbidding them from learning to read. Some still fight back, but it's
been years since the Resistance was anything but a minor nuisance... not since the days of Laia's parents, who
were betrayed and murdered. Laia and her older brother Darin live with their grandparents, but while Laia is
afraid all the time, her brother Darin keeps taking risks - risks that, one terrible night, bring the Martial
soldiers and a terrible Mask enforcer to their door. Now her grandparents are dead, Darin is imprisoned, and
Laia is on the run, cursing herself a coward for not staying to fight. In desperation, she turns to the
Resistance, but they demand a steep price for their help: posing as a slave, she must infiltrate Blackcliff
Academy, the terrible fortress where Masks are trained to be heartless, faceless elite soldiers. It's an
assignment that has seen innumerable rebels tortured and killed, but it's Laia's only chance to free her
brother.
Elias was born a bastard son of one of the oldest Martial families, but grew up among the nomadic desert
Tribes, blissfully unaware of his noble blood... until one of the uncanny, feared Augurs arrived to whisk him
away. For years, he's endured training at Blackcliff, his chief tormentor none other than the mother who once
left him in the wilderness to die. But it's almost over; as soon as he graduates, in just a few days, he
plans to escape back to the deserts that were once his sanctuary, disappearing among the Tribes again. At
least, that was the plan, until the Augurs arrive at the academy again with a chilling announcement: the line
of the old Emperor is failing, and thus the Trials for a successor are to commence immediately. Worse, Elias
himself is named one of the four Aspirants. Elias is already sick to his soul over what he's done just to
survive training as a Mask; the thought of being Emperor over a nation as utterly cruel and broken as this
one is more than he can stand.
One a slave, the other a soldier... Laia and Elias might hold the keys to each other's freedom - if dark
forces from the Empire's past don't rise up and crush them, and everything they love, first...
Review
I've heard little but great things about this series, so I figured I'd give it a shot. The story starts
moving almost from the first page, filling in a dark, cruel world of militant conquerors, ineffective rebels,
and two characters trapped by circumstances far beyond their control. Laia has lived in fear ever since her
parents were killed; she has no love for the Empire and wants to be more like her mother, once known as the
Lioness of the Resistance, but every time she gets a chance to act she freezes or flees even as she curses
herself for being a coward. Elias hates everything about his existence, from the blood that ties him to the
sadistic Commandant of Blackcliff to the silver mask that he refuses to let bond to his skin (as it is
supposed to, part of being an elite Mask enforcer) to the horrible things he's being trained to do and will
be expected to keep doing for the rest of his life. Neither see a way out of their respective traps, and
every act they take only gets them into worse situations: Laia's desperate plea for help from the
Resistance, playing on her parents' reputation, only lands her in the terrible clutches of the Commandant,
who takes perverse pleasure in mutilating her slaves, while Elias's plans to flee are disrupted by an
Augur's slender promise that only by enduring the Trials can he ever truly find freedom from the Empire's
clutches. Naturally, from the moment the two meet, sparks fly - and everything around them keeps getting
exponentially worse and more dangerous, building to an explosive ending that sets up the next stage of the
series.
That's all well and good, and enjoyable, but there are some pitfalls along the way that cost it in the
ratings. Laia's too often a victim, and too often refuses to even notice or think about things that are so
obvious I felt like shaking her to get her to stop whining about how cowardly and useless she's being.
Mostly she's just too naïve for too long, which gets her into lots of trouble where she's reduced to
damsel-in-distress/object status. Elias, too, could be irritatingly obtuse. The characters surrounding both
too often feel flat, with only vague hints given to any sort of depth or existence beyond their relevance to
the main characters. This was especially true of the villains; I was almost surprised there wasn't a puppy
pit in Blackcliff where they went to kick puppies just to further grind in how despicable and gratuitously
cruel they were. The part that really started annoying me, though, the one that nearly drug the rating down
another half-mark, was when both Elias and Laia (and a few other characters, too, but mostly them) decide to
turn into lovesick hormonal twits at the worst possible times, mooning about uselessly when their lives are
quite literally and quite immediately in danger. I get that they're teenagers underneath it all, and
sometimes the heart (or other organs) can be nigh impossible to ignore, but still, one might think that
sheer survival might be a matter of concern, after the earlier parts of the book drove home the
life-and-death stakes.
The ending redeemed things somewhat, and I might pursue the series through another book. And, as mentioned,
there's quite a bit I did enjoy about this story. I just wish it had eased up some on the hormonal detours
in the later bits, when the characters (and the reader) least needed the distraction...