![]() There is always a glimmer, no matter if it's merely an ember, of hope that propels the characters to lash out against the status quo in an effort to change things for the future. ![]() In this society, after all, these men and women are trained as emotionless killers, where barbaric acts are just part of keeping their world in balance.īut as the title would suggest An Ember in the Ashes never fully relents to utter darkness and violence. But Tahir has said that if she doesn't depict war as war, in all its brutality, readers would have called her out for being inauthentic. It's here where the two stories intertwine, as the soldier and the slave each feel trapped in their own roles in life.įull disclosure: The story, at times, is brutally violent and the depictions of both warfare and the threat of rape over the female servants from the Masks can make your stomach lurch. In a deal to save her brother, Laia takes on what seems like a suicide mission into the headquarters of the Masks, sold as a slave to their Commandant, where she must spy for the growing rebellion against the Martials. But Elias questions his role in the Empire as he bears witness to brutal beatings, killings, and imprisonment all in the name of keeping those in power, in power and the impoverished stuck under their boots. On the other hand, there's Elias, who is training to become a Mask, the stealthy, emotionless soldiers all Scholars fear - the same Masks that captured Laia's brother. At the beginning of the novel, Laia's beloved brother is captured by the ruling class of the Martial Empire and imprisoned for treason, which will likely lead to his death. Laia is a Scholar, a member of the oppressed class crushed by the Martials in a siege ages earlier. Once you get caught up in the story, it's addictive, and there's no way you can put it down before you figure out what happens to the characters you have fallen for over the course of the 400 some-odd pages. ![]() I stayed up way, way past what could be deemed a reasonable bedtime to tear through Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes.
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