Ezra had forgotten.
A fatal mistake.
The Blood Moon Trial did not discriminate—it devoured the young and the old, the strong and the broken alike. It was an ancient, ravenous thing, older than the academy's cursed foundations, older than the gods whose bones had been ground into the mortar of this place.
And when it woke, the sky would weep blood.
He had seen it before.
A memory, sharp as a rusted blade:
Six years old, crouched in the stench of a back-alley, his small hands pressed over his ears as the wails began. The moon above had been a festering wound in the sky, dripping crimson light onto the cobblestones. The chosen ones—those marked by its gaze—had torn at their own skin, screaming of horrors no child should have heard. Some had begged for death before the Trial even took them. One man, his eyes already milky with dread, had shoved a knife into his own throat rather than face what was coming.
"Better the blade," he had gurgled, "than the teeth."
Ezra had not understood then.
The memory coiled in Ezra's gut like a parasite.
They had called the victims the Reaped—those chosen by the Blood Moon's hunger.
He remembered the way their skin had changed.
Overnight, intricate marks would slither across their flesh—swirling, living tattoos that pulsed like veins beneath the moonlight. Some said the patterns whispered. Others claimed they bled.
Then, the chosen would vanish.
No warning. No struggle.
One moment they stood trembling in the streets, marked and hollow-eyed. The next—gone. Swallowed by the Trial's unseen jaws.
Those who returned came back wrong.
They walked with the gait of predators, their Resonance vibrating at frequencies that made ordinary humans' teeth ache. Their skin glowed with unnatural vitality, their eyes reflecting light like a cat's—too bright, too knowing. They were stronger, faster, their power honed to a razor's edge that left the unmarked choking on envy.
But it came at a cost.
The fragile-minded returned with their sanity in tatters—babbling about the things that moved in the dark between stars, their fingers compulsively tracing invisible patterns on their arms. Some woke screaming about teeth growing inside their bones. Others simply... stopped, their bodies alive but their minds vacant, as if something had scooped out their thoughts and left only hollow silence behind.
He fumbled restlessly in his bed. The mattress was thin, the frame creaked with every shift—uncomfortable in the way that made sleep feel like a negotiation. Octavia had a point; she'd complained about it often, her voice sharp with irritation. But she hadn't returned since that night. Ezra rarely saw her now—just the ghost of her presence, fading like a breath on glass.
His squad lay scattered in sleep. Cassian sprawled diagonally, one leg draped over Silas's abdomen, who didn't so much as stir. Rin slept curled tightly in on herself, small and still, her breathing soft and feline.
Only he and Asli remained awake.
The boy lay motionless, head tilted slightly toward the ceiling, blindfold in place like a second skin. His body didn't shift, didn't twitch—he existed like a sculpture left behind in the dark. Silent. Watching without eyes. Breathing without sound.
Ezra found himself staring. There was something about Asli that made the night feel even quieter. He was a mystery Ezra couldn't stop circling—like an unsolvable riddle etched in another language. Weird was the easy word for it. But it didn't come close. Asli didn't speak unless spoken to, and even then, only in clipped phrases, like conversation was a burden he could barely endure.
He spoke only to Silas—quiet, hushed words exchanged in stolen moments when no one else was paying attention. Ezra had caught it once: a flicker of a smile, faint and fleeting, pulling at the corners of Asli's mouth as Silas said something low. It was the only time he looked human—less like a ghost and more like a boy.
Not even Cassian, loud and intrusive as he was, could crack that silence. But then again, it wasn't that Cassian irritated him. No—if anything, Asli tolerated him. They even shared the occasional dry exchange, short bursts of chit-chat passed back and forth with an ease that surprised Ezra. Asli just wasn't bothered by him. He simply chose not to engage more than he needed to.
The silence stretched, thick and breathless—until it broke.
"You have anything to say?" Asli's voice was quiet, but it sliced clean through the stillness
"Huh?" Ezra blinked, startled. He'd been deep in his thoughts, too focused on the boy across from him to notice he'd been staring.
"You've been watching me," Asli said.
Ezra opened his mouth, unsure whether to deny it or ask how he knew. But before he could speak, Asli tilted his head ever so slightly—and his shadow peeled off the wall.
Ezra's tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. The shadow twitched—not like a breath. Like a laugh.
"Can't sleep?" He regretted the question as soon as it left his lips. Too loud. Too human in this room of teeth and silence.
Asli turned toward him, slow as a blade being drawn. Moonlight carved the delicate lines of his face—high cheekbones, a jaw still softened by youth, lips parted just enough to reveal the faintest edge of teeth. He wasn't handsome, not in the way soldiers were. He was pretty. Beautiful, even. The kind of beauty that made people lower their voices.
Ezra's gaze snagged on the scars first—dozens of them, precise as surgeon's work, pale against his brown skin. Then, the beauty marks. One beneath his left eye, like a tear frozen mid-fall. Another on the crest of his cheekbone. Two more dusted across his forehead, dark as gunpowder stains.
"Sleep doesn't come easily for me," Asli murmured, the words slipping out like smoke. He shifted, the straw mattress whispering beneath him. "I suppose."
Ezra swallowed. The shadow at his feet twitched in time with Asli's breath. "Yeah. Me too."
"You ever try counting stars?"The words tumbled out before he could stop them.
Asli tilted his head. The blindfold shifted slightly, revealing the barest hint of a scar cutting through his eyebrow. "Can't see stars."
"Right. Shit." Ezra winced. "But you've got the shadows. That's...something."
A beat. Then, impossibly, Asli huffed—the ghost of a laugh. "They're terrible at constellations."
Asli exhaled, the tension in his shoulders unwinding as he leaned back. The blindfold shifted slightly, revealing the faintest crease of amusement at the corner of his mouth.
"You really from District Five?" Asli asked, picking at a loose thread on his blanket.
"Yeah."
"Does the name Eli ring a bell?"
Ezra frowned. A strange question. He searched his memory—street vendors, old training yards, the rasp of a voice he couldn't place—but nothing. "No. Should it?"
Instead, he let out a soft exhale and said, "You remind me of him. Just a little."
Ezra didn't press. He knew better than to dig too deep when someone handed you a piece of themselves. Especially someone like Asli. So he just nodded and let the silence settle. Not heavy this time. Just… quiet.
The shadow at his feet uncoiled and slipped back to its master, folding into Asli's side like a loyal hound dismissed from guard.
Ezra shifted under his blanket, the tension in his spine finally starting to loosen. "So, uh… do you always sleep with that thing on?" He gestured vaguely toward the blindfold.
Asli turned his head slightly, as if considering whether to answer. "Yes."
"No offense, but it makes you look like one of those cursed prophet types from the old war stories. You know, the ones who speak in riddles and make everyone uncomfortable at feasts."
A pause.
Then—impossibly—a huff of air. The ghost of a laugh.
"That's the goal," Asli said. "Keeps people away."
Ezra grinned, surprised. "What, and the creeping shadows didn't do the trick?"
"I like redundancy."
Another beat passed. Comfortable, now.
"So what about Silas?" Ezra asked. "You two close or is he just… immune to your scary aura?"
Asli gave a faint nod. "Pretty, isn't he? Like something fragile left in the sun too long." His voice softened, not quite fond, but thoughtful. "He's loyal. The kind of person who stays, even when he shouldn't."
Ezra tilted his head. "That's… intense."
"Cassian's worse," Asli muttered, almost to himself. Then, glancing over, "At least Silas listens."
Ezra let out a quiet laugh and rolled onto his side to face Asli more directly. "You're funnier than I thought."
"You're nosier than I expected."
"Touché."
Asli leaned back again, his posture easing, his voice softer now. "You talk a lot."
"Yeah, I've been told. It's either talk or implode."
"That so?"
"Yup. Lucky you. You get to witness the verbal explosion firsthand."
Another pause. Another almost-smile.
But the silence didn't feel empty anymore. It felt like the start of something. Not quite trust. Not yet. But maybe the first step.
And in a place like this, that was no small thing.