An Ember in the Ashes

Book Detail

An Ember in the Ashes, published by Razorbill in 2015, is the first in Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes series. The novel debuted at number two on the young adult New York Times best seller list and was also a USA Today and international bestselling book. In addition, TIME magazine named it one of the 100 Best Fantasy Books of all Time. It won the People’s Choice Award for favorite fantasy in 2016 and was nominated for the Goodreads Choice for young adult fantasy and debut author. The novel has also achieved popularity among the BookTok community.

Series Detail

Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes series became instantly popular with young adult audiences with the publication of her debut novel, An Ember in the Ashes, in 2015. This young adult fantasy romance series follows a peasant girl and an elite warrior as they find what it means to be free in a brutal world. The world of the series is inspired by ancient Rome, and protagonists Laia and Elias evade the agents of the Empire in their search for truth. An Ember in the Ashes is followed by A Torch Against the Night (2016), A Reaper at the Gates (2018), and A Sky Beyond the Storm (2020).

Author Highlights

Sabaa Tahir is the New York Times bestselling author of books for young adults, including the An Ember in the Ashes series and All My Rage (2022), which won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Born to parents who emigrated to the United States from Pakistan via the United Kingdom, Tahir grew up in the Mojave Desert in California. She attended UCLA and interned for the Washington Post, where she took a job after graduating. Inspired by the news stories she edited, she wrote An Ember in the Ashes while working at the Post.

This guide follows the 2015 Razorbill edition of An Ember in the Ashes.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide discuss rape, enslavement, corporeal punishment, and child abandonment.

Plot Summary

An Ember in the Ashes is set in a fantasy world ruled by the Martial Empire. Thousands of years ago, the Scholar Empire attacked the jinn (mystical creatures) in hopes of obtaining their superior knowledge. When the jinn wouldn’t relinquish their secrets, the Scholars imprisoned all but one, and that jinn (known thereafter as Nightbringer) fled to the Martial Empire, where he built an elite army to take revenge against the Scholars. As An Ember in the Ashes begins, the Scholars have been enslaved by the Martials for 500 years, and Nightbringer prepares to bring war to the remaining Scholars.

An Ember in the Ashes is told in alternating points of view from Laia (a 17-year-old Scholar girl) and Elias (a Mask, an elite warrior, at Blackcliff—the Martial military academy). Both wish to be free from the restrictions of their lives; Laia lives in fear of the Martials' destruction of her family’s precarious existence, and Elias is preparing to desert the army.

The Martials believe that Laia’s brother is working with the resistance (Scholar rebels), and so they imprison him and kill Laia’s grandparents. Laia seeks help from the resistance, but they are reluctant to help until she reveals her parents were ranking members of the resistance until they were killed several years ago. They agree to help Laia’s brother escape prison if she spies on the Commandant of Blackcliff, and Laia agrees.

Meanwhile, Elias, his best friend Helene, and the rest of their class graduate. Before Elias can desert, Augurs (holy men) arrive to announce that an ancient prophesy has come to pass. The current emperor will die without an heir, and four new graduates have been chosen to participate in the trials to find the new emperor and imperial guard captain. Elias, Helene, a boy named Marcus, and Marcus’s brother Zak are chosen, putting Elias’s plan to desert on hold. During the trials, Elias and Helene team up to face their worst fears and a barrage of attacks from friends, foes, and mythical creatures they didn’t believe existed.

Laia goes undercover as the Commandant’s new enslaved servant. She is beaten and branded and worries that she won't get information for the resistance. One night, Laia spies on the Commandant and gains information, but when she reports to the resistance, they give her a new task instead of fulfilling their promise to rescue her brother. Back on the school grounds, she crosses paths with Elias, and an instant attraction blooms between them. Elias knows getting close to Laia would only put her in danger, Laia fears Elias due to his status, and Helene begins to act oddly, worrying Elias.

Laia is tasked with finding a way to sneak an army into Blackcliff. One night, she follows Marcus and Zak to the training building, where Elias and Helene spar. Laia sees the brothers access a hidden passage, but they catch her and beat her badly. Elias and Helene save her, and Marcus flees. Elias and Laia discover that Helene has been acting oddly because ever since the encounter with the mythical creatures in the second trial, her singing has been able to heal. Magic is expressly forbidden to any but the Augurs, but she heals Laia because she can’t leave her to die.

In the third trial, Elias and Helene are pitted against one another. Their battle platoons must fight until one of them kills the other. Elias battles through his friends to get to Helene, who ferociously comes at him. Elias almost kills her, stopped only her magical armor, awarded to her by the Augurs after winning the second trial. Elias is named winner of the third trial, and he returns to his room to find Laia’s been left there as his prize. The two spend the night talking, and Elias challenges what Laia know about the resistance, making her wonder if they intend to rescue her brother.

The following day, Elias, Helene, and Marcus undertake the fourth trial. They must battle until only two are left, and whoever kills a captured Laia will be named emperor. Elias refuses, instead defending Laia, and the Augurs fake Laia’s death to make it look like Marcus is the winner. For refusing to participate, Elias will be killed at dawn, leaving Helene as Marcus’s second-in-command. The Augurs bring Laia to the resistance, who reveal they were never going to rescue her brother, and she escapes, returning to Blackcliff to save Elias.

With help from the other enslaved Scholars, Laia sets explosives around Blackcliff’s grounds, which go off during Elias’s execution ceremony. Laia frees Elias after he promises to help free her brother, and the two race away, only to be cornered by Helene. Elias begs her to run with them, but Helene refuses. The Augurs foretold that Elias would die unless Helene swore to be loyal to the new emperor. Helene has been in love with Elias for years and can’t bear to see him die, and though Marcus terrifies her, she will stay to give him a chance. Elias thanks her and leaves with Laia as Helene covers for him one last time.