A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2)

Overall Content
Severity
5.2

Language

10.0/10

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

0.9/10

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

3.9/10

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

10.0/10

Potentially Intense Themes

1.0/10

A Torch Against the Night (An Ember in the Ashes #2)

Sabaa Tahir

Most people are nothing but glimmers in the great darkness of time. But you are no swift-burning spark. You are a torch against the night- if you dare to let yourself burn.
Excerpt taken from back of book.

Language

H***-  79

S***-

A**- 3

B****- 5

F***-

D***- 52

Bas****- 10

Religious Cursing-

J****-

Chr***-

G**-

Derogatory terms etc-

Dolt

Curses unique to the book-

Bleeding hells

Ten hells

Skies

Alcohol, Drugs, Smoking

A man is sick from poison on a throwing blade. It gives him seizures, hallucinations and he passes out frequently.

A market smells of liquor and ghas which is a hallucinogen. The ghas is sold in slabs or barrels.

Men at a barracks drink ale.

At a party wine is served.

A woman keeps ghas, a drug, to trick men searching her wagon from looking further.

A man wonders if his friend has a stash of ale.

A woman gives a man a deadly drug to poison and kill another woman.

A man walks through a village with barrels of ale to sell.

Intimacy, Sex, Immodesty

A man imagines tracing a finger along a young woman’s collarbone, gathering his fingers in her hair and kissing her. Then nibbling her wrists till she gasps.

A soldier had the reputation of having a “taste for young girl’s.” When around him, a woman soldier kept her knife ready. He was not only a rapist but a murderer.

A young woman touches a man’s lips, they go in for a kiss.

A woman assumes a man is at a brothel.

A woman warns her soldiers to stay away from the village women so they don’t start a war.

A woman looks at a young woman and declares she has good hips and that she will have many children.

A woman confronts a man on sleeping with multiple women, have many children from them.

A man says he can find another whore to marry.

A soldier says that it’s too bad a male captive is to be killed cause he could make a lot of money selling him. Selling him for sex is implied.

A soldier tells another man that if he wants his jollies, he will have to be assigned somewhere else cause they can’t touch these prisoners.

While bathing in a spring, a young woman wishes a man would’ve looked while she bathed

Two people kiss. Their hands roaming each other’s hair, she wraps her legs around him, he kisses her jaw, neck, shoulder. She pulls his shirt off, traces his shoulders, chest, stomach, hip. He asks if she wants him to stop. She says no and guides his fingers to the buttons of her shirt. Sex is implied and referred to later when she drinks a concoction that slows her cycle so she is less likely to conceive.

A woman jokes that her brother probably has half a dozen girls with child.

A man backs a young woman against a wall, his breath ragged, trailing his hand up her arm and across her lips. He cups her face with his hands, she pulls him to her, kissing. She wraps her hands around his neck, pressing to him, their eyes burn with need. She runs her to teeth across his lower lip and he growls.

Violence, Weapons, Crime, Blood

A man carries a scim and multiple knives. A  young woman carries a dagger and scim.

An efrit, looking like a small girl, attacks a couple, they throw daggers and use scims while she yells. She promises to kill soldiers for them and “lay their throats open.”  The man thrusts his scim through her heart. He later throws multiple knives into soldiers throats, and uses his scim while blood sprays. A man jumps on the man’s back, he is elbowed, another gets a knee to his mouth, blood sprays and he howls. A young woman is held by her throat, a knife to her throat, she sends a dagger into his side. The man is covered in blood. A cave-in happens from an explosion, many are killed, screams are heard. A small battle ensues. Bodies litter the ground. Fires, screams and fighting is all around.  A woman sticks her scim into a person’s heart that was just walking in front of her.

A woman attacks a man with a long knife, he lashes out with scims, she flings a throwing star, he kicks her in chest. She throws more stars, he throws knives, he plans a blow to her head, scims clash, she wishes she’d crushed a young woman, she knocks him down, blade coming down, he rolls, 2 throwing stars come, one hits his arm. The woman uses her daggers, getting his shoulder then kicking his face, he knocks her out with a blow to her head.

A young woman is knocked unconscious and thrown into a pit to be interrogated. They shove her head in a bucket of water multiple times. The interrogator the puts on a set of brass beaters (brass knuckles) to further injure her during punches. The young woman gets a swollen eye and cracked ribs. They are ordered to beat her to death. A man comes in and holds her head by her hair. He asks if he should find someone else to torment, bathe in their blood? She will have to torture people soon.  She ends up with broken ribs, many lacerations, thirteen fractures, torn tendons, and bruised kidneys.

A wraith (spirit-like creature)  grabs a man and young woman off a horse, the young  woman kicks, the man fight with his scim, the wraith digs it’s fingers into her neck, drawing blood, the man takes off its head.

In a hallucination/dream, a dead friend punches another friend.

A mother advises her daughter to make sure another’s daughter won’t take her anger out on the slaves.

A new whipping post has been erected and it has fresh blood around it.

A man has blood and gore on his armor from a battle.

A man wants to slit a woman’s throat. Instead he orders her to torture and execute a man.

In a market everyone wears weapons. A young woman has her arm grabbed and lashes out with her knife. She lashes out again at a man later. She has to kick him twice to release the hold he has on her arm.

A man wakes to being tied up. He maneuvers to his feet and knocks down a captor. A young woman is being held with a blade to her throat, blood is drawn. When attacking the young woman, she impales a knife into his stomach. Another captor grabs her by the hair. Then falls to the ground dead.

A tribe of men kill those they catch very slowly.

Some people attack a house with torches, multiple people in a family and their slaves died.

A body of a man is hanging from a tree with obvious signs of torture.

Two men have been killed, with claims they were murdered. No details.

A woman has a hand clamp over her mouth, a blade at her neck. She threatens to gut her if any harm comes to a young woman.

A young woman dreams of blood on her body and her companion’s.

Arrows are shot at a man. He blocks with his scim.

A class of people are being rounded up and killed or enslaved. There are thousands. It is said that the streets run red with their blood. Even the prisoners are being killed, right in their cells.

A woman jokes that a man is probably off murdering children for fun.

A man holds scims to two peoples throats.

Tension is high in a crowd. Soldiers nearby are ready with weapons. A soldier cuts down a man, blood seeping into the ground and the crowd goes into a rage.

When someone puts their hand on a woman’s shoulder, she snaps the wrist. She pulls out her scims and cuts a path through people, spraying blood. She gets trampled and coughs blood, spraying her armor. She jabs an elbow into a man’s stomach, then her knee to his forehead. He bulk rushes her and pushes her against a wall, holding a blade to her throat.

A woman fights off soldiers, she is hit with the hilt of a sword and goes down.

People slaughter a goat for food. A man slides a knife across it’s neck and it kicks. Blood pours onto the sand and a young woman remembers killing a man and how the blood smelled.

A spirit talks about his blood pouring out of him when he was killed.

A man states that a large number of people should be executed. Instead, children that were to be executed will now be leverage. “Do what you must.” Is said of the prisoners, including the children.

50 people have been killed from fights in the capital. A leader is said to have caused so much killing that the river ran red.

A road is littered with the dead and dying. The smell of blood pungent.

A leader has many prisoners and her armor is splattered with blood. The leader plunges her scim into a woman and she falls dead. She then kills 5 children quickly by throwing blades.

A flame looks to be consuming a young woman. But it’s not.

At a prison, screams and cries and the smell of suffering is abundant.

A woman wants to punch a man. She backhands him, blood flying from his mouth. She threatens a whipping. A man later gives her a blow to her face, she swallows the blood. A man then asks for people’s heads on pikes in public. He threatens to throw a woman off a cliff. Many have been thrown off it, bones litter the bottom.  

A man has had multiple assassination attempts.

A woman threatens a whipping. She then orders a group of adults and children over 13 in chains. The others are under guard.

She then jokes about not killing multiple people because she doesn’t want to get her dress dirty.

A woman gets out her scims as a threat.

A man is bound and gagged and thrown off a cliff. People cheer. 9 more are thrown over. There is a mass of broken bones and shattered skulls. If a certain man is not thrown over soon, a woman is threatened that it will be her family. He then bites her lip, drawing blood.

A woman is hit by a man, bruises forming. A wagon is set on fire to flush out people hiding. Many are taken captive and bound.

A man launches himself and slices a man’s throat. The man presses a hand to his throat, furious. The two men attack each other, others fight with swords and arrows. A girl screams from a bloody cut on her arm. A young woman comes from behind and stabs with a dagger then drags it up, killing him. A soldier is lit on fire, he screams and rolls on the ground. A young woman hands out daggers that she’s taken from dead bodies. A woman takes down a man with a scim and keeps fighting. Another young woman puts an arrow in a man’s throat. A elderly man is kicked then stabbed in the back. A man stabs a young woman, blood pouring down her chest, then he goes after a young man. A young woman tries to intervene but is grabbed by the neck, then a spray of blood hit her face and the man is dead. Many are dead or dying. People are hunched over them, sobbing. A young woman gurgles out a bloody word then dies.

In a prison, the pits are a place where solitary confinement is. It is kept purposefully very hot, to extend the suffering. Clothing disintegrates in weeks, sores fester and rot, many die within days. Wailing is very common there. A prisoner is dragged by, emaciated, dirty loincloth, sores everywhere, he screams when he sees the interrogation door. The warden is nearby with his “experimenting tools” to torture him. A man punches a soldier, knocking him out, then gags and binds him and steals his things. He head butts another, making him fly against the wall with a thud, his eyes rolling to his head then kicks him wondering if he will wake up again.

A woman holds a knife to a man’s throat. She threatens to cut off his head.

A man frequently drains the blood from a young (10 year old) prisoner. He’s discovered he can make him bleed for hours. He uses the child as leverage to get a man to cooperate. He pushes the knife into the child again, making the boy whimper.

A woman lifts a dagger to an intruder.  The intruder isn’t phased cause she shows her an enormous rotting wound.

Slave children are used in a prison and often tortured. They do tasks such as digging a grave with their hands to bury the dead, or cleaning rooms and prisoners after torture, also carrying out the dead.

A man is chained to a wall, as a punishment, the warden tightens those chains. The warden talks about pliers breaking breaking bones. After 4 hours of torture, ten mangled fingernails, multiple broken bones before the man gives info.

A young slave boy gets kicked in the stomach. A man attacks a soldier, other soldiers intervene with a punch to the gut, consciousness is waning. A leader tells the man the slave boy will get punishment because of this.  The boy is thrown out the door, and tortured next door so the man can hear.

It is implied a man kills a dog to stop him from barking and revealing him.

A couple come upon a mass grave of men, women and children.

A boy claws at the face of a soldier.

A woman holds a public mass execution.

A prisoner gets daily beatings before a torture. One time before the beatings, the soldier holds a man by his hair but the man knees him in the crotch, then head-butts him and ties his chains around his neck. One prisoner grabs another by the neck. He has missing chunks of hair, bruises, scars on his face, two fingers are stubs and he is covered in burns.

A woman goes to get her knives to kill a man but her partner grabs him from behind choking him.

There is a murder plot against the emperor.

A leader threatens to cut off a man’s fingers. He then puts his knife to a young boy’s throat. He says he will show the boy’s insides.

In a dream-like vision, a young woman sees her brother’s mangled body and a leader slicing her throat.

A young slave has fresh wounds from a whipping.

A man attacks a soldier, , the soldier grabs his throat. Another man runs into the soldier, but the man is knocked out. The man thrusts a knife into the soldiers thigh and twists the soldier fights him but the man stabs him again and again until he’s dead.

Two women watch as pits are dug for dead slaves. Slaves are whipped. There are giant wooden cages for many slaves. Two wagons are filled with dead slave bodies. Many slaves are trying to hide weapons such as broken arrows. A leader chooses to not rescue a block of prisoners, letting them die in a fire.

Two men and a boy are stuck in a building on fire. They believe they are dead.

Four people are set to be executed. One woman is very excited for this to happen. A man threatens a long death. He takes a dagger and slowly dips it onto a woman’s throat. She gurgles as he draws it across her neck. She sways and falls to the floor. One woman rocks over the body, consumed by grief. Another stares as blood soaks her dress. The first woman screams and is held by her hair, then her throat is slit and she falls to the floor. A man is next, his daughter watches the light leave his eyes.

A man tackles a young woman. She knees him in the groin. She takes a dagger and drives it into his thigh then twists.  A soldier attacks a man carrying another man. The man grabs a knife and plunged it in the soldier’s side. He slices another soldier’s wrist, then hits him across the temple, making him collapse. He then spears through another soldier’s stomach, killing him. He throws a spear into another’s shoulder, then charges another making him fall, hit his head and die. Spears are thrown his way, slices the side of his head. A young woman is grabbed and held above the ground in a chokehold. A man takes a spear in the gut, many men throw rocks. Children attack the man holding the young woman. She kicks and bites him, a child hits him with a pan, she is let go. A child thrusts the dagger into the man’s throat, “flinching from the geyser of blood.”  A hail of arrows follows a group, many are taken down. A woman has a slashed face and hands covered in blood. Multiple soldier’s bodies are found dead and mangled.

Potentially Intense Themes

A couple are hiding in a crypt. They need to hide by coffins where tarantulas are hiding. Skulls and other bones are visible.

A man remembers when multiple friends died.

In one area, wildmen trade babies and women for firepower and liquor. Others live to rape or reave (raids and plundering.)

Slaves are common as servants.

A man visits a spirit world many times, sometimes the spirits are creepy or angry.

A fire in a large building is threatening many lives.

A woman uses a form of magic and glows into a writhing black flame. It causes a man, “agony of a thousand deaths.”

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