by Jay Kristoff
“A GUIDE,” the figure replied. “A GIFT.”
“Speak plainly,” Mia snarled, temper rising. “Who are you?”
“Mia…,” Ashlinn murmured, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“Speak!” Mia demanded, stepping forward with clenched fists.
The figure raised those ink-black hands, drew back its hood. In the ghostly light, Mia saw pitch-black eyes and flawless alabaster skin. Dark, thick saltlocks, swaying as if they were alive. He was still achingly handsome—strong jaw and high cheekbones, once scrawled with hateful ink stains, then made perfect by the weaver’s hands.
Lips she’d once kissed.
Eyes she’d once drowned in.
A face she’d once adored.
Mia looked into Ashlinn’s frightened blue eyes. Back to the pools of bottomless black that passed for his.
“Black fucking Mother,” she breathed.
CHAPTER 5
EPIPHANIES
“How?” Mia whispered.
She looked Tric up and down, crossing her arms over her breasts and shivering in the cold. He was different than he’d been—his once-olive skin was now carved of marble, his once-hazel eyes were pools of purest darkness. He seemed a statue in the forum, wrought cold and perfect from the stone by some master’s hand and now come to life. His face was beautiful. Flawless. Pale and smooth as gravebone, cutting just as deep. Her heart could scarcely believe the tale her eyes were telling.
But there was no mistaking the boy she’d known.
The boy she’d loved?
“But she…” Mia turned to Ashlinn, bewildered. “You killed him.”
Ashlinn was uncharacteristically silent, her eyes bright with fear. Mister Kindly and Eclipse were still sitting side by side on that strange shoreline, and Jonnen had joined them, dark eyes locked on that darker pool. The stone faces around them mouthed silent entreaties, stone tresses flowing as if in a wintersdeep wind. But Mia simply stood, staring at her old flame. Trying to ignore the flood of emotion rushing through her chest and simply make sense of it all.
“How can you be here if you’re dead?”
Tric’s black eyes glinted in the cold lantern light.
“THE MOTHER KEEPS ONLY WHAT SHE NEEDS.”
Mia drew a few deep breaths, her lungs aching from the chill. She’d heard tell of wraiths returning from the Hearth to haunt the living, dismissed most of them as old wives’ tales. But this was no children’s fable standing before her. This was her old friend, sure as her heart was beating in her chest. The boy who’d traveled with her through the Whisperwastes of Ashkah, who’d been her ally and confidant during the Red Church trials, who’d shared her bed and chased her nightmares away during her darkest hours. Her first real lover.
Killed by her second.
Mia could feel Ashlinn behind her, close enough to reach out and touch. She could still taste the girl’s lips. Smell the perfume of sweat and leather on her skin. She knew Tric must have seen them together, that he must have witnessed the passion and joy Mia had felt kissing his murderer.
“I…” She shook her head. Searching for some explanation. Wondering why she felt the need to explain anything at all. “I thought you were dead…”
Those pitch-black eyes flickered to Ashlinn.
“I AM,” Tric replied.
“He saved my life, Mia,” Ashlinn murmured behind her. “The Ministry ambushed me at the chapel. They took Mercurio back to the Mountain. They were set to steal me, too, but … Tric … he helped me.”
Mia’s stomach sank at the news of Mercurio’s capture.
“Why?” she asked. “Why help you after what you did to him?”
“I don’t know.” Ash put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Mia, I have to tell y—”
“What’s your game, Tric?” Mia turned back to the boy, burning with curiosity and indignity. “Why save Ashlinn after she killed you? Why save Jonnen and me, then leave us to wander like rats in the dark?”
At the sound of his name, Mia’s brother turned from the black pool. He blinked hard, rubbing his eyes like a boy just woken from sleep. He seemed to notice Tric for the first time, but Mia could see suspicion in his stare instead of fear. Curiosity narrowed his eyes as he looked Ashlinn up and down, and a healthy dose of hatred resurfaced as his gaze fell on her.
Tric’s eyes were fixed on Mia. She realized she hadn’t yet seen him blink.
“IT’S TRUELIGHT,” he replied. “THE THREE EYES OF AA THE EVERSEEING BURN BRIGHT IN THE SKY ABOVE. MOTHER NIAH IS NEVER SO FAR AWAY FROM THIS WORLD AS SHE IS AT THIS MOMENT. AND IT’S ONLY THROUGH HER WILL THAT I WALK THIS WORLD AT ALL. IT TOOK ALL I HAD TO DO WHAT I DID.”
“And Mister Kindly?” Mia asked. “Eclipse? Why separate us?”
“THEY WERE DRAWN HERE WHILE YOU SLEPT.”
Mia looked to that darkened shore, her passengers sitting beside it. Now that the joy of seeing Ashlinn, the shock of seeing Tric, was wearing off, she could still feel the pull of this place thrumming under her skin. The black, intoxicating malice reverberating in that vast black pool. Looking down at her feet, she could see her shadow stretching toward it, despite the lantern’s light. And she realized she wanted to join it.
“No more riddles, Tric,” she said. “Tell me once and for all what’s going on here.”
“IT WILL NOT PLEASE YOU.”
“Fucking speak, damn you!” she demanded.
The shadow of a smile curled Tric’s bloodless lips. “YOU STILL HAVE A STRANGE WAY OF MAKING FRIENDS, PALE DAUGHTER.”
The words made Mia’s heart ache, dispelling any lingering suspicion that this apparition wasn’t her old friend. She remembered their time together, the promises they’d made each other, the way his touch had made her feel …
“Please,” she whispered.
The Hearthless boy breathed deep, as if he were about to speak. All the air around him seemed to hush, the whispering stone faces and writhing stone hands at last falling still. His saltlocks swayed like dreaming vipers, the tattered edge of his robe danced in a wind that touched only him.
“I FELT THE BLADE.” Tric glanced at Ashlinn. “WHEN SHE SLIPPED IT INTO MY CHEST. I FELT THE WIND AS SHE PUSHED ME OFF THE SKY ALTAR, DOWN INTO THE BLACK BEYOND THE QUIET MOUNTAIN. BUT I DIDN’T FEEL THE GROUND.”
Mia sensed Ashlinn beside her, shivering as her lover reached down and took hold of her hand. She realized she couldn’t feel her fingers for the chill in the air. The very world seemed to hold its breath.
“I WOKE IN A PLACE WITH NO COLOR,” Tric continued. “BUT IN THE DISTANCE AHEAD, I SAW A FLICKERING FLAME. A HEARTH. I KNEW I’D BE SAFE THERE. I COULD FEEL ITS WARMTH, LIKE A LOVER’S HANDS ON MY SKIN.” The wraith shook his head. “BUT AS I TOOK MY FIRST STEP TOWARD IT, I HEARD A VOICE BEHIND ME, AS IF FROM FAR AWAY.”
“What did it say?” Mia heard herself whisper.
“THE MANY WERE ONE,” Tric replied. “AND WILL BE AGAIN; ONE BENEATH THE THREE, TO RAISE THE FOUR, FREE THE FIRST, BLIND THE SECOND AND THE THIRD.”
O, Mother, blackest Mother, what have I become?
Mia felt her belly flip, remembering the book that Chronicler Aelius had given her during her tutelage in the Red Church. She’d asked the old man for a tome about the darkin, and he’d returned with a beaten, leather-bound diary.
“Cleo’s journal,” she said. “Those were her words.”
“NO,” the deadboy replied. “THEY’RE NIAH’S. SHE SANG THEM TO ME IN THE DARK, THE MUSIC OF HER PROMISES DROWNING OUT THE LIGHT OF THAT TINY HEARTH AND ALL DESIRE TO SIT BESIDE IT. AND WHEN HER LULLABY WAS DONE, THE MOTHER SHOWED ME A PATH, ACROSS THE DARK BETWEEN THE STARS. AND THROUGH COLD SO FIERCE IT BURNED, THROUGH A BLACK SO BLEAK IT ALMOST SWALLOWED ME WHOLE, I CLAWED MY WAY BACK.”
Tric pulled up the sleeves of his robe, and Mia saw his hands and forearms were black, spattered, as if he’d dipped his arms in ink all the way to the elbows.
“AND I BECAME.”
“Became what?”
“HER GIFT TO
YOU,” he replied. “HER GUIDE.”
Mia simply shook her head in question.
“YOU’RE LOST,” Tric said. “IT’S AS I ONCE TOLD YOU. YOUR VENGEANCE IS AS THE SUNS, MIA. IT SERVES ONLY TO BLIND YOU.”
Mia swallowed, finishing the words he’d spoken to her in the Galante necropolis.
“Seek the Crown of the Moon.”
“… The Crown of the Moon?” Ashlinn breathed.
Mia turned to the girl beside her, hearing the strange note in her voice.
“That means something to you?”
Ashlinn’s eyes were still fixed on Tric. She looked as incredulous as Mia felt.
“… Ash?”
Ashlinn blinked, focusing on Mia’s face.
“The map,” she said. “The one Duomo hired me to find.”
Mia swallowed, remembering the first time she’d fallen into Ashlinn’s bed. The sweet kisses and cigarillo smoke afterward, long red hair parting to reveal the intricate inkwerk on her lover’s back. Ashlinn had been hired by Cardinal Duomo to retrieve a map from a ruin on the coast of Old Ashkah. But fearing betrayal, she’d gotten the map branded on her skin with arkemical ink that would fade in the event of her death—the same kind that was used in the slave brand on Mia’s cheek. In all the chaos leading up to the magni, they’d never truly found time to discuss it.
“Duomo believed it led to a weapon,” Ashlinn said softly. “A magik that would undo the Church. Scaeva and the Ministry must have believed it, too, or they’d never have sent you to steal it back, Mia. I don’t know the truth of it. But I do know the map leads to a place deep in the Ashkahi wastes. A place called the Crown of the Moon.”
“WHERE YOU MUST GO,” Tric said.
“Why?” Mia demanded. “What the ’byss is this Moon? And why do I give a beggar’s cuss about its fucking crown?”
“YOU ARE THE MOTHER’S CHOSEN,” Tric replied.
“O, bollocks,” Mia snapped. “If I’m chosen of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, why am I running for my life from her own damned assassins? If I’m so la-dee-fucking-da, why have I lived up to my neck in blood and shit for the past eight years?”
“THE RED CHURCH HAS LOST ITS WAY,” Tric replied. “AND THE MOTHER IS VERY FAR FROM HERE, MIA. BUT SHE HAS DONE WHAT SHE CAN TO SET YOU ON YOUR PATH. SHE SENT YOU SALVATION AS A CHILD THROUGH MERCURIO. SHE SENT YOU CLEO’S JOURNAL THROUGH AELIUS. SHE SENT YOU THE MAP THROUGH…” Tric’s eyes flashed as he glanced at Ashlinn. “… HER. SHE SENT YOU ME. YOU CAN’T IMAGINE THE STRUGGLE IT TOOK TO INFLUENCE THIS WORLD FROM WITHIN THE WALLS OF HER PRISON. BUT STILL, IN WHAT TINY WAY SHE CAN, SHE’S GIVEN YOU ALL THE AID SHE MAY.”
“But why?” Mia demanded. “Why me?”
Tric steepled his black fingers at his lips, staring for long, silent moments.
“IN THE BEGINNING, NIAH AND AA’S MARRIAGE WAS A HAPPY ONE,” he finally said. “THE LIGHT AND THE NIGHT SHARED RULE OF THE SKY EQUALLY, MAKING LOVE AT DAWN AND DUSK. FEARING A RIVAL, AA COMMANDED NIAH BEAR HIM NO SONS, AND DUTIFULLY, SHE GAVE HIM FOUR DAUGHTERS—THE LADIES OF FIRE, EARTH, OCEAN, AND STORMS. BUT IN THE LONG, COLD HOURS OF DARKNESS, NIAH MISSED HER HUSBAND. AND TO EASE HER LONELINESS, SHE BROUGHT A BOYCHILD INTO THE WORLD.”
Tric looked to the pool of darkness at his back, sorrow in his voice.
“THE NIGHT NAMED HER SON ANAIS.”
“And Aa banished Niah from the sky for her crime,” Mia said, her temper fraying. “This is children’s lore, everyone knows it. What’s it to do with me?”
Tric pointed one finger to the pool, the smooth black surface mirroring the ceiling above as if it were glass. And reflected in it, she could see a pale orb, hanging in the dark like smoke.
“IN THE EMPIRE OF OLD ASHKAH, THEY KNEW ANAIS BY ANOTHER NAME.”
Mia looked at the glowing orb—the same she’d seen in the moment she slew Furian in Godsgrave Arena—and felt her shadow grow darker still.
“The Moon,” she realized.
Tric nodded. “HE WAS THE EATER OF FEAR. THE DAY IN THE DARKNESS. HE REFLECTED HIS FATHER’S LIGHT AND BRIGHTENED HIS MOTHER’S NIGHT. IN THE EMPIRE OF OLD ASHKAH, HE TAUGHT THE FIRST SORCERII THE ARTS ARCANE. A GOD OF MAGIK AND WISDOM AND HARMONY, WORSHIPPED ABOVE ALL OTHERS. NO SHADOW WITHOUT LIGHT, EVER DAY FOLLOWS NIGHT, BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE…”
“There is gray…,” Mia murmured.
“HE WAS THE BALANCE BETWEEN NIGHT AND DAY. THE PRINCE OF DAWN AND DUSK. AND FEARING HIS GROWING POWER, THE EVERSEEING RESOLVED TO SLAY HIS ONLY SON.”
The stone reliefs began moving again as Tric spoke. Graven hands shifting to cover sightless eyes. Mouths widening in horror. The orb in the pool shifted, became a sharp, crescent shape, dripping blood. In the back of her mind, Mia swore she could hear other voices. Thousands of them, just beyond the edge of hearing.
And they were screaming.
“AA STRUCK WHILE ANAIS SLEPT,” Tric continued. “HE CUT OFF HIS SON’S HEAD AND HURLED HIS BODY FROM THE HEAVENS. ANAIS’S CORPSE PLUMMETED TO THE EARTH, TEARING THE LAND ASUNDER AND THROWING ALL THE WORLD INTO CHAOS. THE ASHKAHI EMPIRE IN THE EAST WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED. AND WHERE HIS SON’S BODY LAY IN THE WEST, AA COMMANDED HIS FAITHFUL TO BUILD A TEMPLE TO HIS GLORY. THAT TEMPLE BECAME A CITY, AND THAT CITY BECAME THE NEW HEART OF HIS FAITH.”
“The Ribs.” Ash glanced at the gravebone blade at her waist. “The Spine.”
“This whole place…,” Mia realized, looking around them.
Tric nodded. “A GOD’S GRAVE.”
Heart hammering, mouth dry, Mia pictured the illustration she’d found at the end of Cleo’s journal—a map of Itreya before the rise of the Republic. The bay of Godsgrave had been missing entirely, a peninsula filling the Sea of Silence where the Itreyan capital now stood. And in that spot, three words had been scribed in blood-red ink.
“Here he fell…,” she whispered.
“HERE HE FELL,” Tric nodded. “BUT GODS DON’T DIE SO EASILY. AND THE MOTHER KEEPS ONLY WHAT SHE NEEDS. ANAIS’S SOUL WASN’T EXTINGUISHED.”
Tric drew a long, slow breath, as if before a deep plunge.
“IT WAS SHATTERED.”
His bottomless eyes were fixed upon Mia’s.
“SOME PIECES POOLED HERE, IN THE HOLLOWS BENEATH THIS CITY’S SKIN. THE PART OF HIM THAT RAGED. THAT HATED. THAT WISHED ONLY FOR IT ALL TO END, JUST AS HE HAD.” The wraith glanced at Mister Kindly and Eclipse, now watching him with their not-eyes. “IN TIME, OTHER SHARDS GAINED A SEEMING OF THEIR OWN, CRAWLING FROM THE MIRE BENEATH HIS GRAVE. CUT OFF FROM WHAT THEY’D BEEN, AND KNOWING NOT WHAT THEY WERE, THEY SOUGHT OTHERS LIKE THEM. FEASTING ON FEAR AS ANAIS HAD ONCE DONE, AND TAKING WHATEVER SHAPES AND MANNERISMS THOSE THEY RODE FOUND COMFORT IN.”
“Daemons,” Mia said. “Passengers.”
Those pitch-black eyes returned to the girl’s. “AND LASTLY, THE LARGEST FRAGMENTS OF THE WHOLE, THE PARTS WHICH WERE STRONGEST, FOUND THEIR WAY INTO…”
“… People,” Ash breathed.
“Darkin,” Mia said.
Tric nodded. “BUT AT THE HEART OF YOU—DAEMONS OR DARKIN—YOU ARE ALL THE SAME. SEARCHING FOR THE MISSING PIECES OF YOURSELF. SEEKING TO BECOME WHOLE AGAIN. THE SCATTERED PIECES OF A SHATTERED GOD.”
Eclipse scoffed. “… THIS IS MADNESS…”
“… i mean to cause no one alarm, but i concur with the mongrel…”
“LOOK AT YOUR SHADOW, MIA,” Tric said. “WHAT DO YOU SEE?”
Mia looked to the darkness at her feet. It was still stretching out toward that pool of black blood, just as Jonnen’s was. But even with her passengers sitting on the shore across from her, it was still …
“Dark enough for two,” she said.
“SO IT WAS WITH CLEO,” Tric said. “SHE ALSO LEARNED THE TRUTH OF WHAT SHE WAS. CHOSEN BY THE MOTHER, SHE JOURNEYED ACROSS THE LANDS OF ITREYA, SEEKING TO UNITE THE SHATTERED PIECES OF ANAIS’S SOUL. SHE GATHERED A LEGION OF PASSENGERS TO HER SIDE. SEEKING OTHERS LIKE HER AND—”
“Eating them,” Mia said, recalling the journal.
“TAKING THE
SHARDS OF HIS ESSENCE INTO HERSELF.”
Mia frowned. “So the fragment that was inside Furian…”
“IS NOW PART OF YOU. IN SLAYING HIM WITH YOUR OWN HAND, YOU’VE CLAIMED IT AS YOURS. MERGING TWO INTO A LARGER WHOLE. THE MANY WERE ONE. AND WILL BE AGAIN.”
“But Lord Cassius died right in front of me. I didn’t feel any stronger.”
“CASSIUS WASN’T SLAIN BY A DARKIN. THE FRAGMENT IN HIM WAS LOST FOREVER. EVENTUALLY, EVEN GODS CAN DIE.”
Mia’s pulse was thumping in her veins, her belly a roiling slick of ice. She could feel the malice emanating from that blackened pool, the fury in the air around her. She understood it now, at last. It was the same fury she’d reached out and touched during the truedark massacre, the night she’d first truly wielded the power within her. Tearing the Philosopher’s Stone to pieces. Storming the Basilica Grande and destroying the grand statue of Aa outside it. Embracing the black and bitter rage in this city’s bones.
It was the rage of a child, betrayed by the one who should have loved it most.
The rage of a son, by his father slain.
The deadboy’s bottomless eyes bored into her own.
“Cleo’s journal … she spoke of a child inside her,” Mia said.
“… SHE WAS A LUNATIC, MIA…,” Eclipse growled.
“This whole tale sounds like lunacy,” she breathed.
“NO,” Tric replied. “IT’S—”
“… destiny…?” Mister Kindly scoffed.
Tric turned bottomless eyes on the shadowcat.
“IF SHE HAS COURAGE ENOUGH TO SEIZE IT.”
“… this is the darkest shade of nonsense…”
Eclipse concurred with a sneer.
“… YOU HONESTLY WISH ME TO BELIEVE THIS IDIOT MOGGY IS A GOD…?”
“ANAIS’S SOUL SHATTERED INTO HUNDREDS OF FRAGMENTS. YOU’RE NO MORE GODLIKE THAN A DROP OF WATER IS THE OCEAN. BUT YOU MUST FEEL YOU’RE ALL BOUND TO EACH OTHER? DON’T YOU SENSE YOU ARE … INCOMPLETE?”
Mia knew what the Hearthless boy was talking about. The sickness and hunger she’d always felt around Cassius, Furian, now Jonnen. She never felt as whole as when Mister Kindly and Eclipse walked in her shadow. And she felt stronger than ever since Furian had died at her hands.
