Darkdawn--Book Three of the Nevernight Chronicle

by Jay Kristoff

  “In the Descent.” Adonai nodded to the rusty manacles. “Beating and bludgeoning thy way through the Philosopher’s Stone, freedom thy goal. How many didst thou slay?” Adonai tilted his head. “And begrudge our new imperator for it, dost thou? ’Twas Julius Scaeva’s notion to empty the Stone with the hands of its own occupants, neh?”

  “What word from Galante?” Solis asked, ignoring the question.

  “None yet,” Adonai lied, the same small smile on his lips.

  “None?” Spiderkiller asked.

  Adonai turned from the manacles on the wall, looking to the other members of the Ministry. They were seated in a semicircle around the Lastman’s desk, a trio of murderers with a tally between them that would make the Night smile.

  If, of course, they had any interest in the Mother of Night at all.

  Spiderkiller first. Walnut skin, saltlocks twisted into elegant curls atop her head. She was clad in her traditional emerald green, gold as always at her throat. The average Itreyan citizen would never touch a gold coin in their lives, and yet Spiderkiller dripped with it. The chains at her throat could have paid for an estate in upper Valentia. The rings on her fingers could have freed half the slaves in Stormwatch. She wore the face of the dour Shahiid of Truths well, but she hid her love of coin worst among the Ministry. She was a bower bird, decorating the nest of her own flesh. Vanity wrapped plain across expanses of dark skin.

  Mouser next. Mouser with his dark, tousled hair and his young man’s face and old man’s eyes. Mouser, with his estates scattered all across the Republic, each one with a life-sized portrait of himself in the foyer and a dressing room full of women’s underthings, deep as a forest. Adonai knew of at least seven of Mouser’s wives, though he was certain there were more. Only the Mother knew how many children he’d spawned. To Mouser, immortality was best achieved through progeny. And progeny, of course, required currency.

  And then, beautiful Aalea. Blood-red dress, blood-red lips, snow-pale skin. She was the closest to devout out of all of them. She’d only been the Shahiid of Masks a handful of years, ever since the death of Shahiid Thelonius*—she hadn’t quite had time for the coin to totally corrupt her. But Adonai could see it beginning to. Her gowns made by the greatest seamstresses in the Republic. The pleasure houses she’d purchased in Godsgrave and Galante, the grand palazzo she kept in Whitekeep and the revels she threw there, young rock-hard slaves and bowls full of ink and acres of skin.

  Power.

  Corrupting.

  Because they paid nothing for it, you see. No tithe. No suffering. They were not reminded, with a constant ache in their bellies or the hideousness of their own reflection, the price they paid for the power they wielded. And so they wielded it thoughtlessly. Carelessly. Believing they had served their Mother well, and now they could sit back and reap the fortunes earned by a life of servitude.

  Glutted with blood money. Serenity in murder.

  All of them, unworthy.

  “Speaker?” Aalea asked, one perfectly sculpted eyebrow raised.

  “Hmm?” Adonai asked.

  “You have heard nothing from the chapel at Galante?” Dark, kohl-smudged eyes glittered in the dim light. “Bishop Tenhands set out five turns ago, did she not?”

  “Aye.” Adonai strolled along Solis’s bookshelves, finger trailing across the spines. He thought it telling that the Lastman still kept them in here—he wanted to give the appearance of being learned, despite the fact his blind eyes couldn’t read a word. “But no word from Tenhands have I heard or felt since the Cityport of Churches she left.”

  That was fact, at least. Aalea could smell lies with enviable skill. But Adonai could dance around the truth all nevernight and not come close to touching it.

  “Passing strange,” Mouser muttered. “Tenhands is no slouch.”

  “Nor those who rode with her,” Spiderkiller mused. “Sharp Blades, all.”

  “Would that we could’ve sent more.” Solis stroked what little of his beard Ashlinn Järnheim’s tombstone bomb had left him. “But we’ve precious few to spare.”

  “Would that you could have simply ended our little Crow in Godsgrave, Revered Father,” Mouser said. “And saved us this trouble.”

  Adonai smiled as Solis’s blind eyes flashed. “What did you say?”

  Mouser examined his fingernails. “Only that for the leader of a flock of killers, you seem to have tremendous difficulty actually killing people.”

  “Careful, little Mouse,” Solis warned. “Lest that tongue of yours flap itself right out of your mouth. I told you the girl had aid.”

  “Aye, some revenant returned from the Hearth, neh?” Mouser drummed his fingers down the hilt of his blacksteel blade.* “I confess, were I confronted with the like of our good chronicler in the streets of Godsgrave, I might shit my britches, too.”

  “I already told you,” Solis growled, rising from his chair. “Corvere’s savior was not kin to Aelius. The chronicler can’t even leave the library. This thing walked where it wanted, cut a squadron of Itreyan soldiers to pieces. And one more word of dissent from you, you corset-wearing fop, and I’ll show you just how much difficulty I have killing people.”

  “Grow up, both of you,” Spiderkiller sighed.

  “O, aye, advice from her favorite teacher,” Solis snarled. “Wasn’t it you who named Corvere top of your Hall, Spiderkiller? She was your star pupil, neh? That little whore’s betrayal has cost us dearer than any in Church history, and it was you who made it possible for her to become a Blade.”

  “And I will see that betrayal put arights,” the woman said softly. “I have vowed it before Mother Night, and I vow it before you now. I will have my vengeance upon Mia Corvere. The last thing to touch her lips in this life will be my venom. Doubt it not, Solis.”

  “You will refer to me as Revered Father, Shahiid,” Solis growled.

  Adonai watched all this drama unfolding with the same small smile on his lips. So tedious. So mundane. Such was the way of things, he supposed. Vipers always turn upon each other when they have no rats to eat.

  “What did Mercurio speak to you about?” Drusilla asked.

  The speaker kept his face sanguine, looked to the Lady of Blades through bleached lashes. The woman stood at the head of the room, examining the hundreds of silver phials in the alcoves. Each one was filled with a measure of Adonai’s blood, given out to bishops and Hands and Blades for the purpose of sending missives to the Mountain. Even standing twenty feet away, the speaker could feel every drop inside.

  “Mercurio,” Drusilla said again. “He came down to your chambers a week ago. Spoke to you and your sister at length, or so I am informed.”

  “Escape from the Mountain, good Mercurio seeks,” Adonai shrugged. “And I am one such escape. Words had he also, most choice, about my … hungers.”

  Adonai watched Drusilla, pink eyes glittering. He knew where her coin went, too. Where she spent the slow fortune she was amassing since Lord Cassius perished, leaving the Church completely under her command. How much she had to lose. And why she was so desperate to cling to what she’d built.

  “We should kill Mercurio and be done, Drusilla,” Solis muttered.

  “You catch more fish with live worms than dead ones,” the Lady of Blades replied. “If our little Crow learned of his murder, we might never see her again.”

  “And how would she learn what happens within these walls?” Spiderkiller asked.

  Drusilla shook her head. “I know not. But she seems to have a knack for it. The imperator was clear—Mercurio is not to be touched until Scaeva’s heir is returned.”

  “Perhaps he entertains delusion his daughter will still join him?” Mouser said.

  “She’s no fool,” Aalea said with a delicate shrug. “There’s much to be gained from standing with Scaeva now. Mia may yet accept his offer.”

  “And you hope she will, I suppose?” Solis growled. “That her life might be spared? You always had a soft spot for that girl. And her old master.”
/>
  “I have many soft spots, Revered Father,” Aalea replied coolly. “And you are welcome to enquire about precisely none of them.”

  “Regardless, Mercurio cannot be trusted.” Spiderkiller interrupted the pair, eyes on Drusilla. “We should at least lock him in his room.”

  “No,” Drusilla said. “I want to give the old bastard enough rope to hang himself.”

  “All due respect, Lady,” Mouser said. “But Mercurio is one of the most dangerous men in this Mountain. Are you certain that your personal feelings for h—”

  “You are treading on extremely thin ice, Shahiid.” The Lady of Blades glowered. “I would choose my next words with utmost care, were I you.”

  “If there be nothing else?” Adonai sighed.

  “Are we boring you, Speaker?” Drusilla snapped.

  “Forgive me, Lady.” The speaker bowed. “But I hunger.”

  Drusilla aimed one last poisoned glare at the Mouser, then turned her full attention to Adonai. “I understand. And I’d not seek to keep you from your meal. But before you leave, there is one last matter to discuss.”

  “Pray then, Lady, let us discuss it swift.”

  “Since Mia Corvere so neatly did away with his last, Imperator Scaeva has need of another doppelgänger. Inform your sister we shall be in need of her services.”

  Adonai felt a flicker of excitement in his veins.

  “Coming here, shall Scaeva be?”

  “Unless the situation has changed,” the Lady of Blades said. “I was informed Marielle could not create simulacra without the imperator present.”

  The blood speaker gave a lazy shrug. “’Tis as with any artisan. Be the model present in the room, a more accurate portrait can the artiste paint. Be my sister love’s work intended to fool the Senate, or Scaeva’s bride, then aye.” Adonai smiled. “’Twould be prudent for the imperator to make himself available for a sitting.”

  “Very well,” Drusilla replied. “I will inform you when he is due to arrive.”

  “As it please thee,” Adonai said, stifling a yawn.

  The speaker turned and left the Revered Father’s chambers with a slow swish of red silk, taking his long and sweet time. His bare feet made no sound on the stairs as he descended into the dark, his pale lips twisted in a small smile.

  He could feel Drusilla’s eyes on him as he left.

  * * *

  “Brother love, brother mine.”

  Adonai found Marielle in her room of faces, reading by arkemical light. She was buried in some tome from the Athenaeum, tracing her progress across the pages with twisted, seeping fingers, careful never to touch. But she looked up as her brother entered her chamber, silken robe parted from his pale, smooth chest.

  Her red eyes shone with joy to see him, but she kept her smile small and tight, lest the skin of her lips split again. It had taken weeks to heal the last time.

  “Sister love,” he replied. “Sister mine.”

  Adonai gently pulled her cowl back, pressed his lips to the top of her head, locks of greasy blond spread thin over her scalp. She turned away from him, ashamed.

  “Look not upon me, brother.”

  Adonai put his hand to her cracked and swollen cheek, turned Marielle to face him. A nightmare of wasted skin and open sores. Bleeding and seeping and rotting to the core. Perfume layered thick, but not enough to hide the dark sweetness of decay, the ruin of empires in her flesh.

  He kissed her eyes. He kissed her cheeks. He kissed her lips.

  “Thou art beautiful,” he whispered.

  She pressed her palm to the hand that still cupped her face. Smiling soft. And then he turned away, hands behind his back, looking at the faces on the walls. Empty eyes and open mouths, ceramic and glass and pottery and papier-mâché. Death masks and Carnivalé masks and ancient masks of bone and hide. A gallery of faces, beautiful and hideous and everything in between.

  “What news?” Marielle lisped.

  “Tenhands and her Blades all slain. Our little darkin unscathed.” Adonai shrugged. “Largely, at least. And our imperator shall arrive soon from the Godsgrave, that ye may sculpt another fool to his likeness.”

  “Coward,” Marielle sighed.

  “Aye,” Adonai nodded.

  “That whore Naev is in readiness?”

  Adonai raised his eyebrow. “She is ready. But thou hast no need of jealousy, sister mine. It becomes thee not. Naev is but a tool.”

  “A tool thou didst use well and often, brother love, in nevernights past.”

  “She pleased me.” Adonai sighed. “And then, she bored me.”

  “Naev loves thee still.”

  “Then she is just as much a fool as the rest of them.”

  Marielle smiled darkly, drool on her lips. “Think ye Drusilla suspects us?”

  Adonai shrugged. “Soon, it shall matter not. The board be set, the pieces move. The tomes in Aelius’s keeping shall point the way. And when all is done, we shall have black skies and moon above, just as the chronicler promised.”

  Adonai ran his fingertips over the lamp on Marielle’s desk—a lithe woman with a lion’s head, globe held in its upturned palms. Ashkahi in origin. Millennia old.

  “Think on it, sister love,” he breathed. “Our magiks are but a pale sliver of what they truly knew. What lessons might be ours when he shines in the sky once more? What tortures might be eased, what secrets gleaned, when we leave ever-sunslit shores behind and dwell in balance again?”

  Adonai smiled, his fingertips trailing down the statue’s face.

  “No dark without light,” Marielle said. “Ever day follows night.”

  Adonai nodded. “Between black and white…”

  “There is gray,” they both finished.

  “When the Dark Mother returns to her place in the sky,” Adonai said, “I wonder what she shall make of the rot in this, her house? And all those who have profited from her without faith?”

  “We shall know soon enough, brother.”

  Marielle threaded her fingers through Adonai’s, her smile on the verge of splitting. He kissed her knuckles, her wrist. Smiling dark in return.

  “Soon enough.”

  * * *

  Aelius had never found the library’s edges.

  He’d looked once. Walking out into the gloom between the shelves, the forest of dark and polished wood, the rustling leaves of vellum and parchment and paper and leather and hide. He found books carved on still-bleeding skin, books written in languages never invented, books that looked back at him as he looked at them. Roaming among the aisles for turns on end, only the occasional bookworm for company, trailing a finger-thin wisp of sugar-sweet smoke behind him.

  But he never found the edge. And after seven turns of searching for it, he’d finally realized the things in this library didn’t get found unless they wanted to be. So he’d stopped looking altogether.

  He wheeled his empty trolley up to the mezzanine, stopped outside his office to light another smoke. He saw more books piled up under the RETURNS slot, slipped back into his keeping during the nevernight by the new acolytes training within the Mountain.

  Aelius sighed gray, stooping down with his creaking back and liver-spotted fingers, scooping up the books and placing them with reverence in his trolley.

  “A librarian’s work is never done,” he muttered.

  He fished about in his waistcoat for his spectacles, checked the pockets of his britches, then shirt, finally realized they were sitting atop his head. With a wry smile, he wandered into his office, drawing deep on his cigarillo.

  “‘A girl who was to murder as maestros are to music’?”

  Drusilla looked up from the book she was reading, blood-red edges on the pages, a black crow embossed upon the cover. A mirthless smirk twisted her lips.

  “Black Goddess, he really thinks a lot of his own prose, doesn’t he?”

  “Everyone’s a critic.” Aelius propped his cigarillo on his lips and shrugged at the book. “But aye, some of the metaphors are perhaps
a bit much.”

  “Thank the Goddess he doesn’t talk the way he writes. If he sounded this pretentious when he opened his mouth, I’d have had him murdered years ago.”

  The chronicler looked the Lady of Blades up and down. “To what do I owe this visit, young ’Silla? Haven’t seen you down here for an age.”

  “Did you really believe I’d not know what you two were up to in here?” she asked, closing the book’s cover. “Did you think me blind, or simply pray I’d not notice?”

  “Wasn’t sure you’d be able to see all the way down here from your high chair.”

  “How long have you known?” Drusilla asked.

  The chronicler shook his head. “Not sure what you mean, lass.”

  Drusilla drew a long, wickedly sharp stiletto from the sleeve of her robe.

  “What’s that for?” Aelius asked. “Chest hair getting unruly again?”

  Drusilla slammed the knife point-first into a stack of random histories and novels on Aelius’s desk. The blade punched through the leather cover of the tome atop the pile and deep into the pages beyond. The chronicler winced, saw the wounded book was none other than On Bended Knee, a particular favorite of his.*

  Somewhere out in the library’s dark, a bookworm roared.

  “I’d not do that again were I you, young lady,” Aelius said.

  “I believe I have made my point,” Drusilla replied, withdrawing the blade.

  The chronicler looked down at his hand. A hole was punched through his palm—the exact same size and shape as the wound she’d just inflicted on the book. Aelius peered at the Lady of Blades through the new hole in his hand as she rested the blade’s tip on another cover.

  “I suppose you have,” the old ghost replied.

  “How long have you known?” Drusilla drummed her fingers on the crow gracing the chronicle’s cover. Aelius could see she’d been leafing through the second volume, too. “About the girl. How long?”

  The chronicler shrugged. “Since a little before she arrived here.”