by Jay Kristoff
Teardrinker made her way around the fallen beasts, Luka beside her, brushing away the soup of flies. She saw Dogger, crossbow drawn but not raised, his other hand up in supplication. And though he was the kind of fellow whose biggest worry when slitting a man’s throat was not getting any on his shoes, the man was speaking gently, as if to a frightened mare.
“Woah, there,” he cooed. “Easy, girl . . .”
More blood here, sprayed across the sand, dark brown on deep red. Teardrinker saw the telltale mounds of a dozen freshly dug graves nearby. And looking past Dogger, she saw who it was he spoke at so sweetly.
“Aa’s burning cock,” she murmured. “Now there’s a sight.”
A girl. Eighteen at most. Pale skin, burned a little red from the sunslight. Long black hair cut into sharp bangs over dark eyes, her face smudged with dust and dried blood. But Teardrinker could see she was a beauty beneath the mess, high cheekbones and full lips. She held a double-edged gladius, notched from recent use. Her thigh and ribs were wrapped in rags, stained with a different vintage than the blood on her tunic.
“You’re a pretty flower,” Teardrinker said.
“S-stay away from me,” the girl warned.
“Easy,” Teardrinker murmured. “You’ve no need of steel anymore, lass.”
“I’ll be judge of that, if it please you,” she said, voice shaking.
Luka drifted to the girl’s flank, reaching out with a swift hand. But she turned quick as silver, kicked his knee and sent him to the sand. With a gasp, the Liisian found the lass behind him, her gladius poised above the join between his shoulder and neck. His cigarillo dangled from suddenly dust-dry lips.
She’s fast.
The girl’s eyes flashed as she snarled at Teardrinker.
“Stay away from me, or Four Daughters, I swear I’ll end him.”
“Dogger, ease off, there’s a lad,” Teardrinker commanded. “Graccus, put up your crossbow. Give the young dona some room.”
Teardrinker watched as her men obeyed, drifting back to let the girl exhale her panic. The woman took a slow step forward, empty hands up and out.
“We’ve no wish to hurt you, flower. I’m just a trader, and these are just my men. We’re traveling to the Hanging Gardens, we smelled the bodies, we came for a looksee. And that’s the truth of it. By Mother Trelene, I swear it.”
The girl watched the captain with wary eyes. Luka winced as her blade nicked his neck, blood beading on the steel.
“What happened here?” Teardrinker asked, already knowing the answer.
The girl shook her head, tears welling in her lashes.
“Slavers?” Teardrinker asked. “This is bad country for it.”
The girl’s lip trembled, she tightened her grip on her blade.
“Were you traveling with your family?”
“M-my father,” the girl replied.
Teardrinker sized the lass up. She was on the short side, thin, but fit and hard. She’d taken refuge under the wagons, torn down some canvas to shelter from the whisperwinds. Despite the stink, she’d stayed near the wreck where supplies were plentiful and she’d be easier to find, which meant she was smart. And though her hand trembled, she carried that steel like she knew how to swing it. Luka had dropped faster than a bride’s unmentionables on her wedding night.
“You’re no merchant’s daughter,” the captain declared.
“My father was a sellsword. He worked the trains out of Nuuvash.”
“Where’s your da now, Flower?”
“Over there,” the girl said, voice cracking. “With th-the others.”
Teardrinker looked to the fresh-dug graves. Maybe three feet deep. Dry sand. Desert heat. No wonder the place stank so bad.
“And the slavers?”
“I buried them, too.”
“And now you’re waiting out here for what?”
The girl glanced in the direction of Dustwalker’s ironsong. This far south, there wasn’t much risk of sand kraken. But ironsong meant wagons, and wagons meant succor, and staying here with the dead didn’t seem to be on her mind, buried da or no.
“I can offer you food,” Teardrinker said. “A ride to the Hanging Gardens. And no unwelcome advances from my men. But you’re going to have to put down that sword, Flower. Young Luka is our cook as well as a guardsman.” Teardrinker risked a small smile. “And as my husband would tell you if he were still among us, you don’t want me cooking your supper.”
The girl’s eyes welled with tears as she glanced to the graves again.
“We’ll carve him a stone before we leave,” Teardrinker promised softly.
The tears spilled then, the girl’s face crumpling as if someone had kicked it in. She let the sword drop, Luka snatching himself loose and rolling up out of the dirt. The girl hung there like a crooked portrait, curtains of blood-matted hair about her face.
The captain almost felt sorry for her.
She approached slowly across the gore-caked earth, shrouded by a halo of flies. And taking off her glove, she extended one callused hand.
“They call me Teardrinker,” she said. “Of the Seaspear clan.”
The girl reached out with trembling fingers. “M—”
Teardrinker seized the girl’s wrist, spun on the spot and flipped her clean over her shoulder. The lass shrieked, crashing onto the dirt. Teardrinker put the boot to her, medium style—just enough to knock what was left of her fight loose from her lungs.
“Dogger, set the irons, there’s a lad,” the captain said. “Hands and feet.”
The Itreyan unslung the manacles from about his waist, bolted them about the girl. She came to her senses, howling and thrashing as Dogger screwed the irons tighter, and Teardrinker drove a boot so hard into her belly she retched into the dirt. The captain let her have another for good measure, just shy of rib-cracking. The girl curled into a ball with a long, breathless moan.
“Get her on her feet,” the captain commanded.
Dogger and Graccus dragged the girl up. Teardrinker grabbed a fistful of hair, hauled the girl’s head back so she could look into her eyes.
“I promised no untoward advances from my men, and to that I hold. But keep fussing, and I’ll hurt you in ways you’ll find all manner of unwelcome. You hear me, Flower?”
The girl could only nod, long black hair tangled at the corners of her lips. Teardrinker nodded to Graccus, and the big man dragged the girl around the ruined wagon train, slung her onto the back of his growling camel. Dogger was already looting the wagons, rifling through the barrels and chests. Luka was checking the cut he’d been gifted, glancing at the girl’s gladius in the dust.
“You let a slip like that get the drop on you again,” Teardrinker warned, “I’ll leave you out here for the fucking dust wraiths, you hear me?”
“Aye, Cap’n,” he muttered, abashed.
“Help Dogger with the leavings. Bring all the water back to the train. Anything you can carry worth a looting, snag it. Burn the rest.”
Teardrinker spat into the dirt, brushed the flies from her good eye as she strode across the blood-caked sand and joined Graccus. She slung herself up onto her camel, and with a sharp kick, the pair were riding back to the wagon train.
Cesare was waiting in the driver’s seat, his pretty face sour. He brightened a little when he saw the girl, groaning and half-senseless over the hump of Graccus’s beast.
“For me?” he asked. “You shouldn’t have, Cap’n.”
“Slavers hit a merchant caravan, bit off more than they could chew.” Teardrinker nodded to the girl. “She’s the only survivor. Graccus and Dogger are bringing back water from the wreckage. See it distributed among the stock.”
“Another one died of heatstroke.” Cesare motioned back to the train. “Found him when we let the others out to stretch. That’s a quarter of our inventory this run.”
Teardrinker hauled off her tricorn, dragged her hand along her sweat-drenched scalp. She watched the stock stagger around their cages, men and women
and a handful of children, blinking up at the merciless suns. Only a few were in irons—most were so heat-wracked they’d not the strength to run, even if they had somewhere to go. And out here in the Ashkahi Whisperwastes, there was nowhere to get except dead.
“No fear,” she said, nodding at the girl. “Look at her. A prize like that will cover our losses and then some. One of the Daughters has smiled on us.” She turned to Graccus. “Lock her in with the women. See she’s fed a double ration ’til we get to the Gardens. I want her looking ripe on the stocks. You touch her beyond that, I’ll cut off your fucking fingers and feed them to you, aye?”
Graccus nodded. “Aye, Cap’n.”
“Get the rest back in their cages. Leave the dead one for the restless.”
Cesare and Graccus set about it, leaving Teardrinker to brood.
The captain sighed. The third sun would be rising in a few months. This would probably be the last run she’d make until after truelight, and the divinities had been conspiring to fuck it to ruin. An outbreak of bloodflux had wiped out an entire wagon of her stock just a week after they left Rammahd. Young Cisco had got poleaxed when he slipped off for a piss—probably took by a dust wraith, judging by what was left of him. And this heat was threatening to wilt the rest of her crop before it even got to market. All she needed was a cool breeze for a few more turns. Maybe a short spell of rain. She’d sacrificed a strong young calf on the Altar of Storms at Nuuvash before she left. But did Lady Nalipse listen?
After the wreck years ago that had almost ruined her, Teardrinker had vowed to stay away from the water. Running flesh on the seas was a riskier business than driving it on land. But she swore the Mother of Oceans was still trying to make her life a misery, even if it meant getting her sister, the Mother of Storms, in on the torment.
Not a breath of wind.
Not a drop of rain.
Still, that pretty flower was fresh, and curves like hers would fetch a fine price at market. It was a stroke of luck to have found her out here, unspoiled in all this shit. Between the raiders and the slavers and the sand kraken, the Ashkahi Whisperwastes were no place for a girl to roam alone. For Teardrinker to have found her before someone or something else did, one of the Daughters had to be smiling on her.
It was almost as if someone wanted it this way . . .
The girl was thrown in the frontmost wagon with the other maids and children. The cage was six feet high, rusted iron. The floor was smeared with filth, the reek of sweating bodies and carrion breath almost as bad as the camel corpses had been. The big one named Graccus hadn’t been gentle, but true to his captain’s word, his hands had done nothing but hurl her down, slam the cage door and twist the lock.
The girl curled up on the floor. Felt the stares of the women about her, the curious eyes of the boys and girls. Her ribs ached from the kicking she’d been gifted, the tears she’d cried cutting tracks down through the blood and dirt on her cheeks. Fighting for calm. Eyes closed. Just breathing.
Finally, she felt gentle hands helping her up. The cage was crowded, but there was room enough for her to sit in a corner, back pressed hard to the bars. She opened her eyes, saw a young, kindly face, smeared with grime, green eyes.
“Do you speak Liisian?” the woman asked.
The girl nodded mutely.
“What’s your name?”
The girl whispered through swollen lips. “ . . . Mia.”
“Four Daughters,” the woman tutted, smoothing back the girl’s hair. “How did a pretty doll like you end in a place like this?
The girl glanced down at the shadow beneath her.
Up to those glittering green eyes.
“Well,” she sighed. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
2: firemass
Four months earlier
King Francisco XV, sovereign ruler of all Itreya, took his place at the edge of the stage. He was decked in a doublet and hose of purest white, cheeks daubed with rose paint. The jewels in his crown sparkled as he spoke, one hand to his chest.
“Ever I sought to rule both wise and just,
But kingly brow as beggar’s knees now must;
To kiss the dirt and—”
“Nay!” came a shout.
Tiberius the Elder entered from stage left, surrounded by his Republican conspirators. A silver dagger gleamed in the old man’s hand, his jaw set, eyes bright. Without a word, he lunged across the stage, sinking his blade deep into his monarch’s chest, once, twice, three times. The audience gasped as bright red blood sprayed, splashing onto the polished boards at their feet. King Francisco clutched his ruptured heart, sinking to his knees. And with a last groan (a little overcooked, some said afterward), he closed his eyes and died.
Tiberius the Elder held aloft his dagger, delivered his fateful, final lines.
“Heart’s blood is spilled, and what shall be, shall be,
No price too steep to stand ’gainst tyranny.
But know, I struck this blow, friends, not for me,
But drenched my blade in name of liberty.”
Tiberius looked among the audience, bloody knife in his hands. And as he dropped into a low bow, the curtains closed, heavy red velvet falling across the scene.
The guests cheered as the music swelled, signaling the drama’s end. Arkemical chandeliers in the ceiling glowed brighter, banishing the darkness that had accompanied the final act. Applause rippled across the crowded room, over the mezzanine above, out to the back of the room. And there, it found a girl, with long raven hair and pale, perfect skin, and a shadow dark enough for three.
Mia Corvere joined in with the guests’ applause, though in truth, her eyes had been anywhere except the play. A cool chill flitted across the back of her neck, hidden in the shadows thrown by her hair. Mister Kindly’s whisper was velvet soft in her ear.
“ . . . that was mind-bendingly awful . . . ,” the shadowcat said.
Mia replied softly, adjusting the ill-fitting masque on her face.
“I thought the chicken blood was a nice touch.”
“ . . . that was thirty minutes of our existence we will never have again, you realize . . .”
“At least they’ve turned the bloody lights back on.”
Letting the crowd clap a while longer, the curtains finally parted, revealing King Francisco hale and whole, the punctured bladder that had contained his “heart’s blood” just visible under his soaked shirt. Joining hands with his murderer, spring-loaded dagger clutched between them, Tiberius the Elder and Francisco XV took a long bow.
“Merry Firemass, gentlefriends!” the murdered king cried.
The applause slowly died as the actors left the stage, chatter and laughter resuming now the play was done. Mia took a sip of her drink, peered around the room. Now the house lights were back up, she could see a little better.
“All right, where is he . . .” she muttered.
She’d arrived fashionably late and the ballroom was crowded, but that was no surprise—the soirees of Senator Alexus Aurelius were always popular affairs. With the play concluded, the twelve-piece orchestra took up a bright tune on their gilded mezzanine at the back of the room. Mia watched as marrowborn gentry in crisp frock coats stepped onto the dance floor with graceful dona in their arms, gowns of crimson and silver and gold shimmering in the light of the arkemical chandeliers.
Their faces were hidden behind a dizzying array of masques, a hundred different shapes and themes. Mia could see square-faced voltos and laughing punchinellos and half-cut dominos, bejeweled paint and gleaming ivory and fans of peacock feathers. The most common design among the salon crowd was the triple-sun of Aa, or beautiful variants of the Face of Tsana. It was Firemass, after all, and most folk at least tried to make some attempt to venerate the Everseeing and his firstborn daughter before the inevitable hedonism of the feast eve got into full swing 1.
Mia was clad in an off-the-shoulder gown of bloodred, layers of Liisian silk flowing to the floor. Her half-cut corset was cinched tight,
a string of dark rubies spilling into her cleavage, and while she appreciated the effect the corset and jewels had of emphasizing her assets, the admiring glances she’d been getting all nevernight didn’t make it any easier to bloody breathe. Her own features were covered by a Face of Tsana—a masque depicting the warrior-goddess’s helm, a plume of firebird feathers about the edge. Her lips and chin were bare, which made it a little easier to drink. And smoke. And swear.
“’Byss and fucking blood, where is he?” she muttered, eyes roaming the crowd.
She felt that chill again, the soft whisper in her ear.
“ . . . the booths . . . ,” Mister Kindly said.
Mia looked over the swaying throng to the walls above the dance floor. Senator Aurelius’s ballroom had been built like an amphitheater, with the stage at one end, seats arranged in concentric rings, and smaller private booths overlooking the main floor. Through the smoke and long sheaves of sheer silk strung from the ceiling, she finally saw a tall young man, decked in a long white frock coat and black cravat, the twin horses of his familia embroidered in golden thread upon his breast.
“ . . . gaius aurelius . . .”
Mia lifted her ivory cigarillo holder, took a thoughtful drag. The young man’s face was half-hidden behind a golden domino with a triple-sun motif, but she could see a strong jawline and a handsome smile as he whispered into the ear of a beautiful young woman in a stylish gown beside him.
“Looks like he’s made a friend,” Mia whispered, gray spilling from her lips.
“ . . . well, he is a senator’s son. he is unlikely to spend the nevernight alone . . .”
“Not if I can help it. Eclipse, go tell Dove to be ready. We may need to leave in a hurry.”
A soft growl came from the shadows beneath her dress.
“ . . . DOVE IS AN IDIOT . . .”
“All the more reason to make sure he’s awake. I think I’ll go say hello to our esteemed senator’s firstborn. And his friend.”
“ . . . two is company, mia . . . ,” Mister Kindly warned.
“True enough. But there’s plenty of fun to be had in a crowd.”
Slipping from her corner, Mia drifted through the ballroom like the smoke from her lips. Smiling at the compliments, politely declining entreaties to dance. She strode blithely past two guards in fine-cut coats at the bottom of the stairs, pretending she belonged and thus, appearing to do just that. There was no one else in the room who shouldn’t have been there, after all. The invitation had taken her five patient nevernights to steal from the house of Dona Grigorio.2 And the masques these marrowborn fools insisted on wearing every feasteve made it easy to walk among them unmarked. Especially with her curves strangled in a fashion designed to draw the eye away from her face.
