by Jay Kristoff
“Wavewaker?”
“He’s a fine blade, but I fear he’s too much the brawler.”
“If you’ll permit me an opinion, Domina?” said Magistrae.
“O, aye, here’s a turn,” Arkades sighed. “Advice from the nurse. And who shall we take seek counsel of next? The cabin boy?”
Leona shot him a withering glance. “Speak, Magistrae.”
The old woman raised one graying eyebrow at Arkades before continuing. “Granted, I am no expert. But the Crow’s strength seems to lie in her speed. It seems you need someone to bridge the gap between her pace and Furian’s brawn.”
Leona and Arkades looked at each other, spoke as one.
“Bladesinger.”
Arkades leaned back in his chair, staring into space.
“She has the reach Crow lacks, the speed Furian needs. It could work.”
Leona leaned forward, squeezed his hand.
“It must work,” she replied.
Arkades looked down at her hand in his. Her skin was pale, her fingers tapered and delicate, soft as silk. His hand was browned by the suns, cracked like old leather, callused from sword grips and the press of life on the sands.
He swallowed thickly. Pausing, as if gathering his nerve. And wrapping her hand in his own, he leaned down and placed a soft kiss on her knuckles.
“It will work, Mi Dona,” he murmured. “I vow it.”
Leona blinked, hand trapped at Arkades’s lips, uncertain where to look. Magistrae simply looked aghast. But without giving his dona a chance to respond, Arkades released his mistress and stood, took up his cane, and limped toward the door. Stopping at the threshold, he turned toward Leona.
“Your hair is looking magnificent, by the by.”
Executus turned on his heel and left the room.
* * *
“No!”
The practice blade slammed into Mia’s side, sending her to her knees. Bladesinger lunged with a fierce cry, but Arkades was already twisting aside, bringing his second blade down on the woman’s forearm. She stumbled back into Furian, and a riposte from Arkades sent the pair of them sprawling.
The trio lay panting in the dirt, drenched to the bones in sweat.
“You listen, but you do not hear!” the executus bellowed, limping back and forth between them. “The Exile is unlike any foe you have faced. Six blades wielded with a single purpose. Eight eyes to track your every move. I have but a pair of each and you cannot best me. How in the name of the Four fucking Daughters do you hope to stand the victors against her?”
They had been drilling all turn, every turn since they’d arrived back at Crow’s Nest. The other gladiatii trained around them, but in truth, all eyes were on the four in the circle, watching Arkades kick his opponent’s arses up and down the sand. The two suns hung heavy in the sky, blistering with all the heat of summersdeep, burning gold and bloody red. And if one looked hard enough, a subtle hint of brighter blue could be seen on the horizon, heralding the slow arrival of the third eye of Aa.
Truelight was approaching, and with it, the magni. And the Falcons of Remus Collegium were only a little closer to those sands than they’d been three months ago.
“Get up,” Arkades barked. “Move with resolve and strike as one.”
“A difficult task,” Bladesinger growled, “when two of us attack at cross-purpose.”
Mia wiped the sweat from her brow, glowered across the sand at Furian. The Unfallen stared back at her, black eyes gleaming like obsidian. He dragged himself to his feet and offered his hand to Bladesinger, pulling her up from the dust. Ignoring Mia completely, he gathered his sword and shield and took up a ready stance.
Mia stood, practice blades in hand.
“Attack!” roared Executus.
Without waiting for the others, Furian launched his assault on Arkades, battering him back across the sands. In practice, Executus had always held his own, teaching his sparring partners their weaknesses without seeking to punish them. But over the last few turns, Mia began to realize how much the former champion had held himself back. Arkades was a god on the sand—even with his missing leg, he moved like water, struck like thunder, stood like a mountain. His blows left the air bruised behind them, his guard knew no flaw, and he punished every mistake with a blow close to bone-breaking.
Battering Furian’s attack aside, Arkades smashed the champion onto his backside and turned on Bladesinger and Mia. The pair moved well together, Mia weaving below the taller woman’s blows and striking at Arkades’s belly and legs. She landed a passing blow to his gut, but as she twisted aside from the Red Lion’s riposte, she crashed right into a charging Furian, who’d dragged himself to his feet and thrown himself back into the fray.
“Watch your fucki—”
A wooden blade cracked across Mia’s temple, sent her flying. Arkades disarmed Bladesinger and locked up Furian’s guard, toppling the man with an elbow to the jaw. Rolling across the sand to scoop up her weapons, saltlocks flying, Bladesinger cursed as Arkades hurled both his weapons and struck her in the throat and above the heart.
He stood, empty-handed, chest heaving as he glared at the vanquished trio.
“Pitiful,” he spat.
“That stupid bitch got in my way,” Furian growled.
“O, Furian,” Mia sighed, fixing him with a withering stare. “If I’ve learned anything in this life, it’s how not to care when a dog calls me bitch.”
“Dog, am I?” Furian rose out of the dust, Mia standing just as swift.
“Enough!” Arkades barked.
The pair hung still, eyes locked and poised to strike. Mia could feel her shadow straining at its edges, like water behind a dam. If she weren’t holding it in check, she knew without a doubt it would be reaching across the sand toward Furian’s own, hands twisted to claws. Her teeth were gritted, and she fought for calm, blinking the sweat from her eyes. For her to lose her grip here, for everyone to mark her for what she was . . .
“Enough sparring for one turn,” the executus declared. “Crow, Bladesinger, go work the woodmen. You must strike harder if you’re to break the silkling’s guard. Furian, attend your footwork. You need better pace to best this foe.”
Mia and Furian glared at each other, not moving a muscle.
“Move!” Arkades roared.
Bladesinger gathered up her fallen swords and marched across the yard, began furiously battering the training dummies. Mia followed slower, narrowed eyes still aimed at Furian, feeling cold hate burn along with the sickness and hunger she felt in her belly whenever he was near.
Pig-headed fucking idiot . . .
Taking up position beside Bladesinger, Mia pictured Furian’s head atop her woodman, started beating it mercilessly. Sweat soaked her skin, bangs hanging in her eyes as she smashed her blade into its belly, chest, shit-eating face.
“You’re going to get me killed,” Bladesinger muttered, shaking her head.
“It’s Furian sowing discord, not I.”
“It’s the pair of you,” the woman spat. “I don’t know why you don’t just find a nice dark corner to fuck in and get it over with.”
Mia scoffed. “I’d rather have Butcher slip his cock into me.”
“Then what lies between you two?” Bladesinger paused to bind her floor-length saltlocks up. “Your tongues spit venom but your eyes never stray far from the other.”
Mia knew the woman spoke truth. She’d have bested that silkling if not for Furian’s interference. Instead she’d taken a public beating and Leona had lost all chance at patronage among the Stormwatch marrowborn. And yet . . .
She couldn’t deny it. Despite her tangle of feelings for Ashlinn, she was drawn to Furian. And though the Unfallen was doubtlessly attractive, this was something beyond desire. Something bone-deep. The same thing she’d felt when Lord Cassius was near her. Something beyond lust and more like . . . longing. Like an amputee for her missing limb. Like a puzzle, searching for a piece of itself.
But why?
Cleo had spoken of it in her journal. Walking the earth, being drawn to other darkin as a spider to a fly, and then . . .
. . . then eating them.
But what the ’byss did that mean?
“The many were one. 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 shook her head, spat into the dust.
“I’ve no fucking clue,” she said.
“Well, you’d best ponder on it, and fashion solution,” Bladesinger warned. “Because if we step into a contest for our lives the way we are now? All three of us will be sitting by the Hearth before truelight, little Crow.”
The woman began beating the strawman again, eyes narrowed. Mia stared at Furian across the yard, her belly tangled in hateful knots.
“There’s no reasoning with him. I’ve tried before. He’s an ignorant fool.”
Crack! went Bladesinger’s sword against her target.
“Furian is many things,” she grunted. “Stubborn, perhaps. Arrogant, most definitely. But never a fool.”
“Bollocks.” Mia struck her woodman’s neck. “Have you ever tried talking to him?”
“O, aye,” Bladesinger nodded. “Like bashing your head against a stone wall. Honor.” Crack! “Discipline.” Crack! “Faith. These are the principles that define him. But above all, the Unfallen is a champion, and you are a threat to that.” The woman shrugged. “The greatest gulf between people is always pride, little Crow.”
Mia sighed, glanced over at Furian.
“That sounds suspiciously like wisdom to me.”
Crack! went Bladesinger’s sword against her target.
“Not mine,” she grunted. “It’s from the Book of the Blind.”
Mia stabbed at her woodman’s chest. “Isn’t that old Liisian scripture?”
“Aye,” Bladesinger nodded. “I know it by heart. We had to read holy texts from all over the Republic.” Crack! Crack! “The suffi at Farrow like you to have a worldly perspective before you’re inducted into the order. Know the world, know yourself.”
Mia tilted her head, looked sidelong at her comrade. It made sense now. The full-body tattoos. The singing she occasionally heard under Bladesinger’s door.
“ . . . You were a priestess?”
“Just a novice.” Crack! “Never got to take my final vows.”
“Then what the ’byss”—Crack! Crack!—“are you doing here?”
Bladesinger shrugged. “Pirate raid. A quick sale. A common tale.”
Mia shook her head, sickened. “Too fucking common.”
“The suffi named it so”—Crack!—“when I was born.”
Mia bent double, hands to her knees as she panted.
Black Mother, this heat . . .
“Named it so?”
Bladesinger stopped drubbing the woodman, wiped the sweat from her brow. “Do you know how Dweymeri are named, little Crow?”
Mia nodded, remembering Tric’s tale to her in the Quiet Mountain.
“You’re taken to Farrow when you’re young,” she replied. “To the Temple of Trelene. The suffi holds you up to the ocean and asks the Mother about the path before you, and gives you a name to match it.”
“Bladesinger, she named me,” the woman said. “Not Hymnsinger. Not Prayersinger. Bladesinger. And I’ll be damned,” she said, pointing her practice sword at Mia’s face, “if the last my blades sing is because you and Furian can’t agree on the color of shit. Fuck him. Stab him. Stab him while you fuck him, I don’t give a damn. But get it sorted before you get us all killed.”
Mia looked across to Furian, speed training in one corner of the yard. As Mia stared, he glanced up, meeting her eyes with that burning black gaze.
The greatest gulf between people is always pride.
“You two!” Arkades roared. “Back to work!”
Mia sighed. But as always, she obeyed.
* * *
“I suspected I’d be seeing you, witch,” Furian said.
Mia looked up and down the hallway, just to be safe. Mister Kindly was trailing the guard patrol—there was no chance they might catch her. But without her passenger, her belly was a tangle of hunger and trepidation, made all the worse by the presence of the man she’d come to see. She tucked her stolen fork/lockpick into her loincloth and stood expectantly on the threshold of the Unfallen’s room.
Waiting.
Wait
ing
“Can I fucking come in or not?” Mia finally snarled.
“If it please you,” Furian said with a sour look. “Though if the breath were mine, I’d not trouble myself in the wasting of it.”
Mia scowled and stepped inside, closing the door behind. Looking around the room, she saw it was the same as when she’d last visited—the shrine to Tsana, the crude trinity of Aa scribed on the wall, the incense burning.
Furian was at least dressed this time, though within these walls, that didn’t count for much. His torso was bared, rippling with muscle, his skin bronzed from working beneath the suns. He was a golden god, fresh from the forge. And he was an intolerable prick, spat from the depths of the abyss.
She hated him. She wanted him. Neither and both at the same time.
Mia looked to her shadow, saw it drifting like smoke across the wall, reaching out with translucent hands toward Furian’s own. The Unfallen’s shadow trembled in response, but with visible effort, he held it in check, glowering at Mia with those bottomless black eyes.
“Take hold of yourself,” he growled.
Mia clenched her jaw, pulled her shadow into check. It retreated reluctantly, hair blowing as if in a breeze, hand stretched out like a lover saying farewell. She thought of Ashlinn, then. A pang of momentary, inexplicable guilt. Wanting two people, and wanting neither, promises made to none. But in comparison to Furian, a traitor and her honeyed lips and her poison tongue seemed a downright simple proposition . . .
“What do you want, witch?” the Unfallen asked.
“I’m no more a witch than you are, Furian.”
“I hold no truck with the darkness,” he spat. “I do not step between the shadows and sneak about our domina’s house like a thief.”
“No, you just threaten to bring the walls down about her ears, you dozy shit.”
“You dare . . . ?”
“O, I dare,” Mia replied. “That’s the difference between me and most.”
“I fight for the glory of this collegium. The glory of our domina.”
“You cost our domina her patronage at Stormwatch!” Mia hissed. “All you needed to do was keep your cock in your loincloth and let me drub the silkling, and Leona would have been up to her tits in gold.”
“You werked the darkness in your match against the Exile,” Furian said, folding his arms. “If I’d allowed you to win at Messala’s palazzo with your devilry, you’d have set a taint at the heart of this place. I’d starve before I ate food bought with dishonest coin, and die before I claimed a laurel I’d not earned.”
“Didn’t earn?” Mia was incredulous. “Fuck you, you arrogant prick. How many retchwyrms have you slaughtered lately?”
“A victory without honor is no victory at all,” he replied. “I’ll not allow you to win more false accolade for this collegium with your witchery.”
“So you use the same witchery to fuck with me?” Mia caught herself raising her voice, tried to pull her temper into check. “You called the dark when you stopped me besting the silkling. That doesn’t strike you as the least bit hypocritical?”
Furian stalked toward her, fists clenched.
“Get out of here, Crow.”
His shadow flared, slithering across the wall toward her own. Mia’s shadow rose to meet it, twisting and rearing up like a serpent, hands twisted into claws. She swore the room turned chill, hackles raising on the back of her neck, hunger flaring in her belly and threatening to swallow her whole . . .
“N
o.”
She closed her eyes, shook her head. Forcing the darkness back inside herself. This wasn’t going the way she’d planned it. She was meant to be holding her temper, speaking sense. She didn’t know what Furian’s presence was doing to her, why he made her so eager for violence, what any of it meant. All she knew was . . .
“We must come to accord,” she said, opening her eyes, palms out in supplication. “Furian, listen to me, if we fight together on the sands as we are now, you, Bladesinger and I will all be butchered. How will that avail our domina?”
“You may hold yourself of no account without witchery to aid you, girl,” the man said, thumping his chest. “But I am the Unfallen. I fought for almost an hour in the burning suns at Talia, slew two dozen men to win my laur—”
“Ishkah isn’t a fucking man! You saw her fight at Messala’s palazzo. With two blades in her hands she’d be a match for any one of us. With six? Fighting to the death? She’ll cut us to bloody pieces!”
“How is it you live with yourself?” The Unfallen shook his head. “No faith in the Father or his Daughters, no faith in yourself? Only shadows and darkness and deceit.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you know me, Furian.” She glanced at his trembling shadow and shook her head. “You don’t even know yourself.”
“Get out.”
“Expecting another guest, are you?” Mia glanced to his bed.
Furian’s eyes widened at that, rage darkening his brow. He raised his hand to shove her backward, and Mia moved, battering his hand aside and locking up his arm. He seized her wrist, slammed her back against the door, the pair snarling and cursing as they struggled. This close, Mia could smell his fresh sweat, feel the warmth of his skin pressed against hers, rage and lust and hunger all intertwined. Through his loincloth she could feel the heat of his cock, hardening against her hip. She wanted to kiss him, bite him, hold him, choke him, fuck him, kill him, teeth bared in a snarl, heart hammering in her chest, his lips just an inch from—
“Merciful Aa . . . ,” Furian breathed.
She followed his eyeline to their shadows on the wall, breath catching in her throat. The shadows were tangled like serpents, twisting and writhing and curling like smoke. They’d lost their shapes utterly, two amorphous slivers of blackness, each entwined in the other. Mia realized they were twice as dark as they should have been, just as when Mister Kindly or Eclipse rode with her. The room was noticeably colder, her skin prickling with goosebumps, desire making her tremble.
