by Jay Kristoff
With a shapeless cry, Bladesinger whipped her neck, her long saltlocks scything through the air. The razored blades she’d woven at the ends of her braids tore into Ishkah’s face, her forearms. Bladesinger charged, a sword in each hand, clashing toe to toe with the towering silkling over Furian’s prone body. Her blades cut the air, whistling, whirling, singing, shattering one of Ishkah’s weapons and plunging deep into the silkling’s side. Bladesinger twisted her wrist, shattering the obsidian sword inside the wound, green blood spraying. Ishkah screeched, stabbing back, opening up Bladesinger’s forearm to the bone as she tried to ward off the blow. An empty fist pummeled the woman’s face, a blade scythed at her throat, and as Bladesinger ducked, the silkling brought her knee up into her foe’s face.
Bone crunched, Bladesinger’s spine arching as she flew back, helm flying from her head, nose pulped. Holding her sundered guts in with one hand, Ishkah followed through, driving a brutal kick into the woman’s solar plexus and sending her rolling back across the platform. Mia rose to her feet, blood drooling from her split cheek, gasping as she realized Bladesinger was about to tumble over the edge.
“ . . . MIA, NO . . . !”
It was foolish. Idiotic, really. Victory was her goal here, not heroics, and Bladesinger was not her friend. But with a desperate cry, Mia hurled herself across the platform, plunged her remaining sword deep into the sand and seized hold of Bladesinger’s wrist. Bladesinger cried out as she went over the edge, dragging Mia with her. The girl screamed as she arrested their fall, holding tight to Bladesinger with one hand, the sword hilt with the other, the fire of her broken ribs blooming inside her chest. The crowd roared in amazement, Mia’s bleeding face twisted in agony. Her ribs were pressed against the side of the platform, the colossal gears churning ten feet below as it continued its revolution around the arena’s heart. Her grip was slippery with blood, her body drenched in sweat.
“Hold on!” she cried.
Bladesinger gasped in agony, her face a bloody pulp. She glanced down to the shifting mekwerk below, up to Mia, shaking her head.
“Let me go!”
“Are you mad? Climb!”
“I’m too heavy, you skinny little shit! Let me go!”
“Stand together or fall alone!”
Ishkah was on her knees, two hands pressed to the terrible wound Bladesinger had carved in her side, green ichor dribbling from her shattered eye, her slashed face. Features twisted, she scrabbled in the dust, took hold of a fallen sword. And with the strength of a mountain, crowd murmuring in awe, she rose.
“Kill!” the crowd roared. “Kill!”
“O, shit . . . ,” Mia breathed. “Bladesinger, climb!”
Ishkah began stalking toward her, sunslight gleaming on her sword. Mia winced, trying to keep her grip as Bladesinger pulled herself up. Her ribs were screaming, face throbbing, teeth gritted at the pain. Her hands were full, she couldn’t clutch the shadows, couldn’t reach out to the dark as she’d done so many times before . . .
“ . . . mia, look . . . !”
Beyond the silkling, stalking closer, Furian was stirring. Sloughing off his helmet, the flesh of his chin and jaw and throat a bubbling, weeping ruin, breath rattling in his chest. The crowd’s cries became a chant, a rhythm, pulsing with every beat of her heart.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
“Furian!” Mia screamed.
The Unfallen looked up, saw Bladesinger trying to drag herself up Mia’s shoulder, the girl’s face smeared in blood, the silkling a few steps away from ending them both.
“Furian!” Mia roared. “The dark!”
Ishkah snarled, needle teeth bared as she stepped closer.
“Kill! Kill! Kill!”
“Do it!” Mia screamed.
Bladesinger dragged herself up over the edge, reached out to Mia. Ishkah raised her blade, only two steps away. And fingers curled, teeth bared, the Unfallen reached out to the shadow beneath her, and tangled up the silkling’s feet.
Ishkah stumbled, hissing in confusion. The crowd ceased their chanting, held their breath. Mia dragged herself up over the platform’s edge, face twisted in agony. Furian gasped, collapsing onto his belly as he lost his grip on the darkness, Ishkah stepping up and slashing Bladesinger across her back, splitting the leather, blood spraying. Bladesinger collapsed with a cry, and with a desperate gasp, Mia dragged her obsidian sword from the earth, twisted away from Ishkah’s sword, and hacked the silkling’s arm off at the elbow.
Ishkah screamed, green blood fountaining. The crowd were alight, howling their fury. Mia twisted, dropping low and hewing at the silkling’s leg, bringing her to her knees. The arena erupted, the noise deafening, seventy thousand voices rising in crescendo, “Kill! Kill! Kill!,” the suns burning overhead, blood thrumming in her veins, heart thundering in her chest as Mia screamed and swung her sword double-handed, all her strength, all her fury, all her pain, taking Ishkah’s head clean off her shoulders.
Blood sprayed, spattering Mia with warm, sticky green. Ishkah’s body trembled, six arms twitching as she toppled off the platform’s edge and down into the grinding gears below. Mia winced at the bubbling crunch, averted her eyes, bloody obsidian still clutched in her hand.
But still . . .
. . . I did it.
Trumpets blared, silver and bright, the platforms ground to a shuddering halt. The editorii’s voice rose over the blood-mad roar of the crowd, bouncing off the arena walls.
“Citizens of Itreya! Your victors! The Falcons of Remus!”
The crowd went wild, the applause deafening. Bladesinger staggered to her feet, face alight with pain and triumph, blood streaming from her wounds. But still, she grinned, throwing her good arm around Mia’s shoulder and kissing her bloody cheek.
We did it . . .
Turning, Bladesinger grasped Mia’s hand in her own, raised it high into the sky, bellowing at the crowd.
“What is her name?”
“Crow!” they roared.
“What is her name?”
Feet stamping, hands clapping, the word reverberating across the sands.
“Crow! Crow! Crow! Crow!”
Mia looked down at the bloody sword in her hand. Over to Furian, curled in a ball in the dirt, hands to his savaged throat. She raised her eyes to the sanguila’s box, saw Leona on her feet, horrified stare locked on Furian. Arkades stood beside her, hands raised in somber applause.
She thought of Godsgrave, of the Venatus Magni, the berth her victory had now assured. She thought of Bryn, her dead brother cradled in her arms as she wailed. She thought of her father, holding her hands as he whisked her around some glittering ballroom, her feet atop his as they danced. Her mother, making her watch as he was hanged, as she whispered the words that would shape Mia forever, as the hope children breathed and adults mourned withered and fell away, floating like ashes on the wind.
“Never flinch. Never fear. And never, ever forget.”
What is my name?
“Crow! Crow! Crow! Crow!”
What is my name?
“CROWCROWCROWCROW!”
Dark delight in her belly.
Warm blood on her hands.
Mia closed her eyes.
Raised her blade.
O, Mother, blackest Mother, what have I become?
BOOK 3
The Game
25: rot
“Hold him still!”
“Almighty God, it burns!”
“Hold his legs, damn you!”
“Aa, help me! Help me!”
Mia sat in a dark corner of the cell, ribs burning, a blood-soaked rag held to her split cheek. She could feel the adrenaline from the match souring in her veins, hands trembling. The crowd bellowed above, the Ultima in full swing, the stone beneath her vibrating with the fury of the final bout. Bladesinger sat beside her, arm swaddled in red-soaked cloth, Mia pressing a sodden bandage to the ragged wound across the woman’s back. The pair of them were in need of stitching, blood pooling on the stone around
them. But Maggot’s hands were more than full.
“Tie him down!” the girl yelled. “He’s only making it worse!”
Furian screamed again, full-throated and trembling, his agony echoing through the arena’s bowels. He was laid out on a stone slab, Executus and three of Leona’s houseguards trying to keep him still. The flesh of his throat, jaw, and chest was blistered and weeping from the touch of the silkling’s venom. He seemed to have gone mad from the agony, muscles corded in his arms and chest as he screamed.
Dona Leona stood by the door, horror in her eyes.
“Almighty Aa . . . ,” she whispered.
“Tie him down!” Maggot cried again.
Arkades snapped heavy iron manacles about Furian’s arms, feet, and waist, securing him to the slab. But the Unfallen continued to thrash, cutting his wrists and ankles on his bonds, smashing the back of his head against the stone. Mia had seen pain before—the blood scourging in the Mountain, her branding in that cell in the Hanging Gardens. But she’d never seen agony the likes of this in her life.
“You need to put him under, Maggot,” she said.
“I don’t have any slumberweed!” the little girl cried, pointing to a chest of herbs and remedies. “It all spoiled on the way here!”
“Do you have any Swoon?”
“I used it all on Butcher!”
“Four Daughters,” Leona cursed. “Did you only bring a thimbleful?”
“All respect, Domina, but you’ve not given me coin to restock in months!”
“Well, you must do something!” Leona cried. “Listen to him!”
Furian screamed again, mouth open wide, his throat bleeding with the force of it. With a wince at her cracked ribs, Mia rose and limped to Maggot’s herb chest. Fingers sticky with blood, she rifled through the phials and jars of powder and liquid, all the lessons from Spiderkiller’s hall buzzing in her head.
“What the ’byss are you doing?” Arkades growled.
Mia ignored the executus, handed Maggot a half-dozen jars. “Grind the scalpweed with the maidenhead and a pinch of allroot, mix it with some goldwine.”
“No,” Maggot frowned. “The alcohol will calcify the maidenhe—”
“That’s what the mireleaf is for,” Mia interrupted. “Steep the leaf in the . . . in fact, let me do it. You go stitch up Bladesinger. She’s bleeding all over the fucking floor.”
“Crow?” Leona asked.
Mia turned to the woman by the door. “Trust me, Domina.”
Leona looked to Furian, still writhing in agony. Eyes brimming, she nodded, and Mia set to work mixing her concoction. Maggot took a needle and silken thread, set to work stitching the awful wound on Bladesinger’s forearm. The silkling’s blade had sliced the woman down to the bone, and the blood was flowing like cheap wine at a truelight feast. Bladesinger grit her teeth, eyes locked on the Unfallen.
“Can you save him?”
“I can make him sleep,” Mia replied. “Executus, I need your flask.”
Arkades raised an eyebrow as Mia held out one bloody hand.
“Your goldwine, now!”
Arkades reached into his tunic, pulled out his silver flask. Mia poured her concoction into the whiskey, shook the mixture thoroughly.
Furian was still bucking, screaming, begging. And as Mia stepped closer, flask in hand, his shadow began bleeding over the stone, reaching out toward her own. It was only the dim light of the cell and the drama unfolding on the slab that prevented any from noticing right away, and Mia moved quickly, shouldering one of the guards aside. The Unfallen’s shadow melted into her own, all the sickness, all the hunger she felt when she was near him rising in her gullet and almost making her vomit. She staggered, nearly dropped the flask, Arkades grabbing her shoulders to stop her fall.
Black Mother, I can feel him . . .
“Are you well?”
. . . as if he were part of me.
“Hold his m-mouth open,” Mia said.
The pain from her split cheek and broken ribs was awful, but she could feel pain at her throat and chest, too; Furian’s agony was somehow bleeding into her, worsening her own.
“Furian, you must drink!” Mia shouted. “Do you hear me?”
A gurgling wail of agony was his only reply, and so Mia upended the flask into the man’s mouth. He gargled, tried to spit the dose out, but Mia clamped her hand over his blistered lips and roared, “Swallow!”
Furian bucked, straining against his bonds, tears spilling from his eyes. But finally he did as commanded, his mangled throat bobbing as he drank the burning draft. It took a few minutes for the herbs to take effect—Mia wasn’t working with the finest materials, after all. But slowly, the Unfallen’s struggles slowed, his screams became moans, and finally, after what seemed an age in the lightless bowels beneath that bloody sand, Furian’s bloodshot eyes fluttered closed.
Mia fell to her knees, hair plastered to her split brow and cheek, head swimming.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Maggot asked, bewildered.
Mia hung her head, vision swimming.
“ . . . Crow?” Leona asked.
“ . . . mia . . . ?”
“ . . . MIA . . . !”
Blood on her hands, in her eyes, the taste of bitter medicine she’d never drunk on her tongue. She looked down to her shadow. The shadow that should have been dark enough for three. But as the room swam before her eyes, as the pain of her wounds and the trauma of her ordeal in the arena and the shuddering aftermath rose up to sweep a black curtain over her eyes, she realized . . .
Dark enough for four . . .
“ . . . mia . . .”
She woke in the hold of a ship, creaking beams above and the sound of the waves all around. As she opened her eyes, she felt a cool, featherlight touch on the back of her neck, a whispered sigh of relief in her ear.
“ . . . at last . . .”
The hammock she lay in ebbed and rolled, her mouth dry as dust. Garish light filtered in through a small glass porthole, a glimpse of two blues framed beyond; sunsburned bright and ocean deep. Her ribs burned like a dying fire. Mia reached up to her face, felt a bandage over her cheek and brow, crusted with dried blood.
“Don’t touch it,” came a voice. “It’ll heal best when let alone.”
Mia looked up and saw Maggot, her dark eyes and pretty smile. She was hovering over Furian, the man swinging in a hammock beside her. Glancing to her shadow, Mia saw Furian’s had apparently left hers somewhere as they slept. But still, that sickness lingered, the ache of a missing piece of herself swelling in her chest.
She took a deep breath, signing in Tongueless so only Mister Kindly might understand.
Where?
“ . . . the gloryhound . . . ,” came the whispered reply. “ . . . bound for crow’s nest . . .”
Eclipse? Ashlinn?
“ . . . they follow, a handful of turns behind us . . .”
Furian?
“ . . . not good . . .”
Mia nodded to herself, looking about the cabin. She’d not been up here before—every trip she’d taken had been spent locked down in the hold. The room was cramped, a chest full of Maggot’s implements and herbs and some wooden crates were the only decor. Three hammocks hung from the ceiling, Mia in the middle. Bladesinger was belly-down to her left, eyes closed, swordarm and back swathed in bloody bandages. To her right, the Champion of Remus Collegium lay unconscious, soaked through. Furian’s torso and throat were swabbed with a greenish salve, but the wounds from the silkling’s venom still looked awful. Above the bilge and the sea and the sweat, Mia could smell the beginnings of a high, ripe decay.
Maggot held a cup of fresh water to her lips, and Mia drank all she was given despite the pain, sighing with relief.
“Bladesinger . . . ,” she began, licking at dry lips. “H-how does . . .”
“Passing fair,” Maggot whispered, so as not to disturb the sleepers. “The tendon and muscle in her swordarm are badly cut. But she stitched up well. I think sh
e’ll wake.”
“And . . . F-Furian?”
Maggot sighed, looking the Unfallen over. “Not so well. Infection is taking root, and I fear it will turn to blood sepsis. I need to get him back to the Nest.”
“We sail as fast as Lady Trelene and Lady Nalipse allow.”
Mia looked up to see Dona Leona at the doorway, eyes locked on the Unfallen. Magistrae stood beside her, ever the dutiful second.
As usual, the magistrae’s appearance was immaculate, but Mia was surprised to see the turn Leona had taken. The dona usually dressed as if she were attending some grand salon, but now, she wore only a simple white shift. Mia could see her fingernails were chewed down to the quick. In her right hand, she held the silver torc that had once encircled Furian’s neck. The metal was melted slightly by the silkling’s venom.
“Domina,” Mia nodded.
“My Crow,” the woman answered. “I am heartened to see you wake.”
Mia sat up with a wince, head swimming. Her cheek felt swollen, and she could feel the pinch of sutures in her skin. Ribs aching, she took a second cup from Maggot, drank until it was empty.
“H-how long did I sleep for?”
“Three turns since your triumph,” Leona said.
“It is ours, then?” she asked, stomach thrilling. “The magni?”
“Aye,” the dona replied, stepping into the room. “It is ours. My father is many things, little Crow. A snake. A liar. A bastard. But no sanguila would dare renege on a wager made so publicly. With the laurels he has won, he had berths to spare. He can afford to lose one to us. But now, thanks to Bryn and Byern’s sacrifice, he has no equillai. And thanks to your valor, he has no champion.”
The woman fixed her eyes on Furian.
“All we have desired is now within our reach.”
“How is Bryn?” Mia asked.
The dona’s haunted glance was Mia’s only reply. But Bryn had lost her twin brother, right before her very eyes. Crushed and bled out before a booing mob. And all for nothing. No purse. No glory. Nothing at all.
How the ’byss do you expect her to be?
“How are your wounds?” Leona asked.
