by Jay Kristoff
Mia touched the bandage at her face, grimacing. “Well enough.”
“ . . . YOU SEEM SAD . . . ?”
“Perhaps a little.”
“ . . . DO WE NEED TO HURT ANYONE . . . ?”
“I need you stay here, Eclipse. Keep watch on the street, aye?”
“ . . . AS YOU WISH . . .”
Mia smiled, began trudging down the alleyway, glad at least one of her daemons was content to do what it was told. As she walked further and further away, climbed up the downspout to the balcony outside Ashlinn’s window, she felt Eclipse’s hold on her begin to fade, and butterflies begin creeping into her belly. It was still an unfamiliar sensation, cold and sickly and slick. It made her feel small. It made her feel weak.
Black Mother, she loathed being afraid.
She crouched by the window, fist poised over the glass. The hateful sensation of lice crawling in her belly. Cold sweat stinging in the stitches at her cheek. Gritting her teeth, she dragged up the nerve from the bottom of her feet and knocked softly.
The window opened and Ashlinn stood there, bathed in the burning sunslight. For a moment, Mia forgot the blood, the death, the fear, simply drinking in the sight of her. This girl who’d risked her life again—gathering information in Whitekeep, weakening the Exile’s blades to even the odds, following Mia across the Republic and back without flinching.
“O, Goddess,” Ashlinn breathed, pressing her lips to Mia’s own.
Mia closed her eyes, slipping her arms about Ashlinn’s waist, letting the girl shower her face with kisses. Taking her by the hand, Ash led Mia to the bed, pulled her down and threw her arms about her, squeezing tight. Despite the ache of her cracked ribs, the pain of the last few turns, Mia breathed easier, inhaling lavender and the scent of henna in Ashlinn’s hair. Simply being held and holding in turn.
“I missed you,” Ash breathed.
“ . . . I missed you, too.”
They kissed again, long and blissful and soft. Ashlinn pulled her closer, face buried in her neck. They lay like that for an age, bodies fitting together like the strangest of puzzle pieces. Of all the places she expected to find herself on her road, wrapped up in this girl’s arms was the last. The warmest. The sweetest.
After a long, peaceful nothing, Ash finally pulled back from Mia’s arms, looked her over, from the top of her head to the shadow beneath her.
“Where’s Mister Mockery?” she asked.
“I sent him back to the keep,” Mia sighed.
“He didn’t like that, I’ll wager.”
Mia shrugged, toying with the end of one of Ashlinn’s braids. “He was pissing me off. He’s always got something sarcastic to say. Always questioning. Always pushing. He’s never just . . . nice.”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” Ash smiled.
Mia raised an eyebrow, fixed Ashlinn in a withering stare. “O, really?”
“Truth is the sharpest knife, Corvere,” Ash grinned.
“You wound me, Dona. I’m fucking lovable, I’ll have you know.”
Ash grinned. “I’ve been thinking about that, actually.”
“How fucking lovable I am?”
“No,” Ashlinn rolled her eyes. “About your passengers. How different they are. Spending all this time traveling with Eclipse, I’ve got to know her quite well. She and Mister Congeniality are like truelight and truedark. He’s sarcastic, mean-spirited, a fucking pain in the arse. Eclipse is simpler, more direct. She doesn’t question. And I realized those traits are a lot like you and Lord Cassius. You said yourself he never sought the truth of what it was to be darkin.”
“You think . . .”
“I don’t think anything,” Ash shrugged. “It’s just interesting. Maybe a passenger inherits the mannerisms of the darkin they first imprint upon?”
Mia chewed on that for a moment, and it tasted like sense. Thinking on it honestly, her two passengers were an awful lot like the ones they’d first rode with. The shadowcat’s bitter, black humor and biting wit. The shadowwolf’s unquestioning loyalty, her propensity for violent solutions to any situation.
Could it be Mister Kindly was just a dark reflection of her?
And if that were true, weren’t his thoughts the best measure of what she thought?
. . . they are not your friends, mia . . .
“I was worried about you,” Ashlinn whispered. “During the venatus at Whitekeep. I’m sorry I missed that second set of blades. That was stupid of me.”
Mia blinked, thoughts coming back into focus. Looking into Ashlinn’s eyes.
Wondering . . .
“Sneaking around down there unseen can’t have been easy,” she finally said. “And it turned out well enough in the end.”
Ash sucked her lip. “She hurt you.”
“I’m all right,” Mia sighed. “Cracked ribs. A few scratches.”
Ashlinn leaned up on her elbow, ran gentle fingertips over the bandage on Mia’s brow and cheek.
“Didn’t look like a scratch when she opened you up.”
“It’s fine, Ash.”
“ . . . Show me.”
Mia shook her head, belly churning. “Ashlinn, I don—”
“Mia,” Ash said softly, taking her hand. “Show me.”
The fear. Welling in her belly like poison. She wanted Mister Kindly and Eclipse back, right now. Life was so much easier with no regard for consequence, no thought for pain. Her passengers were what made her strong, allowed her to be a terror of the sands, to spare no thought for hurting or being hurt in kind. She was steel when they were inside her. Without them . . .
Without them, what am I?
For all her talk of preferring to look dangerous rather than pretty, she was still afraid of what she looked like beneath that bandage. Of what she’d see in Ashlinn’s eyes when she took it off. But just as swift, she felt her old temper rising. The anger that had been her companion through all the years between the turn her father was killed and this one. What did she care, how she looked?
What difference did it make to who she was?
Mia reached up to the bandage, untied it from her brow. It was stuck to the wound, dried blood crusted in the gauze, and she had to tug it free, wincing at the pain. Ashlinn sat still, staring with those beautiful blue eyes. Mia glanced at her reflection in the looking glass. The gash cut down through her brow, curling in a cruel hook-shape along her left cheek, laced with stitches by Maggot’s iron-steady hands.
“It’s not that bad,” Ashlinn murmured.
“Liar,” Mia replied.
“I am at that,” Ashlinn smirked. “But not about this.”
The girl leaned forward, and with featherlight lips, she kissed Mia’s brow. Sinking lower, she placed a half-dozen gentle kisses along the line of Mia’s wound, and finally, she pressed her lips to Mia’s own.
“Our scars are just gifts from our enemies,” Ashlinn whispered into her mouth. “Reminding us they weren’t good enough to kill us.”
Mia smiled faintly, entwining her fingers in Ashlinn’s own.
“You fought bravely in the arena,” Ash said.
“It’s easy to do that with Mister Kindly and Eclipse by my side.”
“And yet you come here alone. That couldn’t have been easy.”
Mia shook her head. “It wasn’t.”
“So don’t sell yourself cheap, Corvere. There’s no one alive who can do the things you do. You’re the bravest person I know. Goddess, when you leapt after Bladesinger, I was so afraid . . .” Ashlinn shook her head, gave Mia a playful slap on the leg. “Don’t do anything that stupid again, you hear me?”
“I couldn’t let her fall, Ashlinn.”
The girl’s gaze softened, a slow frown forming between her brows.
“Why not?”
“She saved my life.”
“And in saving hers, you risked your own.” Ash shook her head, blue eyes glittering. “That’s not why we’re here, Mia. This is bigger than the life of one gladiatii. This is the future of the
entire Republic. The end of a tyranny that’s been allowed to fester for far too long. The end of the Red Church, the end of—”
“I know why we’re here, Ashlinn. I’m no hero. I’m no fucking savior. This is my plan, remember?”
“ . . . I don’t seem to be the one who needs reminding.”
Mia scowled, pulled herself free of Ashlinn’s embrace. Prowling to the bureau, she found her cigarillos, struck her flintbox. She inhaled deep despite the pain in her ribs, feeling the sugared warmth spread over her tongue, tingling on her lips.
“Maggot’s dead,” she sighed.
“ . . . What? How?”
“Arkades apparently dosed our evemeal with Elegy. He was working with Leonides. Leona has to sell a bunch of gladiatii to stave her father off long enough to fight me at the magni. But the gladiatii have caught wind of their sale.”
“ . . . And how do they feel about that?”
“How the fuck do you think?” Mia folded her arms and leaned on the wall, cigarillo hanging from her mouth. “They’re set to rebel. Sidonius is trying to convince me to help. He knows I can escape the cells, let the rest of them out. If they struck in the nevernight, they’d cut through Leona’s guards like piss through snow.”
“Shit,” Ashlinn breathed. “How are you going to stop them? Tell Leona?”
Mia looked at Ash, dragging hard on her smoke.
“Who says I’m going to stop them?”
“ . . . What?”
“They don’t deserve to die, Ash. Not a one of them. Not for this.”
“Mia,” Ashlinn said. “I know you feel a kinship for these people, believe me, I do. But you were always too mindful of others, even as an acolyte. I warned you then, and I’m warning you now.”
Mia scowled at the girl on the bed. That old, delicious anger eating all her fear.
“Ash, if I’d not spared that boy’s life in my final trial, I’d have been there when you poisoned the initiation feast. I’d have been trussed up like Hush and the others, completely at the Luminatii’s mercy.”
“I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
“You couldn’t have stopped them,” Mia replied. “Remus would have gutted me as soon as he got his hands on me. So don’t fool yourself. If I’d not shown mercy and failed my trial, I’d be dead just like Tric.”
Ash flinched. Drew a long, shaking breath.
“You throw that at me every time we argue. It’s not fair, Mia.”
“O, and what you did to him was?”
“Look, I’m sorry Tric had to die,” Ash said. “I know you cared for him. I liked him too. But that’s my point, Mia. Everyone has someone who cares for them. The gladiatii you’ve killed in the arena, the Luminatii you slaughtered at the Mountain—each of them was someone’s daughter or someone’s son. Each of them had someone to mourn them. This is bigger than one person, or even a thousand. This is the future of the Republic. And this is everything you’ve worked for.”
Mia scowled, dragging hard on her cigarillo. Ashlinn climbed off the bed, walked to Mia, and took hold of her hand.
“You were born for this. And I think you know that. The moment your father chose to rise against the Republic, you were fated for great and terrible things. But fate wouldn’t have chosen you if you weren’t strong enough to bear the weight of it. I know you’re frightened. I know you’re hurting. But we’re so close now. You can do this. You’re the strongest person I know. That’s one of the reasons I love you, Mia Corvere.”
Clove-scented smoke curled through her fingers, floating into the air and weaving with the words that still hung heavy about her head.
“ . . . What did you say?”
Ash leaned in and entwined her hands with Mia’s. Pressed her body to Mia’s. Placed her lips on Mia’s. The kiss was soft and sweet and dizzying, the floor falling away from her feet, wrapping her up in the scent of lavender and burning cloves and an aching, sighing want. All the world stopped spinning. All of time stood still.
“I said I love you, Mia Corvere,” Ash whispered.
For people like us, there are no promises of forever . . .
“ . . . mia . . .”
Mia caught her breath, heart pounding in her chest. Tearing her gaze from Ashlinn’s eyes, saw a familiar shape sitting on the windowsill. A not-cat, cleaning his paw with his not-tongue.
“What is it?” she asked.
“ . . . furian . . . ,” Mister Kindly replied.
She’d run like a mad thing back up the hill, cloak flapping behind her, not even bothering to hide beneath her mantle of shadows. If someone from the Rest marked her, so be it, but the repercussions from the collegium’s champion being spotted by some random stranger in the street would pale in comparison to what would happen if the guards found her missing from her cell. She’d been a fool, risking a visit with so much in flux. Cursing herself an idiot and trying to forget the fact that Ashlinn Järnheim . . .
Ashlinn Järnheim said she loves me.
Mia pushed the thought aside, pain jarring her ribs every time her foot struck the road.
“He’s awake?” she gasped.
“ . . . he is stirring. if they call on you . . .”
“I know.”
“ . . . you risk too much, mia. all now hangs in the balance . . .”
“I know.”
“ . . . do you really . . . ?”
Mia grit her teeth and ran, cursing herself again. Mister Kindly was right. Ashlinn, too. She was growing soft. The Mia she knew had been driven. Single-minded. Burning with desire for one thing, and one thing alone. She couldn’t afford these kinships anymore. The risks they made her take, all that would be undone if she failed here . . .
A safe distance from the Nest, she slung on her mantle of shadows, Stepping across the portcullis as she’d done a dozen times now and feeling her way down to the barracks. Reaching out to the dark, she Stepped across to the shadows of her cell, falling to her knees and clutching her burning chest. Her breath was fire, head swimming, skin filmed with sweat. But after her desperate dash, all seemed quiet—if Furian had woken, it seemed Leona or her guards hadn’t yet seen a need for her.
Goddess, that could have been bad . . .
She threw aside her mantle, faded into view there in the dark of the barracks, amid the sighs and snores and sounds of sleep. Lying in one straw-lined corner, Sidonius slowly opened his eyes—the man seemed to have an uncanny knack for sensing when she’d returned. Or perhaps, when she’d left.
“Trouble sleeping?” he murmured, pawing at his lashes. “I’ve just the cure.”
Mia scowled and didn’t reply, not feeling like another lesson on the benefits of a clear conscience. She heard heavy footsteps coming down the stairs, the keys being turned in the mekwerk beside the barracks gate. Sidonius sat up a little straighter, eyes narrowed as three guards approached, fully armed and armored.
“Rest easy,” she said. “They’re here for me.”
“I rest easy enough, Mia,” he whispered. “And I’ve faith you will too.”
The trio of guards arrived at her cell, led by Captain Gannicus.
“The Unfallen has woken,” the guard said. “He is in pain. Dona Leona left orders you were to be roused if he did, and afforded all courtesy. With Maggot gone . . .”
“Aye, I’ll see to it,” Mia sighed. “Take me to him, if it please you.”
The guards unlocked her cell and Mia stood. Sidonius watched as she was marched out through the barracks, up into the keep and out to the infirmary. Her mind was still whirling, trying to ponder what to do about Sidonius’s budding rebellion, the right and wrong of it all. Ashlinn’s and Mister Kindly’s words swimming in her head. Her heart was torn—the vengeance that had driven her all these years weighed against the thought of allowing Sid and the others to die.
What was more important?
Revenge for a mother and father it turns out she barely even knew? Or the lives of folk who, try as she might to deny it, had become her friends?
&n
bsp; The hour was late, but as she approached, Mia could hear choice cursing from within. Stepping inside, she saw Furian on his slab, damp with sweat. His arms and legs were strapped down, the bandages around his chest spotted with blood.
“Fool tried to tear off the dressings,” Gannicus muttered. “We had to bind him.”
“There’s fucking maggots crawling on me!” Furian moaned.
“Leave me with him,” Mia told Gannicus. “I’ll see to his hurts. If you could tell Finger to set some vinegar boiling, I’d be indebted.”
“Aye, Champion,” the guard said.
Nodding to his cohorts, Gannicus left a pair stationed outside the infirmary door, and strode off to wake the cook. Mia walked into the infirmary, noted that Bladesinger wasn’t lying on her slab. She must have been moved back down to her cell sometime in the nevernight—it was still too soon for her to have been sold off to Caito. Which meant she and Furian would be alone . . .
The man looked her up and down, a dark scowl on that handsome brow. The hunger in her surged as it always did when he was near. He still looked on the south side of awful, his long hair lank with sweat, his skin sallow. But he was awake, alert, dark eyes fixed on the silver torc around her neck.
“She named you champion?” he whispered.
“I didn’t ask her for it,” Mia replied. “But truthfully, none knew if you’d awaken.”
“So she gives away my torc before I’m even cold, and leaves me here to rot?”
“You’re not rotting,” Mia sighed.
“I’ve fucking flyspawn crawling all over me!”
“The maggots are removing flesh turned septic by the Exile’s venom. They saved your life. And if you don’t calm down and stop thrashing against those straps, you’re going to start yourself bleeding again.” Mia poked among the shelves, collecting ingredients. “The pain can’t be pleasant, though. I’ll fix you something for it.”
Furian’s head sank back against the slab, voice heavy with fatigue. “Has Domina named you nursemaid, as well as champion? Where is Maggot?”
Mia pressed her lips together, grinding the ingredients with a mortar and pestle.
“Maggot’s dead.”
Furian’s scowl softened, bewilderment in his eyes. “How?”
