by Jay Kristoff
She lay on the bed inside, long auburn hair streaming in delicate ringlets about her face. Her lashes were kohled ink black, her lips blood red. She was dressed in a gown of white silk, thin as gossamer, her soft curves and the delicious shadow between her thighs visible through the sheer fabric. Her wrists were wrapped in thin gold chains, her eyes glittering like the face of the ocean.
Leona opened her arms, beckoned him to the bed.
“Hello, lover.”
* * *
Mia sat in the dark of her cell, on a simple cot made of straw, the gloom lightened only by a small arkemical globe. The hour was late, the heat only slightly eased by the cool nevernight breeze blowing in through the bars in the door. She could hear the distant sounds of steel on steel, mekwerk churning beneath the arena sands, the thunder of the crowd still echoing up in the bleachers.
Mia had stomach for none of it.
Guards patrolled the corridor outside, walking the row of champions’ cells. They weren’t the finest abodes in all of Godsgrave, to be sure, but the cells allowed a moment’s privacy before the turn that would decide their occupants’ lives.
Mia heard the mekwerk lock twist on her cell door, looked up to see a female guard standing upon the threshold.
“A moment of your time,” she said. “If it please you.”
The guard walked into the cell, closing the door behind her. The light was dim, her features hidden, but Mia still recognized her at once. The guard pulled off her helm, long red hair tumbling about her face. Her lashes were unpowdered, her lips bereft of paint. She was dressed in a black leather breastplate and skirt, the triple suns of the Itreyan legion on her breast. Her wrists were wrapped in thick leather bracers, her eyes as blue as sunsburned skies.
Mia opened her arms, beckoned her to the cot.
“Hello, lover.”
* * *
Leona pressed her lips to Furian’s, mouth open, hungry. Her hands roamed his back, arkemical thrills running down his spine as she explored the troughs and valleys of muscle. Hands tangled in his long dark hair, Leona dragged him down onto the bed, sighing into his mouth. Her hands were everywhere, stroking, teasing, burning, Leona’s sighs on his skin, hot as the sunslight outside.
“I want you,” she breathed.
She straddled him, hair tumbling about his face, her kiss deepening as she moved her hips, grinding against him. Taking his hands, she placed them on her breasts, the heat of her skin, the scent of her perfume, the music of her sighs filling the room.
“I need you,” she whispered.
Her kisses drifted lower, hands descending to unbuckle his belt, whisk off his loincloth. She left a trail of burning kisses down his scarred chest, across the rippling muscle at his belly, her tongue lapping at the sweat on his skin as she sank further and further down.
“I own you,” she sighed.
“Stop,” he whispered.
He took hold of Leona’s chin, and gently pushed her away.
“Stop.”
Ash pressed her lips to Mia’s, mouth open, hungry. Her hands roamed her back, arkemical thrills running down Mia’s spine as she explored the smooth lines and graceful curves. Hands tangled in her long dark hair, Mia dragged her down onto the cot, sighing into her mouth. Her hands were everywhere, stroking, teasing, burning, Ash’s sighs on her skin, hot as the sunslight outside.
“I want you,” she breathed.
Ash straddled her, hair tumbling about Mia’s face, their kiss deepening as they moved their hips, grinding against each other. Taking Mia’s hands, Ash placed them on her breasts, the heat of her skin, the scent of her sweat, the music of her sighs filling the cell.
“I need you,” she whispered.
Her kisses drifted lower, hands descending to unbuckle Mia’s belt, whisk off her loincloth. She left a trail of burning kisses down her heaving breasts, across the taut muscle at her belly, tongue lapping at the sweat on Mia’s skin as she sank further and further down.
“I love you,” she sighed.
“Don’t stop,” Mia whispered.
She took hold of Ash’s hair, and gently pulled her in.
“Don’t stop.”
* * *
Leona blinked up at Furian, confusion clouding her eyes.
“ . . . What’s wrong?”
Furian climbed off the soft bed, the thousand-thread sheets, wishing for all the world he were back in his cell. He tied his loincloth about his waist, avoiding her gaze.
“Slave,” Leona demanded. “I asked you a question.”
He spoke gently then, his words sharp as steel.
“This was a dream. And I was a fool to dream it.”
He met her eyes then.
“This is not love,” he said.
And without a backward glance, he turned and stalked from the room.
* * *
Ash lay in Mia’s arms, drenched in sweat, looking up into her dark eyes.
“ . . . What’s wrong?”
Mia only shook her head, held Ashlinn tighter. They lay together on the tiny straw bed in that gloomy pit, the taste of the other still lingering on their lips. Ash’s cloak beneath them. Stone and iron around them. All the world against them. Death looming large on a vicious horizon. And for that single, simple moment, none of it mattered.
None of it mattered at all.
“This feels like a dream,” Mia whispered. “And I don’t want to wake.”
She met her eyes, then.
“This is love,” Mia said simply.
And leaning in, she closed her eyes and gifted Ash a gentle kiss.
33: begin
The sound was impossible.
A living, breathing, colossal thing, pressing on Mia’s skin, so real she felt she could almost reach out and touch it. A weight on her shoulders, rooting her to the earth. A tremor in the stone around her, a physical sensation in the air. In all her years, even in Stormwatch, even in Whitekeep, she’d never heard the like of it.
She sat in her cell, listening to the song of murder above, the verse of steel on steel, the percussion of hooves, the chorus of the blood-mad crowd. Mister Kindly and Eclipse both swam in her shadow, rippling at the edges, trying to devour the fear swelling in her chest. It was hard not to feel it now, try as she might. The daemons did their best, but still, she could sense it, like those hateful suns above her. The scent of Ashlinn’s sweat lingering on her skin. Reminding her of all she now had to lose.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“ . . . WE ARE SORRY, MIA . . .”
“ . . . we try, but the suns . . .”
“ . . . THEY BURN US . . .”
She clasped her hands together to stop them shaking. Reminding herself of who she was. Where she sat. All that would be undone if she failed.
“Conquer your fear,” she whispered, “and you can conquer the world.”
The mekwerk lock clicked, the door swung aside. Dona Leona stood there, tall and proud, surrounded by her houseguards and Itreyan legionaries. She was clad in shimmering silver, the gown flowing off her shoulders like summer showers. Her plaited hair was interwoven with metallic ribbon, like a victor’s laurel about her brow.
“My champion,” she said.
“Domina,” Mia replied.
“You are prepared?”
Mia nodded. “Are you?”
Leona blinked. “Why would I not be?”
“These are your gladiatii about to die, Domina,” Mia replied. “I wondered if perhaps you felt some regret about that.”
Leona raised her chin, pride tightening her jaw. “My only regret is that I fostered a nest of traitors for so very long. Next season, it shall be different, I vow it. With the coin I make from the magni, I shall stock my collegium with only the finest gladiatii, and an executus who may be counted upon to forge them into true gods.”
“Arkades forged Furian, did he not? Arkades forged me.”
“Arkades was a cur. An honorless dog who—”
“Arkades was in love with yo
u, Domina.”
Leona lips parted, but she found no words to speak.
“Surely you sensed it?” Mia pressed. “He was champion and then executus of one of the richest, most accomplished collegia in the history of the venatus. Why else would he have followed you to Crow’s Nest, if he wasn’t following his heart?”
“Arkades betrayed me,” Leona hissed.
Mia shook her head. “Arkades was gladiatii. A man of the sword. Even if he discovered you were bedding Furian, do you honestly think he’d look to poison the whole collegium? Knowing how he felt about you, and what it would cost you if your father got his way?”
“ . . . I scarce know where to begin,” Leona said, blustering. “First of all, how dare you imply—”
“Look to your own house, Leona,” Mia said. “Look to those closest to you, and ask yourself who truly stood to gain if you were forced to limp back to civilization and beg forgiveness at your father’s feet. Who encouraged you to ask him for coin? Who was the first to object, whenever you spoke ill of him in public?”
The dona stood rooted to the stone, a small frown forming on her brow.
“Sanguila Leona,” said a legionary in the hall. “The Crow must be prepared for the execution bout.”
Mia stepped closer to her mistress, speaking so only they could hear.
“I might have been like you, if fate were kinder, and crueler. I know what happened to your mother. I know what kind of childhood you had. All the things you are, you are for a reason. Vicious and generous. Courageous and pitiless. I like you, and I hate you, and I couldn’t have done this without you. So when the turn is done, I’ll give you all the thanks I can muster. You won’t think it nearly enough, I’m sure. But it’s all I can fashion for you, Leona.”
The dona’s eyes were narrowed to papercuts, filled with indignant fury.
“You will address me as Domina!”
The crowd roared above them, trumpets rang bright and clear in the air, signaling the end of the equillai race. Mia looked to the older woman, and slowly nodded.
“Aye,” she said. “But not for much longer.”
She stood before a portcullis of iron, wrapped in black steel. Falcon wings at her shoulders, a cloak of red feathers at her back. The face of a goddess covered her own, only her eyes visible through the helm’s facade.
She was glad no one would be able to see if she wept.
The temperature was soaring, the audience baking in the suns. Many had taken the opportunity after the final (spectacular) equillai race to seek some shade or refreshment. But there was still no shortage of eyes to watch her. Tens of thousands in the stands, stamping their feet and waiting for the main event to begin.
“Citizens of Itreya!” The editorii’s words echoed across the bloodstained stone. “We present to you, our final execution bout!”
The crowd’s reaction was tepid, some applause, no shortage of jeers from those who simply wished the magni to get under way. After five turns of ceaseless butchery, the thought of a few more reprobates sent to slaughter seemed positively pedestrian.
“These are no common criminals!” the editorii insisted. “These are the basest cowards, the vilest wretches, slaves who betrayed their masters!”
The crowd perked up at that, resounding boos echoing around the arena.
“We give thanks to Sanguila Leona of the Remus Collegium, for providing the cattle for this righteous slaughter! Citizens, we present to you . . . the condemned!”
A portcullis opened in the northern end of the arena, and Mia’s heart sank to see seven figures stagger out into the sunslight to the crowd’s jeers. Sidonius and Wavewaker. Bladesinger and Bryn. Felix and Albanus and Butcher. They’d not been treated kindly in their captivity—all looked weak and starved. They were armed with rusted blades and dressed in piecemeal armor. Just a few scraps of leather on their chests and shins that would avail them not at all against someone even half-skilled with a blade.
They were meant to die here, after all.
The guard beside Mia handed her a razor-sharp gladius and a long, wicked dagger, polished to a blinding sheen. Mia looked into the guard’s eyes, blue as the sunsburned sky.
“No fear,” Ash whispered. “Strike true.”
Mia nodded, turned her gaze back to the sand. Sickness in her stomach. Horror at the thought of what was to come. Certainty that it was the only way, that everything she’d sacrificed would soon be worthwhile, that all the death, all the blood, all the pain would be justified once Scaeva and Duomo were in the ground.
This was the end of a tyranny. And the ends justified the means, didn’t they?
As long as the end isn’t mine?
“And now,” the editorii cried. “Our executioner! Champion of the Remus Collegium, victor of Whitekeep, the Savior of Stormwatch, citizens of Godsgrave, we present to you . . . the Crow!”
The crowd rose to their feet, curiosity finally alight. All had heard the tales of the girl who slew the retchwyrm, who saved the citizens of Stormwatch from certain doom, who’d bested a warrior of the Silken Dominion.
The portcullis rose and Mia marched out into the merciless heat, her shadow shriveling as both Mister Kindly and Eclipse hissed in their misery. The crowd roared at the sight of her, blood-red feathers and armor black as truedark, her beautiful, pitiless face wrought in polished steel. On cue, the sands around her spat forth rippling flame, the crowd bellowing in approval. She followed the pillars of fire, out into the center of the arena, awestruck by the scale of it all.
The pale sands stained red with blood. The gravebone walls rising into the blinding sky. The barrier separating the crowd from the arena floor loomed over twenty feet high, hung with banners of the noble houses, the collegia, the trinity of Aa. In the premium seats at the barrier’s lip, Mia could see a collection of ministers and holy men arrayed in their bloody red robes and tall, pompous hats, her heart thrilling as she spied the grand cardinal among them. Duomo sat at the heart of his flock, solid as a brick shithouse, looking as ever like a thug who’d beaten a holy man to death and stolen his kit. His robe was the color of heart’s blood, his smile like a knife in her chest.
Beside the church, she could see the ringside marrowborn and the sanguilas’ boxes. Mia spied Leonides and his hulking executus, Titus. She could see Magistrae in a dazzling scarlet gown. But of Leona, she saw no sign. She turned her eyes upward to the stands, to the rippling, roaring, swelling ocean of people.
“Crow!” they roared. “CROW!”
She looked to the consul’s box, set with fluted pillars and shaded from the sun. The Senate of Godsgrave were seated about it, old men with twinkling eyes, white togas trimmed with purple. A small army of Luminatii surrounded it, sunsteel swords blazing in their hands. She could see a great chair, trimmed in gold, dangerously close to what might be called a throne. But the chair stood empty.
No Scaeva.
Trumpets sounded, dragging Mia’s attention back to the sand. Sidonius and the others were stalking toward her, rusty swords in hand. These matches weren’t supposed to be even, but the former Falcons of Remus were still gladiatii. And though they were beaten, bruised, starving, they were seven, and she was one. A rusted blade could still cut to the bone if wielded with enough skill, and a poisoned tongue could cut deeper still.
“So,” Wavewaker said, stopping twenty feet away. “They send you to swing the axe, Mi Dona? Fitting, I suppose.”
“Almighty Aa,” Sidonius breathed. “Where is your heart, Mia?”
“They buried it with my father, Sidonius,” she replied.
“You treacherous fucking cunt,” Bladesinger spat.
Mia looked the seven over, the faces of folk who’d once called her friend. Mouth as dry as dust. Skin drenched with sweat.
Soon, all of this will be worth it.
“I’d tell you exactly why I consider that word a compliment and not an insult,” she said. “But I’m not sure we’ve time for a monologue, ’Singer.”
She drew her heavy s
word, her razored dagger, saluted the consul’s box.
“Now let’s get this over with.”
Trumpets blared, the crowd roared, and Dona Leona made her way to her seat in the sanguila’s box. Her magistrae greeted her with a smile, lifting a parasol over her mistress’s head to shield her from the Light Father’s burning eyes.
She looked about the seats around her, saw Tacitus, Trajan, Phillipi, the other usual suspects. Surrounded by their executi and staffers, decked in the bright colors of their collegia, their sigils emblazoned on banners at their backs. And in the box directly to her left, beneath a roaring golden lion, dressed in an extravagant frock coat and popping a grape between his teeth . . .
“Father,” she nodded.
“Dearest daughter.” Leonides smiled, raising his voice over the thrum of the crowd. “My heart gladdens to see you.”
“And you,” she nodded. “My first payment arrived, I trust?”
“Aye,” Leonides called. “It was received with gratitude and, I confess, no small degree of surprise.”
“You’ll find I’m full of surprises, Father,” she called back. “Your Exile could testify to that, I’m sure, had my Crow not separated her head from her body.”
The sanguila around them smiled and murmured, updating the score in their mental ledgers. But Leonides only scoffed, popped another grape into his mouth.
“We didn’t think we’d be graced with your presence for the execution.”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“I’m used to it by now, my dear,” he sighed. “But I was just saying to Phillipi here, I’m not certain if shame wouldn’t keep me from showing my face, if the best portion of my collegium were to be executed for rebellion.”
“Have you still shame, Father?” Leona asked. “I thought it buried with the wife you beat to death.”
The mood around them dropped, sanguila exchanging uncomfortable glances. Leonides’s face darkened, and Magistrae put a restraining hand on Leona’s arm.
“You go too far, Domina,” she whispered. “Is it wise to insult him so?”
