The effigy towered above the mob, fifty feet high, carved of solid marble. Three arkemical globes representing the three suns were held in one of Aa’s outstretched hands. In his other, he held out a mighty sword. Mia had destroyed this very statue the truedark she turned fourteen, but Scaeva had ordered it rebuilt, paying the fee from his own coffers. One more pious gesture to buy the mob’s adoration.
With Jonnen in Tric’s arms, the quartet climbed the statue, finding a place to rest in the great folds of the Everseeing’s robes. Peering out over the mob below.
“Black Goddess, look at them all,” Ash breathed beside her.
Mia could only stare. The crowd she’d fought in front of at the Venatus Magni had been impressive, but it seemed every citizen of Godsgrave had been ushered here for the announcement. The Ribs rose above them, sixteen gravebone arches, gleaming white and towering high into the sky. Soldiers and Luminatii shoved their way through the mob, cracking skulls and holding order by the throat. Desperation and fear hung in the air like blood-stink in a butchery. At least they had their perch to themselves—though he seemed to be struggling in the truelight as much as Mia, Tric’s chill presence dissuaded other folk from climbing too close.
Mia narrowed her eyes in the truelight glare. The journey up from beneath the city had been long, silent, a hundred twists and turns. She had no idea of how long they’d trekked—time had seemed meaningless in the hollow dark below the city’s skin. But now she was away from it, she longed for it again. That black pool. Those silent, wailing faces. She missed it, like she missed Mister Kindly and Eclipse when they were apart. Missed it like a part of herself had been torn away.
The many were one.
She pushed the thought aside. Focused on the rage. Her knuckles white on the hilt of her gravebone sword. None of it, the Moon, Niah, Cleo, Mercurio, Ashlinn, Tric, none of it fucking mattered.
Not until that bastard’s dead.
Trumpets sounded, ringing crisp and clear in the truelight glare. The suns above were living things, beating upon her shoulders, grinding her beneath their light like a worm under a boot. The shadows in the folds of the Everseeing’s robes were her only respite, and Mia clung to them like a child to its mother’s skirts. But she stood taller as the fanfare sounded, squinting past the great open ring of the forum and the circle of mighty pillars crowned with statues of the Senate’s finest. The Senate House itself stood to the west, all fluted columns and polished bone. The first Rib loomed to the south, the balcony of the consul’s palazzo crowded with Luminatii in gravebone plate and senators in green laurel wreaths and rippling white robes trimmed in purple.
The trumpets rang long and loud, stilling the shouts, the whispers, the uncertainty brewing in the City of Bridges and Bones. Truth told, Mia had never truly considered the consequences of her scheme in the magni far beyond seeing Duomo and Scaeva dead. But with rumor of the consul’s death running rife, all seemed on the verge of calamity.
What would happen to this place if the consul truly fell?
What truly would become of this city, this Republic, if she cut off its head? Would it simply thrash and roil for a time, then grow another? Or, like a god laid low by his father’s hand, shatter into a thousand pieces?
“Merciful Aa!” came a cry from the street below. “Look!”
A shout from a rooftop behind. “Four Daughters, is it him?”
Mia felt her heart drop and thump inside her chest. Squinting in the glare toward the balcony of the consul’s apartments as the Luminatii and senators stepped aside.
O, Goddess.
O, merciful Black Mother.
His purple robe was still drenched with blood, his golden laurel missing. A bandage was wrapped around his throat and shoulder, soaked with red. His face was pale, his salt-and-pepper hair damp with sweat. But there could be no mistaking the man as he stepped forward and raised his hand like a shepherd before the sheep. Three fingers outstretched in the sign of Aa.
“Father,” Jonnen said.
Mia glared at her brother, wondering if he’d be troublesome enough to shout for help—but he seemed afeared enough of the Hearthless boy holding him to keep quiet for now. The crowd, however, were overcome with a wave of jubilance, a deafening, giddy roar rippling from those near enough to see with their own two eyes, out, out into the forum. Folk farther back began shouting, demanding the truth, to see, shoving and brawling. Soldiers stepped in, truncheons at the ready. The streets swayed and rolled, folk shoving and spitting and pushing each other off bridges and into the canals below, chaos budding higher, building upw—
“My people!”
The cry rang through horns scattered about the forum, amplified and echoing on the walls of the Senate House, the gravebone of the Spine. Like some kind of magik, it brought stillness to the chaos. Balance to the edge of the knife.
Though he was too far away for Mia to really see his expression, Julius Scaeva’s voice was hoarse with pain. She could see Scaeva’s wife, Liviana, by his side, her gown red as bloodstains, her throat glittering with gold. Mia looked down to Jonnen beside her, saw his eyes fixed on the woman who’d claimed to be his mother.
The boy glanced up at Mia. Looked away again just as swift.
Scaeva drew a deep breath before continuing.
“My people!” he repeated. “My countrymen! My friends!”
Silence fell in the City of Bridges and Bones. The air was still enough to hear the whispers of the distant sea, the gentle prayer of the wind. Mia had known the love of the crowd in the arena, sure and true. She’d brought them to their feet, roaring in adoration, made them thrill and cry and sing her name like a hymn to heaven. But never once in her time on the sands had she held them in thrall like this.
They called Julius Scaeva “Senatum Populiis”—the People’s Senator. The Savior of the Republic. And though it sickened her to acknowledge, she marveled to see him still the entire city like millpond water with a mere handful of words.
“I have heard whispers!” Scaeva called. “Whispers that your Republic is beheaded! That your consul is slain! That Julius Scaeva is fallen! I have heard these whispers, and in turn, I shout my defiance before you all!” He slammed one bloody fist down on the balustrade. “Here I stand! And by God, here I stay!”
A roar. Thunderous and joyous, spreading like wildfire through the crowd. Mia could see folk below her embracing, cheeks wet with jubilant tears. Her stomach turned, her lips curled, her grip on her sword so tight her hand was shaking.
After a suitable time, Scaeva held up his hand for silence, and the hush fell like an anvil once more. He drew a deep breath, then coughed, once, twice. Hand going to his blood-soaked shoulder, he swayed on his feet before the mekwerk horn. Soldiers and senators stepped forward to aid the consul lest he fall. Dismay rippled through the mob. But with a shake of his head, Scaeva pushed his well-meaning helpers aside and stood tall again, despite his “wounds.” Brave and staunch and O, so very strong.
The crowd lost their collective mind. Rapture and bliss swept through them in a flood. Even as her mouth soured, Mia had to admire the theater of it. The way this snake turned every snag and stumble to bitterest advantage.
“We are wounded!” he cried. “There is no doubt. And though it pains me greatly, I speak not of the knife blow I bear, no. I speak of the blow dealt to us all! Our counsel, our conscience, our friend … nay, our brother, is taken from us.”
Scaeva bowed his head. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with grief.
“My people, it cleaves my heart to bring you tidings ill as these.” The consul steadied himself against the balustrade, swallowed as if overcome with sorrow. “But I must confirm that Francesco Duomo, grand cardinal of Aa’s ministry, and the Everseeing’s chosen on this blessed earth … is slain.”
Dismayed cries rang through the forum. Anguished wails and gnashing teeth. Scaeva slowly held up his hand, like a maestro before an orchestra.
“I grieve the loss of my friend. Truly. Long were
the nevernights I sat in his radiance, and I shall carry the heavenly wisdom he gifted me for the rest of my years.” Scaeva hung his head, heaved a sigh. “But long have I warned that the enemies of our great Republic stood closer than my brothers in the Senate would believe! Long have I warned the Kingmaker’s legacy still festers in our Republic’s heart! And yet not even I dared imagine that on this most holy feast, in the greatest city the world has known, the paragon of the Everseeing’s faith might be cut down by an assassin’s blade? In sight of us all? Before the three unblinking eyes of Aa himself? What madness is this?”
He rent his purple robe and howled at the sky.
“What madness is this?”
The crowd roared again, dismay to rage and back again. Mia watched the emotion roll up and down like waves on a storm-wracked beach, Scaeva wringing them for every drop.
The consul spoke again once the bedlam had subsided.
“As you know, my friends, to safeguard the security of the Republic, it was my intention to stand for a fourth term as consul in the truedark elections. But in the face of this assault upon our faith, our freedom, our familia, I have no other choice. As of this moment, by the emergency provisions of the Itreyan constitution, and in the face of the undeniable threat to our glorious Republic, I, Julius Scaeva, do hereby claim title of imperator and all powers…”
Scaeva’s voice was momentarily drowned out by the volume of the mob. Every man, woman, and child was cheering. Soldiers. Holy men. Bakers and butchers, sweetgirls and slaves, Black Goddess, even the fucking senators up there on that awful little stage. The constitution of the Republic was being torn up in front of them. Their voices being reduced to a pale echo in an empty chamber. And still, all of them,
Every
Single
One
They didn’t cry.
They didn’t rage.
They didn’t fight.
They fucking cheered.
When a babe is frightened, when the world goes wrong, who does it cry for? Who seems the only one who can make it right again?
Mia shook her head.
Father …
Scaeva held up his hand, but it seemed even the maestro couldn’t calm the applause now. The people stomped their feet in time, chanted his name like a prayer. Mia stood, bathed in the thunder of it, sick to her bones. Ashlinn reached down, squeezed her hand. Glancing to the deadboy beside her, Mia wasn’t certain if she should squeeze it back.
It seemed an age before the mob stilled enough for Scaeva to speak again.
“Know I do not take this responsibility lightly,” he finally shouted. “From now until truedark, when I am certain our friends in the Senate will ratify my new position, my people, I will be your shield. I will be your sword. I will be the stone upon which we may rebuild our peace, reclaim that which was taken from us, and reforge our Republic so that it shall be stronger, greater, and more glorious than ever it was before!”
Scaeva managed a smile at the elated response, though he seemed now to be wilting. His wife whispered in his ear and he pawed his bloody shoulder, nodded slow. A centurion of the Luminatii stepped forward, began to usher him and his wife away under guard. But with one final show of strength, Scaeva turned back to the mob.
“Hear me now!”
A hush fell at his cry, deep and still as the Abyss itself.
“Hear me!” he called. “And know it true! For I speak to you now. You.”
Mia swallowed hard, her jaw clenched and aching.
“Wherever you may be, whatever shadow has fallen over your heart, whatever darkness you may find yourself in…”
Mia noted the emphasis on “shadow” and “darkness.” The fervor in Scaeva’s voice. And though they stood hundreds of feet apart, with a hundred thousand or more between them, for a second, she felt as if they were the only two people in the world.
“I am your father,” Scaeva declared. “I always have been.”
He held out his hand as the crowd raised theirs.
“And together? Nothing can stop us.”
CHAPTER 7
BE
The flash of a gravebone sword.
A bubbling gasp.
A spatter of red.
Another guard sank to his knees and Mia
Stepped
across
the hallway
to the second man, his eyes going wide as he saw his comrade fall. Her gravebone sword cut through muscle and bone like mist. His muscles slackened, his bladder loosed, piss and blood pooling on the polished stone floor as he sank to his knees and from there, to his end.
Mia dragged the bodies to an antechamber and crouched in the shadows, curtains of long dark hair draped about her face. Listening for footfalls. The forum outside was still awash with sound, people uncertain whether to celebrate Scaeva’s speech or mourn their slain cardinal. Godsgrave was in the grip of a guilty elation, breathing easier after salvation had been snatched from calamity. Their father had defied death. Escaped the assassin’s blade.
Who could now deny he was the chosen of Aa? Who better to claim the title of imperator and lead the Republic through the dangers it now faced?
Mia stole through the gravebone halls, silent and swift. She Stepped between the shadows as easily as another girl might have skipped from one puddle to another in the falling rain. It was a gift she’d practiced for years; though it seemed much simpler since Furian had died by her hand. She recalled her brother using the shadows to blind her in the necropolis, musing idly if she might learn to do the same. She wondered how much truth lay in Tric’s tale of splinters of shattered god inside her. What other gifts she might discover inside herself, if she embraced them and what she was.
The walls about her were hung with beautiful tapestries, lined with statues of solid marble, lit by chandeliers of singing Dweymeri crystal. She could hear music somewhere distant—strings and a harpsichord, a touch of somberness in the shadow of the cardinal’s death. The gravebone longblade in her hand was a comforting weight, the stink of blood in her nostrils a sweet perfume, the wolf made of shadows a soothing growl in her ear.
“… TWO MORE AHEAD…”
They fell as the last two had done, the shadows rippling, the girl coalescing out of nothingness, as if coming into focus before their wondering eyes. The men were Luminatii, gravebone armor and blood-red cloaks and feathered plumes upon their heads. The helms did wonders to smother what little sound they made as they died, and their cloaks a fine job of mopping up the mess afterward.
Her heart was hammering despite the daemon in her shadow. Her thoughts drifting to Ashlinn, Tric, Jonnen. She’d asked the former to guard the latter, watch him as if her life depended on it. “I’m not a fucking nursemaid,” had come the protest, and there was more waiting in the wings. But Mia’s kiss had quickly silenced them all.
“Please,” was all she’d said. “For me.”
And that had been enough for now.
How much longer, she wasn’t entirely sure.
“I’LL BE OF NO USE IN THIS,” Tric had told her. “THE LIGHT IS TOO BRIGHT.”
“You made short work of those soldiers in the necropolis,” she’d pointed out. “Truelight or no.”
“THE WALLS BETWEEN THIS WORLD AND THE MOTHER’S REALM ARE THINNER IN THE HOUSES OF THE DEAD. AND IT’S THROUGH NIAH’S WILL I WALK THIS EARTH, NO OTHER’S. I’LL GROW STRONGER THE NEARER WE DRAW TO TRUEDARK. BUT HERE AND NOW…”
He’d looked about them, shaken his head.
“BESIDES, THIS IS A FOOLISH PLAN, PALE DAUGHTER.”
She’d wanted to give him a quip in
reply, but hearing him call her by that name had made her chest ache instead. She’d looked at him, black hands hidden in his sleeves, black eyes hidden beneath his hood. His beautiful alabaster face, framed all in darkness. Wondering what might have been, then choking those wonderings dead.
“Please don’t do this,” Ash had begged.
“I have to,” she’d replied. “He almost never makes public appearances anymore. That’s why we struck at him during the magni, remember? I have to take him now before he goes to ground again.”
“You’re presuming that was him at all,” Ash had protested. “Scaeva could have a dozen doubles for all we know. He’s been in league with the Red Church for years. Who’s to say he’s still in the city? Or if he is, who’s to say he’s not baiting you?”
“He probably is,” Mia said.
“Then what’s to stop him from killing you?” Ash demanded.
“Solis and Hush both used blades poisoned with Rictus. They want me alive.” Mia glanced at her brother. “Because I have something he wants, too.”
“Mia, please…”
“Mister Kindly, stay here with Jonnen. Keep him calm.”
“… o, joyousness…”
“Eclipse, with me.”
“… AS IT PLEASE YOU…”
“YOU MUST LET THE PAST DIE, MIA,” Tric warned.
She’d looked him in the eye then. Her voice hard and cold.
“Sometimes the past won’t just die. Sometimes you have to kill it.”
And she was gone.
Slipping through the forum until it grew too crowded, the soldiers too thick. Then on beneath her mantle of shadows, the world blurred shapeless, the suns blazing overhead as Eclipse guided her steps. She moved slow as she needed, quick as she dared, into the looming shadow of the first Rib. Over the wrought-iron fence, past the dozens of Luminatii posted around a heavy set of polished gravebone doors, into the consul’s private apartments beyond. She had vague recollections of this place from the ball she’d attended as a child, whisked around that glittering ballroom on her father’s …
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