Darkdawn

by Kristoff, Jay

  She didn’t want it to end. She didn’t want it to be real. She didn’t want any of this. But Mia Corvere knew, better than any, that sometimes we just don’t get what we want. And so, she pulled away. Resting her forehead against his a moment longer. Cheeks wet with tears. Cupping his face and dragging an unruly lock away from those bottomless eyes and staring deep into the dark between her stars as she whispered.

  “Farewell, Don Tric.”

  “GOODBYE, PALE DAUGHTER.”

  “Remember me.”

  “FOREVER.”

  She climbed onto the back of her beast, eyes on the eastern horizon.

  Wiping the tears from her eyes, she rode on.

  And she didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER 38

  MOMENTUM

  The whispers were growing louder.

  She was seven turns into the Ashkahi wastes, a long and lonely trail of dust stretching westward in her wake. The sands were the red of rust, or old drying blood. The heavens were a melancholy indigo. Saan was only a few hours from disappearing below the worldedge now; just a sliver lightening the horizon with murderous scarlet. Saai would slink after its swollen twin soon, but for now, the smallest sun stubbornly clung to the expanse above, and the Everseeing’s last eye was yet open.

  Soon enough, though, Aa must relinquish his hold on the sky.

  Then night would fall.

  And so will he.

  Mia’s eyes were on the ground ahead, narrowed in the stinging winds. Her tears were long since dried on her cheeks. The earth before her was parched, a million cracks spreading out into the dead earth like black spiderwebs. She was now so deep in the wastes, she was beyond the reach of most maps of the Itreyan Republic. East across the desert lay a crescent of dark granite known as the Blackverge Mountains. The range stretched southward in jagged peaks and spires, stone fists that punched and tore at the sky. According to the map on Ash’s skin, a narrow pass wound its way through the Blackverge, opening into the ruins of the Ashkahi Empire beyond.

  And there lay the Crown of the Moon.

  She had no idea what awaited her in that place. A woman more powerful than she was, that much was certain. A woman who’d lived with naught but shadows for company since before the rise of the Republic. A woman gripped by madness, who hated the Night and jealously guarded the very thing that could wrest Mia’s brother from his plight and, at the same stroke, finally see an end to her father’s twisted ambitions.

  Her vengeance.

  Mia’s fear made Mister Kindly’s absence all the more acute. She missed Eclipse like a part of her had been severed and burned at the stump. Thinking of the way the shadowwolf must have ended, falling in defense of her brother, and adding the daemon’s destruction, Butcher’s death, Ashlinn’s murder to the ever-growing list of reasons why Julius Scaeva deserved to die.

  And O, by the Black fucking Mother, die he would.

  But first …

  Cleo.

  Julius spat and grumbled and complained, but Mia was feeling too hollow to pay attention to the camel’s griping. Sipping from a flask of warm water, she felt Saan sinking ever lower to the horizon at her back, the light about her fading slow. She kept one watchful eye on the sands ahead—the monsters that lurked beneath the earth were ever on her mind. She knew from past experience that the beasts of the Whisperwastes were inexplicably drawn to her shadowwerking. Enraged by it. If she ran into a sand kraken or retchwyrm, her tale might end before she ever reached the Crown.

  Mia wondered at that—why the predators of the Whisperwastes were so infuriated by her power. Loremasters said that the monstrosities of the deep wastes were born of the magikal pollutants left over from the Empire’s destruction. But if the Ashkahi Empire fell when the Moon was struck low by his father, perhaps Anais, the fragments inside her, the horrors themselves, were all connected somehow?

  Still, it could be worse. On top of the monstrosities of the wasteland she was riding toward, she might also have to worry about—

  Julius bellowed again, snorting and spitting. Mia cursed beneath her breath, the noise finally breaking through the rime of numbness about her heart.

  “Shut up, you ugly whoreson.”

  The camel bellowed again, rolling what seemed to be a full gallon of spit around in its throat. It stomped, warbled, tossed its head. Mia sighed and turned her eyes to the direction the camel was gargling in. And there, in the distance, she saw a cloud rising from the southern reaches. Smudged on the horizon in dark red.

  “Storm, maybe?” she muttered. “The Ladies are still pissed at me.”

  A spray of white spittle came off Julius’s lips, and Mia slowly nodded. She doubted the Lady of Storms was in a hurry to black out the sky again.

  “Aye, you’re right. This is something else.”

  Reaching into her saddlebags, she withdrew a long spyglass, trimmed in brass. Holding it to her eye, she peered into the rising dust. For a moment, she had trouble finding focus among the rolling curtain of red. But finally, dying sunslight glinting on their speartips, glimmering on their plumed helms …

  “Fuck me very gently,” she breathed. “Then fuck me very hard.”

  Itreyan legionaries. Marching north in formation, their cloaks billowing in the whisperwinds. Row upon row. She saw by their standards that they were the Seventeenth Legion out of southern Ashkah. All ten cohorts, by the look. Five thousand men. And though it could be that their commander had simply sent his fellows north into a barren stretch of nightmare wasteland for a pleasant afternoon stroll, Mia knew in her heart they were marching toward her.

  Toward the Crown.

  But how in the Black Mother’s name …

  “Put some clothes on,” Mia hissed. “Jonnen’s going to sleep in here with us.”

  “Really?” Ash frowned, looking about her. “Shit, all right, give me a breath.”

  Mia shuffled her brother into the cabin as Ashlinn rolled out of the hammock, turned away from the door. The boy stood with his hands clasped before him, sneaking curious and furtive glances at the inkwerk on Ashlinn’s back …

  “Jonnen,” she breathed.

  Mia had no idea how Scaeva had sent word to the Ashkahi Legion about where she was headed. But he’d taken the godsblood. The might of a fallen divinity sang in his veins. Who knows what gifts he had at his disposal now? And in the end, she supposed it didn’t really matter how. He’d obviously done it, and she obviously had five thousand fully armed and armored cocks set to fuck her none too sweetly.

  The question was, what was she going to do about it?

  She looked to the Blackverge Mountains to the distant west, shot Julius an apologetic glance, and pulled out her riding crop.

  “I hope you’re not going to make me use this,” she said.

  * * *

  “Faster, you ugly fuck, faster!”

  Julius was in a froth, Mia bent over her reins and riding hard, the beast’s hooves thudding and thumping over the parched earth. The Lady of Blades, champion of the Venatus Magni, and Queen of Scoundrels had hoped she might get a good enough lead on the Seventeenth that pursuit would prove fruitless, but she hadn’t counted on their cavalry cohort. She could see a group of outriders now if she squinted—twenty men on swift horses, riding up hard from the south. They might not know the camel in front of them carried the girl they sought, but they were certainly coming for a look-see. Trying to scarper as fast as Julius could gallop probably wasn’t the best way to ease their curiosity, but Mia had hoped she could simply outrun them.

  The problem being, of course, that horses run faster than camels.

  “I never thought I’d say this,” Mia gasped, “but I miss Bastard.”

  Sadly, the thoroughbred stallion she’d stolen from the stables in Last Hope two years ago was nowhere to be seen, and Mia was stuck riding her snarling spittle-beast. The outriders bore down on her out of the southern heat haze, dust rising behind them. She’d been thoughtful enough to pack a crossbow from the Mountain’s armory, loading
a bolt and drawing the string.

  As the soldiers galloped closer, the lead outrider blew a long, quavering note on a silver-trimmed horn. Mia saw the men wore light leather armor, shortswords at their waists and shortbows in their free hands. Their livery and the thin crests of horsehair on their helms were stained a deep leaf-green, the standard of the Seventeenth emblazoned on cloaks dyed in the same shade.*

  “Halt!” the leader roared. “Halt in the name of the imperator!”

  “To the Abyss your imperator,” Mia growled.

  Mia raised her crossbow and let fly. The captain fell with a bolt in his chest, tumbling from his saddle with a grunt of pain. The other soldiers cried out in alarm, splitting up like a flock of swallows, scattering in all directions. Eight swung around behind Mia, another eight spurred their mounts ahead.

  And then,

  like a silent miracle at her back,

  Mia felt the red sun finally slip below the edge of the world.

  The sky shifted darker: moody indigo, fading through to sullen violet. Only one eye of Aa remained in the sky. Only one piece of the Everseeing’s hatred holding her gifts in check. Not quite truedark yet, no. She’d not been unleashed that much.

  But enough.

  Looking back over her shoulder, Mia saw a legionary raising his shortbow, taking aim toward her heart. She wondered for a moment what would happen if she let the arrow strike home. If it could truly pierce what had already been broken. Picturing pretty blue eyes and a smile that made her want to cry. And then she

                    Stepped

                                                                from Julius’s back

                                      to the archer’s horse, seizing his bow arm and turning it toward another rider. The man cursed in surprise, his arrow flew, striking his brother legionary in his neck and sending him flying off his mount. The archer cried out in alarm, let go of his bow, tried to draw his shortsword. His fellows roared warning, turned their bows on Mia. And the girl

                                                                                                                               Stepped

                                                    to the next horse

                                in the line as the soldiers loosed their arrows, piercing their comrade a dozen times. He clutched at his punctured chest, a garbled scream bubbling from his throat as he tumbled to the dust.

  Sitting in front of a new rider, sunslight behind him, Mia drew the longblade from her back and pushed it through his chest, gravebone splitting his chain mail as if it were dry parchment. A hail of arrows flew at her in answer, but she was already gone, Stepping to another rider’s shadow, slicing as she came. A stray shot killed one of the horses, the poor wretch snapping its legs and killing its rider as it crashed to the sands. The legionaries cried out in rage and alarm, unsure how to best this unholy foe.

  “Magik!” one shouted.

  “Sorcerii!” bellowed another.

  “Darkin!” the cry. “Darkin!”

  Mia continued her bloody work, Stepping to three more riders and cutting them down with her blade. It was wet and brutal work. Close enough to see the fear in their eyes. To hear the bubbling in their lungs or the catch in their breath as she ended them. An old refrain. So much red on her hands already. Too much to ever wash away. She wanted to pray as she slew. The benediction to Niah ringing unbidden in her mind.

  Hear me, Mother.

  Hear me now.

  This flesh your feast.

  This blood your wine.

  But in the end, she said nothing at all. Crimson hands and empty eyes. The riders scattering and shouting alarm, their horses whinnying in terror. By the time she was done, eight remained where twenty had begun. And Mia Stepped off her blood-soaked horse and back onto Julius, her face spattered with red. Wiping her blade clean and slipping it back into her scabbard, she watched as the soldiers dropped back in dismay, more than half their number wounded or slain. Mia took hold of her reins, urged her camel on harder. Looking down at her hands, sticky and wet.

  Goddess, the power …

  Mia looked up to the indigo sky, the thin wisps of cloud. The heat was failing now that Saan had fallen, the sweat cooling on her skin. The third eye of the Everseeing was yet open, the last remaining sun in the heavens looming at her back. But as sure as the world turned, Saai would soon sink to its rest.

  And what will I be then?

  The ring of distant horns and thunder of approaching hooves pulled her from her wonderings. Wiping her bloody hands on Julius’s flanks, Mia looked off to the south. She saw the outriders had fled back to their legion, tails between their legs. But now, through the fading pall of red, Mia could see a larger dust cloud approaching. Fingers still sticky, she fetched the spyglass from her bags and peered through it.

  “Bollocks,” she breathed.

  It seemed the Seventeenth’s commander hadn’t taken well to her treatment of his outriders. Galloping up from the south, Mia could see the legion’s whole cavalry cohort now charging at her—heavy horsemen, clad in thick iron and leather armor, gleaming helms set with tall horsehair plumes. Each soldier was armed with a spear, shield, crossbow, and shortsword. Their mounts were clad in barding made of boiled leather, whipping up a wall of dust in their wake.

  Five hundred of them.

  Mia looked to the Blackverge Mountains, still at least three turns’ ride away. She turned back to the boiling cloud of dust coming toward her, rising in the wake of two thousand pounding hooves. The charge was drawing closer with every breath. She was caught out in the open. Empty desert in front and behind. If she stole one of the dead scout’s horses, she’d be leaving all her supplies on Julius’s back. If she tried to outpace them on her camel, they’d just cut her down like scythes to the wheat.

  Julius bellowed, jowls wobbling.

  “Well, shit,” Mia muttered.

  CHAPTER 39

  FATHOMLESS

  Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  The Seventeenth’s cavalry was closing in on Mia, shaking the ground as they came. The horsehair crests on their helmets and their long cloaks were the color of forest leaves. Their mounts were black and rust-red, protected by thick sheaves of boiled leather. The glint of the last sun on their spears was like flashes of lightning. The sound of their hooves was thunder.

  “Maybe the Lady of Storms isn’t quite done with me yet,” Mia muttered.

  Saai cast a long light out of the west. Her camel’s shadow was a muddy smudge stretching out across the cracked earth and rolling dunes. But Mia’s was a deeper shade of black, sharper at the edges, dark enough for two. And it was moving.

  It would have been simpler to cloak herself beneath her mantle of shadows, disappear entirely. But if Jonnen had given Scaeva details about the map and the Crown, the Seventeenth would know where she was headed anyway. The foot soldiers wouldn’t move as swift, but she had to deal with their cavalry, one way or another. And so Mia set her shadow moving, sending it out across the wasted sands in a myriad of shapes, stretching toward that hateful sun. Calling to the dark, just as she’d done the turn she first met Naev, the turn she first fled for her life from—

  Ahead.

  Mia peered into the distance, saw a trail of churning earth approaching her out of the west—as if something colossal swum beneath the dirt. She glanced north, saw another two runnels co
nverging on her.

  “All right, bastards,” she murmured. “Let’s go give them a kiss.”

  Mia dragged on her reins, turning Julius toward the oncoming cavalry charge. Still twisting the shadows about her, she squinted at the oncoming horsemen. They were riding in formation, shields raised, spears pointed upward in a glittering thicket. Their line was a hundred horses wide, five deep, the leaf-green standards of the Seventeenth Legion streaming in the whisperwinds behind them.

  Mia leaned over the reins, urging Julius to run faster. Ahead, someone among the cavalry blew a long note on a horn. Every man in the first and second rows lowered his spear. Another blast rang out, and Mia saw the third and fourth rows string their bows, ready to loose a volley of two hundred arrows down on her head. She glanced behind her, the shadows about her twisting and coiling, peering at the lines of boiling earth converging on her position. The closest was only thirty or forty feet behind her now, hidden beneath the storm of dust Julius was kicking up.

  Closing fast.

  At the sound of another horn, the archers loosed a flight of black arrows into the air. Julius bellowed as Mia grabbed him hard by the ear, steering him away from the incoming hail. And with a prayer to the Mother on her lips, Mia reached out to her shadows and wrapped them about her and the beast she rode.

  The world dropped into a haze—not the black it had been beneath her cloak when two suns shone, but a blur nonetheless. Julius stumbled as he went half-blind, Mia clinging for dear life with her fingers, thighs, and teeth. But to his eternal credit, as smelly and ugly as he was, the beast didn’t fall. Overcome with a panic, Julius instead broke east as the arrows began to strike. Mia heard the patter of hundreds of shots into the sands she’d rode on a moment before. Arrows piercing the earth and the thing that swam beneath it.

  She heard the cavalry sound their horns again. The thunder of their hooves diminishing as they slackened their pace, dismayed at her disappearance.