“Exactly. So stop fuck-arsing about and get out of here.”
“And what shall ye do, little darkin? Destroy an army by thyself?”
“That’d be my problem, wouldn’t it?”
“… our problem…”
Adonai’s eyes never left Mia’s. His voice as cold and hard as stone.
“This cur threatened my sister love, my sister mine, little darkin. Were I thee and had need of his knowledge, on my life, I would ask my questions swift.”
Adonai gave a lazy wave of his hand. Osrik resurfaced from the blood pool again, coughing and blubbing, barely conscious.
“Osrik, can you hear me?”
“Mia, plea—”
“Shut the fuck up, you piece of shit,” she snarled. “You’ve got one chance to live and that’s by telling me what I want to know, understood?”
“I—” the boy sputtered, retching and coughing. “Aye.”
“You poisoned the initiation feast. Cassius, the Ministry and initiates?”
The boy nodded, bloody hair dripping in his eyes. “Aye.”
“None of them are dead?”
“N-no. We used a kind of Swoon. We had Carlotta brew a specialized dose that would act swifter than usual. Remus wanted the ministry alive for q-questioning.”
“What about Tric? He’d have smelled the Swoon in the meal a mile away. How did you stop him noticing?”
Osrik said nothing. Lips working silently.
“… Osrik?”
“Ashlinn, she…”
Mia knew it then. Heard it in his voice. Belly sinking into her toes. Remembering the way she’d felt in his arms. The way he’d kissed her.
She hadn’t loved him, but …
No.
She hadn’t loved him.
Mia opened her eyes. Looked up at Adonai. Breathed deep.
“That’s all I needed to know.”
“Mia, n—”
Osrik’s wail was swallowed up by the pool, the boy wrenched down to his doom.
“… mia, we must move…”
Mia nodded to the not-cat, took a moment to collect her thoughts.
“Adonai, you need to get out of here. Now.”
The speaker stared at her for a long moment, the only sound the faint splashing of his pool. But finally he reached to his neck, grasped a silver phial on a leather thong and snapped it loose. Mia recognized it—the same kind Naev had worn in the desert. The same kind that filled the alcoves in the Revered Mother’s rooms.
“My vitus,” Adonai said. “Shouldst thou triumph, spill it ’pon the floor, write as if the red were a tablet and thy finger the brush. I shall know it.”
Mia retied the phial about her neck, pawing coagulating gore from her lashes. She could feel it drying on her skin, cracking on her lips as she spoke.
“Go.”
Adonai gathered his sister in his arms, trod down the marble steps and into the churning flow. The blood seemed to cling to him as he walked, tiny tendrils rising off the surface and caressing him as he passed. He turned to Mia, nodded once.
“Good fortune to thee, little darkin. Thou shalt have a need of it.”
“When she wakes up, tell Marielle what happened here. Tell her she owes me.”
Adonai shook his head and smiled. “The dead are owed nothing.”
He spoke swiftly, humming discordant notes to the pool, like a father to a sleeping babe. The blood sang in reply, and in a rushing, iron-soaked flood, the pair disappeared beneath the swell. The surface fell still as a millpond. Not a ripple to mark their passing.
Mia wrung her hair out. Upended her boots to empty them of blood as best she could, stowed Osrik’s serrated blade at her shin. Mister Kindly watched the whole time, still and silent. But finally he whispered.
“… i am sorry about tric…”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”
“… you felt what you felt, mia. there is no need to deny it…”
“I’m not.”
A pause, filled with a quiet sigh.
“… no need to lie, either…”
The choir was silent.
It was the first thing she noticed as she stole from the speaker’s chambers, out into the Mountain’s dark. The ghostly tune that had accompanied her every moment within these halls was gone. Her footsteps seemed all the louder for it, breath rasping in her ears. It felt wrong. A splinter beneath her skin. A silence so loud it was deafening.
At the other end of the level, two Luminatii were stationed at the stairwells leading to higher ground. But their eyes were fixed above, of course, waiting for their justicus and his men to return. Mia stole toward them, quiet enough to make both Mercurio and Mouser beam with pride. She was less than a whisper as she rose up behind them. More than a blur as her gravebone blade sliced one man ear to ear, pierced the other’s heart as he turned to watch his comrade fall.
The soldier staggered, collapsing backward against the stairwell, hand to his chest. Eyes searching the darkness for what had killed him. And she threw aside her cloak then, just so he could see. See the pale waif soaked all in black and red, the mask of drying gore, the eyes beyond. See the shadow of a dead boy in her pupils as she reached out and covered his mouth, slicing his throat as she whispered.
“Hear me, Niah. Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.”
The not-cat at her feet swelled and rippled, drinking deep of the soldier’s final terror. And all around her, she could feel it. The dark. Whispering. Urging her on.
It was pleased.
Mia opened her arms, willed the shadows to rise, wrap the bodies up and drag them off into the darkness. She almost wished she could stay and watch as their comrades returned, finding only bloodstains to mark their passing. Watch as the first seeds of fear took root, and these men realized just how far they were from home. That the dark around them was not only angry. It was hungry.
She dashed up the stairs, met two more soldiers at the top, gifting them an end the same as the ones below. They seemed so small here in the Mountain’s belly. Without their sunblades and white mail and their cloaks like crimson rivers. Just tiny little men, their faith in the Everseeing not quite enough to protect them from his bride. From the one she’d marked. The one she’d chosen, in this, her house. Her altar. Her temple.
Mia was almost at the Hall of Eulogies when they spotted her. Quietly ending two legionaries, she failed to notice two more descending from above. She heard roars of alarm, turning in time to see the Luminatii rushing toward her. She slipped low and sliced one from knee to privates, severing his femoral artery and bleeding him out on the floor. The second cracked her across the temple with his club, and she staggered, wrapping his feet up in darkness and slipping behind him, burying her blade half a dozen times into his back. But she heard more shouts now, more running feet.
Half a dozen Luminatii were charging down the stairwell toward her, among them Alberius, head of the century himself. She could throw on her cloak of shadows, perhaps slip past them unnoticed. But the thought of Ashlinn’s betrayal, of what she’d done to Tric, of these bastards invading the place she’d come to think of as home—all of it burned in her chest with an intensity that almost frightened her.
No more running. No more hiding.
“All right, bastards,” she whispered. “Follow me.”
The legionaries saw her, shouted warning. She drew her gravebone dagger. Osrik’s blade in her off-hand. The dried blood at her lips cracking as she snarled, the shadows about her writhing as she charged up the stairs to meet them. Alberius and the legionary beside him were both as broad as houses, cudgels and shields raised. The centurion squinted at her in the dark, at the blade in her hand that had claimed his eye. Recognition at last dawning on his paling face.
“You…,” he breathed.
The centurion touched three fingers to his brow and held them out to Mia.
“Luminus Invicta!” he roared.
> Mia screamed wordlessly, heart singing as she raised her blades. The Luminatii roared answer, barreling down the stairs toward the blood-streaked daemon, raising their clubs, eyes growing wide as the girl stepped
into the shadow
at her feet
out of the shadows behind them
and kept right on running.
The Luminatii skidded to a halt, the rearmost soldier watching her disappear up the stair. Alberius bellowed and the chase was on, out along the broader hallways and into the Mountain proper. Mia saw four more Luminatii ahead, sprinting toward her. She picked up her pace, blades gleaming. And just as they reached her, cudgels raised, teeth bared, again she skipped
through the shadows
and out of the dark at their backs.
They turned, looked at her dumbfounded as she bent double, pausing to catch her breath. Alberius’s furious shouts ringing in the distance. And straightening, Mia raised the knuckles, blew them a kiss, and ran on.
There were thirty men chasing her by the time she arrived. More cries ringing through the Mountain, the sound of more approaching feet. Mia glanced over her shoulder and saw fury and murder in their eyes, skidding to a halt at a huge pair of double doors, slipping inside and sealing them behind her as she turned and ran.
Out into the dark of the athenaeum.
The Luminatii burst into the room, the doors swinging open and slamming into the small wooden trolley marked RETURNS that had been placed—rather carelessly, it might have appeared—directly in the door’s path.
The trolley upended, smashed to the stone, dozens of tomes sent sprawling, skittering, skidding. A red-faced Alberius stormed into the room and booted the trolley aside, more books sailing across the mezzanine as his soldiers fanned out around him. He scanned the dark, a black scowl on his brow.
And somewhere out in the forest of pages and shelves,
came a rumbling,
chuddering
roar.
“… What in the Everseeing’s name was that?” one soldier asked.
“Fan out!” the centurion ordered. “Find that heretic bitch and gut her!”
Twenty-nine salutes thumped against twenty-nine chests. The Luminatii marched down the stairs and into the shelves, weapons raised. Splitting wordlessly into small columns of six men apiece, they spread out, scouring aisle after aisle. Alberius led a group of his finest, narrowed eyes searching every nook and corner. Six years he must have lived with the lie. Sleepless nevernights spent worrying if the morrow would be the turn Scaeva discovered Corvere’s daughter still lived. And now was his chance to not only avenge the loss of his eye, but put to rest any fear of his failure coming to light.
I wonder if he thought himself lucky for it.
Out in the black, another roar sounded.
Closer now.
“Centurion?” one of his men asked. “What is that?”
Alberius paused, scanning the dark. He raised his voice, called over the shelves.
“Graccus? Belcino? Report!”
“No sign, sir!”
“Nothing, sir!”
Another roar. The sound of something heavy approaching.
Closer.
The good centurion looked troubled now. Second thoughts perhaps overcoming his initial fervor. And just as he opened his mouth to speak, he heard soft footsteps, a rippling breeze, a roar of pain. He turned, saw one of his legionaries clutching a stab wound in his back, a small, dark-haired girl staring at him from a mask of drying blood.
“Good turn, centurion,” she said.
“She’s here!” Alberius roared.
The girl smiled, gently tossing something at his chest. “A gift for you.”
The centurion raised his shield, smashed the object from the air. He realized it was some old book; leather-bound and dusty, the binding popping and a dozen pages bursting loose. It skidded across the floor, shedding more of its guts as it went.
“… unwise…,” came a whisper.
“Kill that fucki—”
Something reared up over the top of the shelves. Something huge, many-headed and monstrous, all blunt snouts and leathery skin and jaws full of O, too many teeth. The Luminatii cried out—to their credit, not in alarm, but warning—raising their little shields and toothpicks and roaring to the fellows in the other aisles. And then the Something struck, engulfing Centurion Alberius with those O, so many teeth and shaking him like a dog with a particularly sad and bloody little bone.
Soldiers came running. Soldiers ran screaming. More Somethings reared up over the shelves, huge and sightless, snapping and roaring and ripping the little men to pieces, all the while disturbing not a single page on a single shelf.
Back up on the mezzanine, Mia stepped from the shadows of the balustrade. Stood beside an old man, his back bent like a questionmark, leaning against the railing and watching the show.
“A girl with a story to tell,” Aelius smiled.
“So they say.”
“Smoke?”
“Maybe later.”
And she was gone.
CHAPTER 34
PURSUIT
She stole into the Hall of Truths, found it empty, faint light glittering on walls of green glass. But after carefully picking the lock and rummaging through Spiderkiller’s desk, she found them—the three bags of wyrdglass. Most of the onyx orbs had been used up, but the pouches containing the pearl and ruby wyrdglass were almost full. Two bags full of Swoon and Spiderkiller’s arkemical fire.
It’ll do.
Next, she headed to the Hall of Songs, stopping to softly murder two more Luminatii she found stationed in the Hall of Eulogies. She flitted past the unmarked tombs, trying not to picture Tric lying inside one. Turning the sorrow in her breast to rage. Halfway up the stairs, she found the bodies of murdered Hands, beaten and bludgeoned. Near the top, she found another dozen corpses, Marcellus and Petrus among them, eyes open wide and seeing nothing at all.
No time to pray.
No time to care.
She dashed into Solis’s hall, threw a heavy leather training jerkin over her blood-soaked shirt. Rummaging through the racks and stuffing her boots with daggers, strapping a fine, sharp gladius at her belt, slinging a bandolier of throwing knives about her chest and a quiver and crossbow at her back.
“Maw’s teeth…”
She spun at the whisper, crossbow raised, the shadows about her flaring. There at the top of the stairs, she saw figures robed in black, a bare half-dozen in total. Among them, she glimpsed red, bobbed hair, a pretty face, green, hunter’s eyes.
“… Jessamine?”
“Corvere,” the girl hissed. “What in the Mother’s name are you doing here?”
A veiled figure pushed her way through the group, a smile in her eyes.
“Naev is pleased to see her,” she said.
“Goddess, you’re all right!”
Mia ran across the room and threw her arms around the woman. But Naev flinched in Mia’s embrace, pushed away with a groan. Looking around, Mia could see most of the group were injured; Jessamine bleeding badly from a gash above her eye, her arm in a rough sling, a few others nursing broken wrists or ribs. Naev was breathing heavily now, clutching her side.
“What happened? Are you well?”
“Bastards came at us like a flood.” Jessamine winced, pawing the blood from her eyes. “No warning. Murdered every Hand and acolyte they could find. How the ’byss did they get inside? Where are the Ministry?”
“Likely in chains by now,” Mia said. “Ashlinn and Osrik betrayed us. Poisoned the initiation feast. Killed Tr—”
Mia bit down on the words. Shook her head.
“Ashlinn?” Jessamine breathed. “Osrik? But they’re blooded disciples.”
“Vengeance for their father.” Mia shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. Justicus Remus is here with two centuries of men. They’ve captured Lord Cassius and the Ministry. They mean to take them back to the ’Grave for torture and execution.”
“Then they are fools, to challenge Niah’s disciples in her house.” Naev turned to the other Hands. “Gather arms. Blades and bows.”
“You want me to fight alongside her?” Jessamine glared at Mia. “After she killed Diamo? Not bloody likely.”
“We must stand together in this.”
“I don’t have to stand anywhere near this bitch.”
“We don’t have time for our bullshit, Jess,” Mia said. “This is Justicus Marcus Remus we’re talking about. He helped end the Kingmaker Rebellion. He’s probably trodden on your father’s skull every turn for six years walking into the Senate House. All the shit you’ve given me? All the hate? This is a man who actually deserves to taste it.”
The girl searched Mia’s eyes, Diamo’s memory plain in her own. Seconds they didn’t have trickling through the hourglass. Hatred for Mia warring with hatred for the ones who’d seen her familia destroyed. But the truth of it was, she and Jess really were cut from the same cloth. Both orphans of the Kingmaker Rebellion. Both robbed of their familia. Held together by the kind of bond only hate can forge.
In the end, there was only one real choice.
“So what are we going to do?”
“Adonai is gone.” Mia saw Naev stiffen at the words, put a reassuring hand on her friend’s arm. “He’s taken Marielle. They’re safe. But without access to the Blood Walk, Remus is cut off. He only has one way back to Godsgrave.”
“The Whisperwastes,” Naev said.
Mia nodded. “They’ll know by now that the Blood Walk isn’t an option. But Ashlinn is with them. She can take them to the stables. They’ll be headed there, looking to ride our camel trains back to Last Hope.”
“So we hit them in the stables,” Jessamine said. “Cut them off.”
“Crowded quarters,” Naev agreed. “Their numbers will count for less.”
“You’re wounded,” Mia said. “All of you. It’s going to be a slaughterhouse in there and I don’t want—”
“Remind me again when I started giving a fuck what you want, Corvere?” Jessamine snapped. “You might believe you’re the Mother’s gift to the world, but you’re not half the blademaster you think you are. If you want a chance of ending these bastards, you’re going to need our help.”