“ . . . mia . . . !”
Ash struck again, forcing Mia’s back against the bell tower’s wall. Mia raised her longsword into guard, gasping and blinking and trying to stop the world from spinning.
“Learned a few new tricks, love?” Ashlinn smiled, dagger in hand.
The girl reached down her leg, fishing about inside her boot. It took her a moment, but finally she found what she sought, drawing out a long golden chain with a blazing kick to Mia’s belly spinning at the end of it.
Aa’s trinity.
Mia hissed like she’d been scalded. Mister Kindly yowled, slithering away across the rooftops. The basilica bells started tolling the hour, joined by the countless other cathedrals across the City of Bridges and Bones. Mia dropped to her knees, puking. The agony of it almost made her scream, the sight of those three suns—white gold, rose gold, yellow gold—was blinding. She scrambled back against the bell tower, hands up to shield her eyes from that awful, burning light.
“Looks like the old tricks still work, then,” Ashlinn said.
The bells fell silent, the rain still falling overhead. Ash looked about them, over the basilica’s gutter to the drop below. Another novice of Aa was down in the courtyard now, pointing with his fellow at the girls on the roof.
“It’s good to see you, Mia,” Ash said softly.
“F-fuck . . . y-y—”
“I wondered if Drusilla would send you after me. I think out of all of them, you knew me best.” Ash twirled the holy symbol around her finger. “Kept this, just in case. But you tell that crusty old bitch if she wants me dead, she can come herself. Because I’m surely coming for her. Her and all her merry fucking band.”
Ash hung the medallion around her neck, rendered in silhouette against that awful, blistering hatred. The fury of a god, burning Mia blind.
“I’m sorry it was you, Mia,” Ash sighed. “I always liked you. You’re better than that place. Those murd—”
The dagger struck Ashlinn’s shoulder. Blood sprayed, bright red between the raindrops. Ash twisted aside, another blade whistling past her cheek and chopping off a lock of her hair.
“Traitor!”
And as the blond curl fell, tumbling, turning toward the tiles, Jessamine dragged herself up over the guttering and flew at Ashlinn with her rapier drawn.
The smell of hot food met them as they emerged from the cellar.
Magistrae had met them in the bathhouse in exactly twenty minutes, carrying a bundle of new clothes. Not even Sidonius was fool enough to keep her waiting.
Once Mia had dressed in all she’d been given, she was tempted to ask where the rest of her outfit was. She wore a loincloth of padded gray linen, a leather belt to keep it in place. Her breasts were strapped with another strip of padded gray, leather sandals laced halfway up her shins. Her comrades wore even less—just loincloths and sandals for Sidonius and Matteo, with heavy leather cups to protect their dangles from the worst training might offer. The weather approaching truelight was so hot, the lack of material wouldn’t bother anyone. But very little was being left to the imagination . . .
Sidonius wiggled his codpiece side to side. “I hear it’s what all the marrowborn gentry are wearing in the ’Grave this year.”
In a flash, a guard whipped out his truncheon and cracked it across the back of Sid’s legs. The big man collapsed to his knees with a cry.
“For the last time, you will speak only when spoken to in my presence,” Magistrae said. “Forget your place again, and I’ll fashion you a worthy remembering. You can die on the sands just as well without a tongue in your head.”
Sidonius grunted apology, and Mia helped the big man to his feet with a sigh. The big Itreyan wasn’t the sharpest sword she’d ever met, but when living like a dog, you don’t get to pick your fleas.
The houseguards escorted the trio upstairs to the verandah. The gladiatii were gathered at long benches, shoveling bowls of porridge home with all the appetite of folk who’d spent the turn sweating under the boiling suns. Magistrae nodded to a stick-thin man in a leather apron serving food. He had a crooked eye, a single circle marked on his cheek, and very few teeth in his head. Mia’s mother had warned her never to trust a thin chef. But again, when living like a dog . . .
“Eat,” Magistrae ordered, tossing her long gray braid over her shoulder. “You will need your strength amorrow.”
Sidonius stalked toward the cook like a man at purpose, Mia and Matteo following. The girl realized she hadn’t eaten since yestereve, but beneath her hunger, she still felt that cold queasiness from earlier in the afternoon. Scanning the faces of the gladiatii, she found Furian at the head of the first bench. The man had tied his long black hair back in a braid, speaking to the Dweymeri man between mouthfuls.
He glanced up as she entered, turned his gaze away just as swift. Questions burned in Mia’s mind, backing up behind her teeth.
Patience.
She followed Sidonius to the porridge pot and snatched up a wooden bowl, almost drooling at the aroma. The thin man served a great, sloppy spoonful to Matteo.
“Oi, I was here first, you scrawny shit,” Sidonius growled.
A meaty paw pushed the chef aside. Mia recognized the big Liisian gladiatii with a face like a dropped pie as he snatched the ladle. His head was shaved, only a tiny crop of dark hair remaining, like a cock’s comb on his scalp. His face was pockmarked, his smile crooked—and not in the roguishly handsome sort of way. More in a dropped-one-too-many-times-on-his-head-as-a-babe kind of way.
“Pleasant turn to you, gentlefriends,” he bowed. “Welcome to Remus Collegium.”
Sidonius nodded greeting. “My thanks, brother.”
Mia noted the other gladiatii all watching. Her hackles rising.
“O, think nothing of it,” the pieman said. “Butcher, they name me. The Butcher of Amai.” The Liisian looked them over with a smile. “Long journey from the Gardens? You must be hungrier than a breadline strumpet on the rag, neh?”
“Aye,” Sidonius nodded. “We’ve not eaten since yesterturn.”
“O, you’ll find your needs well fixed presently. No better pigswill in all the Republic than’s served by our domina.” He rubbed his chin, thoughtful. “The porridge can be a touch bland, though. But no fear, I’ve just the spice.”
The big Liisian reached into his loincloth with a grin. And without further ado, he whipped out his cock, and took a long noisy piss into the porridge pot.
The gladiatii erupted into howls of laughter, thumping the tables and calling Butcher’s name. The big Liisian looked Mia square in the eye and he milked the last drops from his bladder, then turned back to Sidonius. His grin had evaporated utterly.
“You call me ‘brother’ again, I’ll piss in your dinner and fucking drown you in it. My brothers and sisters under this roof are gladiatii.” Butcher thumped his chest. “Until you last the Winnowing, you’re nothing.”
Butcher strode back to his meal, slapped on his back by several others. Mia stood with bowl in hand, the stench of fresh urine in her nostrils.
“I find myself not as hungry as I first thought,” she confessed.
“Aye,” Sidonius said. “We’re of like mind, little Crow.”
The trio found an empty bench, Mia and Sidonius staring while the other gladiatii ate their fill. After one look at their mournful expressions, Matteo scooped a spoonful of his own meal into Sidonius’s bowl, another into Mia’s. The big Itreyan watched in disbelief, Mia stared into Matteo’s eyes.
“Are you certain?”
“Eat, mi dona,” he smiled. “You’d do the same for me.”
Mia shrugged, and she and Sidonius scoffed down the food without pause. The big mastiff wandered into the mess area, sniffing around on the floor for scraps. He mooched up to Matteo, eyeing his now empty bowl and wagging his stubby tail.
“Sorry friend,” Matteo sighed. “If I had a crumb left, I’d share it.”
Mia watched the boy sidelong as he patted the big dog, scruffing h
im behind his ears and grinning as his hind leg began thumping on the floor.
“His name is Fang,” said a voice.
Mia looked up, saw the little girl named Maggot sitting in the rafters above their heads. Mia could remember climbing those some gables when she was a little girl, her mother scolding, her father applauding. That had ever been their way—Justicus Corvere indulging her tomboyish impulses, and the dona trying to sculpt her into a prize fit to marry off one turn. Mia wondered how her life might look if things had been different. Where she’d be if General Antonius had become king by her father’s hand. Probably nowhere with a brand on her cheek and the stink of piss in her nose . . .
“Fang,” Matteo smiled, patting the dog’s shoulders. “A fine name.”
“He likes you,” the little girl said.
“I had hounds at home. I’ve a way with them.”
He smiled wider, dark eyes sparkling. Too pretty for this place by far. But Maggot seemed to approve, ducking her head to hide her blush as she scrambled away.
With the meal finished, the gladiatii were marched down to the cellars. Mia, Sidonius and Matteo shuffled along in the rear, no word spoken to them that wasn’t an order, no attention paid that wasn’t a shove or a sneer. After only a handful of hours living at the bottom of the barrel, Mia found the novelty wearing thin. She wondered where Mister Kindly was, if he’d yet made it to Whitekeep and met—
“Looks like our champion is too good to sleep with the rest of us plebs,” Sidonius muttered. “Effete wanker.”
Mia followed the Itreyan’s stare, saw Furian being escorted further into the keep, instead of down to the barracks.
The Vaanian girl turned on Sid with a scowl.
“I’d watch that tongue of yours, Itreyan.”
“Normally women offer to buy me a drink first,” Sidonius grinned. “But, aye. You can watch it if please you, Dona. Where would you like me to put it?”
Mia rolled her eyes and sighed. The girl seized Sidonius by his codpiece, squeezing tight as he squeaked.
“Up your arsehole, you dopey fuck,” she spat. “Furian the Unfallen is champion of this collegium. He sleeps apart from us, as is his right. You can speak ill of him when you best him in the venatus. Until then, shut your mouth, lest I shut it for you.”
“Move!” barked the guard behind them.
The girl released her grip on Sidonius’s jewels, stomped down the stairs. The big Itreyan sagged against Mia, and since she’d had already kneed him in the dangles today, she was charitable enough to help him walk.
“You’ve certainly got a way with women, Sid,” Matteo sighed, propping up the big Itreyan’s other shoulder.
“J-just what your mother said,” the big man winced.
The gladiatii gathered in the antechamber, and with a twist of that odd-key in the mekwork on the wall, the portcullis opened to the barracks beyond. Mia was led into a wide cell littered with fresh straw, Sidonius and Matteo behind her. Once each gladiatii was in their allotted cage, the guard in the antechamber outside flipped a lever. Each door slammed closed, the mekwerk locks thudded home, and in a moment, every warrior was secured behind a lattice of iron bars over three inches thick.
Now Mia saw the reason behind the dona letting her property sleep down here in the dark and the cool. It seemed for all her love of her precious “Falcons,” Leona didn’t want any of them flying their coop.
The arkemical lights burned low, the gladiatii talking among themselves out in the gloom. Mia listened to the warriors murmur, noting the blend of accents and timbres. The Dweymeri woman with the extensive tattoos had her own cell across the corridor, with genuine stone walls that offered some small privacy. Beneath the door, Mia could hear soft singing.
Without warning, the talk died, silence falling like fog. Mia heard a familiar clink thump, clink thump on the stone. She saw the towering figure of the executus limping among the cells, that hateful whip in his hand. His long salt-and-pepper hair was arranged about his shoulders like a mane, his beard freshly combed. That awful scar cut down his face, casting a long shadow across his features.
“I’ve been away from these walls too long, it seems,” he growled. “If you’ve strength to sit up and chatter like maids at loom, you’ve obviously not been worked hard enough.”
Passing by Mia’s cell, he barely deigned to look at her. Executus limped back to the portcullis, blue eyes twinkling in the gloom.
“Rest your heads, Falcons,” he called. “Tomorrow will be a long turn. I vow it.”
The portcullis slammed shut with a mekwerk whine. Mia shook her head, mumbling under her breath. Sidonius grumbled too, voice thickened by his broken nose.
“I hope I get a chance in the circle with that bastard on the morrow. I’ll knock his block off and fuck his corpse before it’s cold.”
“You’d need a cock for that, coward.”
The barb came from across the corridor. Mia looked up to see Butcher, the Ruiner of Porridges, watching them from between the bars of his cage. His face was all bent nose and pockmarked skin, his body a patchwork of scar tissue.
Sidonius scowled at the gladiatii. “Call me coward again, I’ll kill you and your whole fucking family.”
“Talk, talk, little one,” Butcher’s lips twisted in an ugly smirk. “You’ll see how much it avails you when you step into the circle with Executus.”
“Pfft, you think I can’t dance with a lame old dog like that?”
Butcher shook his head. “You’re talking about one of the greatest gladiatii to walk the sand, you ignorant fool. He’ll chew you up and use your bones for toothpicks.”
Sidonius blinked. “Eh?”
“You never heard of the Red Lion of Itreya?”
“’Byss and blood.” Mia looked to the gate Executus had left by. “That’s Arkades?”
Matteo rubbed his eyes, sat up a little. “Who’s Arkades?”
Butcher scoffed. “Clueless, the lot of them . . .”
“The Red Lion, they called him,” Mia said.
“ . . . Executus used to be a slave like us?” Matteo asked.
“Not like you, you worthless shit,” Butcher snarled. “He was fucking gladiatii.”
“Victor of the Venatus Magni ten years back.” Mia spoke softly, voice hushed with awe. “The Ultima was a free-for-all. Every gladiatii who’d been signed up for the games was released onto the sand for that final match. One warrior sent out every minute until the killing was done. Must’ve been almost two hundred.”
“Two hundred and forty-three,” Butcher said.
“And Executus killed them all?” Matteo breathed.
“Not by himself,” Mia said. “But he was the last standing when the butchery was done. They say the sand in Godsgrave arena has never been the same color since.”
“So they named him the Red Lion,” Butcher said. “He won his freedom under Leonides’s colors, see? Standing on a leg so badly broken, they had to cut it off afterward.” He sneered at Sid. “Still want to dance with him, little man?”
Sidonius scowled, remained silent.
“I commanded you to sleep!” came the bellow from the portcullis.
Butcher sniffed, rolled over on his straw. Matteo did likewise, and after a few choice curses, Sid curled up with his back to them all. Mia sat brooding in the gloom.
The arkemical globes faded, their glow dying slow. Darkness fell in the barracks, only the faintest chinks of sunslight falling across the threshold from the stairs above. Mia felt it crawling across her scalp, goosebumps rising on her skin. The air down here was stifling, the stink of straw and sweat thick in the air. But at least it was dark.
It almost felt like home.
She waited an hour, until every chest rose and fell with the rhythm of slumber. Matteo murmuring. Sidonius snoring softly. Mia looked around the gloom, making sure each of her fellows was still. She closed her eyes. Held her breath
and Stepped
out of the shadows
in her cell
and into the shadows
of the antechamber
The room swam and she steadied herself against the wall. She could feel the heat of those two blazing suns in the sky above. Crouching low, she peered through the portcullis, back to the cells. And content her absence was unmarked, she stole like a whisper up into the keep.
Without Mister Kindly or Eclipse in her shadow, her heart was pounding, her palms damp with fear. She knew the building’s layout like she knew her own name, but with no eyes to see except her own, she felt utterly alone. She could have waited until the shadowcat returned from Whitekeep with news, but her questions couldn’t. Since the turn her father died, she’d wondered what she was. Now, all the answers might be only a heartbeat away . . .
She moved swift, all Shahiid Mouser’s lessons ringing in her head. Listening for the tread of the houseguards who walked the lower levels. There was only one pair patrolling inside and it was easy enough to avoid them, sneaking through the silken curtains and ducking out of sight, making her way toward the kitchens.
She found them empty, the starving chef nowhere to be seen. But there was food aplenty in the larder and Mia dove in face first, eating her fill. If she was to survive the Winnowing, she’d need every ounce of strength she could muster. She stole two steel forks, then slipped from the kitchens without a sound.
She dodged the patrol again, listening to the sickness in her belly and working her way by feel. She passed a long tapestry depicting the venatus—gladiatii clashing with fantastical beasts. Sets of gladiatii armor lined the hallway, sunslight glinting on crested helms and breastplates of polished steel. Fear rising now, churning in her belly as she reached a room with a barred slit, an iron lock.
And beyond it . . .
She took the two forks from her loincloth, bent the tines against the wall. Turning her ear for the guards, she knelt before the keyhole and set to work. Soon enough, it popped open, the door came next, and with a glance over her shoulder for the guards, she stole inside.
Hands around her neck, twisting tight, flipping over a broad shoulder and sending her crashing to the floor. Stars burst in her eyes as her skull cracked on the flagstones, an elbow jammed into her throat. She blinked up into a pair of glittering brown eyes, a handsome face framed by flowing locks of raven black.