Godsgrave

  “You know,” he growled, “there’s a special place in the abyss reserved for those who murder little girls.”

  Leona’s heart stilled. She looked to Anthea, then to her father. Never the type to waste a fine vintage, the man was raising his glass of Albari seventy-four with the rest, glittering blue eyes locked on her as he and his colleagues drank deep. Perhaps he thought it chance. Perhaps he simply didn’t care. But after he’d drunk deep from his cup, he looked at his daughter and gifted her a dark smile.

  Leona stared at the goblet the old man had given her. A thin strip of parchment was nestled in the bottom, six words scribed in black ink.

  “All the thanks I can muster.”

  Below it, she saw a sketch of a crow in flight above two crossed swords.

  The sigil of the Familia Corvere.

  Leona looked up into the old man’s eyes. Her own wide with realization. The old man pulled out a flintbox, lit his cigarillo, and dragged deep.

  “Should you want him, you’ll find Arkades in Blackbridge,” he said. “I’d not return to Crow’s Nest if you value your pretty neck. They’ll take everything from you. Your house. Your collegium. Your wealth. And you’ll have to leave your name behind. But you’ll still have your life if you scamper away now. That’s all she was willing to leave you, I’m afraid.”

  The old man scowled once more at Anthea, then turned and shuffled away, up through the sanguilas’ boxes and down the stairs. Leona looked again to her father, turning to her magistrae. The perfume of a funeral pyre in her nostrils. Mia’s voice echoing in her head.

  Look to those closest to you . . .

  “ . . . I need to use the privy,” she said. “I feel ill.”

  “But, Domina . . . ,” Magistrae began. “Your honors? They will be presen—”

  “ . . . I’ll only be a moment. Wait here until I return.”

  Magistrae frowned, but bowed low. “Your whisper, my will.”

  Leona nodded to her houseguards, gathered up her dress, and began marching up the stairs. Pausing, she turned back to her magistrae.

  “O, and Anthea?” She nodded to the tray in the woman’s arms. “Pour yourself a drink while I’m gone.”

  “Yes, Domina,” the woman frowned. “ . . . Thank you, Domina.”

  “Not at all,” Leona replied, turning away. “I believe you’ve earned it.”

  Patience.

  Mia stood on the central plinth, steady as the stone around her. The memory of that single, softly glowing orb in the heavens etched in her mind. That voice, echoing in her skull. Despite the three suns burning overhead, her grip on the dark felt stronger with Furian dead. Deeper, richer somehow, the shadow at her feet rippling, rolling, bleeding out across the flagstones toward . . .

  Scaeva.

  Duomo.

  “ . . . THEY COME . . .”

  “ . . . ever the observant one . . .”

  She could see them, making their way down to the arena’s edge. The crowd about them parting like a sea before the wave of Luminatii preceding them. Mia heard a mekwerk groan, the drake-infested waters churning as a large stone archway surfaced from the arena floor. Seawater pouring from its flanks, it slid into place, forming a broad bridge from the arena’s edge to the central plinth. Scaeva stood on one side, his son on his shoulders, raising three fingers to bless the adoring crowd.

  “ . . . he brings the boy . . .”

  “ . . . AND? HE THOUGHT NOTHING OF MURDERING MIA’S FATHER IN FRONT OF HER . . .”

  “ . . . so thirsty for blood, dear mongrel . . .”

  “ . . . GIRD YOURSELF, CUR. TIME FOR YOUNG LUCIUS TO LEARN LIFE’S HARSH REALITIES . . .”

  Mia fixed her eyes on Scaeva in his rich purple toga, Duomo behind him in his blood-red cardinal’s robes. As she watched, a half-dozen attendants took the cardinal’s staff from his hands, slipped off his vestments. Beneath, the great holy man was clad in a shift made of threadbare sackcloth, barefooted. He removed his rings, his golden bracelets, and finally, the blessed trinity of Aa hanging about his neck.

  Stripped bare.

  The holiest man in the Republic. The Hand of God himself, reduced to a beggar, just as the Father of Light had been in the old parable when he granted the generous slave his freedom. And soon, the champion of the magni would know that same freedom, bestowed by the voice of the Everseeing upon this earth.

  But first came the Luminatii and a bevy of arena attendants. Marching across the stone span, fat and sated stormdrakes cruising below. An entire century of soldiers, clad in gravebone armor, their sunsteel blades rippling with holy flame. Reaching the fortifications, they surrounded Mia, the attendants setting to work, tipping the bodies of the slaughtered gladiatii off the battlements and into the churning waters below. She spared a glance for Furian’s body, watching it tumble and splash down into the blue, the black at her feet rippling. A Luminatii centurion stood before Mia, wordlessly held out his hand, glancing to her bloody gladius. Mia gave over the blade without blinking.

  As the crowd chanted, cheered, the attendants quickly washed away the blood, gathered the fallen weapons and tossed them into the water beside the corpses of their owners, and scurried back across the bridge. Mia was left surrounded by Luminatii, flanking her on all sides, a hundred to her one.

  “Kneel, slave,” the centurion commanded.

  Mia did as she was told, knee and knuckles pressed to the stone, head bowed.

  Her gravebone dagger hidden back inside the iron bracer at her wrist.

  Trumpets rang. The procession began, Duomo first, his broad shoulders squared, beard bristling, three fingers raised as he marched across the bridge surrounded by yet more legionaries. Next came Scaeva, waving to the jubilant crowd, his son atop his shoulders holding the golden victor’s wreath. Mia kept her head down, glaring through her lashes as the cardinal approached, the Luminatii around her parting to allow him through.

  Duomo stopped before her, looked down with a gentle smile. It had been years since he’d seen her last. She had a new face and new scars to show for her time. But looking up into his eyes, she searched for recognition. Some sliver of understanding about who it was kneeling before him. Some acknowledgment of all he’d done.

  Nothing.

  He doesn’t even know me.

  More Luminatii, Scaeva marching behind, taking his time. Waving with his son to the crowd. And as he and his retinue drew nearer, closer, above the stubborn butterflies flitting about her belly, Mia felt it. A now familiar sensation.

  Hunger.

  Want.

  The longing of a puzzle, searching for a piece of itself.

  Maw’s teeth . . .

  Her eyes widened. Mouth dry as ashes.

  Someone here is darkin . . .

  She searched among the soldiers, felt no hint of hunger. Heart hammering, she looked to Duomo, but no . . . that would be impossible. She’d seen him wielding a blessed trinity in his hand—if he were darkin, sanctified sigils of Aa would repel him, just as she . . .

  O, Black Mother . . .

  . . . Scaeva?

  Her stomach sank. Eyes wide. But again, she’d seen him the truedark she attacked the Basilica Grande. There among the pews in Aa’s holy house, no ill effects among the Light Father’s faithful or his blessed symbols. But . . .

  O, Black Mother . . .

  The boy . . .

  Scaeva’s son.

  She looked at him, found him looking back, brow creased in puzzlement. He was dark of hair, dark of eye, just like her. And as her stomach sank toward her toes, in his face, the line of his cheeks, or perhaps the shape of his lips, she saw . . .

  “Luminus Invicta, heretic,” Remus said, raising the blade above her head. “I will give your brother your regards.”

  . . . she saw.

  “You have what is yours,” Alinne said. “Your hollow victory. Your precious Republic. I trust it keeps you warm in the nevernight.”

  Consul Julius looked down at Mia, his smile dark as bruises. “Would you l
ike to know what keeps me warm in the nevernight, little one?”

  No . . .

  Mia blinked in the gloom. Eyes searching the cell beyond.

  “Mother, where’s Jonnen?”

  The Dona Corvere mouthed shapeless words. She clawed her skin, dug her hands into her matted hair. Gritting her teeth and closing her eyes as tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “Gone,” she breathed. “With his father. Gone.”

  Not “dead.”

  Only “gone.”

  With his . . .

  . . . no.

  O, mother, please no . . .

  “Father,” the boy on Scaeva’s shoulder’s asked.

  “Yes, my son?” the consul replied.

  The child narrowed his ink-black eyes. Looking right at Mia.

  “I’m hungry . . .”

  Mia turned her eyes to the stone. Her heart was thundering now, despite all Mister Kindly’s and Eclipse’s efforts. Pulse rushing beneath her skin. The thought was too repulsive to believe, too awful, too horrifying, but glancing up again into the boy’s face, she saw it. The shape of her mother’s eyes. The bow of her lips. Memories of the babe she’d played with as a child, six years and a lifetime ago, flooding back into her mind and threatening to spill from her throat in a scream.

  Jonnen.

  O, sweet little Jonnen.

  My brother lives . . .

  Mind racing. Heart pounding. Sweat burning. Mia curled her hands into fists and pressed her knuckles into the stone as Cardinal Duomo stood before her and spread his arms wide, face upturned to the sky.

  Patience.

  “Father of Light!” Duomo called. “Creator of fire, water, storm and earth! We call you to bear witness, on this, your holy feast! Through right of combat and trial before your everseeing eyes, we name this slave a free woman, and beg you grant her the honor of your grace! Stand and speak your name, child, that all may know our victor!”

  Patience.

  “Crow!” the crowd roared. “CROW!”

  The name echoed on the arena walls.

  Reverberation.

  Admonition.

  Benediction.

  “Crow!Crow!Crow!Crow!”

  The girl rose slowly, standing like a mountain beneath those burning suns.

  “My name is Mia,” she said softly.

  Hand slipping to the gravebone blade at her wrist.

  “Mia Corvere.”

  Duomo’s eyes widened. Scaeva’s brow creased. The blade whistled as it came, slicing through the cardinal’s throat, ear to bloody ear. He staggered back, dark blood fountaining from the wound, fingers to his severed carotid and jugular. The spray hit her face, thick and red, warm on her lips as she moved, as the Luminatii moved, as everything around her moved. The crowd roaring in horror. The cardinal collapsing to the stone. The Luminatii crying out, raising their blades. And the girl. The Blade. The gladiatii. The daughter of a murdered house, child of a failed rebellion, victor of the greatest bloodsport the Republic had ever seen . . . she charged.

  Right at Julius Scaeva.

  Fear bleached his handsome features, his dark eyes wide with horror. The Luminatii moved to intercept her, but she was quick as shadows, sharp as razors, hard as steel. Scaeva cried out, lifting the boy off his shoulders, the child’s eyes wide with fear. And as Mia’s belly rolled, the consul held his son out like a shield, and coward among cowards, he threw the boy at Mia’s face.

  She cried out, hand outstretched, the child’s arms pinwheeling as he flew. The world slowed to a crawl, the suns pounding at her back, the heat of sunsteel flame rippling on her skin. She caught the boy, clutching him tight in her free arm, pulling him close. And rising up on her toes, she spun like a dancer, long dark hair streaming, arm outstretched in a glittering arc.

  Perfection.

  Her blade sank into Scaeva’s chest, buried all the way to the hilt. The consul gasped, eyes open wide. Mia’s face twisted, scar tissue pulling at her cheek, hatred like acid in her veins. All the miles, all the years, all the pain, coalescing in the muscles of her arm, corded and pulled tight as she dragged her blade sideways, splitting his ribs and cutting his heart in two. She left the gravebone blade quivering in his chest, the crow on the hilt smiling with its amber eyes, dark blood fountaining from the wound. And with the boy clutched tight to her chest, still spinning like poetry, like a picture, she twisted backward, over the edge of the battlements.

  And she fell.

  In turns to come, the next few moments would be the topic of countless taverna tales, dinner table debates, and barroom brawls across the city of Godsgrave.

  The confusion arose for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was around this moment where Magistrae, Leonides, Tacitus, Phillipi, and virtually every other sanguila and executus in the ringside boxes began vomiting blood from the poisoned goldwine they’d drunk, which proved more than a little distracting. The central plinth was a fair distance from even ringside seats, so it was difficult for many in the audience to see. And last, and most important, the grand cardinal and the consul had just been brutally murdered by the champion of the magni, which left everyone in the crowd a little shocked.

  Some said the girl fell, the boy in her arms, right into the mouth of a hungry stormdrake. Some said she hit the water, but avoided the drakes, making her escape through the pipes that had vented the ocean out onto the arena floor. And then there were those—discounted as madmen and drunks, for the most part—who swore by the Everseeing and all four of his Holy Daughters that this little slip of a girl, this daemon wrapped in leather and steel who’d just murdered the two highest officials in the Republic, simply disappeared. One moment falling toward the water in the long shadow of the battlements, the next, completely vanished.

  The arena was in an uproar, fury, dismay, terror. The blood masters collapsed in their seats, or fell to the stone, Leonides and Magistrae dead among them, every gladiatii stable in the Republic beheaded with a single stroke. Duomo lay on the battlements, his face bled white, throat cut to the bone. And beside the grand cardinal, his purple robe drenched with dark heart’s blood, lay the savior of the Republic.

  Julius Scaeva, the People’s Senator, the man who had bested the Kingmakers and rescued Itreya from calamity, had been assassinated.

  36: godsgrave

  Ashlinn stole through the city of Bridges and Bones like a knife through a consul’s chest. The sounds of panic were swelling in the arena behind them, the girl’s heart singing as cathedrals all over the city began ringing a death knell.

  “Black Mother, she did it.”

  She chewed her lip, stifling a fierce grin.

  “She did it.”

  Ash moved quicker, over canals and through the twisting thoroughfares of the marrowborn district. The three suns blazed above, the heat relentless, sweat soaking her through. She would have stopped for a breather, but truth was, she had no time to breathe. From the sounds of chaos rising from the distant arena, word of Scaeva’s death was spreading across the city like a brushfire. Soon the Red Church would know their beloved patron was dead, and all the fury of the acolytes of Our Lady of Blessed Murder would be raining down on their heads.

  She had to meet Mercurio at the necropolis, then Mia in the harbor. From there, they could slip out into the blue where no Blade or member of the Ministry could find them. Then she could rest. Breathe. Sink into Mia’s arms and never, ever let go again.

  Ashlinn made her way in the shadow of the Ribs, over a broad marble span to the Sword Arm. The air was slowly filling with the song of tolling bells, panicked shouts ringing through the city behind her. A boy ran past, eyes wide, waving his cap and yelling in a shrill voice.

  “The consul and cardinal slain!”

  “Assassin!” came another distant shout. “Assassin!”

  She reached the wrought-iron fences surrounding the houses of Godsgrave’s dead. Slipping through the tall gates, Ashlinn made her way to a door carved with a relief of human skulls, and down into the dank shadows of the
necropolis. Swift and silent, she stole through the twisted tunnels of femurs and ribs, to the tomb of some long-forgotten senator. Pulling a small lever to reveal a hidden door in a stack of dusty bones, and finally, slipping into the corridors of the Red Church chapel.

  Dark.

  Quiet.

  Safe at last.

  She dashed to Mia’s sparse bedchamber, snatched up a small leather pack and Mia’s precious gravebone longsword. The crow’s eyes on the hilt glittered red in the low light, Ash sparing a glance for the empty bed, the empty walls, the empty dark. And turning on her heel, she dashed back down the corridor to Mercurio’s office.

  “Are you ready t—”

  Ashlinn’s heart stilled in her chest. Sitting behind Mercurio’s desk, fingers steepled at her chin, was an elderly woman with curling gray hair. She seemed a kindly old thing, eyes twinkling as she looked Ashlinn up and down. Though she sat in the bishop’s chair, she wouldn’t have seemed out of place beside a happy hearth, grandchildren on her knee and a cup of tea by her elbow.

  “Revered Mother Drusilla,” Ashlinn breathed.

  “O, no, young Dona Järnheim,” the old woman said. “I’ve not been Revered Mother since your treachery saw Lord Cassius murdered. Now, I am Lady of Blades.”

  Ashlinn looked about the room. Four other figures, swathed in gloom—the entire Red Church Ministry, waiting for her. Aalea with her death-black stare and blood-red lips. Spiderkiller, glowering in a gown of emerald green. Mouser with his old man’s eyes and his young man’s smile. And finally, Solis, blind gaze upturned to the ceiling, glowering at her nonetheless.

  Ashlinn’s grip tightened on Mia’s gravebone sword.

  “ . . . Where’s Mercurio?” she demanded.

  “The bishop of Godsgrave is already back at the Quiet Mountain,” Solis said.

  “He put up some resistance,” Mouser said. “We had to hurt him, I’m afraid.”

  Spiderkiller looked at Ashlinn with black, glittering eyes. “There are some among us who are dearly hoping the same can be said of you, child.”

  “Please,” Drusilla waved to the chair in front of her. “Sit.”