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Copyright
HarperVoyager
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First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2017
Copyright © Neverafter PTY LTD 2017
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Cover Illustration © Kerby Rosanes
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Jay Kristoff asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008180065
Ebook Edition © September 2017 ISBN: 9780008180058
Version: 2018-06-04
Dedication
for my enemies
I couldn’t have done it without you
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Maps
Dramatis Personae
Epigraph
Book 1: The Red Promise
Chapter 1: Perfume
Chapter 2: Firemass
Chapter 3: Shadows
Chapter 4: Offering
Chapter 5: Devotion
Chapter 6: Mortality
Chapter 7: Hungers
Chapter 8: Prayers
Chapter 9: Stepping
Chapter 10: Secrets
Chapter 11: Thunder
Chapter 12: Epiphany
Book 2: Blood And Glory
Chapter 13: Egress
Chapter 14: Breathing
Chapter 15: Right
Chapter 16: Honey
Chapter 17: Stormwatch
Chapter 18: Gloria
Chapter 19: Yield
Chapter 20: Three
Chapter 21: Please
Chapter 22: Quiet
Chapter 23: Whitekeep
Chapter 24: Obsidian
Book 3: The Game
Chapter 25: Rot
Chapter 26: Silver
Chapter 27: Serving
Chapter 28: Scars
Chapter 29: Rise
Chapter 30: Interlude
Chapter 31: Truelight
Chapter 32: Gently
Chapter 33: Begin
Chapter 34: Magni
Chapter 35: Gone
Chapter 36: Godsgrave
Dicta Ultima
Acknowledgements
Bonus Content
Footnotes
About the Author
Also by Jay Kristoff
About the Publisher
Maps
Good turn to you, gentlefriends. It’s lovely to see you again.
I confess, I missed you in our time apart. And now, reunited, would that I could simply greet you with a smile, and let you be about the business of murder and revenge and occasional lashings of tastefully written smut. But before we slip back between the pages together, I should impart a warning true.
Memory is a traitor, and a liar, and a good-for-nothing thief. And though our drama’s cast is doubtless inked indelibly on your psyche, we must sometimes make allowances for the lesser among you mortals.
So, perhaps a refresher is in order?
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
Mia Corvere—assassin, thief, and heroine of our tale—if our tale can be said to have one at all. Her father, Darius, was executed under order of the Itreyan Senate and, vowing vengeance, she became a disciple of the Republic’s most feared cult of assassins, the Red Church.
Though she failed the Church’s trials, Mia was inducted as a Blade (aka assassin) after rescuing the Church’s ministry during an assault by Luminatii legionaries.
Mia is of mixed Itreyan-Liisian blood. She is also darkin—one who controls the darkness itself. She has little understanding of her powers, and the only other darkin she has ever met died before he could give her the answers she desired.
Tragic, I know.
Mister Kindly—a daemon, passenger, or familiar (depending on who one asks) made of shadows, who eats Mia’s fear. He saved her life as a child, and claims to know very little about his true nature, though he’s been known to lie from time to time.
He wears the shape of a cat, though he is nothing close to a cat at all.
Eclipse—another shadow daemon, who wears the guise of a wolf. Eclipse was passenger to Lord Cassius, former head of the Red Church. When Cassius died during the Luminatii assault, Eclipse bound herself to Mia instead.
Like most dogs and cats, she and Mister Kindly do not get along.
Old Mercurio—Mia’s trainer and confidant in the time before she joined the Red Church. Mercurio was a Church Blade himself for many years, but is now retired in Godsgrave. The old Itreyan runs a store named Mercurio’s Curios and serves as an information broker and talent scout for the servants of the Black Mother.
A grumpier old bastard was never found under any of the three suns.
Tric—an acolyte of the Red Church, also Mia’s friend and lover. Tric was of mixed Itreyan-Dweymeri heritage. He was poised to be inducted into the Blades, but Ashlinn Järnheim stabbed him repeatedly in the heart and pushed him off the side of the Quiet Mountain.
As a promise to Tric, Mia assassinated Tric’s grandfather, Swordbreaker, king of the Dweymeri Isles, after the boy’s death.
Which wasn’t all that sensible, when you think about it …
Ashlinn Järnheim—an acolyte of the Red Church and formerly one of Mia’s closest friends. Ash was born in Vaan, and is the daughter of Torvar Järnheim, a retired Blade of the Church. As vengeance for a maiming he received in the Mother’s service, he and his children hatched a plot that almost brought the entire Church to its knees, though their conspiracy was finally foiled by Mia.
Ash’s brother, Osrik, was killed in the process, but Ashlinn escaped.
Ash’s feelings about Mia are best described as … complicated.
Naev—a Hand (aka disciple) of the Red Church and close friend of Mia, who manages supply runs in the desolate Whisperwastes of Ashkah. Naev was disfigured by Weaver Marielle out of jealousy, but as reward for Mia’s assistance during the Luminatii assault, Marielle restored Naev’s former beauty.
Naev never forgets and never forgives—one of the reasons she and Mia get along.
Drusilla—Revered Mother of the Red Church and, despite her apparent old age, one of the deadliest servants of the Black Mother alive. Drusilla failed Mia in her final trial, and it was only after the intercession of Cassius, Lord of Blades, that the girl was inducted.
To put it kindly, she is not Mia’s greatest fan.
Solis—Shahiid of Songs, trainer of Red Church acolytes in the art of steel. Mia cut his face during their first sparring session. Solis hacked off her arm in retaliation.
They get along swimmingly now, as you can imagine.fn1
Spiderkiller—voted “Shahiid Most Likely to Murder Her Own Students” five years running, Spiderkiller is mistress of the Hall of Truth. Mia was one of her most promising acolytes, but after she failed Drusilla’s final test, Spiderkiller’s fondness for the girl has all but evaporated.
Mouser—Shahiid of Pockets and master of thievery. Charming, witty, and as fond of larceny as he is of wearing ladies’ underthings. The Itreyan has no strong enmity toward Mia, which practically makes him the leader of her fan club.
Aalea—Shahiid of Masks and mistress of secrets. It is said there are only two types of folk in this world: those who love Aalea, and those who’ve yet to meet her.
She actually seems quite fond of Mia.
Shocking, aye?
Marielle—one of two albino sorcerii in the service of the Church. Marielle is a master of the ancient Ashkahi magik of flesh weaving, capable of sculpting skin and muscle as if it were clay. However, the toll she pays for her power is a steep one—her own flesh is hideous to behold, and she has no power to change it.
Marielle cares for no one save her brother Adonai, and he, perhaps too much.
Adonai—the second sorcerii who serves the Quiet Mountain. Adonai is a blood speaker, capable of manipulating human vitus. Thanks to his sister’s arts, he is handsome beyond compare.
Though, I do recall a saying about books and covers …
Aelius—the chronicler of the Quiet Mountain, charged with maintaining some semblance of order in the Red Church’s great Athenaeum.
Like everything else in Niah’s library, Aelius is dead.
He seems a little ambivalent about the fact.
Hush—a former acolyte of the Red Church, now a full-fledged Blade. Hush never speaks, instead communicating through a form of sign language known as Tongueless.
The Itreyan boy assisted Mia in her final trials, though he’d insist they are not friends.
Jessamine Gratianus—a Red Church acolyte from Mia’s crop who failed to become a Blade. Jessamine is the daughter of Marcinus, an Itreyan centurion executed for his loyalty to Mia’s father, Darius “the Kingmaker” Corvere. Jess blames Darius, and by extension, Mia herself, for her father’s death—though in truth, the girls have much in common.
The desire to see Consul Julius Scaeva gutted like a pig, for example.
Julius Scaeva—thrice-elected consul of the Itreyan Senate. Scaeva has maintained sole consulship since the Kingmaker Rebellion six years ago. The position is usually shared, and consuls sit only one term, but with Scaeva, the rules seem not to apply.
He presided over the execution of Mia’s father, and sentenced her mother and baby brother to die in the Philosopher’s Stone. He also ordered Mia drowned in a canal.
Yes, he’s something of a cunt.
Francesco Duomo—grand cardinal of the Church of the Light, and the most powerful member of the Everseeing’s ministry. Along with Scaeva and Remus, he was responsible for passing sentence on the Kingmaker rebels.
Duomo is the right hand of Aa upon this earth. The mere sight of a holy relic blessed by a man of his conviction is enough to send Mia writhing in agony.
Stabbing the bleeding fuck out of him may prove problematic as a result.
Justicus Marcus Remus—former justicus of the Luminatii Legion, and leader of the attack on the Quiet Mountain. During his climactic confrontation with Mia, Remus made several cryptic remarks about Mia’s brother, Jonnen.
Mia stabbed the Itreyan to death before he could fully explain himself.
He was not pleased.
Alinne Corvere—Mia’s mother. Though she was born in Liis, Alinne rose to prominence in the halls of Itreyan power. She was a political genius, and a dona of no little esteem and will. Imprisoned in the Philosopher’s Stone with her infant son after her husband’s failed rebellion, she died in madness and misery.
Yes, I quite liked her, too.
Darius “the Kingmaker” Corvere—Mia’s father. Former justicus of the Luminatii Legion, Darius forged an alliance with General Gaius Maxinius Antonius that would have seen Antonius crowned as king. Together, the two Itreyans raised an army and marched on their own capital, but were both captured on the eve of battle. Without leadership, their army shattered. Their troops were crucified, and Darius himself was hung with his would-be king Antonius beside him.
So close they could almost touch.
Jonnen Corvere—Mia’s brother. An infant at the time of his father’s rebellion, Jonnen was imprisoned with his mother in the Stone at the order of Julius Scaeva. He died there before Mia ever had a chance to rescue him.
Aa—the Father of Light, also known as the Everseeing. The three suns, known as Saan (the Seer), Saai (the Knower), and Shiih (the Watcher), are said to be his eyes, and one or more is usually present in the heavens, with the result that actual nighttime, or truedark, occurs for only one week every two and a half years.
Aa is a beneficent god, kind to his subjects and merciful to his enemies. And if you believe that one, gentlefriends, I’ve a bridge in Godsgrave to sell you.
Tsana—Lady of Fire, She Who Burns Our Sin, the Pure, Patron of Women and Warriors, and firstborn daughter of Aa and Niah.
Keph—Lady of Earth, She Who Ever Slumbers, the Hearth, Patron of Dreamers and Fools, and secondborn of Aa and Niah.
Trelene—Lady of Oceans, She Who Will Drink the World, the Fate, Patron of Sailors and Scoundrels, thirdborn daughter of Aa and Niah, and twin to Nalipse.
Nalipse—Lady of Storms, She Who Remembers, the Merciful, Patron of Healers and Leaders, fourthborn of Aa and Niah, and twin to Trelene.
Niah—the Mother of Night, Our Lady of Blessed Murder, also known as the Maw. Sisterwife of Aa, Niah rules a lightless region of the hereafter known as the Abyss. She and Aa initially shared the rule of the sky equally. Commanded to bear her husband only daughters, Niah eventually disobeyed Aa’s edict and bore him a son. In punishment, she was banished from the skies by her beloved, allowed to return only for a brief spell every few years.
And as for what became of their son?
As I said last time, gentlefriends, that would be spoiling things.
Epigraph
The wolf does not pity the lamb,
And the storm begs no forgiveness of the drowned.
—RED CHURCH MANTRA
CHAPTER 1
PERFUME
Nothing stinks quite like a corpse.
It takes a while for them to really start reeking. O, chances are good if you don’t soil your britches before you die, you’ll soil them soon afterward—your human bodies simply work that way, I’m afraid. But I don’t mean the pedestrian stink of shit, gentlefriends. I speak of the eye-watering perfume of simple mortality. It takes a turn or two to really warm up, but once the gala gets into full swing, it’s one not soon forgot.
Before the skin starts to black and the eyes turn to white and the belly bloats like some horrid balloon, it begins. There’s a sweetness to it, creeping down your throat and rolling your belly like a butter churn. In truth, I think it speaks to something primal in you. The same part of you mortals that dreads the dark. That knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that no matter who you are and what you do, even worms shall have their feasts, and that one turn, you and everything you love will die.
But still, it takes a while for bodies to get so bad you can smell them from miles away. And so when Teardrinker caught a whiff of the high, sweet stink of decay on the Ashkahi whisperwinds, she knew the corpses had to be at least two turns dead.
And that there had to be an awful lot of them.
The woman pulled on her reins, bringing her camel to a stop as she raised her fist to her crew. The driver in the train behind her saw her signal, the long, winding chain of wagons and beasts slowing down, all spit and growls and stomping feet. The heat was brutal—two suns burning the sky a blinding blue and all the desert around them to rippling red. Teardrinker reached for the waterskin on her saddle, took a lukewarm swig as her second pulled up alongside her.
“Trouble?” Cesare asked.
Teardrinker nodded south along the road. “Smells like.”
Like all her people, the Dweymeri woman was tall—six foot seven if she was an inch, and every inch of that was muscle. Her skin was deep brown, her features adorned with the intricate facial tattoos worn by all folk of the Dweymeri Isles. A long scar bisected her brow, running over a milk-white left eye and down her cheek. She was dressed like a seafarer: a tricorn hat and some old captain’s frock coat. But the oceans she sailed were made of sand now, the only decks she walked were those of her wagon train. After a wreck that killed her entire crew and all her cargo years ago, Teardrinker had decided that the Mother of Oceans hated her guts, arse, and the ship she sailed in on.
So, deserts it was.
The captain shielded her eye against the glare, squinting into the distance. The whisperwinds scratched and clawed about her, the hair on back of her neck tingling. They were still seven turns out of the Hanging Gardens, and it wasn’t uncommon for slavers to work this road even in summersdeep. Still, two of three suns were high in the sky, and this close to truelight, she was hoping it’d be too hot for drama.
But the stench was unmistakable.
“Dogger,” she hollered. “Graccus, Luka, bring your arms and come with me. Dustwalker, you keep up that ironsong. If a sand kraken ends up chewing on my cunny, I’ll be back from the ’byss to chew on you.”
“Aye, Cap’n!” the big Dweymeri called. Turning to the contraption of iron piping bolted to the rearmost wagon in the train, Dustwalker hefted a large pipe and began beating it like a disobedient hound. The discordant tune of ironsong joined the maddening whispers blowing in off the northern wastes.
“What about me?” Cesare asked.
Teardrinker smirked at her right-hand man. “You’re too pretty to risk. Stay here. Keep an eye on the stock.”
“They’re not doing well in this heat.”
The woman nodded. “Water them while you wait. Let them stretch their legs a little. Not too far, though. This is bad country.”
“Aye, Cap’n.”
Cesare doffed his hat as Dogger, Graccus, and Luka rode up on their camels to join Teardrinker at the front of the line. Each man was dressed in a thick leather jerkin despite the scorch, and Dogger and Graccus were packing heavy crossbows. Luka wielded his slingblades as always, cigarillo hanging from his mouth. The Liisian thought arrows were for cowards, and he was good enough with his slings that she never argued. But how he could stand to smoke in this heat was beyond her.
“Eyes open, mouths shut,” Teardrinker ordered. “Let’s about it.”
The quartet headed down through rocky badlands, the stench growing stronger by the second. Teardrinker’s men were as hard a pack of bastards as you’d find under the suns, but even the hardest were born with a sense of smell. Dogger pressed a finger to his nose, blasting a stream of snot from each nostril, cursing by Aa and all four of his daughters. Luka lit another cigarillo, and Teardrinker was tempted to ask him for a puff to rid herself of the taste, accursed heat or no.
They found the wreck about two miles down the road.
It was a short wagon train: two trailers and four camels, all bloating in the sunslight. Teardrinker nodded to her men and they dismounted, wandering through the wreckage with weapons ready. The air was thick with the hymn of tiny wings.
A slaughter, by the look. Arrows littered on the sand and studding the wagon hulls. Teardrinker saw a fallen sword. A broken shield. A long slick of dried blood like a madman’s scrawl, and a frantic dance of footprints around a cold cooking pit.
“Slavers,” she murmured. “A few turns back.”
“Aye,” Luka nodded, drawing on his cigarillo. “Looks like.”
“Cap’n, I could use a hand over here,” Dogger called.
Teardrinker made her way around the fallen beasts, Luka beside her, brushing away the soup of flies. She saw Dogger, crossbow drawn but not raised, his other hand up in supplication. And though he was the kind of fellow whose biggest worry when slitting a man’s throat was not getting any on his shoes, the man was speaking gently, as if to a frightened mare.
“Woah, there,” he cooed. “Easy, girl …”
More blood here, sprayed across the sand, dark brown on deep red. Teardrinker saw the telltale mounds of a dozen freshly dug graves nearby. And looking past Dogger, she saw who it was he spoke at so sweetly.
“Aa’s burning cock,” she murmured. “Now there’s a sight.”
A girl. Eighteen at most. Pale skin, burned a little red from the sunslight. Long black hair cut into sharp bangs over dark eyes, her face smudged with dust and dried blood. But Teardrinker could see she was a beauty beneath the mess, high cheekbones and full lips. She held a double-edged gladius, notched from recent use. Her thigh and ribs were wrapped in rags, stained with a different vintage than the blood on her tunic.
“You’re a pretty flower,” Teardrinker said.
“S-stay away from me,” the girl warned.
“Easy,” Teardrinker murmured. “You’ve no need of steel anymore, lass.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, if it please you,” she said, voice shaking.
Luka drifted to the girl’s flank, reaching out with a swift hand. But she turned quick as silver, kicked his knee and sent him to the sand. With a gasp, the Liisian found the lass behind him, her gladius poised above the join between his shoulder and neck. His cigarillo dangled from suddenly dust-dry lips.
She’s fast.
The girl’s eyes flashed as she snarled at Teardrinker.
“Stay away from me, or Four Daughters, I swear I’ll end him.”
“Dogger, ease off, there’s a lad,” Teardrinker commanded. “Graccus, put up your crossbow. Give the young dona some room.”
Teardrinker watched as her men obeyed, drifting back to let the girl exhale her panic. The woman took a slow step forward, empty hands up and out.
“We’ve no wish to hurt you, flower. I’m just a trader, and these are just my men. We’re traveling to the Hanging Gardens, we smelled the bodies, we came for a look-see. And that’s the truth of it. By Mother Trelene, I swear it.”
The girl watched the captain with wary eyes. Luka winced as her blade nicked his neck, blood beading on the steel.
“What happened here?” Teardrinker asked, already knowing the answer.
The girl shook her head, tears welling in her lashes.
“Slavers?” Teardrinker asked. “This is bad country for it.”
The girl’s lip trembled, she tightened her grip on her blade.
“Were you traveling with your family?”
“M-my father,” the girl replied.
Teardrinker sized the lass up. She was on the short side, thin, but fit and hard. She’d taken refuge under the wagons, torn down some canvas to shelter from the whisperwinds. Despite the stink, she’d stayed near the wreck where supplies were plentiful and she’d be easier to find, which meant she was smart. And though her hand trembled, she carried that steel like she knew how to swing it. Luka had dropped faster than a bride’s unmentionables on her wedding night.
“You’re no merchant’s daughter,” the captain declared.
“My father was a sellsword. He worked the trains out of Nuuvash.”
“Where’s your da now, Flower?”
“Over there,” the girl said, voice cracking. “With th-the others.”
Teardrinker looked to the fresh-dug graves. Maybe three feet deep. Dry sand. Desert heat. No wonder the place stank so bad.
“And the slavers?”
“I buried them, too.”
“And now you’re waiting out here for what?”
The girl glanced in the direction of Dustwalker’s ironsong. This far south, there wasn’t much risk of sand kraken. But ironsong meant wagons, and wagons meant succor, and staying here with the dead didn’t seem to be on her mind, buried da or no.
“I can offer you food,” Teardrinker said. “A ride to the Hanging Gardens. And no unwelcome advances from my men. But you’re going to have to put down that sword, Flower. Young Luka is our cook as well as a guardsman.” Teardrinker risked a small smile. “And as my husband would tell you if he were still among us, you don’t want me cooking your supper.”
The girl’s eyes welled with tears as she glanced to the graves again.
“We’ll carve him a stone before we leave,” Teardrinker promised softly.
The tears spilled then, the girl’s face crumpling as if someone had kicked it in. She let the sword drop, Luka snatching himself loose and rolling up out of the dirt. The girl hung there like a crooked portrait, curtains of blood-matted hair about her face.
The captain almost felt sorry for her.
She approached slowly across the gore-caked earth, shrouded by a halo of flies. And taking off her glove, she extended one callused hand.
“They call me Teardrinker,” she said. “Of the Seaspear clan.”
The girl reached out with trembling fingers. “M—”
Teardrinker seized the girl’s wrist, spun on the spot and flipped her clean over her shoulder. The lass shrieked, crashing onto the dirt. Teardrinker put the boot to her, medium style—just enough to knock what was left of her fight loose from her lungs.
“Dogger, set the irons, there’s a lad,” the captain said. “Hands and feet.”
The Itreyan unslung the manacles from about his waist, bolted them about the girl. She came to her senses, howling and thrashing as Dogger screwed the irons tighter, and Teardrinker drove a boot so hard into her belly she retched into the dirt. The captain let her have another for good measure, just shy of rib-cracking. The girl curled into a ball with a long, breathless moan.
“Get her on her feet,” the captain commanded.
Dogger and Graccus dragged the girl up. Teardrinker grabbed a fistful of hair, hauled the girl’s head back so she could look into her eyes.
“I promised no untoward advances from my men, and to that I hold. But keep fussing, and I’ll hurt you in ways you’ll find all manner of unwelcome. You hear me, Flower?”
The girl could only nod, long black hair tangled at the corners of her lips. Teardrinker nodded to Graccus, and the big man dragged the girl around the ruined wagon train, threw her onto the back of his growling camel. Dogger was already looting the wagons, rifling through the barrels and chests. Luka was checking the cut he’d been gifted, glancing at the girl’s gladius in the dust.
“You let a slip like that get the drop on you again,” Teardrinker warned, “I’ll leave you out here for the fucking dustwraiths, you hear me?”
“Aye, Cap’n,” he muttered, abashed.
“Help Dogger with the leavings. Bring all the water back to the train. Anything you can carry worth a looting, snag it. Burn the rest.”
Teardrinker spat into the dirt, brushed the flies from her good eye as she strode across the blood-caked sand and joined Graccus. She slung herself up onto her camel, and with a sharp kick, the pair were riding back to the wagon train.
Cesare was waiting in the driver’s seat, his pretty face sour. He brightened a little when he saw the girl, groaning and half-senseless over the hump of Graccus’s beast.
“For me?” he asked. “You shouldn’t have, Cap’n.”
“Slavers hit a merchant caravan, bit off more than they could chew.” Teardrinker nodded to the girl. “She’s the only survivor. Graccus and Dogger are bringing back water from the wreckage. See it distributed among the stock.”
“Another one died of heatstroke.” Cesare motioned back to the train. “Found him when we let the others out to stretch. That’s a quarter of our inventory this run.”
Teardrinker hauled off her tricorn, dragged her hand along her sweatdrenched scalp. She watched the stock stagger around their cages, men and women and a handful of children, blinking up at the merciless suns. Only a few were in irons—most were so heat-wracked they’d not the strength to run, even if they had somewhere to go. And out here in the Ashkahi Whisperwastes, there was nowhere to get except dead.
“No fear,” she said, nodding at the girl. “Look at her. A prize like that will cover our losses and then some. One of the Daughters has smiled on us.” She turned to Graccus. “Lock her in with the women. See she’s fed a double ration ’til we get to the Gardens. I want her looking ripe on the stocks. You touch her beyond that, I’ll cut off your fucking fingers and feed them to you, aye?”
Graccus nodded. “Aye, Cap’n.”
“Get the rest back in their cages. Leave the dead one for the restless.”
Cesare and Graccus set about it, leaving Teardrinker to brood.
The captain sighed. The third sun would be rising in a few months. This would probably be the last run she’d make until after truelight, and the divinities had been conspiring to fuck it to ruin. An outbreak of bloodflux had wiped out an entire wagon of her stock just a week after they left Rammahd. Young Cisco had got poleaxed when he slipped off for a piss—probably took by a dustwraith, judging by what was left of him. And this heat was threatening to wilt the rest of her crop before it even got to market. All she needed was a cool breeze for a few more turns. Maybe a short spell of rain. She’d sacrificed a strong young calf on the Altar of Storms at Nuuvash before she left. But did Lady Nalipse listen?
After the wreck years ago that had almost ruined her, Teardrinker had vowed to stay away from the water. Running flesh on the seas was a riskier business than driving it on land. But she swore the Mother of Oceans was still trying to make her life a misery, even if it meant getting her sister, the Mother of Storms, in on the torment.
Not a breath of wind.
Not a drop of rain.
Still, that pretty flower was fresh, and curves like hers would fetch a fine price at market. It was a stroke of luck to have found her out here, unspoiled in all this shit. Between the raiders and the slavers and the sand kraken, the Ashkahi Whisperwastes were no place for a girl to roam alone. For Teardrinker to have found her before someone or something else did, one of the Daughters had to be smiling on her.
It was almost as if someone wanted it this way …
The girl was thrown in the frontmost wagon with the other maids and children. The cage was six feet high, rusted iron. The floor was smeared with filth, the reek of sweating bodies and carrion breath almost as bad as the camel corpses had been. The big one named Graccus hadn’t been gentle, but true to his captain’s word, his hands had done nothing but hurl her down, slam the cage door and twist the lock.
The girl curled up on the floor. Felt the stares of the women about her, the curious eyes of the boys and girls. Her ribs ached from the kicking she’d been gifted, the tears she’d cried cutting tracks down through the blood and dirt on her cheeks. Fighting for calm. Eyes closed. Just breathing.
Finally, she felt gentle hands helping her up. The cage was crowded, but there was room enough for her to sit in a corner, back pressed hard to the bars. She opened her eyes, saw a young, kindly face, smeared with grime, green eyes.
“Do you speak Liisian?” the woman asked.
The girl nodded mutely.
“What’s your name?”
The girl whispered through swollen lips. “… Mia.”
“Four Daughters,” the woman tutted, smoothing back the girl’s hair. “How did a pretty doll like you end in a place like this?
The girl glanced down at the shadow beneath her.
Up to those glittering green eyes.
“Well,” she sighed. “That’s the question, isn’t it?”
CHAPTER 2
FIREMASS
Four months earlier
King Francisco XV, sovereign ruler of all Itreya, took his place at the edge of the stage. He was decked in a doublet and hose of purest white, cheeks daubed with rose paint. The jewels in his crown sparkled as he spoke, one hand to his chest.
“Ever I sought to rule both wise and just,
But kingly brow as beggar’s knees now must;
To kiss the dirt and—”
“Nay!” came a shout.
Tiberius the Elder entered from stage left, surrounded by his Republican conspirators. A silver dagger gleamed in the old man’s hand, his jaw set, eyes bright. Without a word, he lunged across the stage, sinking his blade deep into his monarch’s chest, once, twice, three times. The audience gasped as bright red blood sprayed, splashing onto the polished boards at their feet. King Francisco clutched his ruptured heart, sinking to his knees. And with a last groan (a little overcooked, some said afterward), he closed his eyes and died.
Tiberius the Elder held aloft his dagger, delivered his fateful, final lines.
“Heart’s blood is spilled, and what shall be, shall be,
No price too steep to stand ’gainst tyranny.
But know, I struck this blow, friends, not for me,
But drenched my blade in name of liberty.”
Tiberius looked among the audience, bloody knife in his hands. And as he dropped into a low bow, the curtains closed, heavy red velvet falling across the scene.
The guests cheered as the music swelled, signaling the drama’s end. Arkemical chandeliers in the ceiling glowed brighter, banishing the darkness that had accompanied the final act. Applause rippled across the crowded room, over the mezzanine above, out to the back of the room. And there, it found a girl, with long raven hair and pale, perfect skin, and a shadow dark enough for three.
Mia Corvere joined in with the guests’ applause, though in truth, her eyes had been anywhere except the play. A cool chill flitted across the back of her neck, hidden in the shadows thrown by her hair. Mister Kindly’s whisper was velvet soft in her ear.
“… that was mind-bendingly awful …,” the shadowcat said.
Mia replied softly, adjusting the ill-fitting masque on her face.
“I thought the chicken blood was a nice touch.”
“… that was thirty minutes of our existence we will never have again, you realize …”
“At least they’ve turned the bloody lights back on.”
Letting the crowd clap awhile longer, the curtains finally parted, revealing King Francisco hale and whole, the punctured bladder that had contained his “heart’s blood” just visible under his soaked shirt. Joining hands with his murderer, spring-loaded dagger clutched between them, Tiberius the Elder and Francisco XV took a long bow.
“Merry Firemass, gentlefriends!” the murdered king cried.
The applause slowly died as the actors left the stage, chatter and laughter resuming now the play was done. Mia took a sip of her drink, peered around the room. Now the house lights were back up, she could see a little better.
“All right, where is he …” she muttered.
She’d arrived fashionably late and the ballroom was crowded, but that was no surprise—the soirees of Senator Alexus Aurelius were always popular affairs. With the play concluded, the twelve-piece orchestra took up a bright tune on their gilded mezzanine at the back of the room. Mia watched as marrowborn gentry in crisp frock coats stepped onto the dance floor with graceful dona in their arms, gowns of crimson and silver and gold shimmering in the light of the arkemical chandeliers.
Their faces were hidden behind a dizzying array of masques, a hundred different shapes and themes. Mia could see square-faced voltos and laughing punchinellos and half-cut dominos, bejeweled paint and gleaming ivory and fans of peacock feathers. The most common design among the salon crowd was the triplesun of Aa, or beautiful variants of the Face of Tsana. It was Firemass, after all, and most folk at least tried to make some attempt to venerate the Everseeing and his firstborn daughter before the inevitable hedonism of the feasteve got into full swing.fn1
Mia was clad in an off-the-shoulder gown of blood-red, layers of Liisian silk flowing to the floor. Her half-cut corset was cinched tight, a string of dark rubies spilling into her cleavage, and while she appreciated the effect the corset and jewels had of emphasizing her assets, the admiring glances she’ d been getting all nevernight didn’t make it any easier to bloody breathe. Her own features were covered by a Face of Tsana—a masque depicting the warrior-goddess’s helm, a plume of firebird feathers about the edge. Her lips and chin were bare, which made it a little easier to drink. And smoke. And swear.
“’Byss and fucking blood, where is he?” she muttered, eyes roaming the crowd. She felt that chill again, the soft whisper in her ear.
“… the booths …,” Mister Kindly said.
Mia looked over the swaying throng to the walls above the dance floor. Senator Aurelius’s ballroom had been built like an amphitheater, with the stage at one end, seats arranged in concentric rings, and smaller private booths overlooking the main floor. Through the smoke and long sheaves of sheer silk strung from the ceiling, she finally saw a tall young man, decked in a long white frock coat and black cravat, the twin horses of his familia embroidered in golden thread upon his breast.
“… gaius aurelius …”
Mia lifted her ivory cigarillo holder, took a thoughtful drag. The young man’s face was half-hidden behind a golden domino with a triple-sun motif, but she could see a strong jawline and a handsome smile as he whispered into the ear of a beautiful young woman in a stylish gown beside him.
“Looks like he’s made a friend,” Mia whispered, gray spilling from her lips.
“… well, he is a senator’s son. he is unlikely to spend the nevernight alone …”
“Not if I can help it. Eclipse, go tell Dove to be ready. We may need to leave in a hurry.”
A soft growl came from the shadows beneath her dress.
“… DOVE IS AN IDIOT …”
“All the more reason to make sure he’s awake. I think I’ ll go say hello to our esteemed senator’s firstborn. And his friend.”
“… two is company, mia …,” Mister Kindly warned.
“True enough. But there’s plenty of fun to be had in a crowd.”
Slipping from her corner, Mia drifted through the ballroom like the smoke from her lips. Smiling at the compliments, politely declining entreaties to dance. She strode blithely past two guards in fine-cut coats at the bottom of the stairs, pretending she belonged and thus, appearing to do just that. There was no one else in the room who shouldn’t have been there, after all. The invitation had taken her five patient nevernights to steal from the house of Dona Grigorio.fn2 And the masques these marrowborn fools insisted on wearing every feasteve made it easy to walk among them unmarked. Especially with her curves strangled in a fashion designed to draw the eye away from her face.
Mia checked her paint in a small silver mirror case, applied another dark red coat to her lips. And taking one last drag from her cigarillo, she crushed it under her boot heel and stumbled past the velvet curtains into Aurelius’s booth.
“O, apologies,” she said.
Don Aurelius and his companion looked up in mild surprise. The pair were sat on a long divan of crushed velvet, half-empty glasses and a bottle of fine Vaanian red on the table before them. Mia pressed her hand to her breast in faux alarm.
“I thought this one empty. Forgiveness, I beg you.”
The young don gave a small nod. His handsome smile was dark with wine. “Think nothing of it, Mi Dona.”
“Do you …” Mia heaved a sigh, uncertain. Reaching up, she unfastened her masque, used it to fan her face. “Apologies, might I trouble you to sit for a moment? It’s hotter than truelight in here, and this dress makes it frightfully hard to breathe.”
Aurelius ran his eyes over Mia’s unmasqued features. The black eyes framed with artful smudges of kohl. The milk-pale skin and pouting, dark red lips, the necklet of jewels at her slender throat, a fox-quick glance to the bare skin below as Mia made a show of adjusting her corsetry.
“By all means, Mi Dona,” he smiled, motioning to the spare divan.
“Aa bless,” Mia said, sinking down onto the velvet, fanning herself again.
“Allow me to introduce myself. I am Don Gaius Neraus Aurelius, and my lovely accomplice here is Alenna Bosconi.”
Aurelius’s companion was a Liisian beauty around Mia’s age—probably the daughter of local administratii, by the look. Dark of hair and iris, her skin olive, the gold chiffon of her gown accented by metallic powder on her lips and lashes.
“Four Daughters, I adore your dress,” Mia gasped. “Is it an Albretto?”
“A fine eye,” Alenna replied, raising her glass. “My compliments.”
“I’ve a fitting with her next week,” Mia said. “Presuming my aunt lets me out of the palazzo again. I’ve a suspicion she’ ll have me sent to a convent amorrow.”
“Who is your aunt, Mi Dona?” Aurelius asked.
“Dona Grigorio. Stuffy old cow.” Mia pointed to the wine. “May I?”
Aurelius watched her fill a glass and finish it just as swift, bemusement in his eye. “Forgive me, I didn’t know the dona had a niece?”
“Color me distinctly unsurprised, Mi Don,” Mia sighed. “I’ve been in Galante almost a month and she doesn’t let me out of the palazzo. I had to sneak out to be here this eve. Father sent me to summer with her, insisting she’ d teach me how to behave like a god-fearing daughter of Aa should.”
“Meaning you don’t behave like one should now?” Aurelius smiled.
Mia made a face. “Honestly, you’d think I’ d bedded one of the stableboys, the way he goes on about it.”
Aurelius raised the bottle to Mia’s glass with an inquiring tilt of his head.
“Another?”
“Most generous, sir.”
Aurelius poured, passed the full glass. Mia took it with a knowing smile, let her fingertips brush the young don’s wrist, arkemical current prickling between their skin. Alenna raised her glass to golden lips, faint annoyance in her voice.
“There’s not much left, Gaius,” she warned, glancing at the bottle.
Mia looked to the girl, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Any fear she might have felt was swallowed by the shadows at her feet. She rose from her seat with silken grace, sank down on the divan beside the golden beauty. Looking into Alenna’s eyes, she took a small sip of the wine. It was rich, velvet smooth, dancing dark upon her tongue. And taking away her empty glass, Mia pressed her own into Alenna’s hand, fingers entwined, lifting it to those golden lips.
She looked over her shoulder to Aurelius, saw him watching, enraptured. She smiled as she whispered, loud enough to be heard over the music below.
“I don’t mind sharing.”
Aurelius stood behind her, hands roaming her bare arms, across her breasts. Mia felt his lips at her ear, brush the edge of her jaw, reaching back to tangle her fingers in his hair. Leaning into the hardness at his crotch she sought his mouth, sighing as he left a trail of burning kisses down her throat, stubble tickling her skin. Finding the silken ribbon lacing the back of her corset, he pulled it loose with slow, steady hands.
Alenna was behind him, unbuttoning his jacket and letting it fall to the floor. Her cheeks were flushed from more than drink, long fingernails tearing his silken shirt and leaving his torso bare. Mia reached back to the hardness of his chest, fingers slipping down the troughs and furrows of his abdomen. His lips were at the nape of her neck, she felt the press of his teeth, sighing yes as he bit harder, seeking his mouth again. But with his free hand, he took hold of her long tresses, easing her head back, back, goosebumps thrilling along her skin as he pulled her corset away.
The music was faint and far above, near lost beneath the song of their sighs. They’d stumbled down the stairs, Aurelius ushering Mia and Alenna before him with playful slaps on their backsides. House guards pretended to pay no mind as the trio had stumbled past, Mia pressing her lips to Aurelius’s throat as he’d stopped to give the Liisian beauty a long kiss. He’d pushed Mia against the wall and reached between her legs, setting to work with clever fingers right there in the hallway. They’d barely made it to his room.
Like most marrowborn palazzos, the bedchambers were underground—all the better to shield them from the suns’ relentless light. The air was cooler down here, the light from the arkemical globes low and smoky. Mia’s corset fell to the floorboards as Aurelius slipped his hand inside her gown. She sighed as she felt his hands cupping her breasts, pinching one swollen nipple hard enough to make her gasp. He peeled her dress off, letting it fall in a rumpled heap about her ankles. She sought his belt, found Alenna’s hands there also, their fingers entwined as they worked the buckle loose. Mia felt Aurelius’s hands roam lower, arkemical current dancing on her skin as his fingers slipped over her belly, down through her soft curls to her aching lips beyond.
She groaned as his fingers went to work, weakening her knees. Turning her head, she sought his mouth with her own, but his grip on her hair pulled her up short, left her gasping, moaning as she pushed her arse back, grinding against his crotch with the same rhythm he was strumming on her.
His belt finally loose, the beauty tore the buttons on his britches free, Mia’s fingers slipping inside. She found her mark after a moment, smiling at his groan as she took his heat in her hand. She felt Alenna’s hands also, the pair of them working his length as his finger slipped inside her, stars bursting behind her eyes, almost bringing her legs out from under her.
Aurelius turned, his mouth finding Alenna’s, their tongues entwined. Mia untangled his hand from her hair, curled her fingers in his own, desperate to kiss him. But her skin prickled as she sensed him step aside, as she felt warm lips on her shoulder, the back of her neck, warm hands slipping about her waist.
Not his …
Alenna’s fingertips were dancing up her arms, flitting across the swell of her breasts. Her breath came quicker as she felt the girl’s hand at her chin, turning her slow. Heart hammering, Mia came about to face her.
The girl was beautiful, bee-stung lips parted, dark eyes welling with desire in the smoky light. Her chest was heaving as she pressed closer, still clothed against Mia’s near-naked body. Aurelius began kissing the nape of Alenna’s neck as she smoothed back a lock of long dark hair from Mia’s cheek, Mia feeling a thrill run all the way to her toes as the beauty leaned in to kiss her. Close. Closer. Clos—
“No,” Mia said, pulling away.
Alenna’s eyes clouded with confusion, and she glanced over her shoulder to Aurelius. The young don quirked an eyebrow in question.
“Not on the mouth,” Mia said.
The beauty’s golden lips curled in a knowing smile. Dark eyes roamed Mia’s naked body, drinking her in.
“Everywhere else, then,” she breathed.
Alenna ran her hands down Mia’s cheeks, the jewels at her throat, making her shiver. And slow as agony, she leaned in and pressed her lips to Mia’s neck.
Mia sighed, goosebumps prickling, no fear inside her. Leaning her head back, surrendering, eyelashes fluttering as Alenna’s hands cupped her heaving breasts, floating over her hips, caressing her arse. Mia couldn’t feel anything but those hands, those lips, teeth nipping, breath warm on her skin, the beauty’s mouth roaming down to the swell of her breast. She groaned as the girl took her nipple into her mouth, tongue flickering over the swollen tip, all the room spinning.
Alenna’s fingernails sent shivers up Mia’s spine as they skimmed her skin, guiding her backward. She felt the bedframe behind her knees, bending like a sapling before the storm and tumbling back with a gasp onto the furs.
Alenna sighed as Aurelius nuzzled her neck from behind, working the ties of her corset loose. Slipping her dress off her shoulders, the young don let the golden chiffon tumble away in a shimmering wave, underthings following, stripping her bare.
Mia’s eyes roamed the girl’s body as she climbed onto the bed on hands and knees, prowling like a cat. Alenna knelt above her, sighing as the young don sank to his knees behind her, kisses trailing down her back, over her arse. Mia felt the girl’s hands trail the insides of her shivering thighs, breath coming fast as those fingers brushed her lips. Alenna was breathing quick too, groaning as Aurelius pressed his mouth between her legs, went to work with his tongue. Her eyes were bright with lust as she leaned in close, seeking Mia’s mouth again.
Mia turned away, one hand to the girl’s lips.
“No.”
She reached out across Alenna’s skin, finding Aurelius’s hand at the girl’s hip. Entwining her fingers with his own, the beauty sighed in protest as Mia dragged him away from his prize. Eyes on his. Breathless.
“Kiss me,” she begged.
Aurelius smiled as Alenna descended, the girl’s kisses like ice and fire across Mia’s throat, breasts, belly. The young don crawled up the mattress as the girl sank farther down, licking the cusp of Mia’s navel, the divots at her hips. Mia felt gentle teeth on the inside of her thighs, hands roaming her skin, whimpering as Alenna blew on her softly, lips just a whisper away from her own. Mia reached up with one hand, down with the other, tangling her fingers in their hair. She dragged Aurelius toward her, pleading, pulling Alenna in. And the don’s mouth closed over her own, smothering her breathless moan as she felt the first touch of the beauty’s tongue.
They went to work, the pair of them, Mia writhing on the fur as they adored her. A heat like she’ d never known burned between her legs as Alenna kissed her like no man ever had, back arching, fingers knotted in the girl’s tresses. She could taste the girl on Aurelius’s tongue, the salt and sweetness of it. She kissed him fiercely, biting his lip hard enough to split the skin, dark red paint mixing with the blood on their mouths. Her lips smothered his gasp of pain, her tongue found his, teasing, tasting, dancing in some pale semblance of the beauty’s between her legs.
Time stopped turning, the world stopped spinning. Breaking away from her mouth, the don left a trail of bloody kisses down her neck. Mia gasped as he descended, licking, suckling, biting, eyes fluttering closed as Alenna began her work in earnest, lapping at her swollen bud.
Aurelius lifted his head.
A quick shudder ran through him.
A soft groan slipped past his lips.
And drawing in a ragged breath, the young don coughed a mouthful of bright red blood all over Mia’s breasts.
“F-four Daughters …”
Aurelius stared in horror at the scarlet on Mia’s skin, on his hands. Mia pulled herself up on her elbows as he fell back with another red cough, fingers at his throat. Alenna realized what was happening, her face spattered with crimson. Rearing back, she drew breath to scream as Mia lunged across the bed and seized her throat, dragging her into a choke hold.
“Hushhh, now,” she whispered, lips brushing the beauty’s ear.
The girl struggled in Mia’s grip, but the assassin was stronger, harder. The pair toppled to the floorboards, into the tangle of their clothes as Aurelius began thrashing, fingernails clawing his neck as he coughed up another lungful.
“I know it’s hard to watch,” Mia whispered to the beauty. “But it only lasts a moment.”
“Th-the wine …?”
Mia shook her head. “Not on the mouth, remember?”
Alenna stared at the split Mia had bitten in Aurelius’s lip, the red paint smeared with the blood around his mouth. The young don flopped on the bed like a landed fish, every muscle seizing tight, face twisted. Alenna’s lips parted to scream as a shadow moved on the headboard, another at the foot—two shapes cut from the darkness itself. Mia’s hand closed about the girl’s mouth again as Mister Kindly and Eclipse coalesced, staring enraptured as the young don groaned in agony, blood bubbling between his teeth. And with eyes wide, lips peeling back in a silent cry, the first and only son of Senator Alexus Aurelius exhaled his final breath.
“Hear me, Niah,” Mia whispered. “Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.”
Mister Kindly tilted his head, watching the young don die.
His purr almost sounded like a sigh.
Mia was thirsty.
That was the worst part. The cage, the heat, the stink, she could stomach it all. But no matter how much her captors gave her to drink, in this bastard desert it was never enough. When Dogger or Graccus shoved the ladle through the bars of her cage, that lukewarm water seemed a gift from the Mother herself. But between the swelter and the sweat and the wagon’s crush, her lips were soon cracking, her tongue swollen and dry.
The captives were jammed together like strips of salt pork in a barrel, and the smell was sickening. The first turn she’d spent baking inside that kiln-hot cage, Mia had begun to think she’d made an awful mistake.
Think it. But not fear it.
Never flinch.
Never fear.
Mia tried not to talk much. She didn’t want to grow too close to the other captives, knowing what was coming at the Hanging Gardens. But she watched how they cared for each other, an elderly woman comforting a lass crying for her mother, or a girl giving her own meager ration to a boy who’d puked his own meal down the front of his rags. Little kindnesses that spoke of the biggest hearts.
Mia wondered where her own might be.
No place for it out here, girl.
Her captors were a motley bunch. Their captain, Teardrinker, looked to be bedding her second, Cesare, though Mia had no doubt who’d be holding the reins on that particular ride. No woman got to lead an outfit of cutthroat slavers in the Ashkahi wastes unless she had the sharpest of teeth.
The Itreyans, Dogger and Graccus, both seemed the typical brand of bastard you’d find in any one of a hundred fleshpeddler outfits operating out of Ashkah. As per Captain’s orders, they didn’t lay a finger on the women. But from the hungry looks they threw her way, Mia imagined they resented it no end. They spent their downtime playing Spank with a dog-eared set of playing cards, betting with a handful of clipped beggars.fn3
The big Dweymeri, Dustwalker, seemed a more careful sort. He played the flute, and he’d treat the captives to a melody when he had no other work to do. The last of them was Luka—the young Liisian Mia had kicked into the dust. Short locks and a dimpled smile. The slop he cooked tasted worse than a pig’s arsehole, but Mia had seen him sneak some extra bread to the children at evemeal.
And that was it. Six leather-clad slavers and a row of locked iron bars between her and the freedom any of the captives around her would have killed to taste. All was sweat and puke. Shit and blood. At least half the women in her wagon cried themselves to what little sleep they could find. But not Mia Corvere.
The girl sat against the door and waited. Ragged bangs hanging in deep, dark eyes. The reek of sweat and filth was inescapable, the press of the bodies around her enough to make her ill. But she swallowed her vomit along with her pride, pissing in the road when commanded and keeping her mouth on the right side of shut. And if the shadow pooled beneath her was too dark—dark enough for two, perhaps—then the covered wagon’s innards were too gloomy to notice.
It was only four more turns to the Hanging Gardens. Four more turns of this awful heat, this godsless stink, this sickening, trundling sway. Four more turns.
Patience, she’d tell herself, whispering the word like a prayer.
If Vengeance has a mother, her name is Patience.
It was maybe an hour ’til nevernight’s end, and the caravan was pulling over to the side of its long, dusty road. Peering out through the tear in the wagon’s canopy, Mia could see a tumble of sandstone bluffs throwing shadows on the desert sand. It was an obvious—and therefore, dangerous—spot to shelter, but best to stop here in shade than press on for another hour and spend the entire turn baking in the suns.
Mia heard Dustwalker in the supply wagon as always, banging out an occasional peal of ironsong to scare off any sand kraken daring enough to travel this far south.fn4 She caught a glimpse of Graccus, scouting the rocky outcroppings from atop his snarling, shit-machine of a camel. He looked salty, face dripping as he squinted up at the suns and cursed the Everseeing for a bastard.
The first arrow took him in the chest.
It whizzed out of the sunslight, piercing his jerkin with a thud. A stupid frown darkened Graccus’s brow, but the next two arrows flying out of the rocks wiped it off his face, sent him tumbling backward off his beast in a spray of bright red.
“Raiders!” Teardrinker bellowed.
The women in Mia’s wagon screamed as a hail of arrows rained down on the caravan, punching through the canopy. Mia heard a gasp, felt the flesh around her shift. A young lass sank down in the crush, an arrow in her eye. One of the sprats took a shaft to the leg, started howling, the entire mass of bodies around her shifting like the sea in a storm and crushing her against the bars.
“’Byss and blood …”
Mia heard galloping hooves, the sound of black-feathered rain. Somewhere distant, Dustwalker was roaring in pain, Teardrinker shouting orders. The ring of steel rose over the bellow of wounded camels, the hiss of spraying sand. Mia cursed again as she was shoved face-first against the bars, the folk around her boiling to a panic.
“Right, fuck this,” she spat.
Reaching down to her boot, Mia twisted the heel, retrieving her trusty lockpicks. In a moment, she was free of her manacles, reaching between the rusted bars. She set to sweet-talking the lock, tongue poking out in concentration. An arrow sheared through the canopy just shy of her head, another thudded into the wood near her hand.
“… you may wish to hurry …”
The whisper was soft as baby’s breath, intended for her ears only.
“You’re not helping,” she whispered back.
“… i am offering moral support …”
“You’re being an annoying little shit.”
“… that too …”
The lock sprung open in her hand and Mia kicked the door aside, tumbled out in the blazing light. She rolled beneath the wagon as the other women realized their cage was open, falling over themselves in their bid to escape.
Mia could see a half-dozen raiders circling the caravan. They were clad in dark leather and desert colors, a mix of sexes and skin tones. Cesare was dead, punctured with black-feathered arrows. Mia saw no sign of Luka, but Dogger was crouched behind the aft wagon, Dustwalker’s corpse beside him. Teardrinker’s camel had taken an arrow to the throat, and the captain was hunkered behind its body, crossbow in hand.
“Stinking whoresons!” she roared. “Do you know who I am?”
The riders only jeered in response. Riding in that incessant circle, driving the escaping women back toward the wagons, and the captives in the other cages into a frothing panic.
“Diversion,” Mia realized.
“… from what …?”
Dogger ducked out from cover, loosing a quick shot with his crossbow. From somewhere among the rocks, a black-feathered arrow flashed, striking him in the chest. Dogger fell, scarlet bubbles bursting on his lips.
“From that sharpshooter up there,” Mia muttered.
The girl reached out to the shadows beneath the wagon, gathering them up like a seamstress pulling thread. It was so bright out here, so different from the belly of the Quiet Mountain. But ever so slowly, she stitched the shadows together, weaving them into a cloak. And beneath it, she became little more than a smudge, like a greasy fingerprint on a portrait of the world.
Of course, she could barely see a bloody thing. She’d always thought it cruel that the Goddess of Night would give her the gift to remain unseen but make her almost blind while doing it. Still, blind was better than butchered.
Mia crept closer to the wheel, moving by feel, preparing to dash from cover.
“… try not to get shot …”
“That’s excellent advice, Mister Kindly. My thanks.”
“… moral support, as i said …”
Then she was moving. Crouched low, hands out before her, away from the wagons and toward the outcropping ahead. All the world was a blur, coffee black and milky white. The dark shape of a horse and rider loomed out of the nothingness, clipped her hard as it rode by. She staggered, wobbling blind until she hit a low outcropping of rock with her shins and tumbled into cover with a curse.
“Ow, fuck it.”
“… o, poor child, where does it hurt …?”
The girl pulled herself up with a wince, slapped her rump.
“Kiss it better?”
“… perhaps a bath is in order first …”
The girl was off again, groping her way up the rocky slope, moving by feel and sound alone. She could still hear Teardrinker roaring challenge, but the girl was listening for the telltale hiss of arrows, the whip-snap of a bowstring. And there it came … and there again, Mia circling up and around, quiet as a particularly quiet dormouse who’d just been appointed Master of Quiet at the Iron Collegium.fn5
Another arrow. Another snap of the bowstring. Mia could hear soft whispering between each shot, wondering if there was more than one shooter up there. She was behind them now, hidden among a tumble of boulders. And throwing aside her shadows, she peered over her cover to find out how many bowmen she’d have to murder.
Turned out, there was none at all.
O, there was an archer, no doubt. But she was no more a bowman than Mia was a swordsman. A woman, clad in gray leathers and mottled brown, her blond hair cropped short. Whenever a shot presented itself, she’d press an arrow to her lips, whisper a prayer, then let fly. Whatever divinity she prayed to seemed to be listening, too—as Luka dashed for one of the camels, the archer put an arrow in his shoulder, another in his shin as he scrambled back into cover.
The rock crushed her head with the first blow, but Mia smashed it twice more into the back of her skull, just to be sure. The archer fell with a bubbling gurgle, fingers twitching. And picking up her bow, Mia drew the string to her lips, took aim, and put a black-feathered arrow into the spine of one of the raiders below.
The woman twisted in her saddle, fell with a bloody cry. A comrade saw her fall, turned to the bluffs above and tumbled back off his horse with an arrow in his throat. Another raider cried warning, “’Ware the rocks! The rocks!” as Mia’s shot took him in the thigh, her second in his belly. A slingblade glittered as it flew out from the cover of the middle wagon, near taking the man’s head off his shoulders.
The raiders were all a confusion now, their sharpshooter gone, and their plan along with her. Teardrinker took a shot with her crossbow, killing a horse and sending its rider to the dirt. Mia killed another rider with two shots to the chest. The last few raiders broke, scooping up their horseless comrade and galloping away as fast as their steeds could take them.
“… fine shooting …”
Mia looked to the shadow sitting atop the archer’s corpse. It was small, wore the shape of a cat, cleaning a semitranslucent paw with a semitranslucent tongue.
“My thanks,” Mia bowed.
“… that was sarcasm …,” Mister Kindly replied. “… you let four of them get away …”
Mia made a face, raised the knuckles at the shadowcat.
“… while we’re still alone, i should probably take this opportunity to point out the insanity of this scheme of yours again …”
“O, aye, Daughters forbid you let a turn pass without riding my arse about it.”
Mia wiped her bloody hand on the dead archer’s britches, slung her quiver of arrows over her shoulder. And bow in hand, she made her way carefully down the slope to the carnage around the ’van.
The women captives were still huddled around their cage. Graccus, Dogger, Dustwalker and Cesare were all dead. Luka was slumped near the middle wagon, arrows in his shoulder and shin. Mia watched him try to get to his feet, settling instead for one knee. His eyes were locked on hers, his second slingblade in hand.
Teardrinker had taken an arrow to the leg somewhere in the fray. Her face was spattered with blood, but she still aimed her crossbow with steady hands right at Mia. The girl stopped forty feet away, raised her bow. It was finely crafted—horn and ash, graven with prayers to the Lady of Storms. It’d put an arrow through an iron breastplate at this range. And Captain Teardrinker was wearing nothing close to iron.
“That father of yours taught you well, girl,” the captain called. “Fine shooting.”
“… pfft …,” whispered her shadow.
Mia kicked the dark pooled around her feet, hissing for silence.
“I’ve no wish to kill you, Captain,” Mia called.
“Well there’s a stroke of fortune. I’ve no wish to fucking die, either.”
The captain looked at the corpses around her, the wreckage of her crew, the arrow in her leg, down the long road to the Hanging Gardens.
“I suppose we could call this even,” she called. “I was planning on fetching a fine price for you at market, but saving my life seems fair tithe. What say you ride up front with me for the rest of the trip, see us safe to the Gardens? I can cut you in on some of the profit? Twenty percent?”
Mia shook her head. “I don’t want that, either.”
“Well, what do you want?” Teardrinker spat, stare locked on the bow in Mia’s grip. “You’re holding decent cards, girl. You get a say in how this hand is played.”
Mia looked to the other women huddled around the forewagon. They were filthy and haggard, clad in little more than rags. The dusty road stretched out across the blood-red sand, and she knew full well the fate that awaited them at the end of it.
“I want back in the cage,” Mia said.
Teardrinker blinked. “You just broke out of the cage …”
“I chose you very carefully, Captain. Your reputation is well known. You don’t let your men spoil your goods. And you have an accord with the Lions of Leonides, neh?”
“Leonides?” Exasperation crept into Teardrinker’s voice. “What in the name of Aa’s burning cock does a gladiatii stable have to do with any of this?”
“Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it?”
The girl lowered her bow with a small smile.
“I want you to sell me to them.”
CHAPTER 3
SHADOWS
Mia lay naked on the floor, spattered in red, Alenna in her arms. Music still swelled faintly from the ball upstairs, none of the senator’s guests any the wiser that his only son had been murdered right below their heels. Mister Kindly sat on the headboard, staring at the young don’s corpse. Eclipse licked her lips with a translucent tongue, the shadowwolf’s sigh rumbling through the floor.
The girl in Mia’s arms shivered at the sight of them.
“I’m going to take my hand away now, love,” Mia whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to tie you up, put my clothes back on, and then slip out into the sunslight and you’re never going to see me again. Does that sound fair?”
Alenna nodded frantically, blinking the tears from her eyes.
Eclipse’s soft feminine voice seemed to come from below the floorboards.
“… THAT IS FOOLISH …”
“… and you would be the expert on foolishness, pup …,” Mister Kindly sneered.
“… BETTER TO BE RID OF HER. WE HAVE NO REASON TO LET HER LIVE …”
“And no reason to end her,” Mia replied. “Unless someone is paying me. Now, shouldn’t one of you be watching the hallway in case a guard comes down here?”
“… i kept watch last time, when you ended that magistrate …”
“… LIAR, I KEPT WATCH OUTSIDE THE WHOLE TIME. YOU WERE FEEDING LIKE A SOW AT TROUGH …”
“… and how would you know that, if you were keeping watch outside the whole time …?”
“If you two are quite finished? I give less than no fucks for who does it, but one of you better get out there, because someone’s go—”
A soft knock sounded at the door. A deep voice calling beyond.
“Mi Don?”
Mia cursed beneath her breath, grip tightening on Alenna’s throat.
“Mi Don,” said a second voice. “Your father requests your presence.”
Guards, by the sound. At least two of them …
“… IT WAS YOUR TURN …,” Eclipse whispered fierce.
“… lying mongr— …”
Mia hissed for silence, her mind racing. With guards outside the bedchamber door, her chances of slipping out unnoticed were aflame. Dove was waiting with the carriage upstairs, but he wouldn’t be any use to her down here. She could fight easily enough, but she was buck naked, all but unarmed, and the noise would only bring more guards. The shadows down here were deep, but with the bedchambers in the basements, there weren’t any windows for her to climb out o—
Mia gasped as Alenna’s elbow collided with her ribs, and with a black curse, the girl cracked her head back into Mia’s nose. Her grip momentarily loosened, Alenna drew breath and screamed, only partially muffled by Mia’s fingers.
“Murder!” she cried. “Help me!”
Mia slammed her fist into the side of the girl’s head, once, twice, knocking her senseless. She heard a curse, a heavy thump as something crashed into the door.
“Mi Don?” someone shouted. “Open up!”
“… it was your turn …”
“… LIAR …”
“Will the pair of you shut up!”
Mia slung her dress over her head as the door shuddered on its hinges. Fishing about in her abandoned corset, she retrieved her gravebone dagger, the crow on the hilt rebuking her with its glittering amber stare. And reaching to the shadows around her, she dragged them over her head, throwing all the world into black and disappearing utterly beneath it.
The door crashed open, two blurred shapes silhouetted against the light. One of them cried Aurelius’s name, moving in what Mia hoped was the direction of the bed. The other saw the naked, blood-spattered Liisian girl on the floor and crouched beside her. And with the door now clear, Mia slung aside her cloak of shadows and ran.
The guards bellowed for her to stop, but Mia paid no mind, sprinting down the plush hallway toward the broad stairs. Two more guards appeared above, frowning in confusion at the bloodstained girl barreling up the stairs toward them. One held up a hand to stop her as Mia’s dagger flashed, in and out, hiltdeep in his belly. The man gasped and fell, tumbling down the stairs as his comrade cried warning, hefting his shortsword. Mia twisted sideways, gasping as his blade cut deep into her shoulder and upper arm, her whistling counterstrike slicing his neck clean through.
The man collapsed, gargling, and Mia was already gone, up out of the stairwell and onto the ground floor. She burst into the main hall, the marrowborn dons and donas crying out in alarm at the sight of her—bloodied blade in one hand, dark hair strewn around darker eyes, wide with fury.
“Pardon me, Mi Dona,” she begged, smashing some pretty young thing aside as she tore through the hall. More guards burst into the room, unsure who to chase or why. The pair from Aurelius’s bedchamber appeared at the top of the stairs, scanning the confused crowd, finally spotting Mia as she pushed her way through the mob.
“The girl in red!” one bellowed. “Stop her!”
“Assassin!” the other cried. “The senator’s son, slain!”
The hall dissolved into chaos, some folk reaching for Mia, others fleeing before her. She cut some well-heeled administratii from thigh to crotch as he made a grab for her, elbowed another gent in the face and dropped him cold. The knife in her hand and the look in her eye dissuaded the other do-gooders in the crowd, and with a sidestep, a shove, and a rolling tumble, she was through the double doors, sprinting down the plush entry hall. Snatching a tumbler off the drinks tray of a gobsmacked servant, she belted down the goldwine inside before hurling it at the guard rushing at her, bouncing the heavy crystal off his head and sending him sprawling.
Bursting through the doors, out into the courtyard outside Aurelius’s palazzo. The cries of “Assassin!” echoed behind her, three guards rushing up the stairs to meet her, the twin suns in her eyes almost blinding.
“Shit …”
The guards each had a short, double-edged gladius and a murderous stare. Her shoulder was bleeding freely, her gown soaked with blood. Mia was forced into defense; reaching out to the leader’s shadow and fixing his boots to the floor, rolling past their blades, kicking out at a pair of legs as she tumbled, scrambling to her feet. She dashed toward the horses and carriages parked around Aurelius’s front yard, spying one amid the crowd.
“Dove!” she roared.
A teenaged boy among the throng raised his head. He was dressed in a simple rectangular volto masque, servant’s finery, dark hair cropped short. A cigarillo hung from one corner of his mouth. Three bloody tears crawled down his masque’s right cheek. He didn’t much look the part of a Hand in the Church of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, but at the sound of Mia’s second cry, he stood suddenly in the driver’s seat.
“All right?” he called.
“Do I look all-fucking-right?” Mia shouted, sprinting toward him.
Mia’s Hand took in the sight of his wounded Blade, the guards on her tail. Spitting out his cigarillo, the boy reached into his greatcoat and produced two small crossbows. Taking careful aim, he felled the guards closest to Mia with two swift shots.
“Run!” he called, beckoning.
“O, aye, you reckon?”
A whistling sound by Mia’s ear told her more guards had arrived with crossbows of their own, and as she barreled past the astonished coach drivers, a burst of white hot pain in her backside told her at least one of them was a halfway decent shot.
She stumbled, falling with a curse and grating her palms and knees like cheese on the flagstones. Hissing in pain, she scrambled back to her feet, clutching the crossbow bolt protruding from her backside.
“Maw’s teeth, did they just shoot you in th—”
“Just shoot them back, you fucking nonce!”
Dove fired again, dropping another guard with a quarrel in his throat. The boy ducked to reload, and a flurry of quarrels flew over Mia’s head, perforating two of the panicking drivers and one particularly annoyed stallion. Sadly, as Dove rose with his own bows reloaded, one of the bolts caught him in the chest, toppling him back into the carriage roof in a spray of blood. Mia watched her Hand try to rise, lips painted blood, but the boy finally collapsed with a bubbling moan.
“… I DID WARN YOU HE WAS AN IDIOT …”
“… for once, we are in complete agreement …”
Mia was on her feet, seeking cover amid the milling horses and panicked drivers. But with her arm cut to ribbons, there was no way she could steer a carriage and work the whip at the same time, and Aurelius’s guards were closing fast.
Her gravebone dagger flashed, severing leather straps and couplings about a tall white stallion. Wincing at the pain, she dragged herself onto the stallion’s back.
“… have you forgotten how much horses hate you …?”
“Apparently so.”
“… RIDE …!”
Mia kicked the horse’s flanks, the stallion bolted, hooves kicking up the packed gravel of the senator’s yard as the guards roared at her to halt.fn1 Crossbow bolts flew past her head, grazing her horse’s flank, one bolt thudding into its hindquarters. The beast screamed, tried to throw her, but Mia clung on like a shadow to its owner’s feet. The stallion put on a burst of speed, dashing past the front gate and out into the broad thoroughfares of the city of Galante. Bells tolled in the distance, echoing from dozens of different cathedrals, domes and minarets. The streets were crowded for Firemass, revelers shouting curses as Mia galloped past on her bleeding stallion.
The Blade glanced behind, saw half a dozen guards riding in pursuit. The blood pouring from her shoulder was sticky across her back, her sodden dress clinging to her skin. She was starting to feel light-headed from the loss. With a colorful curse, she snapped off the crossbow bolt in her backside, head swimming with agony. She needed to get off the streets, somewhere dark, hide until the noise died down.
Galante’s streets were packed even here in the marrowborn district—too crowded to run a high-speed chase through much farther. Her stallion’s burst of terrified speed was coming to an end, the horse now limping from the quarrel in its own hindparts. Mia slid off the hobbling beast, down into a crowd of drunken revelers, the cries of the pursuing guards ringing in her ears. She limped down an alley between one of the city’s countless cathedrals and a looming administratii building, twisting into the warren of the Galante backstreets. Gasping for breath, vision swimming, blood loss making her hands shake. Her left arm was entirely numb, Mister Kindly’s voice in her ear urging her on. Finally, she found a wroughtiron fence, a crowded sea of headstones and tombs beyond it, run through with dark weeds and bright flowers.
Galante’s necropolis.
She limped through the gate, stumbled down the tightly packed rows of marble and mossy granite, looming mausoleums, packed with generations of marrowborn dead. Finally, she ducked beneath the eave of a tomb belonging to some rich bastard, long ago forgotten. And reaching out to the shadows, Mia plucked them with clever fingers, weaving them about her shoulders.
As it always did, all the world fell to black beneath Mia’s cloak. But she still heard Aurelius’s guards as they entered the necropolis, boots tromping on the flagstones. Their captain barked an order and the group split up, weaving into the overcrowded labyrinth of crypts and vaults and tombs, cries of “Assassin!” ringing on the pale stone.
But one guard remained.
Mia could only dimly see him through her veil of shadows, but she could tell from his vague silhouette the man was huge. His boots crunched on the gravel as he slowly prowled the mausoleums, muttering softly. Mia held her breath as he walked closer to her hiding place, head moving side to side. She felt a warm trickle down her back, her flash of dread swallowed by her passengers as she realized that, despite her shadowcloak, her blood would have left a trail, and would now be pooling at her feet.
The guard prowled toward Mia’s crypt. And rather than pray he’ d pass her by, the girl simply threw aside her cloak and lunged, stiletto in hand.
The guard was wearing mail beneath his finery, but her gravebone blade pierced the steel rings as if they were butter. Her blow sank to the hilt, but striking blind, she’ d landed shy of the fellow’s heart. The big man cried aloud as she struck again, this time slicing his jugular. A spray of red hit her face, warm and wet, the guard seizing her wrist and delivering a crushing hook to her jaw. Mia was flung back against the tomb wall, lashing out at the hand that held her, the pair of them going down in a tumble.
His windpipe was still intact, and the guard was bellowing, the girl snarling, stabbing again and again. They rolled about on the flagstones, Eclipse and Mister Kindly both whispering warning that the other guards were returning. But her foe was huge, and for all her training, Mia was wounded, bleeding, and anyone who believes there’s no advantage in being twice as big as your opponent has never fought a foe half their size.
She heard thundering boots, face twisted as the guard grabbed a fistful of her hair. Her blade finally found his neck again, sending him back onto the cobbles in a frothing red spray. Mia scrambled upright, saw another four guards approaching.
“… run …!”
“How?” she gasped.
“… HIDE …!”
“Where?”
“Halt!”
The guards fanned out around her, four clad in Senator Aurelius’s finery. She could hear whistles in the distant street, the tromp tromp of legionaries’ boots. Fearless, even staring into the eyes of death, she glared at the tallest guard and twirled her stiletto through her fingers. She thought of Consul Scaeva and Cardinal Duomo. Her familia unavenged. But regret came ultimately from fear, and even there at the finish, she could find none inside her. Only rage that it could end like this.
“Who dies first?” she asked, glaring at the assembled men.
The most sensible of the guards aimed a loaded crossbow at her chest.
“That’d be you, bitch,” he spat.
A chill stole over her, dark and hollow. Goosebumps rippling on her bloodied skin. The suns burned high overhead, but here in the necropolis, the shadows were dark, almost black. A shape rose up behind the guards, hooded and cloaked, blades of what could only have been gravebone in its hands. It lashed out at the crossbow guard, hacked his head almost off his shoulders. The other guards cried out, raised their blades, but the figure moved like lightning, striking once, twice, three times. And almost faster than Mia could blink, all four guards were dead on the dirt.
“Maw’s teeth,” she whispered.
The shadows at her feet shivered, Eclipse coalescing with a growl. Mister Kindly was on her shoulder, puffed up and spitting. Mia felt the chill in her bones, her passengers swallowing her fear as her savior turned to face her.
Not human. That much was clear. O, it was shaped like a man beneath that cloak—tall and broad shouldered. But its hands … ’byss and blood, the hands wrapped about its sword hilts were black. Tenebrous and semitranslucent, fingers coiled about the hilts like serpents. Mia couldn’t see its face, but small, black tentacles writhed and wriggled from within the hollows of its hood, pulling the cowl lower over its features. And though it was near summersdeep, two suns burning high in the sky, its breath hung in white clouds before its lips, Mia’s whole body shivering at the chill.
“… Who are you?”
“ASK THAT OF YOURSELF,” the figure replied. Its voice was hollow, sibilant, tinged with a strange reverberation. “MIA CORVERE.”
The girl blinked.
“… You know me?”
The figure moved closer, in a way Mia could only describe as … slithering. A rime of frost creeping across the tombs and crypts around them.
“I KNOW THAT YOU ARE MEANT FOR MORE THAN THIS,” it said. “YOUR TRUTH LIES BURIED IN THE GRAVE. AND YET YOU PAINT YOUR HANDS IN RED FOR THEM, WHEN YOU SHOULD BE PAINTING THE SKIES BLACK.”
“… o, joys, a cryptic one …”
“YOUR VENGEANCE IS AS THE SUNS, MIA CORVERE. IT SERVES ONLY TO BLIND YOU.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Mia heard shouts, turned toward the sound of approaching boots.
“SEEK THE CROWN OF THE MOON.”
Turning back, she found the thing gone, as if it had never been. Her breath still hung white in the air, the chill receding slow from her bones, its voice ringing in the black behind her eyes. She looked about the graveyard, seeing only corpses and crypts and wondering if she were dreaming awake.
“… mia, they are coming …”
“… WE MUST GO …”
More whistles. Boots coming closer. Blood on her face and skin. Mia snatched up one of the guard’s cloaks—the least bloody of the lot. And pulling the cowl over her head, she limped through the necropolis, quick as she could, struggling over the wrought-iron fence and disappearing into the warrens of the Galante backstreets.
Only bodies in her wake.
The Hanging Gardens of Ashkah are a sight unlike any under the suns.
In Godsgrave, the vast rooftop gardens of Little Liis overflow with sunsbride and honeyrose, helping to smother the sewer reek of the Rose River in their wondrous perfume. In Whitekeep, the garden mazes that King Francisco III built to entertain his mistresses stretch for miles, and an army of slaves toils to keep them trim, even a century after the monarchy’s fall. The Thorn Towers of Elai stand seventy feet high, covered in vast tangles of razorvine. When the vines bloom just before summersdeep, the towers are covered in blossoms than can be seen across the city. But no garden in all the Republic can match the Hanging Gardens of Ashkah, gentlefriends.
Not for their grandeur, nor their horror.
The smell struck Mia first. It rose over the stench in her cage miles from the city. Blood and sweat and blackest misery. She stared at the metropolis rising out of the haze ahead, chewing her lip. Some of the children in her wagon began to cry, younger women alongside them. Mia felt her shadow surge as she looked to their destination.
Never fear.
The Hanging Gardens had been settled by Liisian explorers after the Ashkahi Empire’s fall. In the centuries since the collapse, the port had grown into the largest metropolis on the coast, and now served as the greatest hub in the south seas for the fuel that drove the Itreyan Republic’s heart.
Slavery.
The cityport was red stone, nestled on the edge of a natural bay. The architecture was a blend of old Ashkahi ruins and graceful spires and domes of Liisian design built atop the old city’s remains. And all around the city walls hung thousands of iron gibbets, filled with thousands of human bodies.
Some were decades old, only tattered bones inside. Some were fresh dead. But from the piteous wails rising over the bustling metropolis beyond, Mia knew hundreds still lived. Left to hang in their cages ’til they perished.
The Hanging Gardens of Ashkah. Its flowers made of flesh and bone.fn2
And Mia was here at last.
The wagon train trundled through broad wooden gates, the stench rising with the heat. The streets were crowded, the harbor beyond filled with ships from all over the Republic, some off-loading, some shipping out laden with stock for resale. This was market season, when the slaver crews returned from their runs up the Ashkahi coast and farther east, their holds laden with fresh meat. Itreyan legionaries rubbed shoulders with Liisian merchants, and the din of coin and sorrow filled the air.
Mia felt someone push up beside her. Turning, she saw a thin woman staring out at the streets, her face pale.
“Everseeing help us …”
Mia squinted at the two suns above.
“I don’t think he’s listening,” she murmured.
The wagon pulled to a halt at the market square’s seething edge. Teardrinker hopped down from the driver’s seat, limping to the rear of the women’s wagon, pulling back the cover and pointing at Mia.
“All right, girl,” she said. “Off to the Pit we go.”
The captain unlocked the cage, stepped back with crossbow in hand. Merchants were already crowded around the wagon, prodding the stock inside and appraising their worth. Thugs in the market’s employ began off-loading men from the rear wagon, shackles singing a rusted song as the captives hopped down on the hardpacked earth. Mia climbed out of the wagon, watching the crowd around them.
I’m here.
She hid her smile behind the matted locks of her hair.
One step closer.
The Pit was dug at the other end of the marketplace, and Mia could hear it well before she laid eyes on it. Ragged cheers and grunts of pain, the clink of coin and the crack of bone. As they made their way across the crowded square, Teardrinker was stopped at least a dozen times by merchants inquiring about Mia’s sale. It took all the girl’s will to keep her temper in check as she felt them pawing her curves, checking her teeth with dirty hands. But Teardrinker declined all offers for Mia’s purchase, indicating she’d be for sale in the Pit soon. The captain’s refusals were met with disbelief or dismay, one merchant declaring it a “waste of good tits.” But Teardrinker held firm, and the pair walked on.
The Pit was exactly that—a hole dug ten feet deep, fifty feet wide, hemmed with limestone walls. A broad stockyard was built beside it, rusted iron bars holding back a multitude of muscular slaves. It was encircled by limestone bleachers, packed with cheering gamblers and shouting bookmakers. And on the innermost ring, attended by the seconds and servants, she saw over a dozen sanguila.fn3
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