Think Mia is the best? Taste true evil with quotes from The Broken Empire Trilogy
Let’s not mess around here. This series has just more than quotes to offer so I have included rich descriptive texts that boil the blood and wake something deep inside. Here’s to the good times fellas. Read on for some savage blood-curdling brutalism.
The deed is done. The war is won. And at the last, gentlefriend, her song is sung. I suppose you can say you know her now, at least as well as I did. The ugly parts and the selfish parts and the everything in between. A girl some called Pale Daughter. Or Kingmaker. A Queen of Scoundrels. A Lady of Blades. I like little Crow best of all. A girl who never knelt, who never broke, who never, ever allowed fear to be her fate. A girl I loved as much as you did. Look now upon the ruins in her wake. As pale light glitters on the waters that drank a city of bridges and bones, and a Republic’s ashes dance in the dark above your head. Stare mute at the broken sky and taste the iron on your tongue and listen as lonely winds whisper her name as if they knew her, too. I gave you all I promised, gentlefriend. I gave it to you in spades. And if her death didn’t unfold in the way you dreaded, I hope you’ll not name me liar for it. She did die, just as I said she would. But even the Moon loved our girl too much to let her die for long. The ink is drying upon the page. The tale is ending before your eyes. And if you feel some sorrow at this, our last farewell, know your narrator feels it, too. We are not made more by the stories we read, but by the stories we share. And in this, in her, I think we’ve shared more than most. I shall miss it when it’s gone. But to live in the hearts of those we leave behind is to never die. And to burn in the memories of our friends is to never say goodbye. So let me say this instead. Goodnight, gentlefriend. Goodnight. Never flinch. Never fear. And never, ever forget.
“It’s finished,” she sighed. And she was gone. His father was on his knees, bleeding from the places his eyes should have been. His sisters knelt before him, their heads bowed low. His mother spread her gowns across the heavens, the bonds of her prison forever broken. And Anais ascended his throne. One sun. One night. One moon. Balance. “All is as it should be,” the Night declared. “The scales weigh even at last.” The prince of dawn and dusk looked to the infinity above them. He shook his head. “One tithe remains,” he said. And with black and burning hands, he reached for a piece of forever.
She was dressed all in black: a corset and long skirts flowing like a river about her feet. A gravebone longblade waited in her hands. A golden mask covered her face, black paint on her lips, parting now as she spoke with a voice that shook the world.
She could understand that—the impulse to tread closer to the cliff to peer over the edge. The need to skip ahead a few chapters and learn how the story ends. But Spiderkiller herself had no desire to know how the tale of Itreya’s first imperator finished. Only that she be alive to read about it afterward.
The shadows lifted a fallen mask, leafed in gold, placing it over her eyes. It was shaped like a crescent. Like a moon not yet full. The dark was alive about her. Inside her. Pale and beautiful, she walked on. She wore the night, gentlefriends. And all the night came with her.
The city about her trembling, this tomb of a fallen divinity too long profaned by the tread of mortal feet. The grave of a fallen god, set now to become the grave of an empire.
She wore the night. Her gown was silken black. The jewels at her throat, darkling stars. Long skirts billowed out from her waist, flowed down to her bare feet, a corset of midnight cinched tight across ghost-pale skin. White powder on her cheeks. Black paint on her lips. Legions in her eyes.
“Still your rage, Adonai,” Scaeva said. “This was but a well-earned reminder to your sister of her place in my order. You and Marielle served me well for many years, and I am not a man who squanders gifts such as yours. There is a place for you at my side. So take your knee. Swear your allegiance. Beg my forgiveness.” The shadows at Scaeva’s feet rippled. “And I will grant it.” Adonai’s eyes flashed, the blood storm about him swirling, seething. “Speak ye of gifts?” he spat. “As if I found them in a pretty box on Great Tithe?” Adonai shook his head, long pale hair come loose from its ties and draped about crimson eyes. “Paid for my power be, bastard. With blood and agony. But thou art thief of a power unearned.” He narrowed his eyes, pointing at Scaeva. “Usurper, I name thee. Wretch and villain. Already I see how thy theft takes its tithe upon thee. But I have not the patience nor desire to await the descent of fate’s cold hand. I promised thee suffering, Julius.”
“There’s a tithe to be paid for power,” Mercurio said. “Sometimes it’s measured in conscience or coin. Sometimes we pay with pieces of our own souls. But whatever we owe, this much is true—sooner or later, the debt always comes due.”
“We’re not leaving without the weaver,” Mercurio said. “You have my word. But there’s one captain in this company, Adonai. And I’m giving the orders aboard this ship.” “Boat,” Bladesinger murmured from the gondola’s bow. Mercurio sighed, tired in his bones. “Everyone’s a critic.”
The faintest blood-red of Saan’s fallen glow, like blush on a courtesan’s cheek. Saai’s pale blue, like the eye of a newborn babe, falling into sleep. A magnificent watercolor portrait, glittering on the ocean’s face and reaching up into the gables of heaven. Dark stains leaking across the edges of the canvas. It takes three turns for the light to fully die. All the Republic is washed in the stink of blood as Aa’s ministers sacrifice animals by the hundreds, the thousands, beseeching their Everseeing to return quick as he may. Long shadows fall across the streets of Godsgrave like funeral shrouds. As the Night creeps closer on pale, bare feet, the citizenry is gripped with a kind of hysteria. Purchasing their pretty dominos and fearsome voltos and smiling punchinellos from the mask makers. Fetching their finest coats and gowns from tailors and seamstresses. Hands shaking all the while. The pious flee to the cathedrals in droves to pray the long night away. The rest seek solace in the company of friends or the arms of strangers or the bottom of bottles. An endless run of soirees and salons pepper the calendar in the turns prior, as the light slowly perishes, as the citizens fight or fawn or fuck their fears away. Then truedark falls. And Carnivalé begins.
Moonlight. In the distance, she could hear faint footsteps. The pulse of fearful hearts in heaving chests. The ring of steel, and prayers to the Everseeing. Men, she realized. The soldiers of the Seventeenth who’d pursued her into the labyrinth. Five thousand of them. But the power of a god now flowed in her veins. A dark and fathomless strength no child of woman born could hope to match. Even without the legion of passengers now in her shadow, she feared no mortal man. She’d deal with them, each in kind, like moths to black flame. Then Godsgrave. And then … Their voices rang through that broken skull, that hollowed crown. Many and one. “Father.” The shadows placed her bloody sword in her hand. “We come for you.”
The boy beside her. The boy inside her. Anais. “The many were one,” he whispered. The many fragments of his soul. “And will be again.” United in me. “One beneath the three.” One moon beneath three suns. “To raise the four.” The Four Daughters. “Free the first.” Niah, the first divinity. “Blind the second and the third.” Extinguish the second and third suns. And what then would remain? One sun. One moon. One night. Balance. As it was, and should, and will be.
“Fear was never my fate,” Mia hissed.
Fear was Can’t. Fear was Won’t. But fear wasn’t ever a choice. To never fear was to never hope. Never love. Never live. To never fear the dark was to never smile as the dawn kissed your face. To never fear solitude was to never know the joy of a beauty in your arms. Part of having is the fear of losing. Part of creating is the fear of it breaking. Part of beginning is the fear of your ending. Fear is never a choice. Never a choice. But letting it rule you is.
“Never flinch,” her mother had told her. “Never fear.” But there, alone in Cleo’s dark, Mia finally realized the impossibility of those words. Facing her fear for the first time in as long as she could remember, Mia finally saw it for what it was. Fear was a poison. Fear was a prison. Fear was the bridesmaid of regret, the butcher of ambition, the bleak forever between forward and backward.
Niah’s first chosen. What was Mia beside her? You are nothing, the woman told her. “I am Mia Corvere,” she hissed. “Champion of the Venatus Magni. Queen of Scoundrels and Lady of Blades.” You are no one. “I am a daughter of the dark between the stars. I am the thought that wakes the bastards of this world sweating in the nevernight. I am the war you—” No, dearheart, sweetheart, blackheart. Cleo smiled, one slender hand outstretched as if to bestow a gift. You are afraid. It took Mia a moment to feel the weight of it. To recognize the shape of it. Mister Kindly had walked in her shadow since she was ten years old, tearing her fears to ribbons. With Eclipse and him both inside her, she’d been indomitable. Fear had been a blurred memory, a forgotten taste, something that only happened to others. But after all those years, at Cleo’s smiling behest, it had finally, truly found her. Rising on an ice-cold tide in her belly and setting her legs to buckling. You never know what can break you until you’re falling apart. You never miss your shadow until you’re lost in the dark. Mia’s sword fell from nerveless fingers. She stumbled to her knees. She’d been alone before, but never like this.
It was as if all her life, she’d been unfinished, and she’d never realized until this moment. All the fragments of her brief existence seemed insignificant—Jonnen, Tric, Mercurio, Scaeva, even Ashlinn—they were only phantoms somewhere in the dark within. Because through all the years and all the blood, at last, at last, she was home. No. Mia gritted her teeth, balled her hands to fists. This is not my home. She was here for a reason. Not to sleep, but to awake. Not to be claimed, but to claim. The power of a fallen god. The legacy of a shattered line. The power of the light in the night. To tear it, beating and bleeding, from a shattered chest and wrest back her brother from the bastard who’d claimed him. To fight and die for the only thing that gave her life meaning anymore. The only thing she had left. When all is blood, blood is all.
“You’re not my daughter.” “You’re just her shadow.” “The last thing you will ever be in this world, girl, is someone’s hero.” “A girl with a story to tell.” “All I hear, Kingmaker, are lies from the mouth of a murderer.” “I want you gone, do you hear me?” “I’d have killed the sky for you…”
“Jonnen,” she breathed. Mia had no idea how Scaeva had sent word to the Ashkahi Legion about where she was headed. But he’d taken the godsblood. The might of a fallen divinity sang in his veins. Who knows what gifts he had at his disposal now? And in the end, she supposed it didn’t really matter how. He’d obviously done it, and she obviously had five thousand fully armed and armored cocks set to fuck her none too sweetly.
“Only a wanker reads her own biography, Sid. Especially if it’s got footnotes.”
“… Yours for the taking, Julius…” “It is dangerous, Father,” Jonnen warned. “And what have I told you, my son?” the imperator asked. “About claiming true power? Does a man need senators? Or soldiers? Or servants of the holy?” “No,” Jonnen whispered. “What then, does a man need?” “Will,” the boy heard himself say. “The will to do what others will not.”
“O, Lucius,” she’d sobbed. “My darling Lucius.” And though he’d not spoken, the boy still heard the words ringing in his head. My name is Jonnen. They’d eaten a surreal sort of dinner together. Just the three of them, like he couldn’t remember them doing for an age. The table was laden with the finest fare the boy had tasted in months. No slop stews or cold porridge or dried beef. No eating in some miserable hutch or lonely ruin. No bawdy tales or cigarillo smoke. Instead, they had mouthwatering finger foods and sizzling roasts cooked to perfection and honeyed sweets that melted in his mouth. Flawless porcelain plates and silver cutlery and singing Dweymeri crystal glasses. Mother even let him have a little wine. And all Jonnen could taste was the blood. Poor Butcher. Poor Eclipse.
Jonnen could still taste the blood. It had been a full turn since they’d emerged from the pool in the Red Church chapel beneath Godsgrave’s necropolis, dripping in scarlet. Fifty of the Luminatii awaiting them had given him, his father, the woman called Spiderkiller, and the sorcerii called Marielle a hasty escort through the bustling streets. The other half century had remained behind to ensure none of Mia’s comrades gave pursuit. Jonnen had wondered whether it would’ve been a good or bad thing. But none of them came after him at all. Once back in their apartments in the first Rib, the Spiderkiller had taken the sorcerii away, only Aa knew where. His father had gone to bathe. Jonnen had been surrounded by slaves, thoroughly scrubbed, trimmed, and dressed in a white toga hemmed in purple. And finally, with rather more flair than he thought their ignoble retreat from the Mountain had warranted, his father had presented him to his mother. Or at least, the woman who called herself his mother. Liviana Scaeva had wept to see him, sweeping him up in an embrace so fierce the boy thought his ribs might have cracked. She’d praised the Everseeing, blessed his father’s name, dragging him close with one hand while the other still gripped her son. “O, Lucius,” she’d sobbed. “My darling Lucius.” And though he’d not spoken, the boy still heard the words ringing in his head. My name is Jonnen. They’d eaten a surreal sort of dinner together. Just the three of them, like he couldn’t remember them doing for an age. The table was laden with the finest fare the boy had tasted in months. No slop stews or cold porridge or dried beef. No eating in some miserable hutch or lonely ruin. No bawdy tales or cigarillo smoke. Instead, they had mouthwatering finger foods and sizzling roasts cooked to perfection and honeyed sweets that melted in his mouth. Flawless porcelain plates and silver cutlery and singing Dweymeri crystal glasses. Mother even let him have a little wine. And all Jonnen could taste was the blood. Poor Butcher. Poor Eclipse.
“You know, I don’t remember them ever teaching classes in it here, but you’ve a wonderful knack for killing the mood.”>“It’s all lies,” she whispered. “The murders. The offerings. Hear me, Mother. Hear me now. All that bollocks. This place wasn’t a church, Solis. It was a brothel. You were never a holy Blade in service to the Mother of Night. You were a whore.”*
“I’m not some hero in a storybook. I’m not someone you should aspire to be. I’m a ruthless cunt, Jonnen. I’m a selfish bitch. You hurt me, I’ll hurt you back. You hurt the ones I love, I’ll kill you instead. That’s just the way I am. Julius Scaeva killed our mother. The man I called Father. And I don’t care what they did to deserve it. I don’t care that they weren’t perfect. I don’t even care that they were probably just as bad as him. Because truth told, perhaps I’m worse than all of them. So fuck what’s right. And fuck redemption. Because Julius Scaeva still deserves to die.”
Lightning flashed, tearing the skies in fury. The waves crashed and rolled. The Ladies of Storms and Oceans, the terrible twins, reaching out toward her with all their hatred. Mia hauled herself to her feet, Eclipse beside her, the shadows swaying like serpents. She dragged her sodden tricorn off, clawed her hair from her face, and she laughed. Her eyes alight. Her heart warmed by dark flame, burning in her chest. All they had, they’d thrown. All their hate, they’d given. All their fury, spent. Mia raised the knuckles to the sky. “Still standing, bitches.”
“Help me, then!” “ALWAYS!” Side by side. Back to back. The pair fought together, like in younger turns when they trained in the Hall of Songs. They were older now, harder, sadder, years and miles and the very walls of life and death between them.
“THE ONLY WEAPON IN THIS WAR IS FAITH.” She’d set aside her faith years ago. Stopped praying to Aa the turn she realized that all the devotion in the world wouldn’t bring her familia back. Even in service of the Dark Mother, even in the belly of the Quiet Mountain, she’d not truly held any belief for the divinities—not for divinities who might actually care, at least. Who knew who she was, who thought she mattered, who were more than empty words and hollow names. And now? Moons and crowns and mothers and fathers and all of it? Do I truly believe?
“I am a daughter of the dark between the stars,” she replied. “I am the thought that wakes the bastards of this world sweating in the nevernight. I am the vengeance of every orphaned daughter, every murdered mother, every bastard son.” Mia leaned forward and looked the man in the eye. “I am the war you cannot win.”
“My name is Mia Corvere,” she said, still unblinking. “Blade of the Red Church. Champion of the Venatus Magni. Chosen of the Dark Mother and Queen of Scoundrels. Never call me girl again.”
Blood was a speaker’s only sustenance, but it was also an emetic. To drink too much was to know awful sickness. To drink too little was to know awful hunger. A constant, flawless sanguine torture.
Blood was a speaker’s only sustenance, but it was also an emetic.
Her vow. Father When the last sun falls When daylight dies So do you.
“Pretty warriors can’t fight for shit. You can’t know how sweet it is to breathe ’til you’ve had your ribs broken. You can’t appreciate being happy ’til someone has made you cry. And there’s no point blaming yourself for the kickings life gives you. Just think about how much it hurt, and how much you don’t want to feel that way again. And that’ll help you do what you need to do the next time to win.”
“Blaming yourself for another’s work is like blaming yourself for the weather,” he said, looking at Wavewaker’s and Bryn’s bodies. “And I’ll mourn them as a brother and sister lost, aye. But taking a beating is part of being alive. And let me tell you something, Mia—the best brawlers I ever met were the ugliest, too. Broken noses and missing teeth and cauliflower ears. Because the best way to learn to win is by losing.”
*“The man I’ve been trying to kill for the past eight years turns out to be the man who gave me life. And if that isn’t enough of a fuck-you from the divinities, I’ve apparently got a fragment of a dead god inside me that I inherited from him, too! O, and incidentally, the last boy I fucked got murdered by the last girl I fucked, then resurrected by the Mother of Night to help me with the aforementioned god problem, and the prick who just cut Bryn and ’Waker’s throat used to be a personal friend of mine! I am fucking poison, do you see that? I am cancer! Whatever comes near me ends up dead. So get the fuck away from me before you get killed, too.”>I realize ‘deserve’ has nothing to do with this life. Blessings and curses fall on the wicked and the just alike. Fair is a fairy tale. Nothing’s claimed by those who don’t want it, and nothing’s kept by those who won’t fight for it. So let’s fight. Fuck the gods. Fuck it all. Let’s take the world by the throat and make it give us what we want.”
Whatever you did, you did it because it needed to be done. Remorse is for the weak, Mia. And regret is for cowards. Whatever you did then meant you can be here in my arms now. That makes it right. And I’m not about to let some bollocks about moons and suns take that away from us.”
“You do whatever you need to do. Moons, Mothers, I don’t give a toss. But if I get a whiff of some other endgame, I get a hint this Anais nonsense is putting her at risk, we’ll find out sure and true if deadboys can die again.” She took a step back, eyes never leaving his. “I will rip all three suns out of heaven to keep her safe, you hear me?” Ashlinn vowed. “I will kill the fucking sky.” She blew him a kiss. Then she turned and stalked away.
“’Byss and blood, how did you find us?”’Singer asked. “Poked my nose into the first whorehouse I saw,” Mia shrugged. “After that, I just followed the trail of vomit.”
“Known many high-priced courtesans, have you?” Aelius asked. Mercurio shrugged. “In my youth.” “Got any good stories? It’s been a while for me…” “If it’s cheap smut you’re after,” Mercurio sighed, tapping the first of “THE BOOKS,” “the tawdriness starts in volume one, page two hundred and forty-nine.” “O, I know,” the chronicler chuckled. “Chapter twenty-two.” Mercurio turned his deepening scowl on Aelius. “You read those pages?” “Didn’t you?” “Maw’s fucking teeth, no!” Mercurio almost choked on his smoke, utterly horrified. “She’s like my … I don’t want to think of her getting up to … that.”
“Well, let’s see,” Mia sighed, counting on her fingers. “I’ve brought two daemons and a deadboy aboard your ship. My brother and I are both darkin, and he’s also the abducted son of the imperator with what’s likely the whole Itreyan Legion chasing his arse. I implicated you and your crew in the murder of a handful of Luminatii, their crew, and the destruction of their ship.” She tipped her head back, guzzled the last of the bottle, and dropped it on the deck. “And I’ve drunk all your fucking wine.”
“A HINT OF REGRET? SOME SHRED OF REMORSE? FOR YOU TO UNDERSTAND SOME SMALL PART OF WHAT YOU TOOK FROM ME?” “Remorse is for the weak, Tricky,” Ash said. “And regret is for cowards.”
“Well,” Corleone said, taking another stab. “How do you all know each other?” Silence. Long as years. “We studied together,” Mia finally replied. “O, aye?” Corleone smiled, intrigued. “Public institution, or Iron Collegium, or…” “… it was a school for fledgling assassins run by a murder cult…” “Ah.” The captain glanced at the shadowcat and nodded. “Private tutors, then.” “SOME OF US BECAME MASTERS OF IT,” Tric said, staring at Ash. “MURDER, THAT IS.” “That shouldn’t surprise,” she replied. “Given what we trained for.” “A KNIFE IN THE HAND OF A FRIEND IS OFTEN A SURPRISE.” “It shouldn’t be, if that friend thinks to come before familia.” “Erm…,” Corleone stammered. Mia drained her glass. “Pass the wine, please?” Corleone complied as the galley boy brought in the main and started serving. It was fine fare considering they were aboard a ship—sizzling lamb and almost-fresh greens and rosemary jus that made Mia’s mouth water despite the tension in the air. As Corleone began carving, the meat almost fell off the bone. “I saw you best that silkling at the Whitekeep games,” BigJon said to her around his mouthful. “Won a strumpet’s cuntful of coin on you, too. Bloody magnificent, lass.” “Four Daughters, BigJon,” Cloud scowled. “Mind your cursing at table, neh?” “Fuck,” he said, biting his lip. “Apologies.” “Again?” “Fuck. Sorry. Shit … FUCK…” “No, it’s all right,” Mia said, leaning back in her chair and enjoying the feel of her head spinning. “I was bloody magnificent. I trust you spent your cuntful on something fucking marvelous.” The littleman grinned with silver teeth, raising his glass. “O, I like you.” Mia raised her glass in return, downed it in a gulp. “What about you, young don?” Cloud said, turning to Jonnen for a change of subject. “Do you like ships, perchance?” “Do not speak to me, cretin,” the boy replied, toying with his food. “Jonnen,” Mia warned. “Don’t be rude.” “I will not entertain inane chatter with this lawless brigand, Kingmaker,” the boy snapped. “Further, when I am returned to my father, I will see him hanged a villain.” “Well…” Corleone’s lips flapped a little. “I…” “Don’t mind him,” Mia said. “He’s a spoiled little shit.” “I am the son of an imperator!” the boy cried shrilly. “But you’re not above a spanking! So mind your fucking manners!” Mia glowered at the boy, engaged in a silent battle of wills. “Ah…,” BigJon tried. “More wine?” “O, yes, please,” Mia said, holding out her glass. A more comfortable silence settled over the table as Mia got her refill and folk got down to eating. Mia had spent the last eight months dining on the various questionable broths and swills cooked up in the Remus Collegium—this was the first decent feed she’d had in as long as she could remember. She started stuffing her face, using more wine to wash her ambitious mouthfuls down. The lamb was delicious, hot, perfectly seasoned, the greens crunchy and tart. Even Jonnen seemed to be enjoying himself. “Are you not eating, Don Tric?” Corleone asked. “I can have the galley fix something else if this displeases.” “THE DEAD HAVE NO NEED OF FOOD, CAPTAIN.” “And yet they insist on coming to the dinner table, regardless,” Ashlinn muttered around a mouthful. “… EXCUSE ME?” “Pass the salt, dwarf,” Jonnen demanded. “Oi!” Mia thumped the table. “He’s not a dwarf, he’s a littleman!” “No, I am a little man,” the boy said with a smug smile, pointing to BigJon with his fork. “He is a dwarf. And I will be taller tomorrow.” “That’s fucking it,” Mia said, rising to her feet. “Go to your room!” “I beg your pardon?” he asked. “I am the son of—” “I give no fucks for whose son you are. You’re a guest at this table and you don’t talk to people that way. You want to be treated with respect, little brother? Start by treating others to it. Because it’s earned, not fucking owed.” Mia leaned forward and glowered. “Now go. To. Your. Room!”
“More wine, anyone?” “No,” Ashlinn said, watching Tric. “NO,” Tric said, glaring at Ashlinn. “Fuck yes,” Mia said, waving her glass.
For his part Falco was ready for the blow at least, drawing the sunsteel blade at his belt and speaking a prayer to Aa. The sword ignited with a shear of bright flame and he met the girl’s strike, his sunsteel scoring her blade. The lass yelled “MIA!” again, the three remaining marines cried out and drew their shortblades, Cloud spat a black curse, and before he knew it, the cabin was in chaos.
Gravebone swords. And lastly, and probably strangest of all, as the girl aimed a scything blow at Centurion Ovidius Varinius Falco, second century, third cohort’s cocky neck, a shadow shaped like a cat lunged out from beneath her voluminous robes with an unearthly yowl, followed by a rather alarmed nine-year-old boy, gagged and bound at his wrists.
Several things happened in quick succession here, each slightly more surprising than the last. First, the lass shouted “MIA!” at the top of her lungs toward the open porthole. Which, all things considered, Cloud thought rather odd. Second, she moved, flinging a knife from inside her sleeve and drawing a shortsword she’d hidden fuck-knows-where. The knife sailed into the throat of the closest marine, and as the man fell back in a spray of red, the lass lashed out at the centurion with her blade, face twisted in a snarl. Third, the big fellow in the corner threw back his hood, revealing a corpse-pale face, eyes like a daemon and saltlocks like … well, Cloud had no fucking idea, but they were moving by themselves. The fellow drew out his two suspiciously sword-shaped lumps from beneath his robe, which indeed turned out to be swords.
“Fear has its uses,” he replied. “Fear is what keeps the dark from devouring you. Fear is what stops you joining a game you cannot hope to win.”
“I have never lied to you, daughter,” he said. “Not once, throughout it all. When I ordered you drowned, you were worthless to me. Jonnen was young enough to claim as my own. You were too old. But now you’ve proved yourself my daughter true. Possessed of the same will as I: not only to survive, but to prosper. To carve your name with bloody fingernails into this earth. Darius sought to become a kingmaker? You can truly be one. The blade in my right hand. Whatever you desire will be yours. Wealth. Power. Pleasure. I can do away with those gold-grubbing whores in the Red Church and have you at my side instead. My daughter. My blood. As dark and beautiful and deadly as the night. And together, we can sculpt a dynasty that will live for a thousand years.”
“Mia, if Darius Corvere’s rebellion had triumphed, his beloved General Antonius would now be king of Itreya. The Senate House would be a ruin and the constitution in ashes. And I don’t blame the man for trying. Darius gave his best. The only difference between he and I is that his best wasn’t good enough to win the game.”
“The same way I just laid c-claim to a throne.” Scaeva twisted the Trinity this way and that, veins standing taut in his neck, hissing through gritted teeth. “A matter of will, daughter m-mine. To claim true power, you need not soldiers … n-nor senators, nor servants of the holy. All you need is the will to do what others will n-not.”
“YOU MUST MAKE WHOLE WHAT WAS BROKEN, MIA. YOU MUST RETURN MAGIK TO THE WORLD. RESTORE THE BALANCE BETWEEN NIGHT AND DAY, LIKE IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING. LIKE IT WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO BE. ONE SUN. ONE NIGHT. ONE MOON.”
“IN THE EMPIRE OF OLD ASHKAH, THEY KNEW ANAIS BY ANOTHER NAME.” Mia looked at the glowing orb—the same she’d seen in the moment she slew Furian in Godsgrave Arena—and felt her shadow grow darker still. “The Moon,” she realized. Tric nodded. “HE WAS THE EATER OF FEAR. THE DAY IN THE DARKNESS. HE REFLECTED HIS FATHER’S LIGHT AND BRIGHTENED HIS MOTHER’S NIGHT. IN THE EMPIRE OF OLD ASHKAH, HE TAUGHT THE FIRST SORCERII THE ARTS ARCANE. A GOD OF MAGIK AND WISDOM AND HARMONY, WORSHIPPED ABOVE ALL OTHERS. NO SHADOW WITHOUT LIGHT, EVER DAY FOLLOWS NIGHT, BETWEEN BLACK AND WHITE…” “There is gray…,” Mia murmured. “HE WAS THE BALANCE BETWEEN NIGHT AND DAY. THE PRINCE OF DAWN AND DUSK. AND FEARING HIS GROWING POWER, THE EVERSEEING RESOLVED TO SLAY HIS ONLY SON.” The stone reliefs began moving again as Tric spoke. Graven hands shifting to cover sightless eyes. Mouths widening in horror. The orb in the pool shifted, became a sharp, crescent shape, dripping blood. In the back of her mind, Mia swore she could hear other voices. Thousands of them, just beyond the edge of hearing. And they were screaming. “AA STRUCK WHILE ANAIS SLEPT,” Tric continued. “HE CUT OFF HIS SON’S HEAD AND HURLED HIS BODY FROM THE HEAVENS. ANAIS’S CORPSE PLUMMETED TO THE EARTH, TEARING THE LAND ASUNDER AND THROWING ALL THE WORLD INTO CHAOS. THE ASHKAHI EMPIRE IN THE EAST WAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED. AND WHERE HIS SON’S BODY LAY IN THE WEST, AA COMMANDED HIS FAITHFUL TO BUILD A TEMPLE TO HIS GLORY. THAT TEMPLE BECAME A CITY, AND THAT CITY BECAME THE NEW HEART OF HIS FAITH.” “The Ribs.” Ash glanced at the gravebone blade at her waist. “The Spine.” “This whole place…,” Mia realized, looking around them. Tric nodded. “A GOD’S GRAVE.” Heart hammering, mouth dry, Mia pictured the illustration she’d found at the end of Cleo’s journal—a map of Itreya before the rise of the Republic. The bay of Godsgrave had been missing entirely, a peninsula filling the Sea of Silence where the Itreyan capital now stood. And in that spot, three words had been scribed in blood-red ink. “Here he fell…,” she whispered. “HERE HE FELL,” Tric nodded. “BUT GODS DON’T DIE SO EASILY. AND THE MOTHER KEEPS ONLY WHAT SHE NEEDS. ANAIS’S SOUL WASN’T EXTINGUISHED.”
ANAIS’S CORPSE PLUMMETED TO THE EARTH, TEARING THE LAND ASUNDER
YOUR VENGEANCE IS AS THE SUNS, MIA. IT SERVES ONLY TO BLIND YOU.
*Mercurio raised an eyebrow, cigarillo still smoldering at his lips as he examined the tome. It was bound in leather, black as a truedark sky. The edges of the pages were stained blood-red, and a crow in flight was embossed in glossy black on the cover. He opened the book, looked down to the first page. “Nevernight,” he muttered. “Stupid name for a book.” “Makes for interesting reading,” Aelius said. Mercurio opened the book to the prologue, rheumy eyes scanning the text. CAVEAT EMPTOR People often shit themselves when they die. Their muscles slack and their souls flutter free and everything else just … slips out. For all their audience’s love of death, the playwrights seldom— Mercurio flipped through a few more pages, softly scoffing. “It has footnotes? What kind of wanker writes a novel with footnotes?” “It’s not a novel,” Aelius replied, sounding wounded. “It’s a biography.” “About who?” The chronicler simply nodded back to the book. Mercurio flicked through a few pages more, scanning the beginning of chapter three. … dropped him into the path of an oncoming maidservant, who fell with a shriek. Dona Corvere turned on her daughter, regal and furious. “Mia Corvere, keep that wretched animal out from underfoot or we’ll leave it behind!” And as simple as that, we have her name. Mia. Mercurio faltered. Cigarillo hanging from suddenly bone-dry lips. His blood ran cold as he finally understood what he held in his hands. Glancing up at the shelves around him. The dead books and lost books and books that never were—some burned on the pyres of the faithful, some swallowed by time, and others … Simply too dangerous to write at all. Aelius had wandered off down the twisted row, hands in his pockets and muttering to himself, a trail of thin gray smoke left behind him. But Mercurio was rooted to the spot. Utterly mesmerized. He began flipping faster through the pages, eyes scanning the flowing script, snatching only fragments in his haste. “The books we love, they love us back.” “I will give your brother your regards.” “Who or what is the Moon?” she asked. Mercurio reached the end, turning the book over and over in his hands. Wondering why there were no more pages and looking around the library of the dead in mute wonder and fear. “I found another one, too,” Aelius said, returning from farther down the row. “About three months back. Wasn’t there one turn, next turn, there it was.” The chronicler handed Mercurio another heavy tome. It was similar to the one he already held, but the pages were edged in sky blue rather than blood-red. A wolf was embossed on the black cover instead of a crow. Juggling the first book into the crook of his elbow, he opened the second’s cover and peered at the title. “Godsgrave,” he muttered. “Follows on from the first,” Aelius nodded. “I think I liked this one better, actually. Less fucking about at the start.” The choir sang in the ghostly dark around them, echoing through the great Athenaeum. Mercurio’s hands were shaking, cigarillo falling from his mouth as he fumbled with the first tome, opening it finally to the title page. And there it was. NEVERNIGHT BOOK >OF THE NEVERNIGHT CHRONICLE by Mercurio of Liis The old man closed the book, looked at Niah’s chronicler with wondering eyes. “Holy shit,” he breathed.
An endless heaven for any reader, and a living hell for any librarian.
And now, here he was. A worm on Drusilla’s hook. For all his bluff, he knew the Lady of Blades spoke truth—Mia loved him like blood. She’d never let him die in here, not if she thought she had a chance to save him. And with those wretched daemons riding her shadow and eating her fear, in Mia’s head there was always a chance.
“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.” “Or what?” Ashlinn said, her anger rising. “You can’t kill me like you killed my da, you old bitch. The map’s branded on my skin. If I die, it’s lost forever.” “Please sit, Dona Järnheim,” said a voice. A man stepped out from Mercurio’s bedchamber, and Ashlinn’s belly filled with cold ice. He was tall, painfully handsome, dark hair shot through with the faintest streaks of gray. He wore a long toga of rich purple, a golden laurel at his brow. “No… ,” Ashlinn breathed. “If we wanted you dead, you’d have been so long ago,” Consul Scaeva said. “So, please, sit before we are forced to resort to… unpleasantness.” “You’re dead,” Ashlinn whispered. “I saw you die…” “No,” Scaeva said. “Although I admit the likeness was uncanny.” Ashlinn’s eyes grew wide as realization sank home… “The Weaver,” Ash whispered. “Marielle. She gave someone else your face…” “You always were a clever one, Ashlinn,” Aalea smiled. “You’ll forgive the appertaining drama, I hope,” Consul Scaeva said. “But such subterfuge is necessary for a man with as many enemies as I.” Ashlinn searched their faces, mind awhirl. They’d known. They’d known this whole fucking time… But why would they let us….. Unless they wanted us… Like a puzzlebox with no more missing pieces. All of them falling into place. “You wanted Cardinal Duomo dead,” she whispered. “But you couldn’t just have the Church kill him. He was protected by the Red Promise. Only a Blade would be good enough to end him… but it had to be a Blade willing to betray the Ministry. That way, the Church’s reputation stays intact, and you still see your enemy dead.” “And once I reveal myself miraculously alive to Godsgrave’s adoring citizens…” “… They’ll adore you all the more.” “And be left with no doubt of the continuing danger our Republic faces.” “Buying you a fourth term as consul…” “O, no,” Scaeva said, smiling wide. “That laurel is already bought. But the brutal assassination of a grand cardinal in front of the entire capital on Aa’s most holy feast? Say it with me, young Dona Järnheim. Perpetual. Emergency. Powers.” Ashlinn’s lips curled in derision. The ego on this tosser… The girl tossed her pack away with an almost casual contempt, plopped herself into the offered chair, and put her feet on Mercurio’s desk, right in Drusilla’s face. The old woman glowered, but Mia’s gravebone blade was still in Ash’s hand, her fingers drumming on the hilt. “Foresaw everything, neh?” she asked the consul. “I foresaw enough.” “Except the part where Mia stole your son?”
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 like 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.
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.”
Mercurio sighed. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed yet, girl, but Mia Corvere and lunacy go together like cigarillos and smoke.”
“There’s only one way this ends,” she said. “And you and I both know it. But I’ll come at you frontways. I can promise you that, at least.” The Unfallen nodded, tightened his grip on his blade. “So be it. Sanguii e Gloria.” Mia shook her head. “You can keep the glory, Furian.” She turned her eyes to the consul’s chair. “I’m just here for the blood.”
those who do not fear the flame are burned. those who do not fear the blade are bled. and those who do not fear the grave…” “… ARE FREE TO BE AND DO WHATEVER THEY WISH.
Life is pain, and loss, and sacrifice.” Furian grit his teeth and closed his eyes. “But we should welcome that pain. If it brings us salvation.”
The fear. Welling in her belly like poison. She wanted Mister Kindly and Eclipse back, right now. Life was so much easier with no regard for consequence, no thought for pain. Her passengers were what made her strong, allowed her to be a terror of the sands, to spare no thought for hurting or being hurt in kind. She was steel when they were inside her. Without them… Without them, what am I?
“… I THINK YOU TOO STUPID TO BE FRIGHTENED OF ME, LITTLE MOGGY. BUT ONE TURN, I SHALL TEACH YOU THERE IS A PRICE FOR OWNING TOO MUCH MOUTH AND NOT ENOUGH TEETH…” “… tell me, dear mongrel, do you practice these blunt little threats when you’re alone, or do you simply improvise.
“Thousands would have died. Tens of thousands, maybe. And for what? So one man could wear a crown, and another could place it on his head? I couldn’t do it. I went to my centurion and told him so. He listened patiently as I tried to tell him the wrong of it. And when I was done, he had me beaten near to death, branded a coward, and sold off to the first bidder on the blocks.” Sidonius shook his head. “Six years in chains for one moment of principle. That’s the tithe I paid. But you know what I learned in all the years between then and this, little Crow?” “… No.” Sid fixed Mia in his ice-blue stare. “There’s no softer pillow than a clear conscience.”
“What is her name?” Feet stamping, hands clapping, the word reverberating across the sands. “Crow! Crow! Crow! Crow!” Mia looked down at the bloody sword in her hand. Over to Furian, curled in a ball in the dirt, hands to his savaged throat. She raised her eyes to the sanguila’s box, saw Leona on her feet, horrified stare locked on Furian. Arkades stood beside her, hands raised in somber applause. She thought of Godsgrave, of the Venatus Magni, the berth her victory had now assured. She thought of Bryn, her dead brother cradled in her arms as she wailed. She thought of her father, holding her hands as he whisked her around some glittering ballroom, her feet atop his as they danced. Her mother, making her watch as he was hanged, as she whispered the words that would shape Mia forever, as the hope children breathed and adults mourned withered and fell away, floating like ashes on the wind. “Never flinch. Never fear. And never, ever forget.” What is my name? “Crow! Crow! Crow! Crow!”
“The magistrae?” Mia raised her eyebrow. “I’ve a penchant for older women, little Crow.” “You’ve a penchant for anything with two tits, a hole and heartbeat, Sid.”
Rubbing this prick’s face in his own shit had now become a burning priority.
She turned in a circle, taking in the ocean of faces, the blood-drunken cheers, the thundering feet. And for a tiny moment, she ceased being Mia Corvere, the orphaned girl, the darkin assassin, the embodiment of vengeance. She held her arms wide, dripping red onto the sand, and listened to the crowd roar in response. And just for a breath, she forgot what she had been. Knowing only what she’d become. Gladiatii.
But there are no girls on the sand. No mothers or daughters. Sons or fathers. Only enemies. You spend a moment worrying about what’s between your opponent’s legs you’ll find your head parted from your body. And what good will your fool cock do you then?”
“You’re a lying cunt is what you are.” “There’s an obsidian vault inside the Revered One’s chambers,” Ash spat. “And inside that vault, they keep a ledger of every offering the Church has undertaken. All their patrons. All their shit. When I poisoned the Ministry at the initiation feast, I stole the ledger, Mia. That’s the reason they’ve been hunting me and my da for the past eight months. Not because we betrayed them. Because we knew all their dirty little secrets.”
“They’re assassins, of course they would! There’s no sanctity to what the Red Church does. They murder people for money. Half of them are psychopaths and the rest are just sadistic bastards. They’re not servants of some divine Goddess of Night, they’re fucking whores.”
“And I’ve two golden rules in this life, little one—never trust a man who speaks of his mother without kindness, and never trust a woman who hides her face without cause.”
“The sand is no place for brawlers,” Executus said, his scar creased in a scowl. “It is checkered board. And on it, we play the greatest game of all. A wily opponent may feign weakness. Allow you to exert yourself and learn your patterns, all without breaking a sweat. Overconfidence has ended a thousand fools who’d name themselves gladiatii. Mark this, or it will be the end of you. Now get off my fucking sand.”
“Blade Mia. Godsgrave is the only Red Church chapel we’ve managed to rebuild in the eight months since the Luminatii attack. Thanks to Grand Cardinal Duomo and his god-bothering shitheels, I’m one of two bishops servicing the whole fucking Republic, in fact, and with Scaeva running for a fourth term as consul and Godsgrave politics all aflutter, there’s no end of bastards who need killing. So, given that I’m busier than a whorehouse running a two-for-one special, do me the honor of saying thank you, and taking what you’re bloody given.”
“Gladiatii fear no death!” Executus continued, spittle on his lips. “Gladiatii fear no pain! Gladiatii fear but one thing—the everlasting shame of defeat! Mark my lessons. Know your place. Train until you bleed. For if you bring such shame upon this collegium, upon your domina, I swear by almighty Aa and all four of his holy fucking Daughters.
Executus growled. “Unworthy to lick the shit from my boot. What do you know of glory? It is a hymn of sand and steel, woven by the hands of legends and sung by the roaring crowd. Glory is the province of gladiatii.
CASSIUS FOUND ENOUGH MEANING IN LIFE BY ENDING THE LIVES OF OTHERS. HE NEEDED NO MORE THAN THAT.
The old man hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat. “Problem with being a librarian is there’s some lessons you just can’t learn from books. And the problem with being an assassin is there’s some mysteries you just can’t solve by stabbing fuck out of them.”
“You said I was a girl with a story to tell.” “And what else?” Smoke drifted from the girl’s lips as the old man stared her down. “You said maybe here’s not where I’m supposed to be,” she finally replied. “Which stank like horseshit at the time, and smells even worse now. I proved myself. The Ministry would all be nailed to crosses in the ’Grave if not for me. And I’m sick and bloody tired of everybody around here seeming to forget that.” “You don’t find any irony in earning your place in a cult of assassins by saving half a dozen lives?” “I killed almost a hundred men in the process, Aelius.” “And how do you feel about that?” “What are you, my nursemaid?” Mia snapped. “A killer is what I am. The wolf doesn’t pity the lamb.
Looking out over the mezzanine to the endless shelves below, the girl couldn’t help but smile. She’d grown up inside books. No matter how dark life became, shutting out the hurt was as easy as opening a cover. A child of murdered parents and a failed rebellion, she’d still walked in the boots of scholars and warriors, queens and conquerors. The heavens grant us only one life, but through books, we live a thousand.
if the unpleasant realities of bloodshed turn your insides to water, be advised now that the pages in your hands speak of a girl who was to murder as maestros are to music. Who did to happy ever afters what a sawblade does to skin.
“Slender” is a poet’s way of saying “starved.”
“The largest of the three suns is a furious red globe called Saan. The Seer. Shuffling across the heavens like a brigand with nothing better to do, Saan hangs in the skies for near one hundred weeks at a time. The second sun is named Saai. The Knower. A smallish blue-faced fellow, rising and setting quicker than its brother—” “… sibling…,” the cat corrected. “… old ashkahi does not gender nouns…” “… quicker than its sibling, it visits for perhaps fourteen weeks at a stretch, near twice that spent beyond the horizon. The third sun is Shiih. The Watcher. A dim yellow giant, Shiih takes almost as long as Saan in its wanderings across the sky.”
Peacock’s mouth opened as she introduced her boot to his partner’s groin, kicking him hard enough to cripple his unborn children.
And as simple as that, our girl’s tally of endings had multiplied threefold. Pebbles to avalanches.
“You can drag the girl from the gutter, but never the gutter from the girl.”
“You imagine an oaf, don’t you?” Mia continued. “Someone so full of wank there’s no room for wits. A slow-minded bastard who struts about full of spunk and completely ignorant of how he looks to others.”
“Truth is, there’s no difference between your nethers and mine. Aside from the obvious, of course. But one doesn’t carry any more weight than the other. Why should what’s between my legs be considered any smarter or stupider, any worse or better? It’s all just meat, Don Tric. In the end, it’s all just food for worms. Just like Duomo, Remus, and Scaeva will be.”
“Corvere and his cronies got off light with that hanging. Their commonborn troops have been crucified along the banks of the Choir. Rumor is they’re going to pave the Senate House streets with their skulls. A lot of those soldiers had familia ’round here. So, I’d not walk about with a traitor’s mark pinned to my tits were I you.”
“You’ve heard the saying the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?” “I always wondered about that,” Tric frowned. “Ribcage seems much quicker to me.” “True enough. >“Bastard I might be,” Tric spat. “But you’re the one who decides to be a cunt every turn of your life.” Mia had her knife out, smiling. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”*
His was the beauty of a fresh suicide, laid out in a new pine box. The kind of beautiful you know will spoil after an hour or two in the ground.
“All power comes with a tithe. We all pay a price. Speakers, their hunger. Weavers, their impotence. And those who call the Dark…”—Drusilla looked down to Mia’s shadow—“… well, eventually it calls them back.”
The trust of a woman who can lead you to your kill? How will steel serve you then?” “I’m told hot coals work wonders in those situations.” “Warm skin serves better still. And leaves fewer.
“They will never see the knife in your hand if they are lost in your eyes. They will never taste the poison in their wine when they are drunk on the sight of you.” A small shrug. “Beauty simply makes it easier, love. Easier than you have it now. It may be sad. It may be wrong. But it is also true.”
“It may not be right,” Aalea said. “It may not be just. But this is a world of senators and consuls and Luminatii—of republics and cults and institutions built and maintained almost entirely by men. And in it, love is a weapon. Sex is a weapon. Your eyes? Your body? Your smile?” She shrugged. “Weapons. And they give you more power than a thousand swords. Open more gates than a thousand war walkers. Love has toppled kings, Mia. Ended empires. Even broken our poor, sunsburned sky.”
It all made sense now. Aalea’s unearthly beauty. Mouser’s young face and old eyes. Even the Revered Mother’s facade of homely warmth. She understood this room’s name at last. The Hall of Masks. Daughters, it might apply to the entire Mountain. Killers within—killers all—hiding behind facades not of ceramic or wood, but flesh. Beauty. Youth. Soft maternity. How better to maintain a cadre of anonymous assassins than by reshaping their faces whenever the need struck? How better to seduce a mark or blend into a crowd or be met and instantly forgotten than by crafting a face suited to the task? How better to make us forget who we were, and shape us into what they want us to be?
“That is how it begins. The weaving is only the first of it. The butterfly remembers being the caterpillar. But do you think it feels anything but pity for that thing crawling in the muck? Once it has spread those beautiful wings and learned to fly?”
“That is how it begins. The weaving is only the first of it. The butterfly remembers being the caterpillar. But do you think it feels anything but pity for that thing crawling in the muck?
poison is a sword with no hilt, children. There is only the blade. Double-edged and ever-sharp. To be handled with utmost care lest it bleed you to your ending.”
“Well, he might’ve had a hard time convincing the Senate there was still a crisis, but when an assassin tries to murder the head of the Republic in a cathedral full of witnesses, it gets a touch easier to make the case. The Truedark Massacre showed the Senate just how dangerous this city still is. You’d need a bloody army to get through to Scaeva now. He doesn’t take a piss without a cadre of Luminatii to hold the pot.” Mia sipped her whiskey. Eyes on the table. “Cardinal Duomo is still on Scaeva like a babe at his mother’s tit, of course,” Mercurio muttered. “Has his ministers preaching from the pulpits, praising our ‘glorious consul’ and his ‘golden age of peace.’” The old man scoffed. “Golden age of tyranny, more like it. We’re closer to a new arse on the throne than when the Kingmakers raised their army. But the plebs lap it up. Peace means stability. And stability means money. Scaeva’s near untouchable now.”
“A shard of glass can slice a man’s throat. Pierce his heart clean. Open his wrists to the bone. But press it in the wrong place, glass with shatter. Iron will not.”
“A shard of glass can slice a man’s throat. Pierce his heart clean. Open his wrists to the bone.
matters not what you are,” Cassius said. “Only that you are. And if you seek an answer to some greater riddle of yourself, seek it not from me until you’ve earned it. In one measure, and one measure alone, you
You are beauty and a philosopher. be still, my beating heart…”
“The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.”
Focusing on the task. The comfort of the rote.
“That goat-loving, mule-sucking, pig-fucking sonofabitch,” Ash growled.
“Righteous brothers,” Remus began. “This eve, we strike a blow against a blasphemy that has blackened our glorious Republic for decades. The ministers of this godless church are to be brought back alive to Godsgrave for interrogation. But any other night-worshipping bastard you cross within these walls is to be shown no mercy. We are the right hand of Aa, and this eve, we bring this house of heresy to its knees.”
“Righteous brothers,” Remus began. “This eve, we strike a blow against a blasphemy that has blackened our glorious Republic for decades. The ministers of this godless church are to be brought back alive to Godsgrave for interrogation. But any other night-worshipping bastard you cross within these walls is to be shown no mercy. We are the right hand of Aa, Hear me, Aa. Hear me, Father. Your flame, my heart. Your light, my soul. For your name, and your glory, and your justice, I march. Shine upon me.” Remus raised his head. Nodded at his men. “Luminus Invicta.”, “Hear me, Niah,” she whispered. “Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.”
But again, at the final hurdle, she’d stumbled. And she’d fallen. “Story of my life,” she muttered.
“Every nevernight since I was ten years old, I’ve dreamed of killing you. You and Scaeva and Duomo. I gave up everything. Any chance I ever had of ever being happy. Every turn, I’d picture your face and imagine all the things I’d say to let you know just how much I hate you. It’s all I am anymore. It’s all that’s left inside me. You killed me, Remus. Just as sure as you killed my familia.” Mia raised her sword, leveled it at Remus’s head. “And now, I’m going to kill you.”
“O, fuck off, god-botherer,” Ashlinn snarled. “I’m not in this for your glorious Republic and I don’t give a shit about you or your men. If I wanted a trump card up my sleeve, that’s my business. And in case you missed it, it just saved your miserable life. So instead of bleating about it, maybe you should end the girl who just tried to murder you, then go make sure the rest of the Ministry is still under lock and key? Unless you and your merry band of idiots want to accidentally gut them, too?”
“You’ll never know my name, I’m afraid,” she said. “It’s the shadow road for me. I’m a rumor. A whisper. The thought that wakes the bastards of this world sweating in the nevernight. And you are a bastard, Swordbreaker of the Threedrake clan. A bastard I made a promise about to someone I cared for, not so long ago.”
I suppose now you think you know her. The girl some called Pale Daughter. Or Kingmaker. Or Crow. The girl who was to murder as maestros are to music. Who did to happy ever afters what a sawblade does to skin. Look now upon the ruins in her wake. As pale light glitters on the waters that drank a city of bridges and bones. As the ashes of the Republic dance in the dark above your head. Stare mute at the broken sky and taste the iron on your tongue and listen as lonely winds whisper her name as if they knew her too. Do you think she would laugh or weep to see the world her hand has wrought? Do you think she knew it would come to this? Do you really know her at all? Not yet, little mortal. Not yet by half. But after all, this tale is only one of three. Birth and life and death. So take my hand now. Close your eyes. And walk with me.
“Pigs. Paupers. Cattle. Kings. It makes no difference to Our Lady. It all stains alike. And it all washes out the same.”
“Go,” he finally said. “May Our Lady be late when she finds you. And when she does, may she greet you with a kiss.”
“One stipulation,” the big man said, holding up his finger. “An item of import to your patron. A map, written in Old Ashkahi and set with a seal shaped like a sickle’s blade. The Dona is brokering an exchange with the map’s current owner. You must take the map, along with her life.” “… What’s the map of?” “It provides detailed directions to the Empire of None of Your Fucking Concern.”
“Who is this patron, Shahiid?” “Irrelevant,” Solis scowled. “All you need know is that, miracle of miracles, they are pleased with your results. You are being sent after bigger game.” Mia looked Solis up and down, considering. From the scowl at his brow, the tension in his jaw, she’d wager her last coin the Revered Father had violently objected to her assignment. But despite that, she’d been appointed anyway. Which meant this patron was powerful. Or rich. Or both. Well, that narrows it down… “So what new backwater does my illustrious patron send me to?” Mia asked. “Last Hope? Amai? Sto—” “Godsgrave,” Mouser replied. Mia’s tongue cleaved to her teeth, her heart running quicker. Maw’s teeth. The ’Grave… The capital of Itreya. Only the Church’s finest Blades served in the City of Bridges and Bones. Grand Cardinal Duomo lived there, as did Consul Scaeva. If Mia wanted revenge for her familia, her first step was getting close to the men who murdered them. If she’d somehow lucked into a dream posting… “I know your mind,” Solis growled. “I know why you came to this Church and what it is you seek. So, while I am sending you to the capital against my better judgment, I am telling you this now, and I am telling you once.” Solis towered over her, blind eyes boring into Mia’s own. “Consul Julius Scaeva is not to be touched.” Mia scowled. “Wh—” “I will not tolerate you pursuing your own vendettas while serving this Ministry,” Solis said. “You already murdered a bara of the Dweymeri out of some misplaced sympathy for the boy you were bedding. I’ll not have another unsanctioned kill wrought by your hand. Or your quim.” “Who I bed is my concern. And you don’t get to dec—” “I do decide!” Solis roared. “I am Revered Father of this congregation! I give not a beggar’s cuss for who you wet the furs with, but Swordbreaker was a fucking king! What if he’d been a patron of this Church? We’d have breached Sanctity! Our reputation shattered over a child’s whim.” “It wasn’t a whim, it was a promise!” “Let us speak of promises, then, girl,” Solis spat. “Disobey me, and I promise you an ending from which even the Goddess herself would avert her gaze. Scaeva is not to be touched!” “And why not?” Mia looked among the Ministry, her anger finally getting the better of her. “The Luminatii killed Lord Cassius, almost killed all of you! You think Scaeva didn’t order it? Remus was a fucking lapdog. You think he took a piss without asking the consul’s permission first?” “Hear me now!” Solis raised a finger in warning, blind eyes flashing. “Scaeva will be dealt with. But in our own way. In our own time. You are a servant of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, and in the Mother’s name, that means you fucking serve!” Mia felt her cheeks flush with rage. She stared into Solis’s blind eyes and imagined drawing the gravebone stiletto in her sleeve. Cutting his throat. Spilling his steaming guts onto the floor. But amid the outrage, a single, ice-cold thought took her by the scruff of the neck and shook her ’til she was still… He’s right. She had been childish. She had risked the Church’s reputation in killing Swordbreaker. She had thought to kill Duomo and Scaeva if she got back to the ’Grave. Her knuckles were white on the book in her grip. But she forced her fingers to unclench, speaking words that rang heavy in the quiet dark. “In the Mother’s name. I will serve.”
“And you, Speaker.” Adonai’s pretty lips twisted in a knowing smile, but Mia kept her face like stone. The speaker was a picture, no doubt. And Mia had entertained her share of fantasies; lying in bed and picturing his pale, clever fingers as her own roamed ever lower. She’d even saved his and his beloved sister’s lives during the Luminatii attack. But Mia couldn’t fool herself into thinking of him as anything but a blackhearted bastard. Still. A fuckable bastard…
Pig’s blood has a very peculiar taste. The blood of a man is best drunk warm, and leaves a hint of sodium and rust clinging to the teeth. Horse’s blood is less salty, with an odd bitterness almost like dark chocolate. But pig’s blood has an almost buttery quality, like oysters and oiled iron, slipping down your throat and leaving a greasy tang in its wake.
Mia was thankful for the chance to show her worth. But problem was, her list of throats to slit was growing longer, not shorter. She’d killed Justicus Remus, but Consul Scaeva and Grand Cardinal Duomo still lived. Her familia were still unavenged. And with Tric’s murder at Ashlinn’s hands during the Luminatii attack, she now had one more windpipe to open before her vengeance was done. And stuck here in Galante, she was no closer to any of them.
“You’re next, prettyboy.” The fighter (who was rather pretty) looked to his fellows, the corpse on the ground, and finally to the ledgerman. The greasy fellow glanced up at the sanguila, who were now staring at Mia intently. And turning back to the swordsman, he nodded. The fighter stepped forward, Mia skipped up to meet him. Their match lasted less than ten seconds, ending with Mia’s bootprint embedded in the man’s crotch and her wooden sword shoved down his pretty throat, all the way to the hilt. The girl turned to the crowd and curtseyed again. “A hundred priests,” came the call. “One hundred and ten.” Mia smiled behind her hair as sanguila began bidding. Within moments, her bid was two hundred silver coins—a decent sum by anyone’s measure. But as she looked up into the bleachers, she saw Leonides and Titus hadn’t uttered a word. Though the sanguila watched her intently, though Teardrinker was whispering in Titus’s ear and he was nodding slow, Leonides didn’t raise his voice to bid. Time to stoke the flame. Mia retrieved her wooden blade from the dead fighter’s throat, turned to the third and spoke loud enough for the bleachers to hear. “You. Next.” The big man looked at the two corpses at Mia’s feet. “Fuck that,” he scoffed. “Bring your friends.” Mia smiled at the fighters beside him. “I’ve always wanted to try three at once.” The girl tossed her wooden sword onto the dirt. “Or are you cowards all?” The crowd hooted and jeered, and the fighters rankled. To be bested on their own soil was one thing, but to eat a plateful of shit from an unarmed girl half their size was another. With flashing eyes and swords raised, the men stepped out into the Pit.
“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, turning toward the sound of approaching boots. “SEEK THE CROWN OF THE MOON.”
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.
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.