YOU, WE NEVER LOOKED. CASSIUS FOUND ENOUGH MEANING IN LIFE BY ENDING THE LIVES OF OTHERS. HE NEEDED NO MORE THAN THAT …”
Mister Kindly snorted. “… small things and small minds …”
“… HAVE A CARE, LITTLE GRIMALKIN. HE WAS MY FRIEND WHEN YOU WERE STILL SHAPELESS. HE WAS AS BEAUTIFUL AS THE DARK AND AS SHARP AS THE MOTHER’S TEETH. SPEAK NO ILL OF HIM …”
Mia sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t understand how Cassius had never sought the truth of himself. She’d wondered on it since she was a child. Old Mercurio and Mother Drusilla had said she was chosen of the Goddess.
But chosen for what?
She remembered fighting in the streets of Last Hope with Ashlinn. Her attack on the Basilica Grande when she was fourteen. On both occasions, simply looking at the trinity—the holy symbol of Aa—had caused her agony. The Light God hated her. She’d felt it. Sure as the ground beneath her feet. But why? And what the ’byss did this “Moon” have to do with any of it?
And Remus.
Fucking Remus.
He was dead by her hand on a dusty Last Hope thoroughfare. His attack on the Mountain failed. His men slaughtered on the sands all around him. But before she’ d plunged her gravebone blade into his throat, the justicus had uttered words that turned her entire world upside down.
“I will give your brother your regards.”
Mia shook her head.
But Jonnen is dead. Mother told me so.
So many questions. Mia could taste frustration mixed with the smoke on her tongue. But her answers were in Godsgrave. And Black Mother be praised, that was exactly where this mysterious patron of hers was sending her.
Time to stop moaning and start moving.
Mia limped out from the athenaeum. Down the winding stair toward the Church’s belly. Through the puddles of stained-glass light, Mister Kindly on her shoulder and Eclipse prowling before her. The Church choir rang as they trod the winding stairs, the long and twisting halls, until finally, they reached Weaver Marielle’s chambers.
She took a breath, rapped on the heavy door. It opened after a moment, and Mia found herself looking into scarlet eyes, down to a beautiful, bloodless smile.
“Blade Mia,” Adonai said.
The Blood Speaker was clad in his indecent britches and red silk robe, open as ever at his chest. The room beyond was lit by a single arkemical lamp, the walls adorned with hundreds of different masks, all shapes and sizes. Death masks and children’s masks and Carnivalé masks. Glass and ceramic and papier-mâché. A room of faces, without a single mirror in sight.
“Thou art here for a weaving,” Adonai said.
“Aye,” Mia nodded, meeting those blood-red eyes without fear. “Wounds heal in time, but I’ ll not have much of it where I’m headed.”
“The City of Bridges and Bones,” the speaker mused. “No place more dangerous in all the Republic.”
“You’ve not seen my laundry basket,” Mia replied.
Adonai smirked, glanced over his shoulder.
“Sister love, sister mine? Thou hast company.”
Mia saw a misshapen form shuffle into the arkemical glow. The woman was albino pale like her brother, but what little Mia could see of her skin was swollen and cracked, blood and pus leaking through the bandages about her hands and face. She was clad in a black velvet robe, her lips splitting as she looked at Mia and smiled.
“Blade Mia,” Marielle whispered.
“Weaver Marielle,” Mia said, bowing.
“To the ’Grave she goes. At Father Solis’s word, to a new patron’s arms. And though stitched, still she bleeds.” Adonai shivered slightly. “I smell it on her.”
“All thy hurts shall be mended, little darkin,” Marielle lisped. “Sure and true.”
The weaver nodded to the dreaded stone slab that dominated her room. It was set with leather straps and buckles of polished steel—though Marielle could weave flesh like clay and mend almost any wound, the process itself was agony. Mia hated the thought of being bound for the process, truth told. Trussed up like some hog at the spit, britches around her ankles. But, resigning herself to the pain, feeling the shadows within her shadow drink down her fear, Mia limped into the chamber.
As he closed the door behind her, Speaker Adonai caught her arm.
Mia looked up into his glittering eyes, snow-pale lashes. He leaned close, closer, and for a terrible, thrilling moment, she thought he might kiss her. But instead, Adonai spoke with lowered voice, lips brushing her ear, barely a whisper.
“Two lives ye saved, the turn the Luminatii pressed their sunsteel to the Mountain’s throat. Mine, and my sister love’s. Marielle’s debt to thee was repaid the turn she gave Naev back her face. But my debt, little Blade, is still owed. Know this, in nevernights to come. As deep and dark as the waters ye swim might turn, on matters of blood, count upon a speaker’s vow, ye may.”
Adonai fixed her in his scarlet stare, voice as sharp as the gravebone at her wrist.
“Blood is owed thee, little Crow,” he whispered. “And blood shall be repaid.”
Mia glanced to Marielle. Back up into Adonai’s glittering red eyes. Her mind swimming with thoughts of Godsgrave. Braavi. Stolen maps and hidden patrons and a Ministry that seemed to feel nothing but ire toward her.
“… Do you know something that I don’t, Speaker?”
A beautiful, bloodless smile was her only reply. With a swish of his scarlet robe, Speaker Adonai motioned to his sister. Mia turned to the Room of Faces and its mistress, looming above that awful slab. Marielle beckoned her with twisted fingers.
No matter what was to come, it was too late to turn back now.
And heaving a sigh, Mia lay down on the stone.
She almost wept when she saw it.
It rose from the clifftops and pierced the sky, ochre stone bleeding through to gold in the light of two burning suns. A keep carved out of the cliffs themselves, once home to one of the twelve finest familia of the Republic.
Crow’s Nest.
Mia knelt on the deck of the Gloryhound and stared, overcome with memories. Walking in the bustling port, hand in hand with her mother. The shopkeeps calling her “little dona” and bringing her sweets. Her father striding the battlements above the ocean, sea breeze playing in his hair as he stares across the waves. Dreaming, perhaps, of the rebellion that would be his undoing.
She’d been too young to understand, too small to—
Crack!
The whip snapped across her shoulder blades, bright red pain tearing her from her reverie.
“I gave no permission for you to stop! Chin to the boards!”
Mia risked a hateful glance at the executus, looming over her with a long stock whip in hand. Sweat was dripping down her face, hair clinging to her skin. A second strike across her back was her reward for her hesitation. Arms burning with fatigue, she dropped into another push-up and rose again. Black spots swum in her eyes. The two men beside her did the same, grunting