rage of a god laid low.
The second was cool steel grey. Suspicion, slipping into her belly like a knife, cold and hard. There was a moment where she prayed it was all a trick – manipulation from a man who’d always proved himself three steps ahead. But in her darkest depths, it all rang true. The way Scaeva had looked at her that turn in her mother’s apartments. That turn he’d stretched out his hand and taken her whole world away. The gleam in his eyes as he’d looked down at her and smiled, dark as bruises.
‘Would you like to know what keeps me warm at night, little one?’
And so fury killed suspicion. Drowned it beneath a scarlet flood.
But after suspicion’s cool grey had come sorrow. Black as storm clouds. Turning her curses to sobs and her fury to tears. She’d slumped down on that voiceless, howling shore and cried. Like a child. Like a fucking babe. Letting her grief, her horror, her anguish spill up out of her lips and down her cheeks until her eyes were red as blood and her throat aching and raw.
Darius Corvere. Justicus of the Luminatii. Leader of the Kingmaker Rebellion. The man who’d given her puzzles for Great Tithe gifts, who’d read her tales before bedtime, whose stubble had tickled her cheeks when he kissed her goodnight. The man who’d propped her little feet upon his own and whisked her about that shining ballroom.
‘I love you, Mia.’
‘I love you, too.’
‘Promise you’ll remember. No matter what comes.’
The man she’d adored, the man she’d grieved, the man she’d devoted the last eight years of her life to avenging. The man she’d called Father.
Nothing close.
Ashlinn sat behind her as she wept, gentle arms about her waist, forehead pressed cool and smooth against her back. Mister Kindly and Eclipse sat close by, watching silently. Jonnen looked at her with a newfound confusion glittering in those bottomless eyes. Black as crow’s feathers. Black as truedark.
Just like Scaeva’s.
Just like mine.
‘His wife can’t have children,’ Ashlinn murmured, her voice thick with grief. ‘Scaeva, I mean. I suppose that’s why he took Jonnen … afterwards …’
‘All good kings need sons,’ Mia whispered. ‘Daughters, not so much.’
‘I’m sorry, love.’ Ash took her hand, pressed Mia’s scabbed and bleeding knuckles to her lips. ‘Black Mother, I’m so sorry.’
Eclipse drifted closer, wrapping her translucent body around Mia’s waist and resting her head in the girl’s lap. Mister Kindly lay across her shoulders, entwined in her hair, tail curled protectively across her chest. Mia drew comfort from their smoky chill, the whisper-light feel of their bodies against hers, Ash’s arms around her. But her eyes were soon drawn back to that black pool before them, the copper stink of blood hanging heavy in the air. She looked down at her empty hands again, the passengers beside her, the shadow beneath her, darker than it had ever been.
The many were one.
And will be again?
She looked to the silent Hearthless boy standing before her. His black eyes were fixed on Ashlinn. On their fingers entwined. She remembered those eyes had been hazel once. That those fingers had touched her in places no one ever had.
His revelation still rang in her ears. The weight of the truth she’d sought all these years, now ill-fitting and crooked upon her shoulders. Part of her still found it impossible to believe – even with the memory of the truedark massacre singing in her head, the power and fury she’d wielded so effortlessly, shadows cutting like swords in her outstretched hands. She’d killed so many men, giving in to the rage that had sustained her through all the years and all the miles and all the sleepless nevernights.
It was creeping back into her now, slipping out towards her from that pool. Toxic. Narcotic. Smothering sorrow’s black beneath waves of familiar, comforting red.
If she was angry, she didn’t need to think.
If she was angry, she could simply act.
Hunt.
Stab.
Kill.
That bastard. The spider at the centre of this whole rotten fucking web. The man who’d sentenced her mother to die in the Philosopher’s Stone, who’d ordered her drowned, who’d used her to rid himself of his rivals, and at last, put himself within arm’s reach of his bloody throne. The man who’d manipulated her from afar all these years, pushing her, twisting her, turning her into …
She looked down at her trembling, open hands.
Into this.
So she gave in to the rage. Let it choke the grief inside her. And into the dark, she whispered, ‘If a killer is what he wants, a killer is what he’ll get.’
Ash blinked. ‘What?’
Mia stood with a wince. Stretched out her hand.
‘Give me the sword, Ash.’
Ashlinn looked down at the longblade at her waist. She’d recovered it from Mia’s chambers in the Godsgrave chapel. It was gravebone, sharp as sunslight, its hilt carved like a crow in flight. The sword had once belonged to Darius Corvere, taken from his study in Crow’s Nest by Marcus Remus. Mia had killed Remus in turn – cut his throat in a dusty shithole on the coast of Ashkah, and claimed the blade as her own.
Avenging her father, or so she thought.
‘I love you, Mia.’
‘I love you, too.’
‘Give it to me,’ Mia said.
‘Why?’ Ash asked.
‘Because it’s mine.’
‘Mia …’ Ashlinn rose to her feet, caution and care turning her voice to velvet. ‘Mia, whatever you’re thinking … you’re exhausted. You’re wounded. What Tric just told us … it can’t be easy to—’
‘Give me the fucking sword, Ashlinn!’ Mia shouted.
The shadows flared, the darkness ringing in her voice and turning it to hollow iron. The darkness twisted about her feet, mad patterns and shapes, strobing black. The red-amber eyes of the crow on the hilt twinkled in the ghostly light. The pool behind her rippled, as if kissed by the smallest stone.
Ashlinn went pale beneath her freckles. Mia saw she was actually trembling. But she still stood her ground. Gritted her teeth and curled her hands into fists to stop the shakes. Standing up to Mia like nobody else ever dared.
‘No,’ she replied.
Mia growled. ‘Ash, I’m warning you …’
‘Warn me all you like,’ Ash said, taking a deep breath. ‘I know you’re angry. I know you’re hurt. But you need to think.’ She waved at the dark behind and below Mia. ‘Away from this cursed pool. With the blood washed off your skin and a cigarillo in your hand and a nevernight’s sleep between you and all this shit.’
Mia scowled, but the iron in her stare wavered.
‘Give me my sword, Ashlinn.’
The girl reached out and ran one gentle hand down the cruel scar on Mia’s cheek. Along the bow of her lips. The look in her eyes melted Mia’s heart.
‘I love you, Mia,’ Ash said. ‘Even the part of you that frightens me. But you’ve been hurt enough for one turn. I’ll not see you hurt again.’
Tears welled in Mia’s eyes. Black rising from beneath the red. The walls loomed about her, ready to come crashing down. Her hands fluttered at her