years. Who’s to say he’s still in the city? Or if he is, who’s to say he’s not baiting you?’
‘He probably is,’ Mia said.
‘Then what’s to stop him from killing you?’ Ash demanded.
‘Solis and Hush both used blades poisoned with Rictus. They want me alive.’ Mia glanced at her brother. ‘Because I have something he wants, too.’
‘Mia, please …’
‘Mister Kindly, stay here with Jonnen. Keep him calm.’
‘… o, joyousness …’
‘Eclipse, with me.’
‘… AS IT PLEASE YOU …’
‘YOU MUST LET THE PAST DIE, MIA,’ Tric warned.
She’d looked him in the eye then. Her voice hard and cold.
‘Sometimes the past won’t just die. Sometimes you have to kill it.’
And she was gone.
Slipping through the forum until it grew too crowded, the soldiers too thick. Then on beneath her mantle of shadows, the world blurred shapeless, the suns blazing overhead as Eclipse guided her steps. She moved slow as she needed, quick as she dared, into the looming shadow of the first Rib. Over the wrought-iron fence, past the dozens of Luminatii posted around a heavy set of polished gravebone doors, into the consul’s private apartments beyond. She had vague recollections of this place from the ball she’d attended as a child, whisked around that glittering ballroom on her father’s …
… no, not her father.
O, Mother, how could you?
She stalked the shadows like a wolf on the scent of fresh blood, Eclipse scouting ahead, just a black shape on the walls. Dodging slaves and serving staff and soldiers, only a breeze on the backs of their necks, a shiver down their spines as she passed them over. All of Mercurio’s and Mouser’s lessons ringing in her head, her muscles taut, her blade poised, not a single movement wasted, not a whisper to her steps. Her old teacher would have swelled with pride to see her. All of it, the lectures, the practice, the pain – she could feel all of it perfectly distilled in her veins. Every choice she’d made had brought her to this moment. Every road she’d walked had led her inexorably here. Where it was always going to end.
Eclipse’s whispers finally led them to a grand study. A vast oaken desk was set at the room’s far end, bookshelves lining the wall, overflowing with tomes and scrolls. The floor was carved with a shallow relief and stained by some work of arkemy – a rumoured hobby of Scaeva’s, and one he apparently excelled at. It was a great map of the entire Republic, from the Sea of Silence to the Sea of Stars.
Mia’s heart was pounding thumpathump against her ribs as she tossed aside her shadow mantle. Hair stuck to the sweat and dried blood on her skin. Muscles aching, wounds burning, adrenaline and rage battling exhaustion and sorrow.
And there, near the balcony, he stood.
Staring out into the dazzling sunslight as if nothing in the world were amiss.
He was just a silhouette against the glare as she stole across the room towards him, her mouth dry as dirt, her grip on her sword damp with sweat. Despite the passenger in her shadow, she’d feared he might’ve already been gone, that Ashlinn’s words might’ve proved true, that the man who spoke to the adoring mob might’ve been just another actor wearing his face.
But as soon as she drew close, she knew.
A cool sickness in the pit of her belly. A slow horror that gave way to a sinking feeling of inevitability. The final pieces in the riddle of her life, who she was, what she was, why she was, at last clicking into place.
That feeling …
That O, so familiar feeling.
Mister Kindly materialized on the floor of the Philosopher’s Stone beside her, his whisper cutting in the gloom. The dona Corvere took one look at the shadowcat and hissed like she’d been burned. Shrinking back from the bars of her cell, into the far corner, teeth bared in a snarl.
‘He’s in you,’ the dona had whispered. ‘O, Daughters, he’s in you.’
‘Hello, Mia,’ Scaeva said.
He didn’t turn to look at her. Eyes still fixed on the sunslight outside. He’d changed from his torn and bloodied costume into a long toga of pristine white. Shadow on the wall. Fingers entwined behind his back. Defenceless.
But not alone.
She saw his shadow move. Shivering as the sickness and hunger inside her swelled to bursting. And from the smudge of darkness across the study wall – dark enough for two – Mia heard a faint and deadly hiss.
A ribbon of blackness uncurled from under the imperator’s feet. Slithering across the floor and rising up, thin as paper, licking the air with its not-tongue.
A serpent made of shadows.
‘… She has your eyes, Julius …’ it said.
The rage flared then, bright as those three suns in the cursed heavens outside. The blood in her veins, the blood that they shared, set to boiling. She didn’t care in that moment, not about any of it. Mercurio or Jonnen. Ashlinn or Tric. The Red Church and the Black Mother and the poor, broken Moon. She’d have opened her wrists for the chance to drown him in her blood right then. She’d have smashed herself to pieces just to cut his throat upon the shards.
She didn’t realize she was running until she was almost upon him, her blade raised high, her lips peeled back, eyes narrowed.
The serpent hissed warning.
Pulse rushing in her ears.
And, turning towards her, Julius Scaeva held up his hand.
A flash of light. A stab of pain. A blinding flare like a punch to her face, sending her sprawling backwards, yowling like a scalded cat. A golden chain hung between Scaeva’s fingers, and at the end of it dangled three brilliant suns – platinum, rose, and yellow gold. The Trinity of Aa, repeated on every chapel spire and church window from here to Ashkah. But this one had been blessed by a servant of true faith.
Eclipse whimpered, the serpent at Scaeva’s feet twisted and writhed in agony. Mia was on her back, fingernails clawing the graven floor as Scaeva raised the sigil into the few feet and thousand miles between them. The light was white fire and rusty blades, lancing into the cool dark behind her eyes. Her belly roiled and her vision burned and her mouth filled with bile, that blinding, blistering, burning light reducing her to a ball of helpless agony.
‘It’s g-good to see you, daughter,’ Scaeva said.
How?
Beyond the pain, she could still feel it – the same longing she’d felt in the presence of every other like her. Scaeva was darkin, she was sure of it. But that Trinity, Black Mother, those three spheres of incandescent flame …
‘H-How?’ she managed.
‘How d-do I … endure it?’
Julius Scaeva’s voice trembled as he spoke, and through her own tears, Mia could see them welling in his eyes also. But still, the imperator of the Itreyan Republic held those awful suns up between them. His hand was shaking. His passenger coiling into knots of agony at his feet. Faint wisps of smoke snaked from between his fingers.
But still, he held on.
‘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.’
The