the sound of approaching boots.
“SEEK THE CROWN OF THE MOON.”
Turning back, she found the thing gone, as if it had never been. Her breath still hung white in the air, the chill receding slow from her bones, its voice ringing in the black behind her eyes. She looked about the graveyard, seeing only corpses and crypts and wondering if she were dreaming awake.
“… mia, they are coming …”
“… WE MUST GO …”
More whistles. Boots coming closer. Blood on her face and skin. Mia snatched up one of the guard’s cloaks—the least bloody of the lot. And pulling the cowl over her head, she limped through the necropolis, quick as she could, struggling over the wrought-iron fence and disappearing into the warrens of the Galante backstreets.
Only bodies in her wake.
The Hanging Gardens of Ashkah are a sight unlike any under the suns.
In Godsgrave, the vast rooftop gardens of Little Liis overflow with sunsbride and honeyrose, helping to smother the sewer reek of the Rose River in their wondrous perfume. In Whitekeep, the garden mazes that King Francisco III built to entertain his mistresses stretch for miles, and an army of slaves toils to keep them trim, even a century after the monarchy’s fall. The Thorn Towers of Elai stand seventy feet high, covered in vast tangles of razorvine. When the vines bloom just before summersdeep, the towers are covered in blossoms than can be seen across the city. But no garden in all the Republic can match the Hanging Gardens of Ashkah, gentlefriends.
Not for their grandeur, nor their horror.
The smell struck Mia first. It rose over the stench in her cage miles from the city. Blood and sweat and blackest misery. She stared at the metropolis rising out of the haze ahead, chewing her lip. Some of the children in her wagon began to cry, younger women alongside them. Mia felt her shadow surge as she looked to their destination.
Never fear.
The Hanging Gardens had been settled by Liisian explorers after the Ashkahi Empire’s fall. In the centuries since the collapse, the port had grown into the largest metropolis on the coast, and now served as the greatest hub in the south seas for the fuel that drove the Itreyan Republic’s heart.
Slavery.
The cityport was red stone, nestled on the edge of a natural bay. The architecture was a blend of old Ashkahi ruins and graceful spires and domes of Liisian design built atop the old city’s remains. And all around the city walls hung thousands of iron gibbets, filled with thousands of human bodies.
Some were decades old, only tattered bones inside. Some were fresh dead. But from the piteous wails rising over the bustling metropolis beyond, Mia knew hundreds still lived. Left to hang in their cages ’til they perished.
The Hanging Gardens of Ashkah. Its flowers made of flesh and bone.fn2
And Mia was here at last.
The wagon train trundled through broad wooden gates, the stench rising with the heat. The streets were crowded, the harbor beyond filled with ships from all over the Republic, some off-loading, some shipping out laden with stock for resale. This was market season, when the slaver crews returned from their runs up the Ashkahi coast and farther east, their holds laden with fresh meat. Itreyan legionaries rubbed shoulders with Liisian merchants, and the din of coin and sorrow filled the air.
Mia felt someone push up beside her. Turning, she saw a thin woman staring out at the streets, her face pale.
“Everseeing help us …”
Mia squinted at the two suns above.
“I don’t think he’s listening,” she murmured.
The wagon pulled to a halt at the market square’s seething edge. Teardrinker hopped down from the driver’s seat, limping to the rear of the women’s wagon, pulling back the cover and pointing at Mia.
“All right, girl,” she said. “Off to the Pit we go.”
The captain unlocked the cage, stepped back with crossbow in hand. Merchants were already crowded around the wagon, prodding the stock inside and appraising their worth. Thugs in the market’s employ began off-loading men from the rear wagon, shackles singing a rusted song as the captives hopped down on the hardpacked earth. Mia climbed out of the wagon, watching the crowd around them.
I’m here.
She hid her smile behind the matted locks of her hair.
One step closer.
The Pit was dug at the other end of the marketplace, and Mia could hear it well before she laid eyes on it. Ragged cheers and grunts of pain, the clink of coin and the crack of bone. As they made their way across the crowded square, Teardrinker was stopped at least a dozen times by merchants inquiring about Mia’s sale. It took all the girl’s will to keep her temper in check as she felt them pawing her curves, checking her teeth with dirty hands. But Teardrinker declined all offers for Mia’s purchase, indicating she’d be for sale in the Pit soon. The captain’s refusals were met with disbelief or dismay, one merchant declaring it a “waste of good tits.” But Teardrinker held firm, and the pair walked on.
The Pit was exactly that—a hole dug ten feet deep, fifty feet wide, hemmed with limestone walls. A broad stockyard was built beside it, rusted iron bars holding back a multitude of muscular slaves. It was encircled by limestone bleachers, packed with cheering gamblers and shouting bookmakers. And on the innermost ring, attended by the seconds and servants, she saw over a dozen sanguila.fn3
Mia stood with head bowed at the Pit’s iron gates. Itreyan legionaries in plumed helmets were inspecting another slaver’s stock before allowing him to pass. The girl whispered from beneath her tangled curtains of hair.
“Can you see Leonides?”
“Aye, there.” Teardrinker nodded across the stockyard. “The fat bastard.”
“… They’re all fat bastards.”
“The fattest bastard, then.”
Mia squinted, finally spying an Itreyan man seated under a broad parasol. He was dressed in a long frock coat despite the heat, his cravat knotted tight, pierced with a pin in the shape of a lion’s head. His face was swarthy, his body pudgy from too many years of too much food and wine. Beside him sat another Itreyan, broad and muscular, watching the Pit with a keen eye.
“That’s Titus,” Teardrinker said. “He serves as executus, trains all of Leonides’s stock.”
“I know what an executus does,” Mia muttered.
“Are you certain? Because if was a betting woman, I’d wager my last beggar you had no fucking idea what you’re about.”
“I told you,” Mia replied. “Leonides has trained two of the last three champions of the Venatus Magni. He has qualifying berths in all the arenas. He bribes the right officials, owns the right people. If I’m to win my freedom, my best chance is training under him.”
“But why, girl?” Teardrinker demanded. “You could’ve walked away free in the desert! ’Byss, I’ll let you walk free now! You saved my hide from those raiders, and I pay my debts. Why in the Everseeing’s name do you want to be gladiatii?”
“I made a promise,” Mia said. “And I mean to keep it.”
“What kind of promise could be kept in a place like this?”
“A red promise.”
Teardrinker sighed and shook her head. “This is madness.”
“… she is wiser than she looks …”
The whisper came from the shadow under Mia’s matted hair, too soft for the captain to notice.