‘How?’ Mia whispered.
She looked Tric up and down, crossing her arms over her breasts and shivering in the cold. He was different than he’d been – his once-olive skin was now carved of marble, his once-hazel eyes were pools of purest darkness. He seemed a statue in the forum, wrought cold and perfect from the stone by some master’s hand and now come to life. His face was beautiful. Flawless. Pale and smooth as gravebone, cutting just as deep. Her heart could scarcely believe the tale her eyes were telling.
But there was no mistaking the boy she’d known.
The boy she’d loved?
‘But she …’ Mia turned to Ashlinn, bewildered. ‘You killed him.’
Ashlinn was uncharacteristically silent, her eyes bright with fear. Mister Kindly and Eclipse were still sitting side by side on that strange shoreline, and Jonnen had joined them, dark eyes locked on that darker pool. The stone faces around them mouthed silent entreaties, stone tresses flowing as if in a wintersdeep wind. But Mia simply stood, staring at her old flame. Trying to ignore the flood of emotion rushing through her chest and simply make sense of it all.
‘How can you be here if you’re dead?’
Tric’s black eyes glinted in the cold lantern light.
‘THE MOTHER KEEPS ONLY WHAT SHE NEEDS.’
Mia drew a few deep breaths, her lungs aching from the chill. She’d heard tell of wraiths returning from the Hearth to haunt the living, dismissed most of them as old wives’ tales. But this was no children’s fable standing before her. This was her old friend, sure as her heart was beating in her chest. The boy who’d travelled with her through the Whisperwastes of Ashkah, who’d been her ally and confidant during the Red Church trials, who’d shared her bed and chased her nightmares away during her darkest hours. Her first real lover.
Killed by her second.
Mia could feel Ashlinn behind her, close enough to reach out and touch. She could still taste the girl’s lips. Smell the perfume of sweat and leather on her skin. She knew Tric must have seen them together, that he must have witnessed the passion and joy Mia had felt kissing his murderer.
‘I …’ She shook her head. Searching for some explanation. Wondering why she felt the need to explain anything at all. ‘I thought you were dead …’
Those pitch-black eyes flickered to Ashlinn.
‘I AM,’ Tric replied.
‘He saved my life, Mia,’ Ashlinn murmured behind her. ‘The Ministry ambushed me at the chapel. They took Mercurio back to the Mountain. They were set to steal me, too, but … Tric … he helped me.’
Mia’s stomach sank at the news of Mercurio’s capture.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why help you after what you did to him?’
‘I don’t know.’ Ash put a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘Mia, I have to tell y—’
‘What’s your game, Tric?’ Mia turned back to the boy, burning with curiosity and indignity. ‘Why save Ashlinn after she killed you? Why save Jonnen and me, then leave us to wander like rats in the dark?’
At the sound of his name, Mia’s brother turned from the black pool. He blinked hard, rubbing his eyes like a boy just woken from sleep. He seemed to notice Tric for the first time, but Mia could see suspicion in his stare instead of fear. Curiosity narrowed his eyes as he looked Ashlinn up and down, and a healthy dose of hatred resurfaced as his gaze fell on her.
Tric’s eyes were fixed on Mia. She realized she hadn’t yet seen him blink.
‘IT’S TRUELIGHT,’ he replied. ‘THE THREE EYES OF AA THE EVERSEEING BURN BRIGHT IN THE SKY ABOVE. MOTHER NIAH IS NEVER SO FAR AWAY FROM THIS WORLD AS SHE IS AT THIS MOMENT. AND IT’S ONLY THROUGH HER WILL THAT I WALK THIS WORLD AT ALL. IT TOOK ALL I HAD TO DO WHAT I DID.’
‘And Mister Kindly?’ Mia asked. ‘Eclipse? Why separate us?’
‘THEY WERE DRAWN HERE WHILE YOU SLEPT.’
Mia looked to that darkened shore, her passengers sitting beside it. Now that the joy of seeing Ashlinn, the shock of seeing Tric, was wearing off, she could still feel the pull of this place thrumming under her skin. The black, intoxicating malice reverberating in that vast black pool. Looking down at her feet, she could see her shadow stretching towards it, despite the lantern’s light. And she realized she wanted to join it.
‘No more riddles, Tric,’ she said. ‘Tell me once and for all what’s going on here.’
‘IT WILL NOT PLEASE YOU.’
‘Fucking speak, damn you!’ she demanded.
The shadow of a smile curled Tric’s bloodless lips. ‘YOU STILL HAVE A STRANGE WAY OF MAKING FRIENDS, PALE DAUGHTER.’
The words made Mia’s heart ache, dispelling any lingering suspicion that this apparition wasn’t her old friend. She remembered their time together, the promises they’d made each other, the way his touch had made her feel …
‘Please,’ she whispered.
The Hearthless boy breathed deep, as if he were about to speak. All the air around him seemed to hush, the whispering stone faces and writhing stone hands at last falling still. His saltlocks swayed like dreaming vipers, the tattered edge of his robe danced in a wind that touched only him.
‘I FELT THE BLADE.’ Tric glanced at Ashlinn. ‘WHEN SHE SLIPPED IT INTO MY CHEST. I FELT THE WIND AS SHE PUSHED ME OFF THE SKY ALTAR, DOWN INTO THE BLACK BEYOND THE QUIET MOUNTAIN. BUT I DIDN’T FEEL THE GROUND.’
Mia sensed Ashlinn beside her, shivering as her lover reached down and took hold of her hand. She realized she couldn’t feel her fingers for the chill in the air. The very world seemed to hold its breath.
‘I WOKE IN A PLACE WITH NO COLOUR,’ Tric continued. ‘BUT IN THE DISTANCE AHEAD, I SAW A FLICKERING FLAME. A HEARTH. I KNEW I’D BE SAFE THERE. I COULD FEEL ITS WARMTH, LIKE A LOVER’S HANDS ON MY SKIN.’ The wraith shook his head. ‘BUT AS I TOOK MY FIRST STEP TOWARDS IT, I HEARD A VOICE BEHIND ME, AS IF FROM FAR AWAY.’
‘What did it say?’ Mia heard herself whisper.
‘THE MANY WERE ONE,’ Tric replied. ‘AND WILL BE AGAIN; ONE BENEATH THE THREE, TO RAISE THE FOUR, FREE THE FIRST, BLIND THE SECOND AND THE THIRD.’
O, Mother, blackest Mother, what have I become?
Mia felt her belly flip, remembering the book that Chronicler Aelius had given her during her tutelage in the Red Church. She’d asked the old man for a tome about the darkin, and he’d returned with a beaten, leather-bound diary.
‘Cleo’s journal,’ she said. ‘Those were her words.’
‘NO,’ the deadboy replied. ‘THEY’RE NIAH’S. SHE SANG THEM TO ME IN THE DARK, THE MUSIC OF HER PROMISES DROWNING OUT THE LIGHT OF THAT TINY HEARTH AND ALL DESIRE TO SIT BESIDE IT. AND WHEN HER LULLABY WAS DONE, THE MOTHER SHOWED ME A PATH, ACROSS THE DARK BETWEEN THE STARS. AND THROUGH COLD SO FIERCE IT BURNED, THROUGH A BLACK SO BLEAK IT ALMOST SWALLOWED ME WHOLE, I CLAWED MY WAY BACK.’
Tric pulled up the sleeves of his robe, and Mia saw his hands and forearms were black, spattered, as if he’d dipped his arms in ink all the way to the elbows.
‘AND I BECAME.’
‘Became what?’
‘HER GIFT TO YOU,’ he replied. ‘HER GUIDE.’
Mia simply shook her head in question.