three times
and hacked the girl’s arm off at the elbow.
CHAPTER 11
REMADE
Blood. Pain. Black.
That was all Mia remembered of the moments after Solis took her arm. The pain had been white and blinding, bubbling up from her stomach along with the vomit and screams. A dark had fallen, sweet and black and full of whispers, Mister Kindly’s voice somewhere in the distance, mixed with others she didn’t know.
“… hold on, mia …”
“O, Solis, poor Solis. If only thy mother had loved thee more …”
“What a ruin. Art thou certain she be worth the pain?”
“Drusilla deems it so. Asides, her face, it pleases me.”
“… mia, hold on to me …”
“A remedy for that malady, I have at my fingertips. True and sure.”
“Behave, sister love, sister mine.”
“What a portrait could I paint on canvas such as this. What a horror I could gift the world.”
“… don’t let go …”
Mia woke with a scream.
Arkemical light in her eyes. Leather straps holding her fast. She thrashed at the restraints and felt gentle hands, a sweet voice bidding her hush, hush sweet child, and she looked up into a face that would haunt her waking dreams.
A man. Tall and slender and pale as a new-bled corpse. His eyes were pink, his skin seemed made of marble, a faint blue tracery of veins beneath. Hair swept back, white as winter snow, an open silk robe revealing a smooth, hard chest. He was the kind of beautiful that dimmed all the world beside him. But cold. Bloodless. His was the beauty of a fresh suicide, laid out in a new pine box. The kind of beautiful you know will spoil after an hour or two in the ground.
“Be still, sweet one,” he said. “Thou art safe, and hale, and whole again.”
Mia remembered Solis’s blade, the agony of her arm being hacked from her body. But looking past the leather straps and buckles around her bicep, she saw her left arm—black and blue and throbbing with pain—somehow attached once more to her elbow. She swallowed, fighting sudden nausea, air too thin to breathe.
“My arm …,” she gasped. “He—”
“All be well, sweet child, all be true.” The man smiled with bruise-blue lips, unbuckling her arm. “Thy hurts are lessened, if not mended entire. Time shall put the rest aright.”
Mia fought down the sickness, curled her fingers into a fist. She felt a tingling in each digit, a faint ache at her elbow where Solis’s blade had cut.
“How?” she breathed.
“The bleeding was mine to end, but thy flesh is saved by my Marielle. ’Tis she owed the lion’s share of thy thanks.” The man called out. “Come, sister love, sister mine. Show thy face. In troth, I fear no shadow could hide thee from this one’s sight.”
Mia heard movement, turned her head and stifled a gasp. There in the gloom, she saw a woman, hunched and misshapen. She was an albino like the man, clad in a black robe, but what little Mia could see of her flesh was nothing short of hideous. Cracked and swollen, bleeding and seeping, rotten to the bone. She smelled of perfume, but beneath it, Mia could smell a darker sweetness. The sweetness of ruin. Of empires fallen and moldering in wet earth.
“Maw take me,” Mia breathed.
Half a smile bubbled on ruined lips. “She already has, child.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Speaker Adonai,” the man said. “My sister love, Weaver Marielle.”
“Speaker?” Mia asked. “Weaver?”
“… they are sorcerii …”
Marielle turned to Mister Kindly, now materialized at the foot of Mia’s bed. The not-cat was staring at the woman, tail switching side to side, head tilted.
“Ah, it shows itself, at last. Good turn to thee, little passenger.”
“… they are masters of the ashkahi ars magika, mia …”
The girl frowned. Thinking back to the cat-headed statues she’d seen out in the Whisperwastes, worn and pitted with time. Those monuments were all that remained of the people who’d made an empire of this land centuries past. Nothing else was left, save magikal pollutants and monstrosities.
“But the Ashkahi arts are dead …”
Marielle stood beside her bed now, Mia’s skin fairly crawling in her presence. Wisps of white hair peeked out from beneath her hood, her eyes pink, just like her brother’s. A glance around the room revealed swirling traceries, four arched doors. The dim impression of faces on the walls.
“Not all that is dead truly dies,” Marielle lisped.
“The Mother keeps only what she needs,” Adonai said.
“Naev said the same thing …”
Marielle’s eyes flashed. “A friend of hers, art thou?”
“Be still, sister love, sister mine,” Adonai murmured. “This was the girl who brought Naev in from the desert. This sweet child saved her life.”
Marielle squeezed the bruises at Mia’s elbow. “I wonder, then, why I saved hers …”
“Because I asked you to, good Marielle.”
Mia looked to one of the doorways, saw the Revered Mother standing with hands folded in her sleeves. The old woman stepped into the room, long gray hair flowing loose about her shoulders. She gifted Mia a gentle smile.
“And fine work you’ve done, too. She looks right as rain.”
“Some bruising,” Adonai reported. “The bone be thrice chipped, and my sister hath no mastery over that realm. But in the flesh, Marielle is peerless. To see her weave the tendons, meld the muscle, ah …”
“I am sorry I missed it.” The Revered Mother placed her hand on Mia’s shoulder. “How are you feeling, Acolyte?”
“Like perhaps I’ve lost my mind …”
Marielle laughed, the flesh of her bottom lip splitting as she did so. She made to wipe at the dark sluice of blood but Adonai stopped her with a gentle hand. As Mia watched in disgust, the man leaned in close and licked the blood from his sister’s chin.
“My deepest thanks,” Mother Drusilla said. “To the both of you. Now, if you have no quarrel, I would speak to the acolyte alone.”
“Thy right it be. Thy guests, we are.” The beautiful man turned to his misshapen sibling. “Come, sister love, sister mine. I thirst. Ye may watch, if it please thee.”
Marielle pressed her brother’s knuckles to her malformed lips, pink eyes glittering. And with a bow to the Revered Mother, the siblings walked hand in hand from the room. When they were gone, Mia looked to Drusilla and flapped her lips like a landed fish.
Smiling, the old woman sat beside the slab, gray curls framing rosy cheeks and a tired gaze. Mia was again overcome with the impression Drusilla should be sitting beside some warm fireside with grandchildren at her knee. The woman’s smile made her feel safe. Wanted. Loved. And yet Mia knew by her tally of endings, her authority within the Church, Drusilla was the most dangerous woman within these walls.
“I apologize if Adonai and Marielle unsettled you,” the Mother said. “They often have that effect on those not of their kind.”
“Their kind?”
“… sorcerii …”
Drusilla turned to Mister Kindly. “Ah. You are here. I should have known.”
“… i am always here …”
“I would speak to the acolyte alone.”
“… she will never be alone …”
“Test me not, little one. I walked from the sunslight long ago, with arms held wide and joy in my heart. I know the Dark as I know myself. When Lord Cassius is absent, I am Niah’s highest in this place. And when next I ask you to leave, I’ll not be so gentle.”
“… you need not fear me …”
Drusilla laughed softly. “One does not dwell in shadows all her life without learning a thing or two about those that share them. You have no power over me here.”
“It’s all right, Mister Kindly,” Mia said. “Don’t stray far. If I have need, I’ll call.”
The cat made of shadows stared for a long, mute moment. The old woman glared back at him. But finally, Mia felt him look to her, bob his head.
“… as it please you …”