The Dark was hungry.
Mia searched the skyline, found the Ribs jutting above distant rooftops. Step. And step. And step. Until she found herself outside the Basilica Grande. She knew they’d be there for the truedark mass. All in a row. Consul Scaeva. Cardinal Duomo. Justicus Remus. False piety and pretty robes. Blood-soaked hands pressed together, eyes upturned to the sky and praying for the suns they’d never see again.
She stepped from the shadows of a triumphal arch, beheld the basilica before her. A vast circular courtyard, hemmed on all sides by marble pillars. A statue of almighty Aa looming in the center, fifty feet tall, sword drawn, three great arkemical globes in one upturned palm. The towering structure beyond, all stained glass and grand, sweeping domes. Archways and spires lit by a thousand globes, trying in vain to banish the hungry Dark.
The courtyard was filled with folk not wealthy or well-born enough to be permitted entry on nights this black. But at each column stood men in gleaming white platemail, crimson cloaks and plumes on their helms. Luminatii legionaries, gathered in force to protect the senators and praetors and pro-consuls and cardinals within the basilica’s hallowed halls. The sight of them made her remember her father in the turns before he died. Carrying her on his shoulders through the city streets. His stubble tickling her cheek as he kissed her.
Face purpling.
Legs kicking.
Guh. Guh. Guh.
She looked up at Aa’s statue. Spitting hatred.
“I prayed to you. Begged you to bring them home. Were you not everseeing enough to notice them suffering? Or did you just not care?”
The Everseeing made no reply. She reached out toward the Light God and his globes, wrapping them up in ribbons of blackness. And as the crowd around cried out in terror, she clenched her fists. Muscles cording. Veins taut in her neck. With the shriek of tortured stone, the statue tottered on its plinth. The faithful cried out in terror, scattering in screaming droves as it finally toppled forward and smashed onto the cobbles with a deafening boom.
The shadows reached out to the nearest Luminatii, snaking around head and hips and tearing him apart. Blood spattered on polished marble. People screamed. Legionaries roared in alarm, drew their blades. Even here in the gathering night, their swords gleamed as if truelight danced on their edges. Mia stepped into the shadows at her feet, out from the shadow behind the biggest and strongest legionary she could see. The darkness wrapped around his neck seemingly of its own accord, his spine cracking like damp fireworks. Dropping him already dead on the stone.
“Daemon!” came the cry. “Darkin! Assassin!”
Alarm rang through the vast courtyard. Folk fleeing the ruins of their shattered god in a faithful stampede. Soldiers charging from all around. The darkness was singing to her now, filling her head. Driving conscious thought into the cold and hollow places, leaving only the rage. The hunger. Black tendrils whipping in the dark. Bone and blood. Light scalding her eyes. So many swords now. So many men. Wading through them, skipping from shadow to shadow. Throwing them like toys, the black as sharp as blades, opening up the shiny white steel and showing the red parts inside.
Stepping column to column. To the ruins of Aa’s statue and the triple suns smashed in his outstretched palm. She skipped away from a blow that would’ve taken her head from her shoulders. Another man falling to pieces. On the stairs now. The great double doors, bedecked in graven gold, reflecting the fire of the hundred swords behind her. Mia lifted her hands, flung the doors wide, and roared his name.
“SCAEVA!”
Men awaited her just inside the door, her roar becoming a scream as they raised their staves. Cardinal Duomo and his ministers, arrayed in finest trim. The years since her father’s execution had changed the cardinal little; he still looked more like a thug who’d robbed a priest of his robes than a man who belonged in them. But he stepped forward, his ministers about him. Black beard bristling, mouth open in a shout.
“In the name of the Light, abomination, begone!”
The Trinity at the end of his staff flared brighter than all three suns. Mia shrieked, staggered back. The light was so fierce, so hot. Hands to her eyes, she squinted through the shocking glare. And there, at the end of the nave, surrounded by two dozen legionaries in polished white and bloody red, she saw him. The beautiful consul with his black eyes and his purple robes and a golden wreath upon his brow. The one who’d smiled as her father died. Consigned her mother to madness. Killed her baby brother.
“SCAEVA!”
“This is Aa’s holy house!” Duomo roared. “You have no power here, daemon!”
Mia clenched her fists, blinded by the light before her. Wind roaring in her ears. The heat beating on her like all three suns. Sickness in her belly, vomit in her mouth. No shadows in front of her to seize hold of. It was too much. Too bright. She saw a huge man in white plate, a wolfish face red with rage, one cheek scarred by a cat’s claws.
Remus …
“Bring her down!” roared the justicus. “Luminus Invicta!”
Mia whirled as the Luminatii charged up the steps toward her. The light behind her was so fierce, the shadow she threw on the stone was as long as sunsset. Something sharp and burning cracked across the back of her skull and she staggered. Dozens of legionaries approaching now. Justicus Remus charging, his sword ablaze. The rage burning bright. The Dark inside her roiling. All it wanted was to consume. Open itself wide and drown in the blood it spilled. She could feel it. All around her. Seeping through Godsgrave’s cracks. The agony. The fury. The pure and blinding hatred nestled in this city’s bones.
It hates us.
But in the cold and hollow places, some tiny part of her remained. Some tiny part that was not rage or hate or hunger. Just a fourteen-year-old girl who didn’t want to die.
The justicus barged through the ranks of holy men, swung his sunsteel with all his might. The Trinity on the pommel of his sword burned brighter than the blade itself. Mia staggered back, the sword clipped her arm, blood boiling as it sprayed. Remus swung again, again, the Luminatii surrounding her now, blinding and bright. And with a ragged cry she fell, down into the shadow at her feet and out of the same shadow a hundred feet away.
Crossbows sang. Flame rippled on polished steel. Remus roared. People screamed. But she was away. Stepping between the shadows; the little girl again, skipping from stone to stone. Blood on the back of her neck, burned near blind by the cardinal’s light. And deep down below the hurt and the rage, coiled in the cold and hollow places, the hollowest feeling of all.
Failure.
She found herself on the battlements above the forum. Above the place her father died. The square lit by ruddy arkemical light. Revelers and drunkards dancing along the flagstones. She could hear the cries echoing across the city. Assassin! Daemon! Abomination!
Slumped against the cool gravebone. Shaking hands daubed in blood. The darkness around her whispering, pleading, begging. Just like the darkness inside her. And she, just a child in the midst of it. One little girl in a world so cold and empty, the shadows around her bringing no comfort at all.
She’d no idea how long she sat there. The blood drying to a crust on her hands. The city in chaos. Crowds gathered on the eastern shoreline, looking at the listing ruin of the Philosopher’s Stone, ramparts cracking loose and tumbling into the sea. Luminatii patrols tromping through the streets, trying to bring order amid the swelling panic, the rising, drunken chaos. Fistfights and broken glass.
A shiver in her shadow.
“… mia …”
A soft tread on the stone beside her.
“It said I’d find you here.”