Jessamine’s face drained of all color as the boy fell to his knees. Quicker than silver, Mia stepped up and smashed the rapier from Jessamine’s nerveless fingers. The girl tried to muster some semblance of guard, but Mia swatted the stiletto aside, and with a shapeless cry of rage, buried her sword deep in Jessamine’s gut.
The redhead clutched the wound, eyes wide. Mia tore her gladius free in a spray of red, kicked Jessamine savagely in the chest, sent her skidding across the polished stone. Solis cried “Point!” A gong rang in the dark. But all about the ring was chaos. Adonai and Marielle knelt beside Jessamine. The speaker began his song, the blood crawling back up into the girl’s body. The weaver’s fingers danced over the hideous belly wound, flesh knitting closed. But Jessamine’s eyes were still locked on Diamo.
The boy was on all fours among the benches. Vomiting another gout of blood over the floor. Acolytes backed away, fearing contagion, the stink of emptied bowel and bladder, but Tric ran to the boy and knelt alongside him, uncertain what to do.
“Someone get some water!” Tric roared. “Help us!”
“You will do no such thing,” Spiderkiller said.
Silence fell in the Hall of Songs, broken only by Diamo’s long and wretched moans. Spiderkiller rose from her seat beside the Revered Mother. Her saltlocks writhed as she walked, a nest of serpents at her brow. Her dark eyes were fixed on Diamo, the boy’s hand outstretched toward her. He was on his back now, trying to speak, blood bubbling thick on his lips.
“Shahiid, please.” Jessamine groaned. “Please, save him.”
Spiderkiller blinked. “You all knew the rules of my trial. Those who try and fail, die. No mercy. No exception.”
“I …” Diamo gurgled at her feet, clutching the hem of her robe. “Sor … reee.”
“O, aye,” Spiderkiller nodded. “I’ve no doubt you are.”
The boy coughed, pink froth bubbling on his lips. He spasmed, flecks of bloody spittle spraying. Tric backed away as the tremors worsened. Diamo clutched his belly and screamed, dark blood bubbling out of his throat. Thrashing on the damp stone. Tears filling his eyes. Fingers clawing his skin. And at last, after minutes of wailing agony, with one last burbling cry, fell still.
Mia stood in the circle’s center.
Bloody gladius in her hand.
“That’s for Lotti, bastard,” she whispered.
“You bitch …” Jessamine was on her feet, blood drying on her tunic and lips. Clutching the place where Mia had skewered her. “You killed him …”
“Me? How? It’s not my fault he poisoned himself. Unless …” Mia tilted her head. “Unless there was something wrong with the notes he used?”
Jessamine snatched up her fallen rapier, face twisted in a snarl.
“Enough!” Solis bellowed. “Acolyte Jessamine, the bout is done. Weapons down. Point to Acolyte Mia. Resume your places, all of you!”
Jessamine drummed her fingers along her blade’s hilt. Glanced at Solis to take his measure. Finding no pity in his gaze, the girl tossed her blade aside. Hands moved quickly to remove Diamo’s body, mop up the blood left behind. Speaker Adonai licked his fingers clean and watched them work with twinkling eyes.
Jessamine sat down on the benches. Face like stone. Mia sat back at circle, opposite the assembled acolytes. Ash caught her eye, nodded in approval.
Good work, she signed in Tongueless. Ice cold.
Mia shrugged as if she’d no idea what the girl meant. Turned her gaze to Jessamine. The redhead was staring back at her. Fingering the golden chain about her throat, she nodded. Promising.
Mia smiled in return.
And she blew Jessamine a kiss.
Solis dismissed the acolytes to the Sky Altar for midmeal, reminding them to be back within the hour. The final would be fought before all assembled; the victor would wear Solis’s mark of favor. The first acolyte to finish top of hall would be named by turn’s end.
Mia and Tric sat across from each other at midmeal, plates heaped high. Mia plowed through her lunch with all the hunger a skipped eve and mornmeal could provide, trying to ignore Tric’s eyes. The boy didn’t seem hungry, poking at his food and sipping his wine, staring into space when he wasn’t staring at her.
Diamo’s death meant that Spiderkiller’s quandary was still unsolved—Mia could finish top of Truths if she dared take the challenge. But she’d not have to worry about poisoning herself if she won Solis’s trial, and Maw’s teeth, after all the punishment he’d put her through, it’d be bliss to watch that condescending bastard acknowledge her as the winner.
On the other hand, Mia doubted Tric had a chance of topping anywhere else. He was no master at venomcraft, nor thievery, though she supposed he might have gleaned a secret or two from the ’Grave. Still, if she knocked him out of Solis’s contest, she was cutting his chances of being named a Blade by no small measure.
She could feel him watching her between mouthfuls. Brow creased. Lips thin.
Was he thinking the same as her? Wondering where exactly this was leading? Sooner or later, one of them had to lose. Sooner or later, one of them was going to get hurt. The tension was thick enough to taste it on her tongue.
“Did you do it?” he finally asked.
“… Do what?” Mia blinked.
Tric lowered his voice so the others might not hear. “Your notes. Did you leave them for Diamo to steal? With a false antidote inside?”
Mia looked into those big hazel eyes. Saw a flicker of softness. That same softness he showed in her bed. Holding her close and smoothing back her hair. Problem was, there was no place for it out here. And for all her talk to Mister Kindly of holding on to her pity, she knew there was precious little place for that, either.
Not for Lotti’s murderers, anyway.
Mia put down her cutlery. Eyes narrowing. “And what if I did, Don Tric?”
“When you came to me last night … was that because you wanted to be with me, or you just wanted to be out of your room?”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“I don’t like being used, Mia.”
Mia glanced sidelong at the acolytes around her. Though each pretended to be busy with their meal, she could sense them listening. Feel their eyes. Staring at this shade of Mia Corvere they’d never really seen. Liar. Snake. Fox.
“Look, if Diamo stole my notes and gulped down a bellyful of poison, the idiot deserves whatever he got. Someone that stupid wouldn’t last a month in a real chapel. I did him a damned mercy.”
“Mercy?” Tric frowned. “He choked to death on his own blood, Mia.”
Mia glared down the bench at Jessamine, back to Tric.
“Like Lotti, you mean?”
Jessamine thumped the table, clutching her roastknife in a tight fist. She glanced at the Shahiid, wary of drawing their eye. Staring at Mia, her voice low and measured.
“We never touched Carlotta.”
“Bullshit,” Ash muttered. “Everyone in here heard you threaten to kill her, bitch.”
“Black Mother, I would have if I had the chance,” Jessamine hissed. “But I’d account for it afterward, Corvere. At least to you. I’d want to see the look in your eyes.” The redhead shook her head, lips curled in a sneer. “But I’d have wanted to see the look in Carlotta’s eyes, too. So I’d have done her head on. Just so she could see my face when I ended her.”
Mia stared at Jessamine, eyes glittering like polished flint.
“Then you’re an idiot too,” she said.
“Mia …,” Tric warned.
“What?” she snapped. “Listen, just because I’m willing to wet the furs with you doesn’t mean you get to judge who I am and what I do. This isn’t a nursery. Maw’s teeth, we’re would-be assassins, Tric. Maybe you should start acting like it. Remember why you came here.” She eyed the phial of ink around his neck, all that remained of his grandfather’s hatred. “Remember who you used to be, even if the mirror has forgotten.”
Tric’s hand went to his necklace, eyes growing wide. Hurt and anger in equal measure.
Mia ignored the both of them. Pushed her plate aside.
“See you in the circle.”
And without another word, she rose and walked away.
Mia looked the Dweymeri boy in his eyes. Saw no flicker of softness. Nothing close to what he showed in her bed, holding her close and smoothing back her hair. No trace of the hurt left either. He’d left that behind in the Sky Altar.