No, what she saw was rage.
The acolytes and Ministry were assembled around the circle. Solis and his Hands waiting, silver coin in his palm. Mia and Tric faced each other across ten feet of buffed granite, the stains of Diamo’s ending nowhere to be seen.
“Acolyte Mia, call the toss.”
“Senate.”
A bright chime rang as the coin struck stone.
“Senate it is.”
Tric stalked to the racks, drew out a cruel scimitar and sliced the air. Strapping a small buckler to his off-hand, he stepped back into the ring. Eyes cold. Jaw clenched.
He’s furious. I cut him badly.
Mia walked to the racks, selected a stiletto and rapier.
Good.
The gong rang. The pair joined, steel against steel, speed and agility versus strength and ferocity. Every acolyte knew by now that Tric and Mia shared each other’s bed. She supposed every one of them was expecting one or the other to fight soft. To let the other win.
That’d be the romantic thing to do, aye?
Within ten seconds of the gong fading, that thought was left dead on the circle floor. Tric was out for blood. Face twisted. Teeth clenched. His saltlocks whipped about him as he swung at Mia’s chest and head. The girl was quick, but the big Dweymeri’s footwork was excellent, hemming Mia in on the circle’s edge, where her speed counted for less. Surprise was no longer on her side; everyone knew her swordarm wasn’t as weak as she’d played it, nor she the novice she’d pretended. And so Tric was wary, guard high, never overextending and leaving himself open to her rapier.
His scimitar whistled in the air, bright notes ringing across the hall as their blows met. Mia locked up his sword, blades intertwined, leaning in close as he pressed down on her with all his strength. Sweating. Red-faced. Grinning.
“You seem angry, Don Tric.”
“Fuck you, Mia.”
“Later, lover.”
The girl lashed out with her knee, several acolytes hooting as it connected with Tric’s groin. The boy doubled up as Mia slipped aside, spinning away and back out into the center of the ring. Tric regained his footing, whirled to face her, saltlocks flying. One hand still pressed to his injured jewels.
“I can kiss those better, if you like?” Mia called.
Tric bellowed in rage, charged across the circle. Pure fury now. The feel of her in his arms forgotten. Mia danced backward, sliced the boy’s forearm. Another strike pierced his tunic, opened up a bleeding gash in his belly. Mia grinned all the while, watching Tric get angrier and angrier. The acolytes around them reveling in the show. Revered Mother Drusilla watching intently, the weaver, even the speaker on the edge of their seats. Solis’s head was tilted as he listened. Jaw set. Fists clenched.
Mia knocked Tric’s scimitar aside with a swift backhand strike, sent it spinning across the floor. She ducked low as Tric lunged with his buckler, stepped aside as he struck again. And dropping down into a split at his feet, Mia buried her rapier in his belly.
The acolytes gasped. Ash cheered in delight.
Mia looked up at Tric’s pain-filled stare.
Eyes locked with his.
Smiling.
“Koffi,” she whispered.
Tric’s face paled. He grit his teeth, narrowed that pretty hazel stare. Reached out to Mia’s hand and seized it tight, crushing her fingers against her rapier hilt. And white-knuckled, face twisted, blood spilling from his mouth, the Dweymeri boy pulled himself farther onto her blade. Dragging Mia up off the floor until her sword’s cross guard was pressed against his bleeding gut.
He drew back his buckler. Smashed it into Mia’s face. The girl reeled away, blood spilling from split lips. She caught her footing, lashed out, burying her stiletto in Tric’s chest. But the boy didn’t flinch, pummeling Mia’s face again, stars bursting in her sight as the shield met her cheek, head lolling on her neck as darkness gathered behind her eyes. A blow to her chest sent her to the floor, fingernails clawing the stone as she tried to rise. A boot met her ribs. Another. Another. Looking up through a haze of red as Tric slid her rapier out from his belly, raising the blade in a two-handed grip and preparing to plunge it into her chest.
“Yield,” Mia whispered.
All the world fell still.
“I yield,” she said again, flopping back onto the stone.
Tric’s chest was heaving. Grip quavering. Eyes locked on Mia’s.
The girl smiled with bloody lips.
And she winked.
“Point!” Solis bellowed. “Match to Acolyte Tric!”
The boy hung a moment longer. Rage still burning in that smooth hazel stare. Mia wondered just how much of him wanted her dead at that moment. But finally, he lowered the steel. Tossed it aside and sank to his knees, coughing blood, hand pressed to the new holes she’d gifted him. The acolytes were on their feet, cheering, bloodlust shining in their eyes.
The weaver and speaker strode into the ring, set to healing the hurts Mia and Tric had inflicted on the other with their steel.
But what about their words?
Looking into Tric’s eyes, the girl realized she didn’t know the answer.
The acolytes were given the rest of the turn to themselves. With her wounds mended by the weaver, but her jaw still aching, Mia found herself back in her room, hands on hips.
Diamo and Jessamine had done a good job of covering their tracks; there were only a few signs anyone had been in her chambers. But as she’d suspected, her notes were gone from the hiding spot beneath her desk, no doubt stolen somewhere in the early morn while she’d been in Tric’s bed. Five hours, she’d calculated, give or take, from the time Diamo took Spiderkiller’s poison to the moment of his ending. His sweat had been the real giveaway, but still, her timing had been close to perfect.
“… feeling pleased with yourself …?”
Mister Kindly peered at her from atop the cupboard.
“I am, rather.”
“… jessamine will most definitely try to kill you now …”
“Operative word being ‘try.’”
“… and despite your sky altar theatrics, you still haven’t solved spiderkiller’s quandary …”
“I’m almost there.”
“… diamo stole your notes …”
“I remember most of it. I’m close, Mister Kindly.”
“… spiderkiller’s contest ends in six turns, mia …”
“I’m glad you’re here to tell me these things.”
“… you should have just won solis’s edge and been done with it …”
“Then Tric wouldn’t have become a Blade.”
“… better him than you …?”
Mia flopped down on the bed, eyes on the ceiling. Saying nothing. Thoughts racing in her head. Everything Mister Kindly said was true. There were bigger things at stake here than she and Tric. Scaeva. Duomo. Remus. All she’d worked for. Only a trained assassin of the Red Church was ending any of those bastards—her attack last truedark was proof enough of that. If she didn’t finish top of hall, who knew if she’d become a Blade at all? Why in the Daughters’ names hadn’t she just— “… you are letting your feelings for the boy cloud your judgment …”
“I don’t have any feelings for the boy.”
“… o, really …?”
“Yes, really.”
“… then why spend months training in secret with naev only to—”
A knock sounded at her door. Mia rose from her bed, padded across the room. Tric was waiting on the other side, saltlocks tumbled about his face. Mia’s heart beat a little quicker to see him. Those damned butterflies back in her belly. She grit her teeth, caught them with her fingers, and plucked their wings away. Killing them one by one.
“Good turn to you, Don Tric.”
“And you, Pale Daughter.”
She looked down to the boy’s shirt. He wore a simple pin at his breast—a musical clef carved of polished ironwood. He’d been presented with the brooch at tourney’s end by Solis himself; proof that he’d finished top of the Shahiid’s hall.
“Congratulations,” Mia said.
The boy nodded. Chewed his lip. “Can I come in?”
Mia looked up and down the hallway, and seeing no other acolytes, stepped aside. For insects with no wings, those butterflies still seemed to be making an awful commotion.