Mia shook her head. “I don’t want that, either.”
“Well, what do you want?” Teardrinker spat, stare locked on the bow in Mia’s grip. “You’re holding decent cards, girl. You get a say in how this hand is played.”
Mia looked to the other women huddled around the forewagon. They were filthy and haggard, clad in little more than rags. The dusty road stretched out across the blood-red sand, and she knew full well the fate that awaited them at the end of it.
“I want back in the cage,” Mia said.
Teardrinker blinked. “You just broke out of the cage…”
“I chose you very carefully, Captain. Your reputation is well known. You don’t let your men spoil your goods. And you have an accord with the Lions of Leonides, neh?”
“Leonides?” Exasperation crept into Teardrinker’s voice. “What in the name of Aa’s burning cock does a gladiatii stable have to do with any of this?”
“Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it?”
The girl lowered her bow with a small smile.
“I want you to sell me to them.”
CHAPTER 3
SHADOWS
Mia lay naked on the floor, spattered in red, Alenna in her arms. Music still swelled faintly from the ball upstairs, none of the senator’s guests any the wiser that his only son had been murdered right below their heels. Mister Kindly sat on the headboard, staring at the young don’s corpse. Eclipse licked her lips with a translucent tongue, the shadowwolf’s sigh rumbling through the floor.
The girl in Mia’s arms shivered at the sight of them.
“I’m going to take my hand away now, love,” Mia whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to tie you up, put my clothes back on, and then slip out into the sunslight and you’re never going to see me again. Does that sound fair?”
Alenna nodded frantically, blinking the tears from her eyes.
Eclipse’s soft feminine voice seemed to come from below the floorboards.
“… THAT IS FOOLISH…”
“… and you would be the expert on foolishness, pup…,” Mister Kindly sneered.
“… BETTER TO BE RID OF HER. WE HAVE NO REASON TO LET HER LIVE…”
“And no reason to end her,” Mia replied. “Unless someone is paying me. Now, shouldn’t one of you be watching the hallway in case a guard comes down here?”
“… i kept watch last time, when you ended that magistrate…”
“… LIAR, I KEPT WATCH OUTSIDE THE WHOLE TIME. YOU WERE FEEDING LIKE A SOW AT TROUGH…”
“… and how would you know that, if you were keeping watch outside the whole time…?”
“If you two are quite finished? I give less than no fucks for who does it, but one of you better get out there, because someone’s go—”
A soft knock sounded at the door. A deep voice calling beyond.
“Mi Don?”
Mia cursed beneath her breath, grip tightening on Alenna’s throat.
“Mi Don,” said a second voice. “Your father requests your presence.”
Guards, by the sound. At least two of them …
“… IT WAS YOUR TURN…,” Eclipse whispered fierce.
“… lying mongr—…”
Mia hissed for silence, her mind racing. With guards outside the bedchamber door, her chances of slipping out unnoticed were aflame. Dove was waiting with the carriage upstairs, but he wouldn’t be any use to her down here. She could fight easily enough, but she was buck naked, all but unarmed, and the noise would only bring more guards. The shadows down here were deep, but with the bedchambers in the basements, there weren’t any windows for her to climb out o—
Mia gasped as Alenna’s elbow collided with her ribs, and with a black curse, the girl cracked her head back into Mia’s nose. Her grip momentarily loosened, Alenna drew breath and screamed, only partially muffled by Mia’s fingers.
“Murder!” she cried. “Help me!”
Mia slammed her fist into the side of the girl’s head, once, twice, knocking her senseless. She heard a curse, a heavy thump as something crashed into the door.
“Mi Don?” someone shouted. “Open up!”
“… it was your turn…”
“… LIAR…”
“Will the pair of you shut up!”
Mia slung her dress over her head as the door shuddered on its hinges. Fishing about in her abandoned corset, she retrieved her gravebone dagger, the crow on the hilt rebuking her with its glittering amber stare. And reaching to the shadows around her, she dragged them over her head, throwing all the world into black and disappearing utterly beneath it.
The door crashed open, two blurred shapes silhouetted against the light. One of them cried Aurelius’s name, moving in what Mia hoped was the direction of the bed. The other saw the naked, blood-spattered Liisian girl on the floor and crouched beside her. And with the door now clear, Mia slung aside her cloak of shadows and ran.
The guards bellowed for her to stop, but Mia paid no mind, sprinting down the plush hallway toward the broad stairs. Two more guards appeared above, frowning in confusion at the bloodstained girl barreling up the stairs toward them. One held up a hand to stop her as Mia’s dagger flashed, in and out, hilt-deep in his belly. The man gasped and fell, tumbling down the stairs as his comrade cried warning, hefting his shortsword. Mia twisted sideways, gasping as his blade cut deep into her shoulder and upper arm, her whistling counterstrike slicing his neck clean through.
The man collapsed, gargling, and Mia was already gone, up out of the stairwell and onto the ground floor. She burst into the main hall, the marrowborn dons and donas crying out in alarm at the sight of her—bloodied blade in one hand, dark hair strewn around darker eyes, wide with fury.
“Pardon me, Mi Dona,” she begged, smashing some pretty young thing aside as she tore through the hall. More guards burst into the room, unsure who to chase or why. The pair from Aurelius’s bedchamber appeared at the top of the stairs, scanning the confused crowd, finally spotting Mia as she pushed her way through the mob.
“The girl in red!” one bellowed. “Stop her!”
“Assassin!” the other cried. “The senator’s son, slain!”
The hall dissolved into chaos, some folk reaching for Mia, others fleeing before her. She cut some well-heeled administratii from thigh to crotch as he made a grab for her, elbowed another gent in the face and dropped him cold. The knife in her hand and the look in her eye dissuaded the other do-gooders in the crowd, and with a sidestep, a shove, and a rolling tumble, she was through the double doors, sprinting down the plush entry hall. Snatching a tumbler off the drinks tray of a gobsmacked servant, she belted down the goldwine inside before hurling it at the guard rushing at her, bouncing the heavy crystal off his head and sending him sprawling.
Bursting through the doors, out into the courtyard outside Aurelius’s palazzo. The cries of “Assassin!” echoed behind her, three guards rushing up the stairs to meet her, the twin suns in her eyes almost blinding.