“You cheated,” he replied. “You did something to the silkling’s blades.”
“You twisted her shadow. I suppose that makes us both cheaters, neh?”
The Unfallen remained mute for an age, simply staring. When he finally spoke, it was with hesitation, as if compliments didn’t sit well upon his tongue.
“You risked your life for a sister gladiatii,” he said. “You risked your life for me. Trickery aside, you still showed loyalty to this collegium. Only fitting that it be repaid.”
“Was that a compliment?” Mia asked. “’Byss and blood, perhaps I mixed too much fadeleaf in with your tea?”
Furian allowed himself a small smile. “Don’t let it swell your head, girl. I’ll be reclaiming my torc as soon as I’m able to lift a blade. When I fight at the magni, make no mistake—it will be as champion of this collegium.”
Mia shook her head, again trying to figure out the puzzle of this man. He’d treated her with nothing but disdain, spoken of their gifts with the darkness as witchery. But when push came to shove, he’d werked the shadows so that the Falcons could best the Exile. Morality aside, it seemed he was prepared to sacrifice anything for victory.
“Why is all this so important to you?” she asked.
“I have told you before, Crow. This is what I am.”
“That’s no kind of reason,” Mia sighed. “You weren’t born gladiatii. You must have had a life before all this.”
Furian shook his head. Blinking slow.
“I’d not call it such.”
“So what were you? Murderer? Rapist? Thief?”
Furian stared, hidden thoughts swirling behind those bottomless eyes. But the fadeleaf was kicking in now, and the sliproot she’d mixed in with the concoction was loosening his tongue. She felt guilty about dosing him in the hopes he’d open up, but she wanted to understand this man, try to gauge where he’d stand if Sidonius and the others rose in rebellion.
“Murderer, rapist, thief,” Furian replied, his voice thick. “All that and more. I was a beast who lined his pockets with the miseries of men. And women. And children.”
“What did you do?”
Furian looked to the walls around them, the rusted steel and iron bars.
“I filled places like this. Flesh, my bread, and blood, my wine.”
“… You were a slaver?”
Furian nodded, speaking soft. “Captained a ship for years. The Iron Gull. Ran the Ashkah coast all the way to Nuuvash, eastern Liis from Amai to Ta’nise. Sold the men to the fighting pits, women to the pleasure houses, children to whoever wanted them.” A heavy shrug. “If that turned out to be no one, we’d just put them over the side.”
“’Byss and blood,” Mia said, lip curling in revulsion.
“You judge me.”
“You’re fucking right I do,” she hissed.
“No harsher than I judge myself.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Mia said, her voice turning to steel.
“Believe what you will, Crow. People always do.”
“So how came you to be here, then?”
Furian closed his eyes, breathing long and deep. For a moment, Mia thought perhaps he’d drifted off to sleep. But eventually he spoke, his voice heavy with fatigue and something darker still. Regret? Shame?
“We raided a village in Ashkah,” he said. “One of the men we brought aboard was a missionary of Aa. Rapha, his name. I let the men have their sport with him. We weren’t really that fond of priests, you see. We beat him. Burned him. In the end, we chummed the water for drakes, and I told him to walk the plank. Looking down into that blue, you see the measure of a person in their eyes. Some beg. Some curse. Some don’t even have the legs to carry them. You know what Rapha did?”
“I’d not guess,” Mia shrugged. “I’m not that fond of priests either.”
“He prayed Aa would forgive us,” Furian said. “Standing on that plank, a thirty-foot stormdrake circling beneath him. And the bastard starts praying for us.”
The Unfallen shook his head.
“I’d never seen the like. So I let him live. I didn’t really know why at the time. He sailed with us almost a year. Taught me the gospel of the Everseeing. Taught me that I was lost, nothing but an animal, but that I could find my humanity again if I embraced the Light. But he also told me that I must atone for all the evil I’d done. And so, after a year of it, of reading and arguing, of hating and blustering and crying to myself in the long hours of the nevernight, I accepted the Everseeing into my life. Turned my back on the darkness. I sailed us to the Hanging Gardens. And I sold myself.”
“You…” Mia blinked.
“Seems mad, doesn’t it? What kind of fool would choose this?”
Mia thought of her own plight, her own plan, slowly shaking her head.
“But … why?”
“I knew Aa would give me a chance to redeem myself if I placed myself in his keeping. And he put me here. A place of tribulation, and purity, and suffering. But at the end, on the sands of the magni, when I kneel before the grand cardinal drenched in my victory, he will not only declare me free, but a free man. Not an animal, Crow. A man.
“And there, I will be redeemed.”
Furian nodded, took a deep breath, as if he’d purged a poison from his blood.
Mia folded her arms and scowled.
“So that’s it?” she demanded. “You think you can atone for selling hundreds of men and women by murdering hundreds more? You can’t clean your hands by washing them in other people’s blood, Furian. Trust me, that only gets them redder.”
Furian shook his head and scowled. “I do not expect you to understand. But magni is a holy rite. Judged by the hand of God himself. And if Rapha taught me anything, it was that the things we do are more important than the things we’ve done.”
Mia heard footsteps behind, a knock at the infirmary door. Gannicus marched into the room, two more guards beside him, carrying a steaming pot between them.
“Your vinegar, boiled as requested.”
Mia nodded, turning to Furian.
“I’m going to get rid of the maggots now. This is going to be painful.”
“Life always is, little Crow. Life is pain, and loss, and sacrifice.”
Furian grit his teeth and closed his eyes.
“But we should welcome that pain. If it brings us salvation.”
*
She returned to her cage, flanked by two of the houseguards. Sidonius opened his eyes as the cell door closed behind her, the mekwerk lock twisting closed. Mia had watched carefully from beneath her lashes on the way in here, noting which key on the iron ring opened the barracks gate, controlled her cell door.
Was this the right thing to do?
Would they understand, at the end, that she’d done it all for the best?
“I spoke to Furian,” she whispered once the guards were gone.
“About what?” Sidonius muttered.
“Who he is. How he thinks. Where he’s from.” She shook her head. “He dreams only of the magni. He’d never do anything to put it at risk. I think he’s still too ill to stand in our way, but when we rise, there’s no chance he’ll stand with us.”
“When we rise?”
“Aye, brother.”
Mia reached out in the dark, squeezed Sidonius’s hand.
“We.”
CHAPTER 29
RISE