“… careful, dear mongrel, i do believe you just used a three-syllable word…”
“… HOW COMES IT THAT ONE WHO FEASTS ON FEAR CAN BE SO AFRAID…?”
“… i fear nothing…”
“… YOU REEK OF IT…”
“… be a darling and fuck right off, would you…?”
“… NOTHING WOULD PLEASE ME MORE…”
The wolf who was not a wolf began to fade, like a whisper on the wind. But the not-cat’s plea held it still.
“… wait…”
“… WHAT…?”
Mister Kindly hung still for a moment, searching for the words.
“… are … are you not afraid…?” he finally asked.
“… OF WHAT…?”
“… not of. for…”
“… YOUR RIDDLES BORE ME, GRIMALKIN…”
“… are you not afraid for her…?”
The shadowwolf tilted its head.
“… WHY WOULD I BE…?”
The not-cat sighed, searching the horizon.
“… i wonder sometimes, what we are making of her…”
“… WE ARE MAKING HER STRONG. STEEL. RUTHLESS AS THE STORM AND THE SEA…”
“… the thing we take from her … i wonder if she does not need it…”
“… YOU SPEAK OF FEAR…?”
“… no, i speak of fashion sense…”
“… WHAT NEED HAS SHE OF FEAR, MOGGY…?”
“… those who do not fear the flame are burned. those who do not fear the blade are bled. and those who do not fear the grave…”
“… ARE FREE TO BE AND DO WHATEVER THEY WISH…”
“… she is different than she once was. she was never this cold. this reckless…”
“… AND YOU BLAME ME FOR THAT…”
“… two of us feast where only one once fed. perhaps we take too much. perhaps we make her like this. callous. conniving. cruel…”
“… AND I AM CERTAIN THAT RECENT REVELATIONS ABOUT THE RED CHURCH, HER FAMILIA, HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH HER CHANGE IN DEMEANOR…”
“… three-syllable word again…”
“… ARE WE FINISHED HERE, LITTLE MOGGY…?”
The not-cat looked to the sky, burning red and brilliant gold and blinding blue.
“… a reckoning is coming, eclipse. it waits for us in the city of bridges and bones. i can feel it. like that accursed sun on the horizon. drawing closer with every breath…”
“… A GOOD THING, THEN, THAT WE DO NOT BREATHE…”
Mister Kindly sighed.
“… i hate you…”
Eclipse laughed.
“… GOOD…”
And without another sound, she was gone.
A lone passenger sat in a dirty alley, in a little city by the sea.
It could barely remember the thing it had been before. A fraction of a deeper darkness. A larval consciousness, dreaming of shoulders crowned with translucent wings.
And she who would gift them.
Mia.
CHAPTER 31
TRUELIGHT
Godsgrave.
Mia stood on the deck of the Gloryhound, the ocean wind in her hair, staring out at the City of Bridges and Bones. The harbor was full, hundreds of sails scattered across that carpet of rolling blue, folk traveling from all corners to celebrate the greatest of Aa’s feast turns in the glorious capital of the Republic.
Truelight, at last, was upon them.
Saai had finally crested the horizon as they sailed from Crow’s Nest, that pale blue globe joining its gold and red siblings in the sky. The heat was blistering, and Mia was sickened by it, Mister Kindly curled up in her shadow, just as miserable as she. She could feel all the Light Father’s fury, beating down upon her like hammers to the anvil. Bowing her head and walking the decks above people who’d once called her friend.
Sidonius and the others were chained in the hold, manacles about their wrists and ankles. They’d put up a courageous front, vowing to kill any of Leona’s guards who came down into the hold to get them, but after three turns with no water in this awful heat, they were too weak to resist. The guards stormed the hold on the fifth turn, shackled them in irons. They’d been fed and watered every turn since then; they needed to be fit enough to wield weapons in their execution bouts, after all.
Mia had only avoided arrest because she’d aided in the insurgents’ capture, and Furian, only by dint of his sickbed and Leona’s sworn testimony before the administratii. The dona had taken a deposit from Varro Caito for the sale of her crop, but with word spreading through Crow’s Rest about the uprising, she couldn’t actually complete the transaction—no one would be fool enough to buy a pack of gladiatii who’d rebelled against their mistress.
And so, the dona had simply stolen Caito’s deposit and put out to sea, taking the scenic route to Godsgrave and fixing to worry about the outraged fleshpeddler when she returned from the capital in triumph. With the coin she’d filched, along with the purse from Whitekeep and the small stipend she’d be paid for the execution bout, she had enough to manage the first repayment to her father. But if she didn’t leave Godsgrave with the Venatus Magni won, she’d be utterly ruined.
Everything rested upon that single match.
Everything.
Mia rested her hands against the ’Hound’s railing, the sunslight blazing on the ocean’s face. She tried twisting the shadows at her feet, but it was near impossible; her grip on the darkness was weak, and trying to hold it was like holding smoke. It made sense, she supposed. Her powers had been at their height at truedark, and it was logical they’d be weakest when the Father of Light was strongest in the sky. But that didn’t make her feel any better about her chances in the magni.
She stared out at the great Itreyan capital, heart in her throat. It had been months since she’d laid eyes upon it. Months of sweat and blood and tears. All the city was laid out before her, the broken archipelago shimmering in the sunslight. Every square foot was encrusted with tenements and shanties and graceful villas, clinging to the shoreline like barnacles on an old galley’s hull. Above the cathedral spires and the looming War Walkers and the Senate House, rose the Ribs—those great, ossified towers stretching high into the sky, their bleached white glare almost blinding.
She’d spent much of her childhood inside her parents’ apartment there. Far more than in Crow’s Nest, truth told. Sitting with her mother and their servants, playing with her baby brother. If Crow’s Nest had been their refuge, Godsgrave had been their world. She’d never managed to escape its pull for long.
The thought of her familia made her chest hurt, her eyes mist, all she’d broken and stolen, all the lives she’d taken and miles she’d run and years she’d studied, all of it would soon be justified. In two short turns, the magni would begin. In two short turns, she’d fight for her life and stand before Duomo and Scaeva upon that bloody sand, and scream her name as she slit their throats, ear to fucking ear.
It will be worth it.
She looked over her shoulder, down in the shadows of the hold beneath her feet. She could feel their stares upon her. The ones who’d called her friend.
All of it will be worth it.