She met her eyes then.
“This is love,” Mia said simply.
And leaning in, she closed her eyes and gifted Ash a gentle kiss.
CHAPTER 33
BEGIN
The sound was impossible.
A living, breathing, colossal thing, pressing on Mia’s skin, so real she felt she could almost reach out and touch it. A weight on her shoulders, rooting her to the earth. A tremor in the stone around her, a physical sensation in the air. In all her years, even in Stormwatch, even in Whitekeep, she’d never heard the like of it.
She sat in her cell, listening to the song of murder above, the verse of steel on steel, the percussion of hooves, the chorus of the blood-mad crowd. Mister Kindly and Eclipse both swam in her shadow, rippling at the edges, trying to devour the fear swelling in her chest. It was hard not to feel it now, try as she might. The daemons did their best, but still, she could sense it, like those hateful suns above her. The scent of Ashlinn’s sweat lingering on her skin. Reminding her of all she now had to lose.
“I’m afraid,” she whispered.
“… WE ARE SORRY, MIA…”
“… we try, but the suns…”
“… THEY BURN US…”
She clasped her hands together to stop them shaking. Reminding herself of who she was. Where she sat. All that would be undone if she failed.
“Conquer your fear,” she whispered, “and you can conquer the world.”
The mekwerk lock clicked, the door swung aside. Dona Leona stood there, tall and proud, surrounded by her houseguards and Itreyan legionaries. She was clad in shimmering silver, the gown flowing off her shoulders like summer showers. Her plaited hair was interwoven with metallic ribbon, like a victor’s laurel about her brow.
“My champion,” she said.
“Domina,” Mia replied.
“You are prepared?”
Mia nodded. “Are you?”
Leona blinked. “Why would I not be?”
“These are your gladiatii about to die, Domina,” Mia replied. “I wondered if perhaps you felt some regret about that.”
Leona raised her chin, pride tightening her jaw. “My only regret is that I fostered a nest of traitors for so very long. Next season, it shall be different, I vow it. With the coin I make from the magni, I shall stock my collegium with only the finest gladiatii, and an executus who may be counted upon to forge them into true gods.”
“Arkades forged Furian, did he not? Arkades forged me.”
“Arkades was a cur. An honorless dog who—”
“Arkades was in love with you, Domina.”
Leona lips parted, but she found no words to speak.
“Surely you sensed it?” Mia pressed. “He was champion and then executus of one of the richest, most accomplished collegia in the history of the venatus. Why else would he have followed you to Crow’s Nest, if he wasn’t following his heart?”
“Arkades betrayed me,” Leona hissed.
Mia shook her head. “Arkades was gladiatii. A man of the sword. Even if he discovered you were bedding Furian, do you honestly think he’d look to poison the whole collegium? Knowing how he felt about you, and what it would cost you if your father got his way?”
“… I scarce know where to begin,” Leona said, blustering. “First of all, how dare you imply—”
“Look to your own house, Leona,” Mia said. “Look to those closest to you, and ask yourself who truly stood to gain if you were forced to limp back to civilization and beg forgiveness at your father’s feet. Who encouraged you to ask him for coin? Who was the first to object, whenever you spoke ill of him in public?”
The dona stood rooted to the stone, a small frown forming on her brow.
“Sanguila Leona,” said a legionary in the hall. “The Crow must be prepared for the execution bout.”
Mia stepped closer to her mistress, speaking so only they could hear.
“I might have been like you, if fate were kinder, and crueler. I know what happened to your mother. I know what kind of childhood you had. All the things you are, you are for a reason. Vicious and generous. Courageous and pitiless. I like you, and I hate you, and I couldn’t have done this without you. So when the turn is done, I’ll give you all the thanks I can muster. You won’t think it nearly enough, I’m sure. But it’s all I can fashion for you, Leona.”
The dona’s eyes were narrowed to papercuts, filled with indignant fury.
“You will address me as Domina!”
The crowd roared above them, trumpets rang bright and clear in the air, signaling the end of the equillai race. Mia looked to the older woman, and slowly nodded.
“Aye,” she said. “But not for much longer.”
*
She stood before a portcullis of iron, wrapped in black steel. Falcon wings at her shoulders, a cloak of red feathers at her back. The face of a goddess covered her own, only her eyes visible through the helm’s facade.
She was glad no one would be able to see if she wept.
The temperature was soaring, the audience baking in the suns. Many had taken the opportunity after the final (spectacular) equillai race to seek some shade or refreshment. But there was still no shortage of eyes to watch her. Tens of thousands in the stands, stamping their feet and waiting for the main event to begin.
“Citizens of Itreya!” The editorii’s words echoed across the bloodstained stone. “We present to you, our final execution bout!”
The crowd’s reaction was tepid, some applause, no shortage of jeers from those who simply wished the magni to get under way. After five turns of ceaseless butchery, the thought of a few more reprobates sent to slaughter seemed positively pedestrian.
“These are no common criminals!” the editorii insisted. “These are the basest cowards, the vilest wretches, slaves who betrayed their masters!”
The crowd perked up at that, resounding boos echoing around the arena.
“We give thanks to Sanguila Leona of the Remus Collegium, for providing the cattle for this righteous slaughter! Citizens, we present to you … the condemned!”
A portcullis opened in the northern end of the arena, and Mia’s heart sank to see seven figures stagger out into the sunslight to the crowd’s jeers. Sidonius and Wavewaker. Bladesinger and Bryn. Felix and Albanus and Butcher. They’d not been treated kindly in their captivity—all looked weak and starved. They were armed with rusted blades and dressed in piecemeal armor. Just a few scraps of leather on their chests and shins that would avail them not at all against someone even half-skilled with a blade.
They were meant to die here, after all.
The guard beside Mia handed her a razor-sharp gladius and a long, wicked dagger, polished to a blinding sheen. Mia looked into the guard’s eyes, blue as the sunsburned sky.
“No fear,” Ash whispered. “Strike true.”
Mia nodded, turned her gaze back to the sand. Sickness in her stomach. Horror at the thought of what was to come. Certainty that it was the only way, that everything she’d sacrificed would soon be worthwhile, that all the death, all the blood, all the pain would be justified once Scaeva and Duomo were in the ground.