And with a final gasp, the Unfallen fell.
A hammerblow to Mia’s spine. A rush of blood in her veins, skin crawling, every nerve ending on fire. She fell to her knees, hair billowing about her as if in some phantom breeze, her shadow scrawled in maddened, jagged lines beneath her, Mister Kindly and Eclipse and a thousand other forms scribbled among the shapes it drew upon the stone. The hunger inside her sated, the longing gone, the emptiness suddenly, violently filled. A severing. An awakening. A communion, painted in red and black. And face upturned to the sky, for a moment, just for a breath, she saw it. Not an endless field of blinding blue, but of bottomless black. Black and whole and perfect.
Filled with tiny stars.
Hanging above her in the heavens, Mia saw a globe of pale light shining. Like a sun almost, but not red or blue or gold or burning with furious heat. The sphere was ghostly white, shedding a pale luminance and casting a long shadow at her feet.
“THE MANY WERE ONE.”
“Crow! Crow! Crow! Crow!”
“AND WILL BE AGAIN.”
A scream ripped up and out of her lungs, long and thin and keening. The sky crashed closed, the scorch of the suns bringing burning tears to her eyes. She was on her knees on the bloody stone, the arena ringing, the crowd on their feet, “Crow! Crow! Crow! Crow!” arkemical current dancing on her skin, sweeping her up on their wave of euphoria. Blood on her hands. Blood on her tongue.
Furian dead on the stone before her.
She hung her head. Gasping. Breath burning in her lungs. Full and empty all at once. Triumphant. All the miles, all the years, all the pain, and she’d done it.
She’d won.
But something …
… something was different.
And looking down, she saw her shadow, now still as a millpond, pooled on the bloodstained stone beneath her.
Dark enough for four.
CHAPTER 35
GONE
Leona cried out with the rest, heart in her throat. Something between elation and agony, watching Furian topple and the Crow fall to her knees over his corpse, triumphant. She’d done it. She’d won. Victory for the Remus Collegium. All Leona’s dreams realized. All her sacrifice vindicated.
But the dagger the Crow used during the magni was wrong.
Which meant the execution bout …
“Mi Dona, a glass?”
Leona blinked, turned to a slave who’d materialized beside her. An old man with a silver tray, goblets, and a bottle of top-shelf goldwine. He was one of a dozen bondsmen now roaming the sanguila boxes, handing the blood masters fresh drinks as they stood and offered Leona grudging applause. The magni had been hard fought, but it had been glorious, and it was time for the men who profited most to honor the games and their victor with a traditional and well-earned drink.
The old man’s circular brand looked fresh, a touch too dark on his cheek. His blue eyes twinkled like razors, and something about him put Leona distinctly ill at ease. She looked to the goblet he offered, shook her head.
“No,” she murmured. “My thanks.”
Leona turned her eyes back to the arena’s heart, saw the Crow standing amid the carnage. The girl held aloft her bloody gladius, and the audience erupted. Everyone was on their feet—from the ministers of Aa’s church to the commonfolk, all the way up to the consul’s box. Scaeva himself was standing, his boychild on his shoulders, cheering loud.
Could none of them see?
Were they all blind?
“Mi Dona?” the old man asked again.
“I said no,” Leona snapped. “I am not thirsty, begone!”
“I’m not suggesting you drink, Dona,” he said, forcing a goblet into her hands.
The dona snarled, ready to berate the old fool for his temerity. But then she caught sight of the vintage on his bottle. A label she recognized from her childhood, the memory burned into her mind’s eye. That bottle clutched in her father’s hand, splashed blood red as her mother screamed.
“Albari,” she whispered. “The seventy-four.”
“Fine drop, that one,” the old man replied.
“Be off!” Magistrae snapped. “Before I have you beaten for your impertinence!”
The old man turned to the magistrae, fixed her in his ice-blue stare. He pushed his laden tray into the woman’s arms as she blustered, and, reaching into his tunic, he pulled out an expensive clove cigarillo, propped it on his lips.
“You know,” he growled, “there’s a special place in the abyss reserved for those who murder little girls.”
Leona’s heart stilled. She looked to Anthea, then to her father. Never the type to waste a fine vintage, the man was raising his glass of Albari seventy-four with the rest, glittering blue eyes locked on her as he and his colleagues drank deep. Perhaps he thought it chance. Perhaps he simply didn’t care. But after he’d drunk deep from his cup, he looked at his daughter and gifted her a dark smile.
Leona stared at the goblet the old man had given her. A thin strip of parchment was nestled in the bottom, six words scribed in black ink.
“All the thanks I can muster.”
Below it, she saw a sketch of a crow in flight above two crossed swords.
The sigil of the Familia Corvere.
Leona looked up into the old man’s eyes. Her own wide with realization. The old man pulled out a flintbox, lit his cigarillo, and dragged deep.
“Should you want him, you’ll find Arkades in Blackbridge,” he said. “I’d not return to Crow’s Nest if you value your pretty neck. They’ll take everything from you. Your house. Your collegium. Your wealth. And you’ll have to leave your name behind. But you’ll still have your life if you scamper away now. That’s all she was willing to leave you, I’m afraid.”
The old man scowled once more at Anthea, then turned and shuffled away, up through the sanguilas’ boxes and down the stairs. Leona looked again to her father, turning to her magistrae. The perfume of a funeral pyre in her nostrils. Mia’s voice echoing in her head.
Look to those closest to you …
“… I need to use the privy,” she said. “I feel ill.”
“But, Domina…,” Magistrae began. “Your honors? They will be presen—”
“… I’ll only be a moment. Wait here until I return.”
Magistrae frowned, but bowed low. “Your whisper, my will.”
Leona nodded to her houseguards, gathered up her dress, and began marching up the stairs. Pausing, she turned back to her magistrae.
“O, and Anthea?” She nodded to the tray in the woman’s arms. “Pour yourself a drink while I’m gone.”
“Yes, Domina,” the woman frowned. “… Thank you, Domina.”
“Not at all,” Leona replied, turning away. “I believe you’ve earned it.”
*
Patience.
Mia stood on the central plinth, steady as the stone around her. The memory of that single, softly glowing orb in the heavens etched in her mind. That voice, echoing in her skull. Despite the three suns burning overhead, her grip on the dark felt stronger with Furian dead. Deeper, richer somehow, the shadow at her feet rippling, rolling, bleeding out across the flagstones toward …
Scaeva.
Duomo.
“… THEY COME…”