Mia waded out of the pool, still limping from her wounds, careful of slipping on the bloody tile. She was conscious of the speaker’s stare on her naked body, the blood sloshing like a gentle sea. Mia looked down the hall to the stairwell leading up to the waiting Ministry. Wondering why the ’byss she’d been called here.
With a final glance to the speaker, Mia walked from the room. Washing off the drying blood and changing silently; black leathers and wolfskin boots, a shirt of dark linen. She hid her gravebone stiletto in her sleeve, hung her beautiful gravebone longsword from the scabbard at her waist. The former had belonged to her mother, the latter to her father, taken from the dead hand of Justicus Remus. Both blades had hilts fashioned like crows in flight, eyes of red amber. They were all she had left of her parents, aside her name.
She supposed there was a metaphor in there somewhere …
Unwrapping her oilskin package, she took the beaten leatherbound book inside under her arm and trudged up the stairs.* The voice of a ghostly choir hung in the black, and Mia couldn’t help but smile at the familiar song. After months in Galante, she’d returned to the hallowed halls of the most feared assassins in all the Itreyan Republic.
At last, she’d come home.
After an interminable climb, she stepped out into the Hall of Eulogies. The space was vast, circular, carved into the Quiet Mountain’s granite heart. A beautiful statue of Niah, Mother of Night and Our Lady of Blessed Murder, loomed forty feet above Mia’s head. A set of scales hung in her right hand, a wickedly sharp sword in her left. Wherever Mia stood in the room, Niah’s eyes seemed to follow.
The space was ringed with pillars thicker than ancient ironwoods. The walls were lined with tombs, scarlet light washing through huge stained-glass windows. On the flagstones, Mia could see the names of every one of the Red Church’s victims—thousands of lives claimed in their Black Mother’s name. In contrast, the tombs were unmarked. They contained bodies of servants of the Mother and in death, only the Mother mourned them.
Mia’s eyes drifted to a tomb in the western wall. The four small letters she’d scratched into the stone with a gravebone blade eight months ago.
“Blade Mia,” said a deep voice. “Welcome home.”
Mia turned to the foot of the statue. The entire Red Church Ministry was assembled, watching with expectant gazes.
All except Revered Father Solis, of course.
The big Itreyan stood with blind eyes turned to the soaring gables. He was clad in a robe of fine gray cloth, his hood pulled back. Pale blond stubble dusted a scarred scalp, his beard set in four resin spikes. His ever-empty scabbard hung at his side, the leather embossed with concentric circles.
To Solis’s right stood Spiderkiller, Shahiid of Truths. The elegant Dweymeri was clad in emerald green, gold at her throat. Her saltlocks were artfully coiled atop her head. Hands and lips stained black from poisoncraft.
To Solis’s left stood Mouser, Shahiid of Pockets, his handsome face belying the years in his twinkling eyes. An Ashkahi blacksteel blade hung as his side, two naked figures with feline heads entwined on the hilt. He was rolling a coin across the knuckles of his right hand, his left clutching an ornate cane—his legs had been badly broken during the Luminatii invasion, and the Shahiid would limp for the rest of his life.
Third was Aalea, Shahiid of Masks. Milk-white skin and blood-red lips, curtains of black hair framing a face that made the word “beauty” hang its head in shame. She smiled at Mia as if the whole world were a secret and only she knew the answer. Promising to share it as soon as the pair were alone.
To date, there had been no new Shahiid of Song appointed—Solis was still teaching fresh acolytes the art of steel until a suitable replacement could be found. Wounds from the J?rnheims’ assault were fresh, and even here, in the seat of the Church’s power in the Republic, the scabs remained.
“Shahiids,” Mia said, bowing low. “I return, as requested.”
“As commanded,” Solis growled.
“… Forgiveness, Revered Father. Commanded.”
The title tasted strange on Mia’s tongue. After Cassius’s death, it was fitting that Revered Mother Drusilla become the Lady of Blades, but Drusilla’s decision to appoint Solis as Revered One had vexed Mia more than a little. Solis still bore the tiny scar on his face from where Mia had bested him in the Hall of Song, and her arm still sometimes tingled where he’d hacked it off in retaliation. Truth told, Mia hated him like poison, and the idea of taking orders from him sat about as well with her as a collar on a cat.
Solis glowered, white eyes turned to the ceiling, his robe straining against the span of his shoulders. He dwarfed the other Ministry members, making them look like children. Mia supposed she should feel intimidated, but she found it all just another reminder of how ill-suited for his role Solis seemed.
He doesn’t even fit the robe he’s supposed to wear …
“So,” Spiderkiller asked, without preamble. “Gaius Aurelius is dead?”
“… Aye, Shahiid,” Mia replied.
“Word has it you were almost killed in the process,” Mouser mused.
“A scratch, Shahiid.” She shrugged, wincing at the pull of the stitches in her shoulder. “Though I’ll not be dancing for a while.”
“You can barely walk, Acolyte,” Solis growled.
“All due respect, Revered Father,” Mia said, temper fraying. “But I was anointed by Lord Cassius with his dying breath. I’m not an acolyte. I’m a Blade.”
Solis sneered. “That remains to be seen.”
“I’ve four kills to my name already.”
Mouser tilted his head. “Don’t you mean five?”
“Surely you haven’t forgotten murdering a king of the Dweymeri in his own keep without our permission?” Spiderkiller asked.
Mia bit down on her response. Glancing again at the name she’d carved into the unmarked tomb on the western wall.
TRIC.
They’d made a promise. Him to her and her to him. If she were to fall, Tric had sworn to murder Scaeva and Duomo for her. And if he fell, she swore she’d kill his wretched bastard of a grandfather, Swordbreaker. In truth, she thought she was owed a death after saving the lives of every man and woman in this room. But perhaps here was the reason she’d been sent to a backwater like Galante?
Silence rang in the hall, Mia stewing within it.
“May I ask why I am here?” she finally ventured.
Solis’s lip curled. “You have a devotee, little Blade.”
The girl raised an eyebrow at the Revered Father. “If it’s someone in this hall, they hide it very well.”
Aalea smiled, lips dark as blood. “Perhaps ‘patron’ is a better word. The last three offerings you performed—the son of Senator Aurelius, Magistrate Phillip Cicerii, and the mistress of Armando Tulli—were all requested by the same client of the Church. They specifically requested the services of ‘she who slew the justicus of the Luminatii Legion and his finest centuries beside him.’ And they paid handsomely for you.”
“Who is this patron, Shahiid?”