But still …
She knew the dark. Knew its song. Remembering the way she’d felt it at truedark. Seeped into the cracks of this city’s pores, puddling in the catacombs under its skin. The dark she cast at her feet, the dark that lived inside her chest, her womb, all the places the light had never touched. And teeth gritted, trembling, she reached into those warm and hollow places, stretched out her hand to the shadow of the bell tower
and Stepped
across
the hollow space
between.
Mia reeled, vertigo swelling in her belly, vomit in her throat. Swaying backward, she tottered as all the world shifted beneath her, almost toppling to her death on the wrought-iron fence below. She realized she was on the basilica roof, rain slicking the shingles beneath her feet, blinking hard and trying to regain her balance as Ashlinn loomed out of the blinding light, dagger in hand.
“… mia…!”
She barely dodged, bending backward as the blade sliced the air. Mia raised her gravebone sword, trying to regain her footing. Bile in her mouth. Sweat in her eyes.
“… mia…!”
Ash struck again, forcing Mia’s back against the bell tower’s wall. Mia raised her longsword into guard, gasping and blinking and trying to stop the world from spinning.
“Learned a few new tricks, love?” Ashlinn smiled, dagger in hand.
The girl reached down her leg, fishing about inside her boot. It took her a moment, but finally she found what she sought, drawing out a long golden chain with a blazing kick to Mia’s belly spinning at the end of it.
Aa’s trinity.
Mia hissed like she’d been scalded. Mister Kindly yowled, slithering away across the rooftops. The basilica bells started tolling the hour, joined by the countless other cathedrals across the City of Bridges and Bones. Mia dropped to her knees, puking. The agony of it almost made her scream, the sight of those three suns—white gold, rose gold, yellow gold—was blinding. She scrambled back against the bell tower, hands up to shield her eyes from that awful, burning light.
“Looks like the old tricks still work, then,” Ashlinn said.
The bells fell silent, the rain still falling overhead. Ash looked about them, over the basilica’s gutter to the drop below. Another novice of Aa was down in the courtyard now, pointing with his fellow at the girls on the roof.
“It’s good to see you, Mia,” Ash said softly.
“F-fuck … y-y—”
“I wondered if Drusilla would send you after me. I think out of all of them, you knew me best.” Ash twirled the holy symbol around her finger. “Kept this, just in case. But you tell that crusty old bitch if she wants me dead, she can come herself. Because I’m surely coming for her. Her and all her merry fucking band.”
Ash hung the medallion around her neck, rendered in silhouette against that awful, blistering hatred. The fury of a god, burning Mia blind.
“I’m sorry it was you, Mia,” Ash sighed. “I always liked you. You’re better than that place. Those murd—”
The dagger struck Ashlinn’s shoulder. Blood sprayed, bright red between the raindrops. Ash twisted aside, another blade whistling past her cheek and chopping off a lock of her hair.
“Traitor!”
And as the blond curl fell, tumbling, turning toward the tiles, Jessamine dragged herself up over the guttering and flew at Ashlinn with her rapier drawn.
*
The smell of hot food met them as they emerged from the cellar.
Magistrae had met them in the bathhouse in exactly twenty minutes, carrying a bundle of new clothes. Not even Sidonius was fool enough to keep her waiting.
Once Mia had dressed in all she’d been given, she was tempted to ask where the rest of her outfit was. She wore a loincloth of padded gray linen, a leather belt to keep it in place. Her breasts were strapped with another strip of padded gray, leather sandals laced halfway up her shins. Her comrades wore even less—just loincloths and sandals for Sidonius and Matteo, with heavy leather cups to protect their dangles from the worst training might offer. The weather approaching truelight was so hot, the lack of material wouldn’t bother anyone. But very little was being left to the imagination …
Sidonius wiggled his codpiece side to side. “I hear it’s what all the marrowborn gentry are wearing in the ’Grave this year.”
In a flash, a guard whipped out his truncheon and cracked it across the back of Sid’s legs. The big man collapsed to his knees with a cry.
“For the last time, you will speak only when spoken to in my presence,” Magistrae said. “Forget your place again, and I’ll fashion you a worthy remembering. You can die on the sands just as well without a tongue in your head.”
Sidonius grunted apology, and Mia helped the big man to his feet with a sigh. The big Itreyan wasn’t the sharpest sword she’d ever met, but when living like a dog, you don’t get to pick your fleas.
The houseguards escorted the trio upstairs to the verandah. The gladiatii were gathered at long benches, shoveling bowls of porridge home with all the appetite of folk who’d spent the turn sweating under the boiling suns. Magistrae nodded to a stick-thin man in a leather apron serving food. He had a crooked eye, a single circle marked on his cheek, and very few teeth in his head. Mia’s mother had warned her never to trust a thin chef. But again, when living like a dog …
“Eat,” Magistrae ordered, tossing her long gray braid over her shoulder. “You will need your strength amorrow.”
Sidonius stalked toward the cook like a man at purpose, Mia and Matteo following. The girl realized she hadn’t eaten since yestereve, but beneath her hunger, she still felt that cold queasiness from earlier in the afternoon. Scanning the faces of the gladiatii, she found Furian at the head of the first bench. The man had tied his long black hair back in a braid, speaking to the Dweymeri man between mouthfuls.
He glanced up as she entered, turned his gaze away just as swift. Questions burned in Mia’s mind, backing up behind her teeth.
Patience.
She followed Sidonius to the porridge pot and snatched up a wooden bowl, almost drooling at the aroma. The thin man served a great, sloppy spoonful to Matteo.
“Oi, I was here first, you scrawny shit,” Sidonius growled.
A meaty paw pushed the chef aside. Mia recognized the big Liisian gladiatii with a face like a dropped pie as he snatched the ladle. His head was shaved, only a tiny crop of dark hair remaining, like a cock’s comb on his scalp. His face was pockmarked, his smile crooked—and not in the roguishly handsome sort of way. More in a dropped-one-too-many-times-on-his-head-as-a-babe kind of way.
“Pleasant turn to you, gentlefriends,” he bowed. “Welcome to Remus Collegium.”
Sidonius nodded greeting. “My thanks, brother.”
Mia noted the other gladiatii all watching. Her hackles rising.