“Hold now,” Mercurio counseled. “Let’s not speak hasty.”
“Hasty?” Mia snarled. “The Red Church helped kill my father, Mercurio. Just as Scaeva and Duomo did. The Ministry are as guilty as the other two.”
“But why would the Red Church train you if they helped kill your father?”
“Maybe they thought I’d never find out? Maybe Cassius ordered them to train me, knowing I was darkin? Maybe that fucker Scaeva found it amusing? Or maybe they thought once I’d killed enough, grown cold enough, I just wouldn’t care anymore?”
The old man steepled his fingers at his chin, staring at the ledger.
“Feed someone to the Maw, you also feed it a part of yourself,” he murmured.
“Are you with me?” she asked.
He looked at the ledger. Scaeva’s name. The man who’d crafted himself a throne in a Republic that had rid itself of its kings centuries ago. A man who thought himself above law, honor, morality. But truthfully, Mercurio himself had cast most of those aside himself, years ago. All in the name of faith.
“I’ve devoted my life to the Red Church,” the old man said.
Mia stepped forward, her eyes burning.
“Are you with me?”
The bishop of Godsgrave looked at his former pupil. She seemed carved of stone, jaw set, fists clenched in the soft arkemical glow. He searched those dark eyes, looking for something of the girl he’d taken under his wing for six long years. He’d been angry with her after she failed her initiation. After she failed him. But in truth, she’d been his daughter those six years. And she always would be.
The Church had already taken one father from her.
Could he let them take another?
“I’m with you.”
The answer hung in the room like a sword above their heads. Mercurio knew what it would mean, and where it would end. How big the foe they were pitting themselves against truly was.
“We have to do this unseen, Mia,” Mercurio said. “The Church can’t know it’s you when you get Scaeva, or they’ll retaliate. And you’ll have to get Duomo with the same stroke, or else he’s going to be ten times as hard to hit.”
“That’s the least of our problems,” Mia replied. “The Church are going to want me back. The Dona is dead. Scaeva could have another offering for me.”
“They still don’t have the map,” Mercurio said. “I can weave a story. Say the map slipped your grasp, but you’re chasing it now. Strictly speaking, that could take months.”
“The Ministry won’t be pleased with that,” Ashlinn said.
“Fuck them,” Mia scowled. “The Ministry aren’t pleased with me anyway.”
“Wonderful,” Ashlinn said. “So now all we need do is ponder a way for you to murder a cardinal you can’t physically get close to, while at the same time killing the most highly guarded consul in the history of the Itreyan Republic.”
Mia and Mercurio were silent. The old man’s brow creased in thought. Mia’s eyes were narrowed, roaming the bookshelves and finding no answer along their spines. She turned her gaze to the other wall, Mercurio’s collection of weapons. The Luminatii sunsteel blade, the Vaanian battleaxe, the gladius from a gladiatii arena in Liis …
Her eyes narrowed farther. The wheels behind them turning.
She glanced to her old teacher, her breath coming quick.
“What is it?” he asked.
Idiotic.
Insane.
Impossible.
“I think I have an idea…”
*
Thirteen gladiatii were gathered in a circle in the training yard. The walls of Crow’s Nest rose about them, banners of the Familia Remus fluttering in the rising wind. They’d arrived back from Blackbridge late, and it was near the turn of nevernight. But before evemeal, time would be taken to welcome their new brother and sister into their fold—the most sacred of rites, conducted here on the sacred ground of their collegium.
The votum vitus.*
The twin suns beat down on the yard, and Mia felt sweat dripping down her bare belly and arms. She was on her knees in the circle, Sidonius beside her. Arkades stood before them, clad in a gleaming breastplate embossed with twin lions, scratched and scored from years of combat. Dona Leona watched from the balcony in a beautiful silken yellow gown. When she looked down at the executus, she smiled, and the sapphire of her eyes seemed to say, “I told you so.”
“Gladiatii,” the executus said. “We stand here on sacred ground, in sacred rite, to welcome these two proven warriors into our fold. We bind ourselves not with steel, but with blood. For blood we are, and blood we shall remain.”
“Blood we are,” came the voices around the circle. “And blood we shall remain.”
Executus drew a dagger from his belt, drew the blade across his palm, let the red drip upon the sand. And then he passed the blade to his left.
The Butcher of Amai took the dagger. He repeated the ritual, cutting his palm before passing it to Bladesinger. The woman looked Mia in the eye as she cut her palm. And so it went, around the thirteen. To the Vaanian twins, Bryn and Byern, the male Dweymeri, Wavewaker, to the rest of the gladiatii in the circle, until finally, the bloody blade was passed to their champion, Furian, the Unfallen.
The Itreyan watched Mia with dark, clouded eyes, a new silver laurel resting on his brow. She’d watched him fight at Blackbridge, and his victory (“peerless,” the editorii had called him, “flawless”) had only inflamed her curiosity. She felt her shadow tremble as he cut his palm, mingling his blood with his gladiatii familia on the razored edge. He let the scarlet droplets fall to the sand, then walked across the circle to stand before Sidonius and Mia. Glancing from that handsome jaw, those burning eyes, down to the darkness at his feet, she saw his shadow was trembling too.
He stands in your way, she reminded herself.
All of them.
In your way.
“Blood we are,” he said, passing her the blade. “And blood we shall remain.”
Mia took the knife, her belly thrilling as her fingertips brushed his. And chiding herself for a fool, she turned to the executus, looked him in the eye.
“Not too deep,” he cautioned. “You will ruin your grip.”
Mia nodded, drawing the blade across her palm. The pain was bright and real, bringing all the world into focus. She was here. A blooded member of the collegium. Before her lay a desert of sand, an ocean of red. But at the end, she saw Grand Cardinal Duomo in his beggar’s robes, no trinity about his throat. Consul Scaeva, reaching up to place the victor’s laurel upon her brow.
Her shadow, reaching toward theirs …
“Blood we shall remain,” she said.
Sidonius took the blade, cut his palm, and repeated the vow.