Maw’s teeth …
Mia swallowed thickly, shadow rippling at her feet.
A silkling.
Mia had read about the denizens of the Silken Dominion in Mercurio’s books as a child, but she’d never thought to see one in the flesh. Looking at Leonides’s fighter, Mia could see she was almost certainly female, hips curved beneath her studded leather skirt, six arms folded over the subtle curve of her breasts. She was seven feet tall, her skin chitinous, a green so dark it was almost black. Her lips were painted white, two large, featureless orbs set in a smooth, oval face, six smaller eyes scattered across her cheeks like freckles. She had no eyelids with which to blink. From her readings, Mia guessed the silkling was young, but in truth, she had no real way to tell.*
The silkling reached up to her back, drew forth six glittering blades, each gently curved and razor-sharp, etched with strange glyphs. As the assembled marrowborn murmured in astonishment, she wove the weapons through the air in an intricate, twisting dance, the steel whistling as it sliced the air. Finishing her display, Ishkah spread her arms like fans, blades poised and pointed directly at Mia.
The girl glanced to Leona, Arkades, Furian. The dona’s face was stone, but her eyes were dark with fear, seeing now how simply she’d been played. And yet, with the marrowborn now awash with excitement, she dare not make an overture to end the bout prematurely. Leonides looked to his daughter and smiled like a cat who’d stolen the cream, the bucket, and the maid to boot.
He played her like a lyre. If I lose here, the people of the city might still sing my name. But the people of influence and power … they’ll sing only of the Lions of Leonides. And Leona’s chance of patronage goes up in flames.
Mia saw the trap revealed. Paused a moment to admire its simplicity. She saw the strands of the web between the governor and Leonides, the invitation that had brought Leona here with her guard down. Plying her with a wine or two and a bevy of compliments from folk above her station, manipulating her into a fight she couldn’t afford to lose, and yet supposing she couldn’t ever win.
We’ll see about that, bastards …
“… are you certain about this…?” came a whisper from her hair.
“Are you certain you could shut up for the next minutes so I don’t get killed?” she muttered.
“… ah … probably not…?”
“Exactly.”
Truthfully, Mia had never been less certain about anything in her life, but she had no choice—to lose here would mean the collegium would still be up to its neck in debt, all her work still at risk. And so, she turned to one of the guards who’d praised her victory before they entered the hall, glanced to the blade at his waist.
“Might I trouble you for a loan, good sir?”
The guard drew his sword, handed it over dutifully. “Tsana guide you, lass.”
Mia took the blade with a nod of thanks. And cutting her swords through the air, Mister Kindly doing his level best to shut up for a few minutes, Mia took her place in the sparring ring, eyes locked on the silkling’s.
“This contest will be fought e navium,” Governor Messala reminded them. “A hand raised in submission will signal an end to the bout. Fight with honor, and for the glory of your collegium. Aa bless and keep you, and Tsana guide your hand.”
The crowd hushed, the music stopped, and all Mia could hear was the thunderous beating of her own heart.
“Begin!” Messala cried.
Quick as silver, Mia struck with both blades, steel ringing as the silkling parried with four of her own. Dancing forward, she struck again at head and chest, but her foe blocked again with ease. Countering this time, the silkling launched a flurry of strikes at Mia, the air a whispering blur. Mia was pushed back, desperately blocking the incoming blades, until she was forced beyond the edge of the sparring circle. The marrowborn around her skittered aside, eyes on her swords. But the silkling didn’t press, returning to the center of the ring and waiting with her weapons poised in a glittering fan.
Mia tilted her head, felt her neck pop. Tossed her hair from her eyes. And stepping up to her foe, she launched another salvo.
She’d always prided herself on her skill with a blade—she’d trained hard under Mercurio, and harder still in the Red Church, her natural speed combined with utter fearlessness and an uncanny aim. But even her best foes had only met her with two blades of their own—never six of the cursed things. Wherever she struck, the silkling’s steel was waiting. Whenever she left a gap, Ishkah forced her back. The silkling had the size, the reach, the speed. And worse, Mia knew she wasn’t giving her all. Just as Arkades had warned the first turn she set foot on the sand in Crow’s Nest, Ishkah was studying her form in readiness for her final assault.
And so, seeking to even the scales (how is six blades against two fair, she reasoned), Mia reached out to shadow at the silkling’s feet.
None in the room would have noticed it—the dark shivered only a little. But as the silkling stepped forward to strike, she found her boots fixed fast to the mosaic tile at her feet, the long shadows cast by the sunslight outside. A moment’s hesitation from her foe was enough, and Mia struck hard, a blinding series of strikes that broke through Ishkah’s guard and opened a long, ragged wound on her shoulder, just shy of her throat. The crowd gasped in astonishment, blood as green as poplar leaves sprayed from the wound. Mia knocked another of the silkling’s swords flying, and aimed a blow low to sweep her foe off her feet.
And then, just like the first turn she set foot on the sand in Crow’s Nest,
she lost her grip on the shadows
and her foe stepped aside.
Mia’s strike went wide, the silkling’s blades flashed, opening up a shallow cut across the girl’s knuckles and sending her sword spinning from her hand. Mia tried to counter with her other blade, but was met by a wall of steel, Ishkah striking with an empty fist, driving the breath from the girl’s lungs. Mia staggered, the silkling twirled behind her, smashing her across the back of the head with the flat of her blade. Cathedral bells rang in Mia’s skull, the whole world blurring to double as her legs were knocked out from under her and she crashed senseless to the floor.
The silkling stood above her, blades poised to strike.
“Yield,” she demanded, with a voice like dry cicada wings.
Mia’s brow had split on the tile, her head still ringing. Fingernails clawing the ground, she blinked the blood from her eyes and struck out with her feet, trying to knock the silkling down. Ishkah sidestepped like a dancer, pressing her blades to Mia’s throat.
“Yield,” she said again.
Mia looked to Leona’s crestfallen face. To Arkades, shaking his head in disdain. And finally to Furian. Staring into his dark eyes, she knew, sure as she knew the turn she’d faced Arkades—the bastard had wrested her grip on the shadows, allowed her foe to slip free.
Teeth bared.