Rage boiling in her belly.
“Even a dog knows when it is beaten,” came a voice from among the sanguila.
“Perhaps the fault lies not with the dog,” Leonides replied, “but with its mistress?”
Leona’s cheeks were spotted with rage as she looked at her father, stepped toward him with clenched fists. Arkades whispered—some word Mia couldn’t hear—and the woman fell still, face flushed, eyes burning.
“Yield,” she commanded.
“… yield, mia…”
Just a turn ago, she’d stood triumphant among tens of thousands of people, every one of them chanting her name. And now, she lay on her belly like a whipped pup, the marrowborn around her tittering with amusement. Mia looked to Furian, hate boiling in her chest, the edges of her shadow rippling. She could feel the dark in her, the black, wanting to stretch out toward the Unfallen and tear him limb from bloody limb. But the blades at her throat, the memory of her familia, the thought that none in this room could know what she truly was—all of it helped her to fight down the rage, stow it in her breast to cool. Not forgotten, no. Nor forgiven. Never.
And slowly, Mia raised one trembling, bloodstained hand to the governor.
“… Yield,” she whispered.
Satisfied, the silkling removed her blades from Mia’s throat, sheathed them at her back. Governor Messala looked among his guests, the mood now shifted, tinged with red. Tension was thick in the air, not just from the bloodshed in the circle, but the obvious enmity between Dona Leona and her father. If there was one thing that entertained the rich and idle more than bloodshed, it was scandal. To see it played out in front of them was better sport than any venatus under the suns.
“You deceived me,” Leona said, voice trembling.
“You deceived yourself,” her father sneered. “When you started that backwater collegium. I warned you, Leona. The sands are no place for a woman, and the sanguila’s box is no place for you.”
Leona glanced to the silkling. “Don’t look now, Father, but your champion appears to have breasts.”
The crowd tittered as Leona scored her point. Emboldened, she continued.
“But perhaps you don’t intend to field her on the sand at all? I noted your collegium’s absence yesterturn in the Ultima, when mine was claiming the victor’s laurel. All the better to unveil her like some cheap mummer in a two-beggar corner show, and cheat me of my glory behind closed doors?”
Leonides’s face darkened.
“If you think yourself cheated,” he declared, “let Aa and Tsana decide. The next venatus is at Whitekeep, five weeks hence. I will field my Ishkah against your Crow. And since you so desperately need it, dear daughter, I shall wager one of my berths in the magni against the winner. But a fight to the death this time, neh?”
Leona looked to the marrowborn about her, opened her mouth to sp—
“I fear the contest unbalanced,” said a voice. “And the crowd would cry the same.”
All eyes turned at the growl. Arkades, the Red Lion of Itreya, stood by his mistress’s side, glaring at his former master. His face was twisted in a scowl, his scar cutting a deep shadow down his features. Mia could see the cold enmity in his eyes, looking at the man he’d once fought and bled for.
“I commend you on your find, Sanguila Leonides,” Executus continued, glancing at the silkling. “I have never seen her equal either. Not in all my years upon the sand. But six blades against two? What honor lies in contest such as that?”
Arkades looked at Mia still sprawled on the floor, then to Furian behind him.
“Especially when our collegium’s best is absent the match.”
Leonides looked his former champion over with a calculating smile.
“A fair point. Never let it be said Leonides does not know the will of the crowd.” Glancing around the assembled marrowborn, the showman in him rose to the fore. “Bring your best three champions to Whitekeep, then. Ishkah will face them all. Six blades to six. No quarter, no submission. A match for the ages, neh?”
Arkades shook his head. “I wou—”
“Done.”
The marrowborn looked to Leona. The sanguila stood still as stone, glare locked on her father. Mia could see the hate there, pure and blinding. She knew that hatred well. The fire of it. Keeping you warm when all else in the world was black and cold. Keeping you moving, when all else in the world seemed simply to drag you down.
She wondered what Leonides had done, exactly, to earn it.
“Done,” Leona repeated. She glanced about the smiling marrowborn, the wine-stained teeth, eyes glittering. “I will see you in Whitekeep, Father.”
Leona swept from the room, Furian following close behind. Arkades and Leonides stared at each other a moment longer, former master and former champion, now bitter rivals. The executus limped over to Mia, loomed above her expectantly. The girl struggled to her feet with a soft groan, blood gumming her lashes shut, her head pounding with pain. Stumbling behind the big man as he strode from the room.
“Arkades,” Leonides called.
The man stopped, turned to look at the smiling sanguila.
“When next you speak to her, thank your domina for sparing me the mistake of your little Crow’s purchase. If your mistress seeks to recoup some of her losses, I’ve a pleasure house in Whitekeep always looking for new quim.”
Leonides looked Mia up and down with a sneer.
“Perhaps she’d fare better with a different kind of sword in hand.”
An amused ripple flowed through the crowd. Arkades turned and limped from the room without a word. Mia followed, head hung low, dark hair draped about her bloodstained face. She knew it was foolish, that she shouldn’t let this pompous fool get to her. That in winning the magni, she’d have to defeat Leonides’s best fighters and see him taste the shame of defeat anyway. But still …
But still …
Rubbing this prick’s face in his own shit had now become a burning priority.
Personal now, bastard.
CHAPTER 20
THREE
“Furian, certainly,” Arkades said.
“That goes without saying,” Leona replied. “He is our champion.”
“Are you certain, Mi Dona? I thought perhaps you’d forgot him.”
Leona steepled her fingers at her chin and glowered at her executus.
“I forget nothing, Arkades. And I forgive even less.”
The pair were sat in a small cabin aboard the Gloryhound, the ship rolling and creaking with the ocean’s swell. They’d set sail the turn after the banquet at Governor Messala’s home, and four turns out from Crow’s Nest, Leona and Arkades were still trying to decide who would stand against his silkling. Magistrae sat behind her mistress, weaving Leona’s hair into artful plaits while the pair argued. And below her chair, puddled in the shadow, sat a cat who was nothing close to a cat at all.
“We could refuse the match,” Arkades said. “Throw our dice in the Ultima.”
“We need two laurels between now and truelight, Executus,” Leona replied. “And Whitekeep is the last venatus in the calendar before the magni.”