Mia nodded, remembering Tric’s tale to her in the Quiet Mountain.
“You’re taken to Farrow when you’re young,” she replied. “To the Temple of Trelene. The suffi holds you up to the ocean and asks the Mother about the path before you, and gives you a name to match it.”
“Bladesinger, she named me,” the woman said. “Not Hymnsinger. Not Prayersinger. Bladesinger. And I’ll be damned,” she said, pointing her practice sword at Mia’s face, “if the last my blades sing is because you and Furian can’t agree on the color of shit. Fuck him. Stab him. Stab him while you fuck him, I don’t give a damn. But get it sorted before you get us all killed.”
Mia looked across to Furian, speed training in one corner of the yard. As Mia stared, he glanced up, meeting her eyes with that burning black gaze.
The greatest gulf between people is always pride.
“You two!” Arkades roared. “Back to work!”
Mia sighed. But as always, she obeyed.
*
“I suspected I’d be seeing you, witch,” Furian said.
Mia looked up and down the hallway, just to be safe. Mister Kindly was trailing the guard patrol—there was no chance they might catch her. But without her passenger, her belly was a tangle of hunger and trepidation, made all the worse by the presence of the man she’d come to see. She tucked her stolen fork/lockpick into her loincloth and stood expectantly on the threshold of the Unfallen’s room.
Waiting.
Wait
ing
“Can I fucking come in or not?” Mia finally snarled.
“If it please you,” Furian said with a sour look. “Though if the breath were mine, I’d not trouble myself in the wasting of it.”
Mia scowled and stepped inside, closing the door behind. Looking around the room, she saw it was the same as when she’d last visited—the shrine to Tsana, the crude trinity of Aa scribed on the wall, the incense burning.
Furian was at least dressed this time, though within these walls, that didn’t count for much. His torso was bared, rippling with muscle, his skin bronzed from working beneath the suns. He was a golden god, fresh from the forge. And he was an intolerable prick, spat from the depths of the abyss.
She hated him. She wanted him. Neither and both at the same time.
Mia looked to her shadow, saw it drifting like smoke across the wall, reaching out with translucent hands toward Furian’s own. The Unfallen’s shadow trembled in response, but with visible effort, he held it in check, glowering at Mia with those bottomless black eyes.
“Take hold of yourself,” he growled.
Mia clenched her jaw, pulled her shadow into check. It retreated reluctantly, hair blowing as if in a breeze, hand stretched out like a lover saying farewell. She thought of Ashlinn, then. A pang of momentary, inexplicable guilt. Wanting two people, and wanting neither, promises made to none. But in comparison to Furian, a traitor and her honeyed lips and her poison tongue seemed a downright simple proposition …
“What do you want, witch?” the Unfallen asked.
“I’m no more a witch than you are, Furian.”
“I hold no truck with the darkness,” he spat. “I do not step between the shadows and sneak about our domina’s house like a thief.”
“No, you just threaten to bring the walls down about her ears, you dozy shit.”
“You dare…?”
“O, I dare,” Mia replied. “That’s the difference between me and most.”
“I fight for the glory of this collegium. The glory of our domina.”
“You cost our domina her patronage at Stormwatch!” Mia hissed. “All you needed to do was keep your cock in your loincloth and let me drub the silkling, and Leona would have been up to her tits in gold.”
“You werked the darkness in your match against the Exile,” Furian said, folding his arms. “If I’d allowed you to win at Messala’s palazzo with your devilry, you’d have set a taint at the heart of this place. I’d starve before I ate food bought with dishonest coin, and die before I claimed a laurel I’d not earned.”
“Didn’t earn?” Mia was incredulous. “Fuck you, you arrogant prick. How many retchwyrms have you slaughtered lately?”
“A victory without honor is no victory at all,” he replied. “I’ll not allow you to win more false accolades for this collegium with your witchery.”
“So you use the same witchery to fuck with me?” Mia caught herself raising her voice, tried to pull her temper into check. “You called the dark when you stopped me besting the silkling. That doesn’t strike you as the least bit hypocritical?”
Furian stalked toward her, fists clenched.
“Get out of here, Crow.”
His shadow flared, slithering across the wall toward her own. Mia’s shadow rose to meet it, twisting and rearing up like a serpent, hands twisted into claws. She swore the room turned chill, hackles raising on the back of her neck, hunger flaring in her belly and threatening to swallow her whole …
“No.”
She closed her eyes, shook her head. Forcing the darkness back inside herself. This wasn’t going the way she’d planned it. She was meant to be holding her temper, speaking sense. She didn’t know what Furian’s presence was doing to her, why he made her so eager for violence, what any of it meant. All she knew was …
“We must come to accord,” she said, opening her eyes, palms out in supplication. “Furian, listen to me, if we fight together on the sands as we are now, you, Bladesinger and I will all be butchered. How will that avail our domina?”
“You may hold yourself of no account without witchery to aid you, girl,” the man said, thumping his chest. “But I am the Unfallen. I fought for almost an hour in the burning suns at Talia, slew two dozen men to win my laur—”
“Ishkah isn’t a fucking man! You saw her fight at Messala’s palazzo. With two blades in her hands she’d be a match for any one of us. With six? Fighting to the death? She’ll cut us to bloody pieces!”
“How is it you live with yourself?” The Unfallen shook his head. “No faith in the Father or his Daughters, no faith in yourself? Only shadows and darkness and deceit.”
“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you know me, Furian.” She glanced at his trembling shadow and shook her head. “You don’t even know yourself.”
“Get out.”
“Expecting another guest, are you?” Mia glanced to his bed.
Furian’s eyes widened at that, rage darkening his brow. He raised his hand to shove her backward, and Mia moved, battering his hand aside and locking up his arm. He seized her wrist, slammed her back against the door, the pair snarling and cursing as they struggled. This close, Mia could smell his fresh sweat, feel the warmth of his skin pressed against hers, rage and lust and hunger all intertwined. Through his loincloth she could feel the heat of his cock, hardening against her hip. She wanted to kiss him, bite him, hold him, choke him, fuck him, kill him, teeth bared in a snarl, heart hammering in her chest, his lips just an inch from—