“Merciful Aa…,” Furian breathed.
She followed his eyeline to their shadows on the wall, breath catching in her throat. The shadows were tangled like serpents, twisting and writhing and curling like smoke. They’d lost their shapes utterly, two amorphous slivers of blackness, each entwined in the other. Mia realized they were twice as dark as they should have been, just as when Mister Kindly or Eclipse rode with her. The room was noticeably colder, her skin prickling with goosebumps, desire making her tremble.
Furian pushed her back, stepped away, horror on his face. Their shadows continued to tie themselves in knots, and the man held up three fingers—Aa’s warding sign against evil. Like locks of knotted hair, the shadows slowly tore themselves apart, resuming their human shapes. They clung to one another, arms, hands, then fingertips, Furian’s shadow snapping into place as he backed farther away. Mia’s shadow ebbed and pulsed on the wall, like the ocean in a swell.
“What are we?” she breathed.
Furian’s chest was heaving, his long dark hair moving as if of its own accord. He snatched it up, tied it in a knot behind his head, snarling.
“We are nothing, you and I.”
“We’re the same. This is who we are, Furian.”
“That,” Furian spat, pointing to the trinity on the wall, “is who I am. A faithful, god-fearing son of Aa. Bathed in his light and taught by his scripture. That,” he said, pointing to the wooden swords, “is who I am. Gladiatii. Undefeated. Unbroken. Unfallen. And so I would remain, if a thousand silklings stood between me and the magni.”
“So the magni is all that matters? If freedom is so important to y—”
“This is not about freedom,” he spat. “And that is just one more difference between you and me. Being gladiatii is a masque you wear. For me, the sand, the crowd, the glory, it is a reason to wake. A reason to breathe.”
Furian marched across the room, and listening briefly at the door, he opened it. He glared at Mia, seemingly unwilling to touch her again.
“Get out of here, Crow.”
She’d not convinced him. Not even come close. His stupid pride. His idiotic sense of honor. His fear of who and what he was. She didn’t understand any of it. And though they were both darkin, in truth, Mia realized they were completely different people. That whatever kinship they might know in the shadows, this here, this life, this flesh, they were as alike as truelight and truedark.
If you can’t see your chains, what use is a key?
And so, with a sigh, she stepped beyond the threshold of his room, into the corridor beyond.
“What made you so?” she asked softly. “What were you before this?”
“Exactly what you will be when the magni is done, girl.”
Furian shut the door in her face with a parting jab.
“Nothing.”
CHAPTER 21
PLEASE
“Well, well,” Sidonius said. “Look what the shadowcat dragged in.”
Mia crouched on the cell floor, still dizzy from her Stepping. The barracks were almost pitch black, the quiet broken only by the soft snoring and fitful murmurs of the gladiatii around them. Sidonius lay on his side in the straw, eyes open only a sliver. Mister Kindly had warned Mia that the man was awake, but he knew her secret anyway. Well, some of her secrets …
No sense in hiding what he already knew.
“You pinch me some grub, or what?” Sid asked.
Mia smiled, tossed the man a hunk of cheese she’d stolen from the kitchen. He grinned, tearing off a bite and speaking around his mouthful. “Sneakier than a fart in Church, you are.”
“Were you waiting up for me? Awfully sweet of you.”
“No, in fact I’ll have you know you interrupted a lovely dream involving me, the magistrae, a riding crop and a featherdown bed.”
“The magistrae?” Mia raised her eyebrow.
“I’ve a penchant for older women, little Crow.”
“You’ve a penchant for anything with two tits, a hole and heartbeat, Sid.”
“Ha! You know me well.” The big man grinned, raising his cheese in toast. “But Four Daughters, I do like your style.”
“A pity Furian can’t say the same.”
“Ah, that’s where you were. How’s he hung? A man swaggers around with that much bravado, he’s usually compensating for the peanut in his britches.”
Mia remembered the feel of Furian’s cock against her hip, pressed her thighs together to heighten the ache. She was feeling edgy after her encounter with the Unfallen. Restless and overflowing. Trying to ignore all of it and think clear.
“I wasn’t bedding him, Sid,” she scowled. “I was trying to convince him not to get me fucking murdered.”
“Well, speaking as a former world traveler, you’d be surprised how far a quick wristjob will go toward mending strained foreign relations.”
Mia kicked the straw at her cellmate and grinned despite herself. “You’re a pig.”
“As I say, you know me well, little Crow.”
“If Furian and I don’t learn to fight together, that silkling is going to be using my lower intestines to make her sausages.”
“She that fearsome?”
“I’m not afraid of her, no. But she’s the best I’ve ever seen with a blade.”
“O, aye? And how many others have you seen with a blade?”
“My fair share.”
“Mmf,” Sid grunted, leaning against the wall and looking Mia up and down. “Secrets within secrets with you. Not eighteen years old, I’d wager. Skinny slip of a thing, and better with a sword than I am. But you do realize there’s always an alternative to becoming a silkling’s suppertime, don’t you?”
“And what’s that?” Mia sighed. “Murder Furian in his sleep and hope Leona pairs me and Bladesinger with someone who’s not an insufferable cockhead?”
Sidonius lifted his hands and made the motion of flapping wings.
“Fly awayyyyy, little Crow.”
“Not an option.”
Sid scoffed. “You step in and out of this cell more often than a fourteen-year-old boy spanks his chaplain. You can leave this place anytime you choose. So if Champion Cockhead is going to get you stone-cold murdered, why don’t you just escape?”
Mia sighed. “If I did, every one of you would be executed.”
“Bollocks,” Sid said. “I watch you, Crow. I watch you watching us. Arkades. Leona. Furian. Me. Those little wheels behind those shady eyes always aturn. And though I don’t think you’re quite the coldest fish in this pond, you can’t honestly say you give a damn whether any of us lives or dies. Especially when we’re all likely to perish in the venatus anyways. So what’s your game?”
“Believe me, Sidonius,” Mia replied. “The last thing I’m doing here is playing.”
“Have it your way, then.” Sid took another bite of cheese, shook his head, wistful. “I tell you true, you remind me of a woman I used to know. It’s bloody uncanny. Same eyes as you. Same skin. Secrets within secrets on her, too.”