Mia looked down at the bloody sword in her hand. Over to Furian, curled in a ball in the dirt, hands to his savaged throat. She raised her eyes to the sanguila’s box, saw Leona on her feet, horrified stare locked on Furian. Arkades stood beside her, hands raised in somber applause.
She thought of Godsgrave, of the Venatus Magni, the berth her victory had now assured. She thought of Bryn, her dead brother cradled in her arms as she wailed. She thought of her father, holding her hands as he whisked her around some glittering ballroom, her feet atop his as they danced. Her mother, making her watch as he was hanged, as she whispered the words that would shape Mia forever, as the hope children breathed and adults mourned withered and fell away, floating like ashes on the wind.
“Never flinch. Never fear. And never, ever forget.”
What is my name?
“Crow! Crow! Crow! Crow!”
What is my name?
“CROWCROWCROWCROW!”
Dark delight in her belly.
Warm blood on her hands.
Mia closed her eyes.
Raised her blade.
O, Mother, blackest Mother, what have I become?
BOOK 3
THE GAME
CHAPTER 25
ROT
“Hold him still!”
“Almighty God, it burns!”
“Hold his legs, damn you!”
“Aa, help me! Help me!”
Mia sat in a dark corner of the cell, ribs burning, a blood-soaked rag held to her split cheek. She could feel the adrenaline from the match souring in her veins, hands trembling. The crowd bellowed above, the Ultima in full swing, the stone beneath her vibrating with the fury of the final bout. Bladesinger sat beside her, arm swaddled in red-soaked cloth, Mia pressing a sodden bandage to the ragged wound across the woman’s back. The pair of them were in need of stitching, blood pooling on the stone around them. But Maggot’s hands were more than full.
“Tie him down!” the girl yelled. “He’s only making it worse!”
Furian screamed again, full-throated and trembling, his agony echoing through the arena’s bowels. He was laid out on a stone slab, Executus and three of Leona’s houseguards trying to keep him still. The flesh of his throat, jaw, and chest was blistered and weeping from the touch of the silkling’s venom. He seemed to have gone mad from the agony, muscles corded in his arms and chest as he screamed.
Dona Leona stood by the door, horror in her eyes.
“Almighty Aa…,” she whispered.
“Tie him down!” Maggot cried again.
Arkades snapped heavy iron manacles about Furian’s arms, feet, and waist, securing him to the slab. But the Unfallen continued to thrash, cutting his wrists and ankles on his bonds, smashing the back of his head against the stone. Mia had seen pain before—the blood scourging in the Mountain, her branding in that cell in the Hanging Gardens. But she’d never seen agony the likes of this in her life.
“You need to put him under, Maggot,” she said.
“I don’t have any slumberweed!” the little girl cried, pointing to a chest of herbs and remedies. “It all spoiled on the way here!”
“Do you have any Swoon?”
“I used it all on Butcher!”
“Four Daughters,” Leona cursed. “Did you only bring a thimbleful?”
“All respect, Domina, but you’ve not given me coin to restock in months!”
“Well, you must do something!” Leona cried. “Listen to him!”
Furian screamed again, mouth open wide, his throat bleeding with the force of it. With a wince at her cracked ribs, Mia rose and limped to Maggot’s herb chest. Fingers sticky with blood, she rifled through the phials and jars of powder and liquid, all the lessons from Spiderkiller’s hall buzzing in her head.
“What the ’byss are you doing?” Arkades growled.
Mia ignored the executus, handed Maggot a half-dozen jars. “Grind the scalpweed with the maidenhead and a pinch of allroot, mix it with some goldwine.”
“No,” Maggot frowned. “The alcohol will calcify the maidenhe—”
“That’s what the mireleaf is for,” Mia interrupted. “Steep the leaf in the … in fact, let me do it. You go stitch up Bladesinger. She’s bleeding all over the fucking floor.”
“Crow?” Leona asked.
Mia turned to the woman by the door. “Trust me, Domina.”
Leona looked to Furian, still writhing in agony. Eyes brimming, she nodded, and Mia set to work mixing her concoction. Maggot took a needle and silken thread, set to work stitching the awful wound on Bladesinger’s forearm. The silkling’s blade had sliced the woman down to the bone, and the blood was flowing like cheap wine at a truelight feast. Bladesinger grit her teeth, eyes locked on the Unfallen.
“Can you save him?”
“I can make him sleep,” Mia replied. “Executus, I need your flask.”
Arkades raised an eyebrow as Mia held out one bloody hand.
“Your goldwine, now!”
Arkades reached into his tunic, pulled out his silver flask. Mia poured her concoction into the whiskey, shook the mixture thoroughly.
Furian was still bucking, screaming, begging. And as Mia stepped closer, flask in hand, his shadow began bleeding over the stone, reaching out toward her own. It was only the dim light of the cell and the drama unfolding on the slab that prevented any from noticing right away, and Mia moved quickly, shouldering one of the guards aside. The Unfallen’s shadow melted into her own, all the sickness, all the hunger she felt when she was near him rising in her gullet and almost making her vomit. She staggered, nearly dropped the flask, Arkades grabbing her shoulders to stop her fall.
Black Mother, I can feel him …
“Are you well?”
… as if he were part of me.
“Hold his m-mouth open,” Mia said.
The pain from her split cheek and broken ribs was awful, but she could feel pain at her throat and chest, too; Furian’s agony was somehow bleeding into her, worsening her own.
“Furian, you must drink!” Mia shouted. “Do you hear me?”
A gurgling wail of agony was his only reply, and so Mia upended the flask into the man’s mouth. He gargled, tried to spit the dose out, but Mia clamped her hand over his blistered lips and roared, “Swallow!”
Furian bucked, straining against his bonds, tears spilling from his eyes. But finally he did as commanded, his mangled throat bobbing as he drank the burning draft. It took a few minutes for the herbs to take effect—Mia wasn’t working with the finest materials, after all. But slowly, the Unfallen’s struggles slowed, his screams became moans, and finally, after what seemed an age in the lightless bowels beneath that bloody sand, Furian’s bloodshot eyes fluttered closed.
Mia fell to her knees, hair plastered to her split brow and cheek, head swimming.
“Where did you learn to do that?” Maggot asked, bewildered.
Mia hung her head, vision swimming.
“… Crow?” Leona asked.
“… mia…?”
“… MIA…!”
Blood on her hands, in her eyes, the taste of bitter medicine she’d never drunk on her tongue. She looked down to her shadow. The shadow that should have been dark enough for three. But as the room swam before her eyes, as the pain of her wounds and the trauma of her ordeal in the arena and the shuddering aftermath rose up to sweep a black curtain over her eyes, she realized …
Dark enough for four …
*