Darkdawn--Book Three of the Nevernight Chronicle

by Jay Kristoff

  Three nevernights of debauched celebrations had ensued, and using some of the coin Old Mercurio had provided them, the former Falcons of Remus proceeded to get shitface drunk. Sidonius’s last memory of the bender was of a smokeden somewhere in Whitekeep’s brothel district, where he’d buried his face between a very fine and very expensive pair of breasts and declared he’d not emerge again until Aa himself came down and dragged him loose, while Butcher charged around the common room buck naked carrying as many sweetgirls under his arms as he could manage.†

  Sid did not, under any circumstances, remember a discussion about buying a theater. So, on the fourth turn since acquiring their freedom, when Wavewaker woke him with an excited shake sometime after noonbells and Sid had reluctantly pried the breasts off his face, he was rather surprised to discover he had become part owner of a crooked pile of kindling by the Whitekeep docks known as the Odeum.

  He was not pleased.

  “We can get some carpenters in by midweek,” Wavewaker was saying, his voice near trembling with excitement. “Get the stage patched up, some new doors, she’ll be good as new. Then we put the word out for actors. I’ll direct, Sid and ’Singer, you can work the front, Butcher has a face for backstage. Felix and Albanus can…”

  The big man paused, scratching at his thick saltlocks.

  “Where are Felix and Albanus, anyways?”

  “Felix went home to his ma,” called a still-very-drunk Bryn from the upper gallery.

  “And Albanus seemed sweet on little Belle who drove us here.” Bladesinger rubbed the vicious scar on her swordarm, earned during the venatus in this very city two months back. “I don’t remember him getting out of the wagon, now I think of it…”

  “Well, they know where to find us,” Wavewaker grinned, raising his booming baritone to the rooftops. “The grandest theater the city of Whitekeep shall ever see!”

  Bryn gave a drunken cheer from the gallery, dropped her half-full bottle of goldwine, hiccupped a curse, and fell backward onto her arse.

  “M’allright!” she called.

  Sidonius put his head in his hands, sank to his haunches, and sighed.

  “Fuck me.”

  “I know it might seem ill-advised,” Bladesinger said gently. “But you know it was always Wavewaker’s dream to run a theater. Look at him, Sid.” The woman nodded at the big Dweymeri, who was striding the stage and muttering a soliloquy under his breath. “Happy as a pig in shit.”

  “M’all—hic—right…,” Bryn called again, in case anyone was listening.

  Sid dragged his hand over his stubbled scalp. “How much coin do we have left?”

  “A hundred or so,”’Singer shrugged.

  “Is that it?” Sidonius moaned.

  “It was a very expensive pair of tits you bought yourself, Sid.”

  “Fuck off, don’t you blame this on me,” the Itreyan growled. “Six years on the sands, I deserved some cunny after that. I’m not the one who just blew a damned fortune on a decrepit armpit of a theater!”

  Bladesinger winced a little. “Technically, you are.”

  The former gladiatii waved the bill of sale between them, and under the wine, ale, and other less-identifiable stains, Sid could make out a magnificently drunken scrawl that might have passed for his signature.

  “Well, one-fifth of a fortune, anyway.”

  “Fuck meeeeeeeee.”

  “I know just the play we’ll put on first, too,” Wavewaker was saying. “Triumph of the Gladiatii.”

  “’Waker, will you shut the fuck up!” Sid roared.

  “I can’t feel my—hic—feet!” Bryn called.

  Butcher rose up from the broken pews in the back row, screwed up his dropped-pie face, and looked about with bleary eyes.

  “… Is this a … a theater?”

  “Aye,” someone said behind him. “And it’s a beauty.”

  Sidonius stood at the sound of the voice, adrenaline surging in his belly. The figure on the threshold was shrouded in a long cloak, a scarf wrapped about her face. But were he blind and deaf, Sid still would have known her anywhere. His face split into an idiot grin as Wavewaker bellowed from the stage.

  “CROWWW!”

  And then Sid was running, catching the girl up in his embrace, lifting her off the ground as she squealed. Bladesinger collided with the pair of them, wrapping them up in her arms, Butcher staggered over, Wavewaker arrived like an earthquake, grabbing all four of them and roaring as he lifted them off the ground and jumped in circles.

  “You magnificent little bitch!” Sid cried.

  “Let me go, you great fucking lumps!” Mia grinned.

  But there was none of that. Not until they’d savored it a little more—until Bryn arrived from the gallery and joined in on the embrace, until Wavewaker dragged his nose across his sleeve and Bladesinger blinked the tears from her eyes and all of them had a chance to just stand and breathe and remember what she’d given to them.

  Not just their lives.

  Their freedom.

  “’Byss and blood, how did you find us?”’Singer asked.

  “Poked my nose into the first whorehouse I saw,” Mia shrugged. “After that, I just followed the trail of vomit.”

  Wavewaker chuckled. “What the ’byss are you doing here, little Crow?”

  Her smile fell away then. She looked at the theater around them, the holes in the walls and the moth-eaten upholstery and spiderwebs, thick as blankets in the rafters. And she shook her head, smile returning as if it had never left.

  “I just wanted to see if you landed on your feet.”

  Sidonius glanced at Bladesinger. The woman met his stare, eyes twinkling.

  “So,” Crow said. “Whose throat do I need to cut to get a drink around here?”

  * * *

  Ashlinn saw Tric on the bow, wind in his saltlocks like a lover’s hands.

  The Maid’s crew gave him a wide berth, the few who had to go near him making the sign of Aa before and after, and working as swift as any captain could ask. Ash knew Cloud Corleone had told his salts that Mia and her band were to be treated as honored guests aboard the Bloody Maid. But sailors were a superstitious bunch at the best of times, and the idea of a Hearthless walking among them with earthly feet was sitting about as well with the crew as it was with Ashlinn.

  She could still feel it.

  The slight resistance as her blade sank into his chest. The warm blood spilling over her knuckles. The tiny splash of red that spattered her cheeks as the blade slipped into his lungs, making it impossible for him to do anything but look at her in confusion

  “—hrrk.”

  “Sorry, Tricky.”

  as she killed him.

  “How do, Tricky?”

  He glanced at her sidelong, then turned his eyes back to the vista of Whitekeep harbor. Ashlinn had returned from the market with her arms loaded, fully half their remaining coin spent on “essentials.” The jetties and seawall were strung with sailors and sellswords, fishfolk and farmers, plying trade across the boardwalk. The vast archways of the aqueduct stretched over the bay, back toward the City of Bridges and Bones, and up on the hillside, Ash could see vast and winding garden mazes.* Gulls serenaded each other in the truelight sky overhead, but Ashlinn noted the glare seemed a touch less bright than yesterturn.

  The larger suns, Saan and Shiih, were in descent now, the Seer’s furious red and the Watcher’s sullen yellow both drifting toward the horizon. Saai would remain for a time after the other two eyes of the Everseeing had completed their descent, the Knower casting its pale blue light over the Republic. But then, sure as death and taxes, truedark would begin.

  As she leaned on the railing beside Tric, Ashlinn fancied the chill off the boy’s skin seemed to be dimming along with the sunslight. Perhaps it was her imagination. Perhaps some facet of the dark magik that had returned him to this life. But if she squinted hard, she could see just the faintest hint of color in his skin now. His movements had just a touch more grace. And he spoke
less and less like some deathless tool of the Goddess incarnate and more like the boy she’d known.

  But Ash’s skin still prickled standing next to him. Her hackles still rippling.

  “Wonder how our girl’s faring, recruiting her little army.”

  “YOU SHOULD BE WATCHING JONNEN.”

  She nodded to the boy seated on a coil of fat rope near the main mast. He was chewing the sugartwist she’d bought him and playing shadowball with Eclipse.

  “He’s right there.” Ash tossed her warbraids back off her shoulders. “And do me a favor, neh? I’m not a nursemaid. Don’t tell me what I should be doing.”

  He turned to look at her then. Those pitch-black eyes like holes in his head. That bloodless pallor, painted over the pretty beneath. O, he’d been a looker when he was alive, sure and true. High cheekbones, long lashes, broad shoulders, and clever hands. Could’ve been a real lady-killer, if the lady hadn’t got there first.

  “THINK HOW MIA WOULD FEEL IF SOMETHING WERE TO HAPPEN TO HIM.”

  “I don’t need to think how Mia feels, Tricky. I know.”

  “AND HOW DOES SHE FEEL, ASHLINN?” the deadboy asked.

  “Smooth as silk,” Ash said, staring into that bottomless black. “Wet as summer dew, and sweet as strawberries.” Her voice grew low and sultry. “Hard as steel before she comes, and soft as clouds after. Drenched in my arms like spring fucking rain.”

  He moved, though still not half as fast as he’d done in the houses of the dead. His hand found her throat a full second after she brought her sword to rest against his neck, its edge poised on the place Tric’s jugular should have pulsed. She had no idea how bad it’d hurt him. She’d been in that cabin when he got stabbed in his arm and belly by those Itreyan marines. Not bleeding. Not falling. She idly wondered how much of him she’d have to cut off to slow him down.

  Her voice was a croak against his grip.

  “Get your fucking … hands off m-me.”

  “YOU’D DO WELL NOT TO PUSH ME, ASHLINN.”

  “Poor choice of w-words given … our history…”

  His grip tightened, saltlocks moving like snakes roused from sleep. The suns might be sinking, he might be drifting closer to what he’d been, but he was still slow out here. Goddess, he was strong, though. His fingers like cold iron on her skin. Ash pressed the blade harder against his neck. Jonnen was watching them now with dark, glittering eyes, intelligent and malevolent.

  “Map,” she grinned. “R-Remember?”

  He held her for a moment more, then released her, his shove sending her stumbling backward. She kept her blade raised, pawing at her throat and grinning.

  “You always were a fucking maid.”

  “THAT MAP ON YOUR BACK MIGHT FADE WHEN YOU DIE, ASHLINN,” Tric said, squaring up to her. “BUT THERE’S A GREAT DEAL OF HURT CAN BE DONE TO YOU WITHOUT KILLING YOU.”

  “See, there you go.” She gifted the boy a wink. “A little bit of spit and fire, that’s what I like to see. But I’m fierier than you, Tricky. I’m quicker and I’m prettier and the girl we both adore ended up in my bed, not yours.” She drummed her fingers on her sword hilt. “I won. You lost. So stay away from her, aye?”

  “ARE YOU REALLY THIS INSECURE?” he asked. “SO AFRAID SHE MIGHT LEAVE, YOU HAVE TO STAKE YOUR CLAIM TO HER AT THE POINT OF A SWORD?”

  “I’ve got no claim,” Ashlinn snarled. “She’s not mine. She’s hers. But if you think for one second I’m not willing to bathe in blood to be the one standing by her side when all this is over, then you’re insane. Do you understand me?”

  Ashlinn lowered her sword and stepped closer. Her head only came up to his chest. Her voice was a deadly whisper.

  “You do whatever you need to do. Moons, Mothers, I don’t give a toss. But if I get a whiff of some other endgame, I get a hint this Anais nonsense is putting her at risk, we’ll find out sure and true if deadboys can die again.”

  She took a step back, eyes never leaving his.

  “I will rip all three suns out of heaven to keep her safe, you hear me?” Ashlinn vowed. “I will kill the fucking sky.”

  She blew him a kiss.

  Then she turned and stalked away.

  * * *

  The Falcons chose a smoky taverna on the edge of the docks and drank like the Black Mother was coming for them all on the morrow. Mia hunched low, hood pulled down to hide the slave brand on her right cheek, the vicious scar across her left. The part of town they were in was sharp as broken glass, but still, she was a renowned gladiatii, the girl who slew the retchwyrm, now the most wanted killer in the Republic.

  It didn’t do to take chances.

  She drank sparingly and sucked on the shitty cigarillos they sold over the bar, listening rather than talking. Wavewaker spoke of his plans for the theater, and Bryn spoke of the magni and Butcher spoke about each and every sweetgirl he’d plowed since he arrived in Whitekeep. Mia laughed aloud and ached inside, and over the next few hours came to slow grips with the fact that she should never have come here. That after this eve, she’d never see any of them again.

  They’d fought and given enough. She couldn’t ask any more of them—let alone to follow her to the Quiet Mountain to rescue a man they’d barely met. It’d been selfish for her to even think it. So she stopped thinking it at all, simply enjoying their company instead. And when ninebells struck, she got up to use the privy, promising she’d return.

  Slipping out the taverna’s back door a few moments later, she pulled her hood lower against that accursed sunslight and trudged off down the alley, back toward the docks. Mister Kindly flitted along the wall beside her, quiet as dead mice.

  “… where are we going…?” he finally asked.

  “Back to the Maid. She puts out at tenbells, remember?”

  “… we seem to be missing our army…”

  “We’ll have to manage without them.”

  “… mia, i know you care f—”

  “I won’t do it, Mister Kindly,” she said. “I thought I could, but I can’t. So leave it.”

  “… you cannot do this alone…”

  “I said leave it.”

  The shadowcat coalesced on the cobbles in front of her, stopping her short.

  “… if you wish a dog who simply rolls over when you growl, bring eclipse with you. but i’ll speak my mind, if it please you…”

  “And if it doesn’t please me?”

  “… i’ll speak it anyway…”

  Mia sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose. “Out with it, then.”

  “… i am afraid for you…”

  Mia almost laughed, until the words sank into her skull. Ringing like cathedral bells. And then she stood there in the smell of garbage and salt, wind off the bay whipping the cloak about her shoulders, suddenly and terribly cold.

  “… i spoke to eclipse about it, but eclipse never questions, like the one she rode before you never questioned. but you have always questioned, mia, and thus, so have i…”

  The not-cat looked back toward the harbor, the ship waiting for them.

  “… and i question what it is you want from all this, and why. i watch the part of you that made you seek sidonius and the others—full in the knowledge that you will die if you fight the mountain shorthanded—at war with the part of you that does not fear death at all. and i question if the thing we take from you is not something you need, now more than ever. because you should be afraid…”

  “This isn’t about me being afraid, it’s about right and wrong,” she snapped. “I’m not broken. Don’t try to fix me.”

  Though the daemon had no eyes, she could almost feel them narrowing.

  “You saw them, Mister Kindly. How happy they were. Black Mother, ’Waker was like a child at fucking Great Tithe. And did you see the way Bryn looked at him? They have a life now. They have a chance. Who am I to demand they give that up?”

  “… you do not demand. you ask. that is what friends do…”

  “No,” she said flatly. “We shouldn’t ha
ve come here. We find another way.”

  “… mia—”

  “I said no!”

  Stepping right through the shadowcat, she trudged to the mouth of the alleyway, toward the harbor’s tolling bells and the smell of the sea. She dragged the last breath out of her shitty cigarillo, breathed a plume of gray into the sky and crushed it under her boot. And reaching out to the shadows with clever fingers …

  “Leaving without saying farewell?” Sidonius asked.

  She turned and there he was, leaning against the wall. Bright blue eyes, hair shaved back to stubble, skin like cast bronze. She could see the brand they’d given him when they tossed him out of the Luminatii Legion. The word COWARD burned into his chest. She couldn’t recall seeing a grander lie in all her life.

  Bladesinger stood behind him, her saltlocks reaching to the ground, the intricate tattoos that covered every inch of her body gleaming in the sunslight. Wavewaker loomed beside her, chest broad as a barrel, plaited beard and dark saltlocks and artful ink on his face. Bryn stood near him, tying her blond topknot and watching Mia with clever blue eyes.

  Butcher was taking a furtive piss against the wall.

  “Aye,” Mia said. “Apologies. I lost track of time. My ship puts out at tenbells.”

  “Why’d you come here, Mia?” Sidonius asked.

  “I told you,” she said, cool as autumn breeze. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. I have and you are and that’s the end of it. So I’ll be off.”

  Mia took a step away, felt his hand on her arm. She twisted, quick as silver, slipping free of his grip. And ripping up a handful of shadows, easier and swifter than she could’ve done even a few weeks back, she vanished before their wondering eyes.

  She squinted in the worldblur, Stepping to a shadow farther down the street,

                                   and then another

                                                               farther still.

  Her head swam from the burn of the suns above, but she stayed on her feet. And finally, content they’d not be able to follow, she began groping her way forward, blind to all the world, waiting for the familiar whispers to guide her back to the waiting Maid.