by Jay Kristoff
“Daughters watch over you and yours, Mia,” Corleone said, extending his hand.
“I’m hoping for exactly the opposite,” she smiled, shaking it.
“We’ll make our repairs, then head around the cape. I’m guessing we’ll still beat you to Amai, but we’ll wait for you there. Watch your step once you’re inside the city, stay the fuck out of the way of other salts. Keep your head well down and yourself to yourself. Head straight to the Pub, we’ll be waiting.”
“I know a nice little chapel to Trelene on the foreshore, Dona Mia,” said BigJon with a silver grin. “That offer of marriage is still open.”
“Thank you both,” she smiled. “Blue above and below.”
“Above and below,” Corleone smiled.
“Bartolomeo?” Mia raised a finger in thought. “No, no … Brittanius?”
The privateer only grinned in reply. “See you in Amai, Mi Dona. Walk carefully.”
The captain and his first mate set about their business. Mia’s comrades marched down the gangplank one by one. Pulling her hood low, the Blade stood and looked out at the Cityport of Churches. Galante was home to a Red Church chapel—they were at risk as long as they stayed in the city. Mia was eager to get moving, thinking of Mercurio at the Ministry’s mercies and praying to the Mother he was somehow well.
She felt a small shiver in her spine. A shadow-thin shape materialized on the railing beside her, licking at a translucent paw.
Mia kept her eyes on the harbor.
“Coming with me, are you?”
“… always…,” Mister Kindly replied.
The wind howled in the space between them, hungry as wolves.
“… are you still angry…?”
She hung her head. Thinking about who and what she was, and why. The things that drove her and the things that made her and the ones who loved her.
Despite everything.
She scowled, reached out, and ran her fingers through his not-fur.
“Always,” she whispered.
* * *
Mia hated horses almost as much as horses hated her.
She’d named the only stallion she’d ever been remotely fond of “Bastard,” and even though the beast had saved her life, she couldn’t say she truly liked him. Horses had always struck her as ungainly, stupid things, and her feelings weren’t helped by the fact that every horse she’d met had taken an instant dislike to her.
She’d often wondered if they could simply sense her innate disdain. But watching the horses at the Galante stable react to her brother with the same skittish nervousness they’d always displayed around her, Mia supposed it must be the touch of darkness in her veins. She was more conscious of it now than ever before. The depth of the shadow at her feet. The burn of the three suns overhead, beating on her like hateful fists even through the blanket of storm clouds. The lingering feeling of emptiness, of something missing when she looked at her brother.
She wondered if he felt the same. If that was perhaps why, ever so slow, he seemed to be warming to her.
More than this Liisian prick was warming to Bryn, anyways …
“I’ll give you a hundred silver for the seven,” the Vaanian girl was saying. “Plus the wagon and feed.”
“Piss on you, girl,” the stableman scoffed. “A hundred? Try three.”
They were stood in a muddy stable on Galante’s east side, as far from the Red Church chapel as could be managed. They’d picked up supplies in the marketplace, food and drink, and a good bow of stout ash and three quivers of arrows for Bryn. She stood with feet planted in mud and shit now, fingertips running over the bow at her back and obviously itching to use it.
The stableman stood a foot taller than Bryn. He was clad in dirty grays and a grubby leather apron hung with horseshoes and hammers. He had the lingering stare of a fellow who saw breasts as an obvious yet fascinating impediment to intelligence.
“A hundred,” Bryn insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s all they’re worth.”
“O, an expert, are we? These are Liisian purebreds, girl.”
The former equillai of the Remus Collegium, and one of the greatest flagillae ever to grace the sands of the arena, rolled her eyes.
“That’s a purebred,” Bryn said, pointing to the largest gelding. “But he’s Itreyan, not Liisian. She’s a purebred,” Bryn said, pointing to a mare, “but she’s at least twenty-five and looks like she’s had a bout of shinwithers in the last two years. The rest of them are racers past their prime or nags barely fit for the knackery. So hammer that purebred nonsense where the Everseeing won’t shine.”
The man finally dragged his stare up from Bryn’s tits to her eyes.
“A hundred and twenty,” she said. “Plus the wagon and feed.”
The man scowled deeper but finally spit into his hand. “Deal.”
Bryn snorted, hocked, and coughed an entire throatful of phlegm into her palm, then shook with a wet squish, staring the dullard in the eye.
“Deal,” she said. “Prick.”
The stableman was still wiping his hand clean as they saddled up. Mia was constantly scanning the streets about them, looking for familiar faces. She could have hidden herself and Jonnen beneath her cloak of shadows, of course, but the agents of the Red Church would likely know Ashlinn just as well as she, and Mia couldn’t hide all three of them. Instead, she relied on Mercurio’s training—sticking to the shadows and lurking beneath the eaves, hood pulled low as she searched the crowd. Ashlinn was stood close by, watching the rooftops. She knew as well as Mia this was a Red Church city, that Bishop Tenhands and her Blades would be hunting for them. But for all their vigilance, it seemed they’d gone unnoticed for now. With luck, they’d be out of the cityport before their fortune and this storm broke.
“Ready?” Sidonius asked.
Mia blinked, looked to their convoy. A loaded wagon, drawn by two tired draft horses. A half dozen geldings and mares, each with a former gladiatii in Itreyan military garb atop them. Sidonius led the column, looking rather resplendent in his gravebone centurion’s armor, despite the rain wilting the blood-red plume on his helm. He reminded Mia of her fa …
… O, Goddess …
I don’t even know what to call him now …
“Aye, sir,” Mia managed to smile.
She helped her little brother up into the wagon. Ash flopped into the tray behind, propping herself against the feedbags and drawing her hood down over her face. Only Tric remained on foot, giving the horses a wide berth—Mia saw they turned wide-eyed and fitful when he strayed too near. Climbing up into the driver’s seat, she settled in beside Jonnen. Thunder boomed overhead and the boy flinched, the rain coming down thicker as lightning licked the skies. Mia dragged his new cloak’s hood up over his head, offered him the reins to take his mind off the tempest and hers off her sorrows.
“Want to drive us?” she asked.
He looked at her, expression guarded. “I … do not know how.”
“I’ll teach you,” she said. “It’ll be simple for someone as clever as you.”
With a snap of the whip and a gentle nudge, the wagon began rolling. Mia and her comrades picked their way through Galante’s streets, over the cobbles and flagstones, past the marble facades and fluted columns and stacked tenements, off toward the eastern gates. The road awaited them, and beyond that, Amai. And over the Sea of Sorrows, the Ashkahi Whisperwastes, her mentor, and whatever devilry the Red Church could conjure. But for now, Mia simply settled in beside her brother, instructing him gently, smiling as he began to enjoy himself. She felt Ashlinn in the wagon behind her, a light touch on her hip. Mia reached down and squeezed her girl’s hand.
Eyes on the boy walking before them.
Out toward the gate, and from there, the open road beyond.
* * *
Thunder crashed again, rain beating on the tiles.
Two figures stood on a rooftop in the shadow of a chimney stack, watching the convoy set out with narrowed eyes.
inform tenhands
The second signaled compliance, slipped away across the rooftops.
Hush remained standing in the rain.
Blue eyes on the traitors’ backs.
Nodding.
soon
CHAPTER 18
TALES
“The Lady of Storms is a hateful bitch,” Mia muttered.
They were two turns into the trek, the Cityport of Churches far behind them. Working their way east along the coast, farmland to the south, raging seas to the north. The rain was growing steadily worse, the road turning to a quagmire. The horses were miserable, the riders more so. Sidonius led the column, his blood-red centurion’s cloak and plumes sodden with rain. Tric walked parallel with the Itreyan, but far off to the flank where his presence wouldn’t spook the horses. The first nevernight they’d made camp, the deadboy had climbed a tree to get away from them so they’d settle. Mia supposed it was a good thing he didn’t sleep.
The good news was, at least for Mia, that truelight was over. While she could still feel Saai’s burning blue and Saan’s sullen red heat beyond the cover of clouds, she could sense by the dimming of the light, the cool relief in her bones, that Shiih had finally disappeared below the horizon, taking a third of Aa’s relentless hatred with it.
One less sun beating upon her back. One sun closer to truedark.
And then …
“How far to Amai?” Bryn asked.
Butcher simply shook his head. “A good ways yet, sister.”
“I’m wetter than a spring bride on her wedding nevernight.”
Bryn’s griping was met with general grumbles of assent. Bladesinger was riding beside Mia’s wagon, wringing the rain from her saltlocks. Butcher’s battered face looked darker than the clouds above. Everyone’s spirits seemed buried in the mud beneath their hooves. But Sid had served as Second Spear in the Luminatii for years before his servitude in Remus Collegium, and Mia soon learned he knew how to keep his cohort’s spirits up on the road.
“First woman I ever bedded was from Amai,” he mused aloud.
“O, aye?” Butcher said, perking up.
“Do tell,” Bryn grinned.
Sidonius looked around the group, met with a chorus of nods and murmurs.
“Well, her name w—”
“Wait, wait, wait…,” Mia said.
The girl covered her little brother’s ears with her palms and pressed hard. For his part, Jonnen kept hold of the reins and simply looked confused.
“All right, out with it,” Mia said. “Spare no detail.”
“Her name was Analie,” Sidonius said as thunder rolled overhead. “She moved to Godsgrave as a young lass. Became one of my ma’s customers at the seamstry. She was a little older than me—”
“Hold now, how many years is ‘a little’?” Bladesinger asked.
“Maybe … eight?” Sid shrugged. “Ten?”
“How old were you?” Wavewaker asked, incredulous.
“Sixteen.”
“Braaaaah-vo!” Ashlinn said, giving Sidonius a slow clap from the wagon bed.
“Lucky little bastard,” Mia grinned. “She’d have eaten you alive.”
“Can I tell my fucking story or not?”
“Fine, fine,” Mia said, rolling her eyes.
“Right,” Sid said. “So, I knew she fancied me, but being green I’d no idea what to do about it. Fortunately, Analie did. I used to do deliveries for my mother, and one turn, I arrive at Analie’s palazzo, and she answers the door in … well, basically nothing.”
“Direct and to the point,” Bladesinger mused, wringing her locks. “I like it.”
“So she drags me inside and bends over the divan in the entry hall and demands I get to work, so being the obliging sort, get to work I do. And we’re about ten, maybe eleven seconds into proceedings, and I realize I’ve got two pressing problems.
“Problem the first: being somewhat over enthused as most lads tend to be on their first trip into the woods, I’m about three seconds from the end of my tether. Problem the second: the front fucking door is opening. Turns out Analie is married, and her husband has come home unexpectedly.”
“’Byss and blood,” Bryn chuckled. “What did you do?”
“Well, more than a little flustered, I turned to face problem the second at the precise moment problem the first resolved itself.”
“O, no…,” Mia gasped.
“O, aye.” Sid smacked his hands together. “Like a shot from a crossbow, it was.”
“Fuck off,” Butcher gawped. “You didn’t…”
Sid nodded. “Right in the poor bastard’s eye.”
Howls of amusement rang among the group, echoing along the muddy road, louder than the storm winds. A farmer toiling in a nearby field turned to stare, wondering what the fuss was about. Mia was laughing so hard she thought she might fall from the wagon seat, clinging to either side of her brother’s head in desperation.
“What is so amusing?” the boy murmured.
Mia cracked the seal on his ear and whispered, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.”
“What did you do?” Bladesinger demanded of Sidonius.
“I ran like a fucking jackrabbit, what do you think?” Sid said. “Out the door, down the road, stark naked, all the way home. Fortunately, the wolf was too spunk-blinded to give chase, so this particular rabbit lived to fuck another turn.”
More laughter all round, Butcher shaking his head in disbelief as Mia wiped the tears from her eyes on her sodden sleeve.
Sid sighed. “Still the best fourteen seconds of my life, though.”
“First time I ever finished a man with my mouth, it came out my nose,” Bryn said.
“You fucking what?” Mia gasped.
“Light’s truth,” the girl nodded. “Nearly drowned me. I was smelling it for weeks after. We laughed about it, though. He bought me a handkerchief for Great Tithe.”
Another wave of laughter crashed among the group in time with the thunder. Butcher was wheezing like he’d run a footrace, Bladesinger’s locks swaying as she threw her head back and howled.
“What about you, then, ’Singer?” Bryn grinned.
“O, my first time was disastrous,” the woman chuckled, pulling her sodden hood back on. “Mother Trelene, you don’t want to hear about it. You boys, especially.”
“Come now, out with it,” Ashlinn said, thumping the wagon bed.
“Aye, come on, ’Singer,” Sid laughed. “No secrets on the sands.”
The Dweymeri woman shook her head. “All right, then. Don’t blame me if it gives you gentles nightmares.” She lowered her voice, as if she were telling a fireside spook story. The thunder cracked ominously overhead. “The boy was from Farrow. Big strapping buck named Stonethrower I’d had an eye on for a few months. Face like a picture and an arse like a poem. We were at a beach gala for Firemass, bonfires burning all down the Seawall. Beautiful. Romantic. He gets enough liquor in him to finally put the word on, and I’ve got enough in me to like the sound of his tune. So we head up into the dunes and go at it. Now, I’m nothing close to his first, he’s known a few girls in his time. So he manages to last a little longer than Crossbow Sid up there.”
“You wound me, Dona,” Sid called from the front of the line.
Butcher whistled. “Right in the fucking eye…”
“Anyway,”’Singer said as an arc of blinding white crossed the sky. “I’m getting a little braver as we go along, so with his encouragement, I climb up on top for a ride. And we start going at it hard, and it’s feeling really damned good, and I’m bouncing up and down with such newfound abandon that he slips right out of me on the upstroke and I land right on top of him on the downstroke and I broke his poor cock almost in half.”
“O, holy fucking GOD!” Sid cried, wincing.
“Nooo!” Wavewaker looked at Bladesinger in horror. “That can’t happen, can it?”
; “Aye,” the woman nodded. “Blood everywhere. Should’ve heard him screaming.”
“Black fucking Mother,” Ashlinn chuckled, covering her mouth.
“No!” Butcher cried, pointing at her. “No, that is NOT funny!”
“It’s a touch funny,” Mia smirked.
Bryn, meanwhile, was almost falling off her horse laughing. Wavewaker had a look of quiet horror on his face. Sid was bent over double in mock agony, shaking his head. “No, no, why the fuck did you tell us that story, ’Singer?”
“I warned you!” she cried over another thunderclap.
“I’m going to have nightmares!”
“I warned you about that, too!”
“In half?” Wavewaker breathed.
“Almost,” she nodded. “Apparently took over a year before it straightened itself out. He never let me near it again to check, of course.”
Every man in the group shifted in the saddle, while every woman guffawed.
“I can’t even remember my first,” Butcher said. “My da and uncle took me to a pleasure house when I was thirteen and I was too smoked to even recall the lass’s face … Actually, come to think of it, maybe I didn’t even see her face…”
“I broke the boy’s nose my first time,” Ashlinn volunteered brightly.
Mia frowned. “With your fist, or…?”
“No,” Ashlinn said, pointing down to her crotch. “You know … sitting on him … overenthusiastically.”
“O…” Mia put the puzzle together in her head. “O, right…”
Ashlinn nodded. “He kept going, though. He was a trooper, that one.”
“Vaanian boys,” Bryn sighed wistfully.
“Mmmhmm,” Ashlinn nodded.
“What about you, ’Waker?” Sid chuckled. “Any first-time catastrophes?”
“I’m hoping there won’t be,” the big man replied.
The whole group fell quiet, and even the tempest above seemed to still for a moment. Mia and everyone else turned to stare at the hulking Dweymeri. Wavewaker was a lump of pure beef, not at all hard on the eyes, and that voice of his hit Mia right in the sweet parts. She couldn’t believe …