by Jay Kristoff
Wondering if that’s what she was.
If that was all that would be left when this was done.
CHAPTER 28
HATRED
“I don’t know what the ’byss you’re worried about.”
Ulfr Sigursson lowered his spyglass and leaned forward over the railing, peering into the waters below. The wind at their back was brisk, the seas crested with whitecaps, pushing them onward. Black Banshee cut through the waters like an arrow from a master’s bow, straight and smooth toward a beautiful horizon.
“Let’s hope you don’t find out,” Mia replied.
They were two turns into the Sea of Sorrows, and the Ladies of Storms and Oceans hadn’t raised their heads since they set off from Amai. Black Banshee had put out into the blue with an appropriate level of fanfare—many of Mia’s “subjects” had gathered to see her off on her maiden voyage, and most of the city’s residents had turned out to catch a glimpse of the girl who’d slain Einar Valdyr and claimed his throne.
All manner of colorful rumor had taken root in the six turns she’d locked herself away in the Hall of Scoundrels, and prowling about Amai’s taverna at night, Eclipse had heard a dozen different tales about how Mia had killed the pirate king. She’d used dark magiks, they said. She’d challenged him to single combat and torn his heart from his ribs with her bare hands. Ripped out his throat with her teeth during a grand feast and eaten his liver raw.* In Mia’s favorite version of the tale, she’d seduced Valdyr and cut off his manhood—which she now apparently wore around her neck for good luck.
Mia had avoided all the fanfare, however, slipping aboard the Banshee beneath her cloak of shadows. Eyeing off the captains and crew of other ships who’d turned out to her farewell, she’d counted at least twenty who’d have cheerfully clipped their own grandmothers’ throats to take a poke at her. It seemed a far more sensible option to simply appear on the deck to the whispered awe of the crowd, tricorn pulled low over her eyes, standing at the prow and looking grim as they set out to sea.
Nevernight was falling on their second turn of sailing, the two remaining suns slipping farther toward their truedark rest. Saan was close to completing its descent entirely, its red glow setting the horizon ablaze. Saii still burned above them—scarlet and azure light collided in the heavens, burning through to pale violet, breathtaking and beautiful. Mia could feel truedark clawing closer. Black light burning in her chest and in the boy standing beside her.
Tric stood his vigil, always within arm’s reach. Standing guard outside her cabin door while she slept. Watching her back in the moments it was turned. Even after their quarrel, he was never more than a word away. But the truth was, they’d shared precious few words since they’d almost …
… almost.
Mia didn’t know how to fix it. Didn’t know what to say to make it right. In her darker moments, it infuriated her to no end that she even had to. She had her own problems to deal with, high enough to touch the fucking sky. But in her softer breaths, she could feel the sorrow in him, burning like that dark flame within, and she couldn’t help but feel it, too. She knew how unfair this all was. How deeply he felt for her.
What she didn’t know was what he’d do, now he knew she’d never be his.
Love often rusted into hate when watered with scorn.
Can I truly trust him anymore?
Can I trust him near Ashlinn?
“There’s no sign of storm clouds,” Sigursson reported, once more scanning the horizon. “Smooth sailing from here to Ashkah, I’d stake my ship on it.”
“It’s not your ship yet, Ulfr,” Mia said. “And I’m assuring you, she’s in for strife. Make sure Iacopo and Reddog have their eyes peeled when they’re up top. Tell Justus to keep those galley fires unlit. Cold meals only until we make shore. The Ladies are coming for us, make no mistake. And they’re bringing the Abyss with them.”
The Vaanian looked his captain up and down, a soft scowl on his handsome brow. “If I might ask, my queen, what exactly did you do to irk them so?”
“THAT’S NOT YOUR CONCERN,” Tric growled. “GETTING US TO LAST HOPE IS.”
“Don’t be telling me my concerns, boy,” Sigursson said.
“DON’T BE CALLING ME BOY, MORTAL,” Tric replied.
Sigursson looked Tric in his eyes. His mouth pressed thin. His shoulders square. The Vaanian was the first mate of one of the most vicious bands to sail the Four Seas—a pack of murderers and brutes who spread terror wherever they went. Now she knew them a little better, Mia could sense what a pack of ruthless bastards Valdyr had crewed his ship with. The kindest among them had probably still raped his way across all Four Seas. The worst of them likely tortured and killed children for sport.
But though the Banshee and her crew seemed birthed from the Abyss itself, Tric had actually been there. The Dweymeri boy was taller than the Vaanian man, pale and hard, one hand forever at the hilt of his gravebone blade. Eyes reflecting the Night he’d seen firsthand. As they squared up, Tric didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch.
If Sigursson had hoped to intimidate him, he ended up sorely disappointed.
Turning to Mia, the Vaanian finally bowed low. “My queen.”
And turning on his heel, he set about his work.
Mia watched the man retreat, eyes narrowed. She’d been keeping close tabs on him over the last two turns, and she knew Sigursson had no fondness for her. Knew the razor she danced along keeping him at heel. And still, she couldn’t help but admire him.
Bastards and brutes they might be, but Banshee’s crew knew their ship, and more importantly, they knew Mia would soon be off it. They were afraid of her, aye—she kept Eclipse in plain view at her side along with Tric to foster that fear. But they actually liked Sigursson. He was intense. Intelligent. Not a braggart or a buffoon. A lesser man might’ve lost himself in foolish pride when his captain was killed. But Ulfr knew there was little to gain by opposing Mia, and everything to lose. And so he’d swallowed that pride, biding his time and dreaming of the throne awaiting him when all this was done.
“He’ll make a fine king when he returns to Amai,” Mia mused.
“IF HE RETURNS TO AMAI,” Tric replied.
Mia turned to the boy, a soft chill in her belly.
“You know what’s coming, don’t you?”
Tric nodded, his eyes on the burning horizon. “THESE O, SO PLEASANT WINDS SERVE ONLY TO DRIVE US DEEPER INTO THE OCEAN. FARTHER AWAY FROM THE SAFETY OF LAND. THE LADIES ARE GATHERING THEIR STRENGTH. I CAN FEEL IT.”
Mia felt her shadow shiver, the shape of a wolf stretched out dark on the timbers before her. “… I FEEL IT, TOO, MIA. THEY ARE COMING FOR US…”
Mia looked toward the edge of the world, wind blowing her hair across her eyes.
“DO YOU BELIEVE YET?” Tric asked. “WHAT YOU ARE? WHAT YOU MUST BECOME?”
Mia licked her lips. Tasted salt.
Truth was, she could feel it, too. Sure as she could feel the dark inside her, swelling as those suns sank ever lower. Sure as she could see the new blush in Tric’s skin, feel the new strength inside herself. At the time, the tale he’d told beneath Godsgrave had seemed madness. Fantasy. Talk of slaughtered gods and fractured souls. But the malice she could sense in the sky about her, the waters below, the memory of those flames reaching out across the furs toward her, the dreams that plagued her sleep … all of it was becoming harder and harder to deny.
There was something grand at work here. She knew it now. Something bigger than any of them. Fire, Storm, Sea. Light and Dark. All of it. Mia could sense it, like a weight growing on her back. Like a shadow rising to meet her.
“THE ONLY WEAPON IN THIS WAR IS FAITH.”
She’d set aside her faith years ago. Stopped praying to Aa the turn she realized that all the devotion in the world wouldn’t bring her familia back. Even in service of the Dark Mother, even in the belly of the Quiet Mountain, she’d not truly held any belief for the divinities—not for divinities who might actually care, at least.
Who knew who she was, who thought she mattered, who were more than empty words and hollow names.
And now? Moons and crowns and mothers and fathers and all of it?
Do I truly believe?
Mia shook her head, pushing thoughts of gods and goddesses away. Whatever Tric and Eclipse might feel, whatever awareness might be budding in her own chest, truth was she had more earthly concerns for now.
Mercurio needed her.
He was in danger because of her. He’d been a father when the world took her own away. When she’d prayed for Aa to help her, it had been Mercurio who saved her. But more than the debt she owed him, the simple fact was that she loved the grumpy old bastard. She missed the smell of his cigarillos. His gallows humor and foul mouth. Those pale blue eyes that seemed born to scowl, seeing right through her bullshit and into her heart.
Scaeva had claimed to have made her all she was. But in truth, if Mia owed anyone for the person she’d become, the things about herself she actually liked, it was Mercurio. And so she stared at the ocean between them. The hundreds of miles of blue above and below, soon to turn black with fury. At this point, it didn’t matter what she believed in. Gods and goddesses. Fathers and daughters. What matter, this talk of divinities and destinies? What she might be or what she could become?
All that mattered was what she’d do.
What she’d always done.
Fight. With everything she had.
And so she leaned over the railing. Spat into the sea.
“Come for me, then, bitches.”
* * *
The storm met them four turns out.
Mia had been in her cabin when she first heard the cries from the crow’s nest, tossing in a fitful sleep and trying to turn her dreams as Bladesinger had said. She had the same two every nevernight—Aa and Niah wearing the faces of her parents, surrounded by their Four Daughters, arguing with each other beneath that endless sky. That scene would fade, and she’d wake to find Scaeva standing over her, knife in hand.
“Forgive me, child.”
And then she’d actually wake. Sweating and breathless. But this nevernight, before she’d felt his knife descend, a call had cut through her dreams, dragging her upward and into her cabin’s stubborn gloom. She’d rubbed the sleep from her eyes and frowned, thinking perhaps she’d imagined it. Until she heard the call again, the sound of bells—an alarm ringing across the Banshee’s deck.
She’d found Tric standing vigil outside her cabin as always. Together, they headed topside and found Sigursson on the aft. Black clouds had gathered at the edges of the ocean and were riding toward them like frothing horses, dragging a curtain across the sunslit skies behind. Sigursson had his spyglass up, lips parted as he watched the dark close in, faster than any storm had a right to. As he turned to Mia, she thought she caught a glimpse of worry in the piercing green of his eyes.
“Storm coming?” she asked.
“Aye,” he nodded.
“Bad?”
He looked back to the black horizon. Up to the sky above.
“… Aye.”
Her first mate had marched across the deck, barking orders with a voice like iron. Mia had watched her crew set to it, moving like mekwerk, only one or two baleful glances shot her way. The wind was in their faces now, pushing them away from Ashkah, the Banshee tacking back and forth across the gale and crawling toward their destination. She could hear curses and songs, the swell and crash of the rising seas against their hull, the wind wailing as the sky grew steadily darker. Lightning licked the distant horizon, blinding shears of pristine white against the veil of deepening black, the waters below them slowly deepening from azure to leaden gray as whitecap fangs gnawed at Banshee’s hull.
And with a clap of thunder, hard enough to shake Mia’s bones, the rain began.
It was bitter cold. Sharp as daggers on her skin. She pulled Valdyr’s greatcoat tighter about her shoulders, the shirt beneath soaking through. The wind slapped at her tricorn, whipped her hair about her face. Her dark eyes were fixed on the eastern horizon, willing her ship onward. Eclipse was in her shadow, eating her rising fear at the power gathering about them. A ragged cry went up from the crow’s nest above.
“’Byss and blood, look at that!”
Mia peered up to the lookout—saw he was pointing to the water beneath them. At first, she saw nothing save the gnashing swell, the ocean’s jaws. But then, under that rolling steel-gray, she caught sight of them. Shadows. Long and serpentine. Cutting swift just below the waterline, swarming about the Banshee’s belly. Black eyes and razor teeth and skin the color of old bones.
“WHITEDRAKES,” Tric said.
“Black Mother,” Mia whispered.
Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. The biggest were thirty, perhaps forty feet in length. Each one a machine of muscle and sinew with a mouthful of swords. None were big enough to hurt the Banshee, of course, but Mia knew whitedrakes were rogue hunters who never moved in packs. And the sight of dozens of the bastards teeming in the water all about them was enough to send a slight vibration through every man on the deck. Mia could feel it, sure as she could feel the rain now falling on her skin, the wind in her dripping hair. A sliver of fear, piercing their sailor’s hearts. If the speed of the storm wasn’t enough, this was a sure sign that all about this journey wasn’t as it seemed. That they were all now part of something decidedly … unnatural.
Mia peered down into the swell. Across the water to the storm clouds rushing at them headlong. Every foe she’d faced on this road, every enemy, she’d met with a blade in her hand or a phial of poison in her palm. She’d killed men. Women. Senators and cardinals and gladiatii and Blades. Folk as different as truedark was from truelight. But each of them, all of them, had one trait in common.
They were mortal. Flesh and blood and bone.
How in the Goddess’s name am I supposed to fight this?
“I SHOULD GO,” Tric said.
“Go?” Mia felt a stab of fear in her chest, despite Eclipse. “Where?”
The boy looked at her sidelong. Even with the pain between them, the blood and years, she could see a wry amusement gleaming in those midnight eyes.
“FORWARD.” He motioned to the bow. “TO PRAY.”
“O,” she smiled. “Aye. I understand. Will that help?”
“WE DWEYMERI HAVE A SAYING. PRAY TO THE GODDESS, BUT ROW FOR SHORE.”
“Meaning we can’t rely on her at all.”
“MEANING WE ARE STILL A LONG WAY FROM TRUEDARK. AND THE MOTHER’S POWER HERE IS SLIGHT. BUT THEY ARE HER DAUGHTERS.” Tric shrugged as a peal of thunder cracked the skies. “PRAYING CAN’T HURT.”
“All right,” she nodded. “Just be careful not to fall over the side, aye?”
He smiled, sweet and sad.
“I’LL NOT LEAVE YOU,” he said. “NO MATTER WHAT. NEVER FORGET I LOVE YOU, MIA. AND GODDESS WILLING, I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER.”
He turned and trudged down the stairs, his shirt plastered to his skin, the lines of muscle etched in black velvet and leather. Mia’s chest hurt as she watched him make his way down the bow and plant himself like some ancient tree, black hands raised to the sky, head thrown back. Thunder rolled and lightning flashed, the rain coming down in freezing sprays, like arrows of ice shot at Banshee’s black heart. Her sails were stretched and straining, her hull groaning, her shrouds and lines humming in the growing gale. The waves were building in height—not the terrifying towers of water Mia had seen aboard the Maid, but she knew they were on the way. There was no sign of land on the eastern horizon. They were still turns away from Ashkah. Turns of a war she didn’t know how to fight. A war she couldn’t wield a blade in.
Helpless.
Useless.
One of the wulfguard looked at Mia and made the warding sign against evil.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have called them bitches, Eclipse,” she whispered.
“… NO FEAR…,” came the reply from her shadow. “… I AM WITH YOU…”
Mia dragged
her sodden hair from her face, shook her head. “I wish…”
“… I KNOW…,” the shadowwolf sighed. “… STRANGE AS IT SOUNDS, I MISS HIM, TOO…”
“Do you think he’s all right? Wherever he is?”
The daemon turned her not-eyes to the horizon.
“… I THINK YOU SHOULD SAVE YOUR WORRY FOR US, MIA…”
Mia looked to the black gathering above. Listening to her ship creak and groan and sigh. The song of the lines and sails and the men above and below, a tiny splinter adrift on a hungry sea, surrounded by fangs of water and bone.
She ran her hands over the black railing, whispered to the ship around her.
“Hold tight, girl.”
* * *
Lightning, splitting the skies in two.
Rain like spears hurled from heaven’s heart.
Thunder shaking her spine, like the footsteps of hungry giants.
Absolute
fucking
chaos.
They were a full turn into the storm, and the fury was like nothing Mia had ever seen. If she’d been impressed by the tempest that had hit the Bloody Maid in the Sea of Swords, the sheer power on display now left her near blind and dumb. The clouds hung so black and heavy, she felt she could reach up and touch them. The thunder was so loud, it was a physical sensation on her skin. The waves were like cliffs, towering, glowering faces of water, filled with whitedrakes. Taller than trees, dropping down into valleys so deep and dark they could almost be mistaken for the Abyss itself.
Each drive upward was akin to climbing a mountain, each drop was a moment of awful weightlessness, followed by a barreling rush into a bone-breaking impact in the trough below. They’d already lost four sailors in the storm—ripped from the masts by the clawing wind or dragged by the waves into the deep. Their cries were only whispers in the tempest howl, and the mouths waiting from them in the water silenced them quickly. The black roiled above them, ragged claws of lightning ripping at the sky. And there seemed no end in sight.