by Jay Kristoff
The girl stepped forward, looked deep into those burning eyes.
“I thought I’d be alone my whole life. I thought I’d never find a piece of happy. Well, I’ve found one now, and I want to keep it. If that’s selfish, then I’ll be selfish. Because at least I’ll be in love. And fuck you for trying to take that away from me.”
Niah’s form rippled again, the horror of what she was flickering beneath her surface. The black of her gown growing so deep, Mia was frightened she’d simply fall in and drown.
“You dare speak so to me?”
The girl gritted her teeth and stood her ground.
“That’s the difference between me and most.”
Mia looked down at her feet. There in the mirror beneath her, she saw a boy cut from the darkness. His skin was black as truedark. Tongues of dark flame rippled along his body, the top of his crown, as if he were a candle burning. Dark wings were spread at his back, and on his forehead, a single perfect circle was scribed.
Pale as moonlight.
Mia looked back up into the Goddess’s eyes.
“I feel for him, I really do. And I know what it’s like to have a father to hate. But I can steal back my brother without your help. I don’t need you. So you need to give me a reason to do this. Not some bollocks about destiny or justice. A reason. Otherwise, you can sort out your own fucking marriage.”
The girl spun on her heel.
“Meantime? I’m going back to bed.”
The Night stood still as stone, glaring at her back as Mia started walking toward the morning. The stars in the Goddess’s gown flickered with cold fire. Her voice was as deep and dark as the void.
“I can think of a few reasons, child.”
CHAPTER 35
ASHES
Ash could still taste her.
Salt and honey. Iron and blood. Eyelids heavy, she ran the tip of her tongue along her lips. Savoring it. Breathing it in. Sighing it out. Looking out over the dark expanse of nothing beyond the Sky Altar’s railing and thanking whatever god or goddess or twist of fate had brought that girl into her life.
Mia.
She’d left her dreaming. Naked on the furs. Hair strewn about her head like a nimbus of black fire. Kissing her, soft as feathers, Ash had risen from their bed, pulled a black silk slip over herself. Locking their bedchamber behind her, she’d bound her long blond hair back from her face and padded barefoot down the hall in search of a drink. Her tongue was sore. Her throat was dry. Satisfying the champion of the Venatus Magni, the Queen of Scoundrels, and Lady of Blades, was thirsty work.
The Church was deathly silent. The ghostly choir was still missing entirely, and the captured acolytes and Hands were under lock and key and Mercurio’s watchful eye. Precious few had survived the attack, truth told, and all had sworn themselves to Mia as the leader of the Church. But the new Lady of Blades had insisted they be locked up anyway—for now at least. They couldn’t be too careful. Couldn’t treat this as more than a minor victory. Scaeva had escaped the Mountain, Spiderkiller along with him. Jonnen was back in his father’s clutches. The question of the Moon was still unresolved.
This story was far from over.
So Ash stood now on the Sky Altar, looking out over the railing to the everblack beyond. Taking a moment to breathe. Aelius had said this was a place where the walls between the world and the Abyss were thinnest. That the perpetual night now wheeling above her head wasn’t really the night at all. The benches and chairs behind her were empty. The air about her, silent and still. She had a clay cup, a bottle of fine goldwine taken from the kitchen’s larders—Albari, as it turned out, Mia’s favorite label. Quenching her thirst with a burning mouthful and mourning the taste of her girl, dimming on her tongue. Staring out at that Abyss and wondering if it stared back. Pondering what the night might look like if the Moon ever returned to the sky.
Part of her was still afraid Mia might change her mind. Still afraid the chronicler would convince her of the madness of his plan. But the rest of Ashlinn Järnheim, the part of her that knew Mia, trusted Mia, adored Mia, knew better.
Night be damned. Suns be damned. Moon be damned.
Mia Corvere wanted to live.
With me.
Ash felt the smile curling her lips, tingling all the way to her toes. Thinking of the house her father built in Threelakes. Flowers in the windowsill and a fire in the hearth.
And a big feather bed.
Ashlinn never thought she’d have anything like she had now. Never even dreamed it. She’d been born the child of a killer, just like her brother, Osrik, and Torvar Järnheim had fashioned his son and daughter in his image. Her childhood was thievery and thuggery and the promise of a life of death in service to Our Lady of Blessed Murder. Remorse was for weaklings. Regret was for cowards.
She remembered the turn her father had returned from his captivity in Liis. The offering that ended his tenure as an assassin. The mutilations he’d suffered in the Thorn Towers of Elai had left him forever marked. Forever bitter. For even though Marielle had mended the wounds Torvar had endured during his torture, the weaver couldn’t replace the pieces of him that had been cut away entirely.
His eye. His manhood. His faith.
Ashlinn’s father had lost more than his bollocks and his belief on that offering. He never smiled the way he used to after he came back from it. Never kissed her mother like he used to, never hugged his children like he’d once done, never slept without waking, screaming from his nightmares. Something inside Torvar Järnheim had broken in Liis and never properly healed. And the Red Church, for all their power and all their piety, couldn’t give it back.
Ashlinn had hated them for that.
So Torvar had turned his children against the Church, and his children had dived right in. The man fashioned them to be weapons against the temple that had left him a ruin. To bring down the house of the Goddess who failed him. They’d planned it well, too. She and Oz had come so close. They’d lied and stolen, murdered Floodcaller, Carlotta, Tric—all to get Lord Cassius and the Ministry in their clutches. And though their failure had ended in her brother’s death at Adonai’s hands, in the last few turns, Ashlinn had seen everything she’d worked for finally come to pass.
The Ministry shattered, and the Red Church along with them.
Torvar Järnheim would have been proud of his daughter. And if she had some unfinished business with Adonai, well, that could keep for another turn. Because truth told, much as she loved him, her big brother had been something of a prick.
And so Ashlinn stood there on the Sky Altar. Staring out into the black beyond the Mountain. The night that wasn’t a night at all. The Mountain quiet as graves around her, the Ministry all sleeping in their unmarked tombs. She pulled the tie out of her hair, rivers of blond spilling over her shoulder as she shook it loose, reveling in the feeling of freedom. Pouring another cupful of goldwine, Ash raised it to the dark.
“Cheers, Da, you miserable old bastard. And cheers, Oz, you snotty little whoreson.”
She drank deep, and hurled her empty cup out over the balcony.
“I got them for you.”
“HELLO, ASHLINN.”
Her heart stilled in her chest. Ice-cold butterflies thrilled through her belly. Ash kept her face like stone as she turned from the railing to find him behind her. Tall and strong. Beautiful as a statue, wrought by the Dark Mother’s hands. Her servant. Her guide. The flush of something close to life pulsed beneath his skin now, but his eyes were still pools of truedark, shot through with pinpricks of starlight. His saltlocks moved as if in a breeze. His hands were black as murder.
The boy looked at her. The silence between them deep as centuries. Ash realized this was the last place she’d seen him alive.
This landing, this very spot, was the place she’d killed him.
“Like I said before, it’s quite a nose you’ve got there, Tricky. And I can’t have you sniffing around the entrée this eve.”
“What do y—hrrk.”
“H
ello, Tricky,” Ash said.
“TROUBLE SLEEPING?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes.”
“GUILTY CONSCIENCE?”
Ash shook her head, calculating how many steps it would take to reach the stairs. Hand slipping around the bottle of whiskey.
“Our Mia has her appetites.”
“OUR MIA.”
“Well,” she smiled crooked. “My Mia.”
The boy sighed, shook his head.
“YOU MAKE YOURSELF SMALLER, ASHLINN. TRYING TO RUB MY NOSE IN IT.”
“I don’t have to try to rub anything, Tricky,” Ash replied. “I know you can smell her on me. Smoke and sweat and those sweet and secret places. I know you remember what it was like to visit there. And I know how bad you want to go back. That nose of yours was always more trouble than it was worth.”
Tric looked out over the railing. The place she’d pushed his corpse after she’d stabbed him to his end. Ash could feel the strength radiating off him, here in this house of the dead, so close to truedark and the Abyss he’d crawled from. She’d seen him fighting during the attack on the Mountain, the dark power inside him completely and totally unleashed. Moving faster than she could hope to. Stronger than she could dream of being. Cutting down those who dared face him like a scythe to the wheat, as if he were an extension of the very Lady of Blessed Murder herself.
She felt cold. Felt what the chill in the air was doing to her body, conscious now of how thin the silken slip she wore was. She crossed one arm over her breasts, her other hand tightening around the bottle’s neck.
“YOU PLAY A DANGEROUS GAME, ASHLINN,” Tric said.
“They’re the only kind worth playing, Tricky. But you’re not going to kill me.”
He smiled at her then, and not a hint of it reached his eyes.
“AND WHY’S THAT?”
Ashlinn looked him over, blue eyes glittering.
“Because deep down? Beneath the murder and shit? You’ve got a good heart. O, you try to hide it. But you mostly do what’s right.” She smiled again, tilting her head. “And murdering a girl wearing nothing but her underthings just isn’t your style.”
“THE BOY YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT IS DEAD, ASHLINN.”
Tric’s eyes narrowed, ever so slightly.
“YOU KILLED HIM.”
“What do y—hrrk.”
Ashlinn blinked at the dagger in Tric’s hand. The blade gleaming silver. She felt the blow to her chest. Staggering back a step and grunting. The whiskey bottle toppled, shattering on the floor. His left hand fell on her shoulder, keeping her steady. His right hand held the knife, pressed hard into the flesh above her heart.
Hilt first.
Enough to leave a bruise. Nothing more. Enough to show her he could’ve killed her if he meant to. His hands were warm and night black on her skin, his grip as heavy as a guilty conscience. His eyes were full of rage, dark tears welling in his lashes as his lips curled and his voice dripped fury.
“I WANT TO KILL YOU,” he said. “GODDESS HELP ME, I DO. I WANT TO CUT YOUR FUCKING HEART IN TWO AND HURL YOU INTO THE BLACK LIKE YOU DID TO ME. WE WERE FRIENDS, YOU AND I. I TRUSTED YOU. AND YOU ENDED ME, WITHOUT A SHRED OF REMORSE OR A SINGLE FUCKING TEAR.”
Ash’s pulse was thunder in her veins. Mouth like ashes.
“BUT I’D NEVER DO ANYTHING TO HURT MIA. BECAUSE I LOVE HER, ASHLINN.”
Tric blinked, and two black tears spilled down his pallid cheeks.
“AND SHE LOVES YOU.”
He released his grip. Stepped away. Turning to the railing, he leaned on it with his elbows, black hands clasped before him. His saltlocks tumbled about his face as he stared out into the dark. Beautiful and broken. Because of her.
Ash stood frozen, hands at her chest. Looking at him, she could feel it welling up inside her. Past the walls she built for the world, the battlements she hid it all behind. The thing she’d tried to kill, to stomp down with her heels until it was nothing, the life she’d tried to live, all her father’s lessons ringing hollow in her head.
Remorse was for weaklings.
Regret was for cowards.
But they were lies, and she knew it.
In truth, she’d always known it.
She knew what she’d taken from this boy. She knew why. Extinguishing all he was and could have ever been. She knew how hard it must be for him, returning to a world so changed. To see the girl he loved in the arms of the girl who murdered him. And though he had every reason under heaven to hate them, to lash out in his rage and break everything around him, he remained true. Loyal to his love. Loyal to the last. That was the kind of boy he was.
That was the kind of boy she’d killed.
“… I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Tric hung his head. Closed his eyes.
Hot tears spilled down Ashlinn’s cheeks, her bottom lip trembling. The heat of her anguish was like a flood in her chest, spilling up over her lips in a bitter sob. Her body was heaving as the tears took her. She slithered down onto her knees amid the broken glass, the puddled goldwine, arms wrapped about herself, walls crumbling.
“T-Tric … I’m s-sorry.”
The Church was silent but for her sobs.
“I w-wish I could take it back,” Ash said, face twisting. “I wish there had b-been another way. We were killers, Tric. Killers one, k-killers all. I did what I had to. I did it for my familia. But I w-wish … it wasn’t you. Anyone but you. And I know it’s just a f-fucking word. I know how little it muh-means now. But … I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, closed her eyes.
“Goddess, I’m so sorry.”
She hugged herself tight, trying to hold the grief inside. The things she’d done, the person she was … it was hard to believe anyone might love her at that moment. That there could be any point to this at all. The elation of her victory, so clear a moment ago, was now bitter ashes on her tongue. Because when you feed another to the Maw, you feed a part of yourself, also. And soon enough, there’s nothing left.
Weakling, she heard her father whisper.
Coward.
She knew the words weren’t true. She knew the shape of the lie. But there on her knees, it felt so real, so sharp, it cut her anyway. Bleeding her onto the stone beneath. How easily a parent can make a triumph of their children, gentlefriends. And how easily they can make a ruin.
Ash heard the scrape of a boot on broken glass.
Felt a warm hand on her shoulder.
She opened her eyes and found him on one knee in front of her. His pale and beautiful face framed by locks as black as the sky above. His eyes were as deep as the night itself, flecked with tiny points of brightness. She took a strange comfort in that—that even in all that dark and all that cold, a pale light still burned.
“YOU’RE A FUCKING BITCH,” Tric said.
Ashlinn blinked.
“… And you’re a fucking maid,” she ventured.
He chuckled then. Short and sharp, his dimple creasing his cheek. Ash found her mouth twisting into a tiny smirk, mixed with bitter sorrow, the taste of her tears still on her lips. Then she was laughing, too, and the warmth it brought to her chest went some small way toward banishing the chill around them. Wiping the tears from her eyes and letting the grief melt away. They looked at each other, there on their knees, one foot and a thousand miles apart. Both killers. Both victims. Both lovers and beloved.
Perhaps not so far apart after all.
“I do love her, you know,” Ash murmured.
“I KNOW,” he whispered.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make her happy.”
“NOR I.”
“… I know.”
Ashlinn slipped her arms about Tric’s shoulders, pulling him into a soft embrace. He tensed at first, hard as stone. Resisting with what little rage he had left. But finally, ever so slowly, he closed his eyes, and she felt his head dip gently onto her shoulder, his arms encircle her waist. He felt warm under her touch, not the unfeeling statue he appeared, no
t within or without. They knelt there on the floor in each other’s embrace, broken pieces all around them, the Abyss open above them.
They stayed there for an age. All about them, silence. Ashlinn kissed Tric’s cheek, light as feathers, gentle on his skin. And then she pulled back to look the boy in his eyes. She could taste his tears on her lips. Black tears and the goldwine and their girl and their past and the bitter ashes between them.
“I…”
Bitter ashes.
On her tongue.
She winced. “I…”
“… ASHLINN?”
She coughed. One hand to her mouth. A dry itch in her throat. The taste of smoke in her mouth. She frowned, pawing at her neck. Felt a pain in her belly. And then she coughed again. Feeling a sticky wetness on her hand. Looking down to her palm and seeing it, red and glistening on her skin.
“O, Goddess…”
And Ashlinn couldn’t taste Mia on her lips anymore.
All she could taste was the blood.
* * *
“ASHLINN?”
Tric caught the girl in his arms as she wilted, coughing up another mouthful of red. His eyes were wide, one black hand to her face, shaking her.
“ASHLINN!”
He looked to the broken bottle. The goldwine spattered across the floor. Leaning close and inhaling, dread certainty taking root in his gut. Fool that he was, he’d missed it. Too intent on his hurt and his rage to take a moment to breathe it in. Because he could smell it now, sure as he could smell her blood on his hands, on her lips, the death that she’d swallowed, mouthful by mouthful.
Evershade.
Tasteless. Colorless. Almost odorless. And one of the deadliest toxins in an assassin’s arsenal. Tric knew even now the poison would be worming its way toward Ashlinn’s heart and lungs. He had only moments. If he didn’t stop it …
Goddess …
He gathered the girl up in his arms. Running from the Sky Altar, cradling her head as he ran, swift as starlight, strong as the night, boots pounding on the twisting stairs. He knew where he had to go. Sprinting through the stained-glass dark, he could only grit his teeth and pray he wouldn’t be too late.