by Jay Kristoff
5: devotion
Pig’s blood has a very peculiar taste.
The blood of a man is best drunk warm, and leaves a hint of sodium and rust clinging to the teeth. Horse’s blood is less salty, with an odd bitterness almost like dark chocolate. But pig’s blood has an almost buttery quality, like oysters and oiled iron, slipping down your throat and leaving a greasy tang in its wake.
Mia fucking hated it, truth told.
She burst from the pool of red with a gasp, a thudding pulse still ringing in her ears, head spinning. She was naked save for a gravebone stiletto at her wrist, a gravebone sword at her waist, long black hair glued like ropes of weed to bloody skin. A rectangular package wrapped in oilskin was clutched in her fingers. Two Hands in dark robes stood in the pool beside her, helping her to her feet as she gasped and sputtered and pawed the gore from her lashes.
Blinking around the room, she found herself waist deep in a triangular marble pool of blood, thirty feet at a side—Speaker Adonai’s chambers within the Quiet Mountain. The room was carved with sorcerii glyphs, the heavy scent of butchery in the air. Maps of every city in the Republic were painted on the wall in blood.
Mia licked her teeth and spat, dragged her hair from her eyes.
Looking to the head of the pool, Mia saw Blood Speaker Adonai, knelt on the stone. Though she’d not admit it to any, her belly thrilled a little at the sight of him. Weaver Marielle could make a portrait of any face, but her brother was her masterpiece—high cheekbones and a chiseled jaw. His skin was ghostly pale, his tousled hair snow white. He wore a red silk robe, open at the chest, the troughs and valleys of his chest carved in marble. His leather britches rode so low on his hips they were almost indecent, and the V-shaped cut of his abdom—
“Good turn to thee, Blade Mia,” the sorcerer said.
Mia dragged her stare back up to eyes the color of blood.
“And you, Speaker.”
Adonai’s pretty lips twisted in a knowing smile, but Mia kept her face like stone. The speaker was a picture, no doubt. And Mia had entertained her share of fantasies; lying in bed and picturing his pale, clever fingers as her own roamed ever lower. She’d even saved his and his beloved sister’s lives during the Luminatii attack. But Mia couldn’t fool herself into thinking of him as anything but a blackhearted bastard.
Still. A fuckable bastard . . .
“The Ministry await thee in the Hall of Eulogies,” Adonai said.
Mia waded out of the pool, still limping from her wounds, careful of slipping on the bloody tile. She was conscious of the speaker’s stare on her naked body, the blood sloshing like a gentle sea. Mia looked down the hall to the stairwell, leading up to the waiting Ministry. Wondering why the ’byss she’d been called here.
With a final glance to the speaker, Mia walked from the room. Washing off the drying blood and changing silently; black leathers and wolfskin boots, a shirt of dark linen. She hid her gravebone stiletto in her sleeve, hung her beautiful gravebone longsword from the scabbard at her waist. The former had belonged to her mother, the latter to her father, taken from the dead hand of Justicus Remus. Both blades had hilts fashioned like crows in flight, eyes of red amber. They were all she had left of her parents, aside her name.
She supposed there was a metaphor in there somewhere . . .
Unwrapping her oilskin package, she took the beaten, leatherbound book inside under her arm and trudged up the stairs.1 The voice of a ghostly choir hung in the black, and Mia couldn’t help but smile at the familiar song. After months in Galante, she’d returned to the hallowed halls of the most feared assassins in all the Itreyan Republic.
At last, she’d come home.
After an interminable climb, she stepped out into the Hall of Eulogies. The space was vast, circular, carved into the Quiet Mountain’s granite heart. A beautiful statue of Niah, Mother of Night and Our Lady of Blessed Murder, loomed forty feet above Mia’s head. A set of scales hung in her right hand, a wickedly sharp sword in her left. Wherever Mia stood in the room, Niah’s eyes seemed to follow.
The space was ringed with pillars thicker than ancient ironwoods. The walls were lined with tombs, scarlet light washing through huge stained-glass windows. On the flagstones, Mia could see the names of every one of the Red Church’s victims—thousands of lives claimed in their Black Mother’s name. In contrast, the tombs were unmarked. They contained bodies of servants of the Mother and in death, only the Mother mourned them.
Mia’s eyes drifted to a tomb in the western wall. The four small letters she’d scratched into the stone with a gravebone blade eight months ago.
“Blade Mia,” said a deep voice. “Welcome home.”
Mia turned to the foot of the statue. The entire Red Church Ministry was assembled, watching with expectant gazes.
All except Revered Father Solis, of course.
The big Itreyan stood with blind eyes turned to the soaring gables. He was clad in a robe of fine gray cloth, his hood pulled back. Pale blond stubble dusted a scarred scalp, his beard set in four resin spikes. His ever-empty scabbard hung at his side, the leather embossed with concentric circles.
To Solis’s right stood Spiderkiller, Shahiid of Truths. The elegant Dweymeri was clad in emerald green, gold at her throat. Her saltlocks were artfully coiled atop her head. Hands and lips stained black from poisoncraft.
To Solis’s left stood Mouser, Shahiid of Pockets, his handsome face belying the years in his twinkling eyes. An Ashkahi blacksteel blade hung as his side, two naked figures with feline heads entwined on the hilt. He was rolling a coin across the knuckles of his right hand, his left clutching an ornate cane—his legs had been badly broken during the Luminatii invasion, and the Shahiid would limp for the rest of his life.
Third was Aalea, Shahiid of Masks. Milk-white skin and blood-red lips, curtains of black hair framing a face that made the word “beauty” hang its head in shame. She smiled at Mia as if the whole world were a secret and only she knew the answer. Promising to share it as soon as the pair were alone.
To date, there had been no new Shahiid of Song appointed—Solis was still teaching fresh acolytes the art of steel until a suitable replacement could be found. Wounds from the Järnheims’ assault were fresh, and even here, in the seat of the Church’s power in the Republic, the scabs remained.
“Shahiids,” Mia said, bowing low. “I return, as requested.”
“As commanded,” Solis growled.
“ . . . Forgiveness, Revered Father. Commanded.”
The title tasted strange on Mia’s tongue. After Cassius’s death, it was fitting that Revered Mother Drusilla become the Lady of Blades, but Drusilla’s decision to appoint Solis as Revered One had vexed Mia more than a little. Solis still bore the tiny scar on his face from where Mia had bested him in the Hall of Song, and her arm still sometimes tingled where he’d hacked it off in retaliation. Truth told, Mia hated him like poison, and the idea of taking orders from him sat about as well with her as a collar on a cat.
Solis glowered, white eyes turned to the ceiling, his robe straining against the span of his shoulders. He dwarfed the other Ministry members, making them look like children. Mia supposed she should feel intimidated, but she found it all just another reminder of how ill suited for his role Solis seemed.
He doesn’t even fit the robe he’s supposed to wear . . .
“So,” Spiderkiller asked, without preamble. “Gaius Aurelius is dead?”
“ . . . Aye, Shahiid,” Mia replied.
“Word has it you were almost killed in the process,” Mouser mused.
“A scratch, Shahiid.” She shrugged, wincing at the pull of the stitches in her shoulder. “Though I’ll not be dancing for a while.”
“You can barely walk, Acolyte,” Solis growled.
“All due respect, Revered Father,” Mia said, temper fraying. “But I was anointed by Lord Cassius with his dying breath. I’m not an acolyte. I’m a Blade.”
Solis sneered. “That remains to be seen.”
>
“I’ve five kills to my name already.”
Mouser tilted his head. “Don’t you mean six?
“Surely you haven’t forgotten murdering a king of the Dweymeri in his own keep without our permission?” Spiderkiller asked.
Mia bit down on her response. Glancing again at the name she’d carved into the unmarked tomb on the western wall.
TRIC.
They’d made a promise. Him to her and her to him. If she were to fall, Tric had sworn to murder Scaeva and Duomo for her. And if he fell, she swore she’d kill his wretched bastard of a grandfather, Swordbreaker. In truth, she thought she was owed a death after saving the lives of every man and woman in this room. But perhaps here was the reason she’d been sent to a backwater like Galante?
Silence rang in the hall, Mia stewing within it.
“May I ask why I am here?” she finally ventured.
Solis’s lip curled. “You have a devotee, little Blade.”
The girl raised an eyebrow at the Revered Father. “If it’s someone in this hall, they hide it very well.”
Aalea smiled, lips dark as blood. “Perhaps ‘patron’ is a better word. The last three offerings you performed—the son of Senator Aurelius, Magistrate Phillip Cicerii, and the mistress of Armando Tulli—were all requested by the same client of the Church. They specifically requested the services of ‘she who slew the justicus of the Luminatii Legion and his finest centuries beside him.’ And they paid handsomely for you.”
“Who is this patron, Shahiid?”
“Irrelevant,” Solis scowled. “All you need know is that, miracle of miracles, they are pleased with your results. You are being sent after bigger game.”
Mia looked Solis up and down, considering. From the scowl at his brow, the tension in his jaw, she’d wager her last coin the Revered Father had violently objected to her assignment. But despite that, she’d been appointed anyway. Which meant this patron was powerful. Or rich. Or both.
Well, that narrows it down . . .
“So what new backwater does my illustrious patron send me to?” Mia asked. “Last Hope? Amai? Sto—”
“Godsgrave,” Mouser replied.
Mia’s tongue cleaved to her teeth, her heart running quicker.
Maw’s teeth. The ’Grave . . .
The capital of Itreya. Only the Church’s finest Blades served in the City of Bridges and Bones. Grand Cardinal Duomo lived there, as did Consul Scaeva. If Mia wanted revenge for her familia, her first step was getting close to the men who murdered them.
If she’d somehow lucked into a dream posting . . .
“I know your mind,” Solis growled. “I know why you came to this Church and what it is you seek. So, while I am sending you to the capital against my better judgment, I am telling you this now, and I am telling you once.” Solis towered over her, blind eyes boring into Mia’s own. “Consul Julius Scaeva is not to be touched.”
Mia scowled. “Wh—”
“I will not tolerate you pursuing your own vendettas while serving this Ministry,” Solis said. “You already murdered a bara of the Dweymeri out of some misplaced sympathy for the boy you were bedding. I’ll not have another unsanctioned kill wrought by your hand. Or your quim.”
“Who I bed is my concern. And you don’t get to dec—”
“I do decide!” Solis roared. “I am Revered Father of this congregation! I give not a beggar’s cuss for who you wet the furs with, but Swordbreaker was a fucking king! What if he’d been a patron of this Church? We’d have breached Sanctity! Our reputation shattered over a child’s whim.”
“It wasn’t a whim, it was a promise!”
“Let us speak of promises, then, girl,” Solis spat. “Disobey me, and I promise you an ending from which even the Goddess herself would avert her gaze. Scaeva is not to be touched!”
“And why not?” Mia looked among the Ministry, her anger finally getting the better of her. “The Luminatii killed Lord Cassius, almost killed all of you! You think Scaeva didn’t order it? Remus was a fucking lapdog. You think he took a piss without asking the consul’s permission first?”
“Hear me now!” Solis raised a finger in warning, blind eyes flashing. “Scaeva will be dealt with. But in our own way. In our own time. You are a servant of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, and in the Mother’s name, that means you fucking serve!”
Mia felt her cheeks flush with rage. She stared into Solis’s blind eyes and imagined drawing the gravebone stiletto in her sleeve. Cutting his throat. Spilling his steaming guts onto the floor. But amid the outrage, a single, ice-cold thought took her by the scruff of the neck and shook her ’til she was still.
. . . He’s right.
She had been childish.
She had risked the Church’s reputation in killing Swordbreaker.
She had thought to kill Duomo and Scaeva if she got back to the ’Grave.
Her knuckles were white on the book in her grip. But she forced her fingers to unclench, speaking words that rang heavy in the quiet dark.
“In the Mother’s name. I will serve.”
Solis’s huge frame slowly relaxed—Mia realized he was actually hoping she’d buck. But after a long heavy silence, the big man reached into his robe, produced a leather scroll case sealed with black wax.
“One kill. A woman who calls herself ‘the Dona.’ Leader of a braavi gang who run in the streets of Little Liis. You grew up there, neh?”
“ . . . Aye.” Mia reached for the case.
“One stipulation,” the big man said, holding up his finger. “An item of import to your patron. A map, written in Old Ashkahi and set with a seal shaped like a sickle’s blade. The Dona is brokering an exchange with the map’s current owner. You must take the map, along with her life.”
“ . . . What’s the map of?”
“It provides detailed directions to the Empire of None of Your Fucking Concern.”
“The exchange will take place in the headquarters of the Toffs,” Spiderkiller said. “Before month’s end.”
“That’s eight turns from now,” Mia said.
“Black Mother be praised,” Solis replied. “The girl can count.”
“On both hands, Revered Father.”
Solis gave over the scroll case with a scowl. Mia sucked her lip, mind spinning. Eight turns wasn’t long to plan a kill like this. She needed backup she could trust.
“Can I bring my own Hand to the ’Grave?” she asked. “My last one met a crossbow bolt he didn’t like.”
“I fear not,” Aalea said, as if reading her mind. “Naev is needed here. With most of our blood pools destroyed, our supply situation is critical. A new chapel has been built in the necropolis beneath Godsgrave. The local bishop will provide you with a Hand. Adonai has already sent a blood missive informing him of your arrival.”
Solis tilted his head, milk-white eyes aimed somewhere over Mia’s shoulder.
“You have eight turns to end this Dona and recover the map. Your patron may have more offerings for you, presuming you do not perish in pursuit of this first.”
“I’m too pretty to perish.” Mia tossed her fringe from her eyes.
Solis sneered. “Marielle will tend to your wounds. Adonai will prepare your transportation to Godsgrave. Say your farewells and be in his chambers by midbells.”
Questions bounced around inside her skull. Who was this patron? Why kill a member of the braavi? Why did they request her specifically? What’s on this map?
It doesn’t matter, she realized.
It wasn’t her place to ask. It was her place to serve. The sooner she proved herself, the sooner she’d earn a permanent posting in the Godsgrave Chapel. And from there, no matter what Solis might say, she’d be one step closer to her revenge.
The wolf did not pity the lamb.
The storm begged no forgiveness of the drowned.
“I’ll not fail,” Mia vowed. “In the Black Mother’s name, I swear it.”
Solis folded his arms, his face unreadable in the gloom.
“Go,” he finally said. “May Our Lady be late when she finds you. And when she does, may she greet you with a kiss.”
Mia took the scroll case, tucked it under her arm along with her beaten book. Bowing low, she backed slowly out of the hall. As she stalked away down the darkened corridors, past beautiful stained-glass windows and grotesque bone sculptures, two shapes slipped from the darkness and fell into step alongside her.
A cat made of shadows. And beside it, a wolf of the same.
“Can you believe him?” Mia hissed. “Calling me ‘acolyte,’ the bastard.”
“ . . . you act as if solis’s bastardry is some kind of revelation . . . ,” Mister Kindly replied.
Eclipse’s growl came from somewhere beneath the floor.
“ . . . CASSIUS ALWAYS THOUGHT OF HIM AS AN ARROGANT THUG. OF ALL THE MINISTRY, HE LIKED SOLIS LEAST. ONE TURN, WE SHOULD TEACH HIM A LESSON IN MANNERS . . .”
“ . . . there are less dramatic forms of suicide, pup . . .”
“ . . . SO LITTLE FAITH IN OUR MISTRESS, LITTLE KITTEN . . .”
“ . . . she is not yours, you w—”
“Black Mother, enough,” Mia snapped, rubbing her temples. “The last thing I need to hear right now is you two bickering like a pair of old maids.”
Her passengers fell quiet, leaving only a disembodied choir to echo in the dark. Mia took a deep breath, tried to pull her notorious temper into check. They were still treating her like a novice. Despite all she’d done. But if nothing else, she was headed to Godsgrave. The patronage of this mysterious benefactor was unexpected, but in truth she was glad somebody was recognizing the talent it took to murder a justicus and a hundred of his men. If it got her closer to Scaeva and Duomo, all the better.