Godsgrave

by Jay Kristoff

  “Then why does he walk?” Mia asked.

  “What else would he do?” Byern replied.

  “Run,” she said fiercely. “Fight.”

  “Fight?” Bryn looked at Mia as if she were a child. “There was a slave revolt down in Crow’s Rest. Maybe seven, eight months back. Did you hear tell of it?”

  Mia shook her head.

  “Two slaves fell in love,” Byern said. “They wished to wed, but their domini forbid it. So the pair slit their master’s throat in the nevernight and fled. They made it to Dawnspear before they were caught. Do you know what the administratii did?”

  “Crucified them, at a guess,” Mia said.

  “Aye,” Bryn nodded, smoothing back her topknot. “But not just them. They flogged and crucified every slave in their domini’s house beside them to set example. The only one they spared was the slave who told the administratii where the murderers could be found. And for her loyalty to the Republic, that slave was forced to wield the lash during the floggings.”

  “Such, the price of defiance in Itreya,” Byern said.

  Mia’s lips curled at the thought. Sickness in her belly. She’d known the life of a slave in the Republic was cruel, often short. She knew punishment for those who rebelled was horrific. But Black Mother, the brutality of it . . .

  “Did you see?” she asked softly. “The executions?”

  Byern nodded. “We all did. The administratii commanded every slave from every household in the Rest come and bear witness. The youngest boy they strung up couldn’t have been more than eight years old.”

  “Four Daughters,” Mia breathed. “I never imagined . . .”

  “As gladiatii, your lot is better than most,” Bryn said. “Blood. Glory. Be grateful.”

  Mia peered at the girl sidelong. “Are you grateful?”

  Bryn looked at the wooden sword in her hand. Her brother, Byern, standing tall beside her. She looked to the sky above her head, down to the sand at her feet.

  “We endure,” she finally replied.

  Mia watched Matilius being marched to the front gate. He paused before the portcullis, throwing one last glance back at his brothers and sisters, raising his hand in farewell. Bryn waved in reply, Byern closed a fist, placed it over his heart. And with a shove in Matilius’s back, the man was gone.

  Mia shook her head, wondering what she would do in his place. Fight in some futile gesture of defiance and get her brothers and sisters killed? Or march quietly to her death? How would it feel if life in this collegium was truly her lot? If instead of being able to Step outside the walls whenever she chose, she was actually trapped here? No control. No say in her own future?

  “How?” she asked. “How do you endure the unendurable?”

  “We have a saying in Vaan,” Byern replied. “In every breath, hope abides.”

  Bryn turned to Mia.

  A quick smile to cover her pain.

  A slap on Mia’s back to break the ugly stillness.

  “Just keep breathing, little Crow.”

  1 Though the Ashkahi Empire ended in a mysterious magikal calamity millennia previous, remnants of the language survive in the Itreyan Republic to this day. The names of the three suns, Shiih (the Watcher), Saan (the Seer), and Saai (the Knower) are the most obvious example, but it may be of interest to note that the names of the Itreyan pantheon are also Ashkahi words.Aa is the Ashkahi word for “all” and Niah, Ashkahi for “nothing.” Itreyan academics spend a great deal of time arguing with each other at dinner parties, debating whether both Aa and Niah were worshipped in Old Ashkah, and whether the religion of the Republic is far older than the Republic itself. Preferably while consuming enormous quantities of wine.Aa himself has made no comment on the topic, pissed or otherwise.

  15: right

  Evemeal was sullen that nevernight, none of the bawdy jokes or friendly banter that usually marked dinner around the long verandah tables. All minds seemed turned to Matilius’s sale. Thinking about the fate that awaited the man in Pandemonium, Mia found herself without appetite, and instead of the usual scraps she gave when Fang came snuffling around, she gave over almost her entire meal.

  The big mastiff licked her wounded fingers, his stubby tail all a-wag. She ruffled his ears and tried her best not to dwell on it. To think instead of the contests to come, the revenge awaiting her at the end of them. She was here for one reason, and one alone. And vengeance wouldn’t be served by getting too close to any she fought beside. No matter how crushing the thought of it all was.

  As if echoing her thoughts, she felt a cool breeze on the back of her neck. Fang whined softly and scampered away from Mia, ears pressed flat, tail tucked. Mister Kindly entwined himself in the shadows of her hair and whispered, soft as shadows.

  “ . . . these people are not your familia, and not your friends. all of them are only a means to an end . . .”

  The other gladiatii seemed in no mood to speak on it, chewing their food in silence. Butcher was dark, though, muttering to himself and shaking his head. And near the meal’s end, he could keep his tongue in his head no longer.

  “This is horseshit,” he growled, pushing his bowl aside.

  “’Tis beef, I think,” Wavewaker said, picking his teeth.

  “I mean Mati, you bleeding cunt,” Butcher said, glaring at the bigger man. “Selling him to that devious shitbag Caito? He deserved better than the damned pit.”

  “Mind your language, brother,” Wavewaker waved a warning finger, his baritone growing deeper. “There are ladies present.”

  Bladesinger raised her eyebrow. “Where?”

  “Enough,” Furian growled. The champion stared hard, dark eyes burning. His jaw was set. Muscles taut. “Eat your food, Butcher.”

  “It’s not right, Furian.”

  The Unfallen slammed a fist down on the table, and all eyes turned to stare.

  “It is Domina’s will,” he said. “She is mistress of this collegium. You seem to apt to forget that. But remind me, brother, what were you, before she and Executus dragged you up from the shit?”

  “A bodyguard,” Butcher said, squaring his jaw.

  “A bloody mule is what you were,” Furian spat. “Carrying bags to market for some wrinkled old dona, and fucking her on command. And what of you, Wavewaker?”

  “I was a thespian,” the big man replied proudly.

  “Thespian? You were a damned doorman in a two-beggar theater, bouncing drunks and mopping shit out of the privy between shows.”

  Wavewaker looked a little crestfallen. “I was set to play the Magus Ki—”

  “Byern was headed for an Ashkahi copper mine.” The Unfallen gestured about the room. “Bryn, a Liisian brothel. Aa’s bleeding cock, Bladesinger was set to be fucking hanged! And Domina raised all of us up and forged us into gods!”

  The champion’s dark glare roamed the mess, inviting dissent.

  “Domina feeds us,” he said. “Shelters us. Gives us the chance to fight for glory and honor in the venatus instead of living on our knees or on our backs. And you name it not right? We all owe our lives to her. Including Matilius. That makes it right.”

  Mia sat in silence, listening to the Unfallen’s tirade. None in the room voiced disagreement. She wondered at the man again; who he was, what made him breathe. She was a good judge of character, but Furian was a mystery. He fought like a daemon in the arena, true enough. And yet, he seemed perfectly content to bend his knee to this life of blood and servitude, and deny the truth of what he really was.

  Why, just once, can’t I meet a darkin who’s not a bastard or a fool?

  Evemeal ended, the gladiatii were marched to the barracks and bathed, four at a time. She was often thrown in with Sidonius, Butcher, and Bladesinger, though she preferred bathing with Wavewaker best. The man had a beautiful voice, and he often sang as he washed—songs learned from his brief spell in the theater, apparently.

  Mia had already abandoned any notion of decency, what with walking about all turn wearing two strips of padded
cloth and a pair of sandals. She found it strange, how easily she was becoming accustomed to life in the collegium. No privacy. No modesty. And when she closed her eyes, she could still hear the sound that had lingered in her mind since the games at Blackbridge. The roar, lifting her up on wings of thunder.

  The crowd.

  Her skin thrilled to think of it, despite herself. The memory burned in the black behind her eyes. Still, she reminded herself she was here for a reason, and that reason was the magni. Leona had sold Matilius without discussing the matter with Arkades. If there was some jeopardy for the collegium, she’d best learn the truth of it.

  Sid seemed of a mood when Mia returned to their cell after her bath, and she didn’t press him. Instead she lay against the bars and snoozed, wondering how she might turn the big Itreyan’s allegiance to her father to some kind of advantage. There in the dark, she listened to the soft murmuring under Bladesinger’s door, sitting in silence until she was certain the rest of the gladiatii were asleep. She whispered Sid’s name, but he didn’t stir. Feeling a cool whisper on back of her neck.

  “ . . . where do we go . . . ?”

  “You tell me,” she whispered in reply.

  “ . . . i have been roaming the house since evemeal . . .”

  “So tell me a story.”

  “ . . . arkades requested a meeting with leona. he was told to come after she had bathed . . .”

  Mia nodded. “Lead the way.”

  Her shadow rippled and Mister Kindly was gone, flitting over to the portcullis, now locked tight for the nevernight. Mia reached out to the shadows in the antechamber, just as she’d done yestereve. They were no easier to grip, her hold slipping for a moment as she scowled in concentration and drew a long steady breath and

  Stepped

  into

  the shadow

  beyond the portcullis.

  The world turned on its head and she almost fell, biting down on a curse as she steadied herself with her wounded hand. Head hung low, long dark hair draped over ink-black eyes.

  “ . . . come . . .”

  The not-cat flitted ahead, keeping watch for the house guards. Slipping through her old home like a knife between ribs, Mia passed the rows of armor, up the wide stairway to the first floor. Her mind swimming with memories of her childhood here.

  She remembered her father working his horses in the yard. Her mother reading by the bay windows in her room. She remembered the nevernight her brother Jonnen was born, under this very roof. Her father had wept as he held the babe in his arms.

  She could recall him so clearly. The way he smelled. The way he kissed her mother, first on one eyelid, then the other, then finally upon her smooth, olive brow.

  A good man.

  A loving husband.

  A faithful soldier.

  What kind of king would he have made?

  Mia shook her head, cursing herself a fool. It didn’t matter. Her father’s kingdom was two feet wide and six feet deep, and two of the men who’d killed him were still talking and breathing. That was all that mattered. That was all she should care about.

  Up to the fourth floor. The level had been used for storage when Mia’s parents had owned the Nest, but with her Falcons kept secure in the basement, the upper level now belonged to the mistress of the house. Quiet as a whisper, Mia stole down the long hallways toward soft voices coming from the bathhouse.

  Peering in through the door, she saw Dona Leona emerging from a deep, steaming pool, water running in rivulets down her bare body. Her hair was damp, her face bereft of paint. It occurred to Mia that she was a beauty; full hips and fuller lips. Her eyes roamed Leona’s curves, wreathed in steam, and she wondered at the thrill of it. Why, downstairs in the barracks, seeing naked bodies meant nothing, but here, her skin was prickling. Heart beating faster. Thinking, perhaps, of another beauty on Aurelius’s bed, her taste on the young don’s mouth, her golden kisses sinking ever lower.

  She thought of Ashlinn, then. The kiss they’d shared when Mia left the Church. That kiss that lasted a moment too long. Maybe not long enough?

  Mia shook her head. Cursing herself for a novice. Ashlinn Järnheim killed Tric. Ashlinn Järnheim betrayed the Church and her sacred vows to avenge her father . . .

  She looked across the hall, caught her reflection in a small mirror on the wall.

  Remind you of anyone else you know?

  Magistrae was waiting faithfully beside Leona’s bath, slipping a long robe about her mistress. Leona seemed pensive, chewing her fingernail and staring at the small statue of Trelene that also served as the water spout. She sighed as Magistrae tried to rub the tension from her shoulders.

  “What troubles, love?” the older woman asked.

  Leona smiled. “How do you know I’m troubled?”

  “These were the hands that delivered you into the world,” Magistrae smiled in return. “This was the bosom that nursed you. Though I’ll not claim to always know your mind, I know when dark thoughts fill it, sure and true.”

  Leona closed her eyes as Magistrae worked a knot in her neck.

  “ . . . I’m having dreams again, Anthea. About Mother.”

  “O, love,” Magistrae cooed. “Long years have passed since then.”

  “I know that, as I sit here now. But I’m always a child in the dreams. A little girl, small and afraid. Just as I was when . . .”

  Leona chewed a fingernail and shook her head, silence ringing in the bathhouse.

  “It’s an awful thing,” she finally sighed. “To live in fear.”

  “Then do not, love. Look how far you’ve come. Look at all you’ve built.”

  “I do. But all I’ve built stands at the edge of ruin, Anthea.” The dona breathed deep, clenched her jaw. “I need coin. Marcus left me with little beyond these walls and the funds I spent reshaping them. He was not a careful man with his money.”

  “You two were well suited, then.”

  Leona smiled sadly. “I deserve that, I suppose.”

  “Do you miss him, love?” Magistrae asked, swiftly changing subjects.

  “ . . . No,” Leona sighed. “Marcus was fair enough, but I never loved him. And . . . I hated needing him. Does that make me awful?”

  “It makes you honest,” the older woman smiled.

  Silence fell again, Leona gnawing at her fingertips and staring at the wall. The dona seemed younger in here than she did in the yard, her armor cast aside with none but trusted eyes to see. Almost like the little girl she spoke of being in her dreams. Magistrae kept kneading her shoulders, occasionally chewing her lip. When the woman spoke again, it was with obvious trepidation.

  “Leona, I know you and your father—”

  “No, Anthea.”

  “But he has coin aplenty, surely if you—”

  “No!” She turned on her nurse, blue eyes flashing. “You forget your place. And I’ll not hear another word of it. I will die before I accept a single copper beggar from that man, do you understand me?”

  The magistrae’s eyes found the floor.

  “Aye, Domina,” she said.

  Watching from the shadows, Mia found herself saddened. She could sense Anthea was truly concerned for Leona, could see the barrier between them had been worn thin over decades. But as much as Anthea cared for her mistress, she’d always be a servant. Though she’d fed Leona at her breast, Anthea would never be her mother.

  Still, it was one thing to listen in on a conversation that might decide her fate, entirely another intrude on such a private moment. Information was power, and power was advantage. But Mia had learned enough here.

  Stealing down the corridor behind Mister Kindly, she found the broad dining hall. All the old furniture was still here—the long dining table where her parents had entertained, the wooden chairs she’d crawled and hid among as a little girl. Some of the same tapestries hung on the walls—Goddess Tsana wreathed in flame, Goddess Trelene cloaked in rolling waves.

  Footsteps. Approaching. Clink thump. Clink thump.
<
br />   Mia and Mister Kindly slipped behind one of the long, heavy drapes. She could have just cloaked herself in shadows and listened to Executus and Leona talk, but in truth she wanted to see their faces. See if the armor Leona wore outside these walls was the same armor she wore for this legend of the arena, who served her instead of the man who’d raised him up a champion.

  Arkades limped into the room, found it empty. Jaw clenched, he sat at the long table to wait. Mia saw he’d bathed, brushed his beard and his long salt-and-pepper hair. The scar at his face and his weathered skin made it hard to tell, but she supposed him in his mid-thirties. Life on the sand hadn’t been kind, but his physique, the sheer magnetism from a life spent winning victories before the adoring crowd . . .

  He’d put aside the leather armor he wore in the yard, dressed in finery instead. His dark doublet was embroidered with the Falcons of Remus and the Lions of Leonides. His walking stick was also set with a lion’s head. Mia again wondered at his loyalties. Here he was, serving Leona. And yet, he still wore her father’s lion on his chest.

  Looking about, Arkades lifted a flask from inside his doublet like a thief, took a long, deep pull.

  “We have goblets if you prefer, Executus.”

  Arkades startled, rising to his feet as Leona appeared in the doorway behind, carrying a bottle of wine and two goblets. His eyes widened a touch at the sight of her, and Mia couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow herself. Leona’s hair was wet, she was barefoot and still clad in her bathrobe, which was tied only loosely. If one looked hard enough from the right angle, very little was being left to the imagination.

  “Mi Dona,” Arkades said, bowing with his eyes to the floor and studiously avoiding looking hard from any kind of angle at all.

  Mia noted the small smirk on Leona’s face as she walked to the head of the table, flopped into a chair. She poured herself a glass, putting her foot up on the wood. Her robe slipped up, exposing her leg all the way to the thigh.

  “Help yourself,” she smiled.

  “ . . . Mi Dona?”

  Leona motioned to the second goblet, the bottle.

  “It’s awful, I’m afraid. But it cleaves to the task. Here.” Leona leaned forward, poured a glass and pushed it across the table. Arkades kept his eyes fixed anywhere but on her chest, practically writhing as he returned to his chair.