by Jay Kristoff
“Arkades slipped a dose of Elegy into everyone’s evemeal. Maggot and Otho both succumbed before I could brew an antidote.”
“ . . . Arkades?”
“Aye.”
“Horseshit,” Furian whispered. “Arkades was gladiatii. A man like him looks his enemies in the eye and delivers them with a sword, not a bitter mouthful.”
Mia shrugged, and carefully sniffing a cup of water, mixed her powder into it. Carrying the cup to Furian, she put it to his lips, watching his shadow tremble and ripple about its edges. Her own shadow edged closer, like iron to a magnet. All the questions swimming in her mind. What am I? What are we? Why? Who? How?
“It’s only fadeleaf and a bit of ginwort,” she said. “It will ease the pain.”
The Unfallen stared with narrowed eyes.
“You saved my life, Furian,” Mia said. “That’s a debt not soon forgot. If I wanted you dead, I could have fixed it so you never woke. Now drink.”
The former champion grunted assent, and swallowed the draft as Mia poured. His head drifted back to the slab and he sighed, staring at the ceiling and flexing his wrists against his restraints.
“I remember . . . after the match . . . you took my pain away.”
“A home remedy,” Mia shrugged. “Easy enough to brew.”
“No,” Furian said, shaking his head. “Before you gave me the sleeping draft. When I was on the slab, screaming. When your . . . when our shadows touched.”
Mia frowned, remembering that moment beneath Whitekeep arena. As her shadow had darkened, she’d felt more pain, not less—Furian’s agony mixed in with her own. She never supposed that she might somehow be sharing his burden, but apparently she’d lessened his pain by taking it upon herself?
Why?
Who?
How?
“I didn’t know I could do that,” she confessed. “I’ve never done it before.”
Furian said nothing, watching her with those dark, pretty eyes. She could see the draft she’d given him taking effect, smoothing the lines of pain away from his face.
“I . . . wanted to thank you, Furian,” Mia said. “For calling the dark in the arena. The Exile would have ended me and ’Singer if not for you.”
“You cheated,” he replied. “You did something to the silkling’s blades.”
“You twisted her shadow. I suppose that makes us both cheaters, neh?”
The Unfallen remained mute for an age, simply staring. When he finally spoke, it was with hesitation, as if compliments didn’t sit well upon his tongue.
“You risked your life for a sister gladiatii,” he said. “You risked your life for me. Trickery aside, you still showed loyalty to this collegium. Only fitting that it be repaid.”
“Was that a compliment?” Mia asked. “’Byss and blood, perhaps I mixed too much fadeleaf in with your tea?”
Furian allowed himself a small smile. “Don’t let it swell your head, girl. I’ll be reclaiming my torc as soon as I’m able to lift a blade. When I fight at the magni, make no mistake—it will be as champion of this collegium.”
Mia shook her head, again trying to figure out the puzzle of this man. He’d treated her with nothing but disdain, spoken of their gifts with the darkness as witchery. But when push came to shove, he’d werked the shadows so that the Falcons could best the Exile. Morality aside, it seemed he was prepared to sacrifice anything for victory.
“Why is all this so important to you?” she asked.
“I have told you before, Crow. This is what I am.”
“That’s no kind of reason,” Mia sighed. “You weren’t born gladiatii. You must have had a life before all this.”
Furian shook his head. Blinking slow.
“I’d not call it such.”
“So what were you? Murderer? Rapist? Thief?”
Furian stared, hidden thoughts swirling behind those bottomless eyes. But the fadeleaf was kicking in now, and the sliproot she’d mixed in with the concoction was loosening his tongue. She felt guilty about dosing him in the hopes he’d open up, but she wanted to understand this man, try to gauge where he’d stand if Sidonius and the others rose in rebellion.
“Murderer, rapist, thief,” Furian replied, his voice thick. “All that and more. I was beast who lined his pockets with the miseries of men. And women. And children.”
“What did you do?”
Furian looked to the walls around them, the rusted steel and iron bars.
“I filled places like this. Flesh, my bread, and blood, my wine.”
“ . . . You were a slaver?”
Furian nodded, speaking soft. “Captained a ship for years. The Iron Gull. Ran the Ashkah coast all the way to Nuuvash, eastern Liis from Amai to Ta’nise. Sold the men to the fighting pits, women to the pleasurehouses, children to whoever wanted them.” A heavy shrug. “If that turned out to be no one, we’d just put them over the side.”
“’Byss and blood,” Mia said, lip curling in revulsion.
“You judge me.”
“You’re fucking right I do,” she hissed.
“No harsher than I judge myself.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Mia said, her voice turning to steel.
“Believe what you will, Crow. People always do.”
“So how came you to be here, then?”
Furian closed his eyes, breathing long and deep. For a moment, Mia thought perhaps he’d drifted off to sleep. But eventually he spoke, his voice heavy with fatigue and something darker still. Regret? Shame?
“We raided a village in Ashkah,” he said. “One of the men we brought aboard was a missionary of Aa. Rapha, his name. I let the men have their sport with him. We weren’t really that fond of priests, you see. We beat him. Burned him. In the end, we chummed the water for drakes, and I told him to walk the plank. Looking down into that blue, you see the measure of a person in their eyes. Some beg. Some curse. Some don’t even have the legs to carry them. You know what Rapha did?”
“I’d not guess,” Mia shrugged. “I’m not that fond of priests either.”
“He prayed Aa would forgive us,” Furian said. “Standing on that plank, a thirty-foot stormdrake circling beneath him. And the bastard starts praying for us.”
The Unfallen shook his head.
“I’d never seen the like. So I let him live. I didn’t really know why at the time. He sailed with us almost a year. Taught me the gospel of the Everseeing. Taught me that I was lost, nothing but an animal, but that I could find my humanity again if I embraced the Light. But he also told me that I must atone for all the evil I’d done. And so, after a year of it, of reading and arguing, of hating and blustering and crying to myself in the long hours of the nevernight, I accepted the Everseeing into my life. Turned my back on the darkness. I sailed us to the Hanging Gardens. And I sold myself.”
“You . . .” Mia blinked.
“Seems mad, doesn’t it? What kind of fool would choose this?”
Mia thought of her own plight, her own plan, slowly shaking her head.
“But . . . why?”
“I knew Aa would give me a chance to redeem myself if I placed myself in his keeping. And he put me here. A place of tribulation, and purity, and suffering. But at the end, on the sands of the magni, when I kneel before the grand cardinal drenched in my victory, he will not only declare me free, but a free man. Not an animal, Crow. A man.
“And there, I will be redeemed.”
Furian nodded, took a deep breath, as if he’d purged a poison from his blood.
Mia folded her arms and scowled.
“So that’s it?” she demanded. “You think you can atone for selling hundreds of men and women by murdering hundreds more? You can’t clean your hands by washing them in other people’s blood, Furian. Trust me, that only gets them redder.”
Furian shook his head and scowled. “I do not expect you to understand. But magni is a holy rite. Judged by the hand of God himself. And if Rapha taught me anything, it was that the things we do are m
ore important than the things we’ve done.”
Mia heard footsteps behind, a knock at the infirmary door. Gannicus marched into the room, two more guards beside him, carrying a steaming pot between them.
“Your vinegar, boiled as requested.”
Mia nodded, turning to Furian.
“I’m going to get rid of the maggots now. This is going to be painful.”
“Life always is, little Crow. Life is pain, and loss, and sacrifice.”
Furian grit his teeth and closed his eyes.
“But we should welcome that pain. If it brings us salvation.”
* * *
She returned to her cage, flanked by two of the houseguards. Sidonius opened his eyes as the cell door closed behind her, the mekwerk lock twisting closed. Mia had watched carefully from beneath her lashes on the way in here, noting which key on the iron ring opened the barracks gate, controlled her cell door.
Was this the right thing to do?
Would they understand, at the end, that she’d done it all for the best?
“I spoke to Furian,” she whispered once the guards were gone.
“About what?” Sidonius muttered.
“Who he is. How he thinks. Where he’s from.” She shook her head. “He dreams only of the magni. He’d never do anything to put it at risk. I think he’s still too ill to stand in our way, but when we rise, there’s no chance he’ll stand with us.”
“When we rise?”
“Aye, brother.”
Mia reached out in the dark, squeezed Sidonius’s hand.
“We.”
29: rise
It was a lot to risk on a single girl.
Sidonius’s belly was a knot of raw nerves, his appetite a distant memory. Five turns had passed since Mia proposed her plan in the gloom of their cell, and Sid hadn’t slept much since. Instead, he’d paced back and forth in his cage through the nevernight, staring at the mekwerk lock on the door and counting the hours until it began.
Mia had been moved into her champion’s quarters three turns back, so Sid found himself alone for the first time since moving to Crow’s Nest. Alone with the fear of what was to come, the risk they were all taking, the fate that awaited them if they failed. He was placing so much faith in Mia, and so much rode on her shoulders. He’d served Darius Corvere faithfully, saw the traits he’d admired in the man looming large in his daughter. Courage. Intelligence. Ferocity. But Mia had lost her father when she was only a child, and since then, fallen into the company of shadows and killers.
Sidonius liked her. But could he truly say he knew her?
Could he trust her?
Dona Leona had met with Varro Caito three nevernights back, and skulking beneath their table as they drank and dined, Mia’s daemon had overheard their every word. Leona had apparently plied the fleshpeddler with honeyed words and honeyed wine, brokering sale of Bryn, Butcher, Felix, Albanus, Bladesinger, and Sidonius himself. The price was a rich one, and Leona would be able to meet the first of her father’s repayments, but the cost was steep. The collegium would be gutted, with only Mia, Wavewaker, and Furian remaining. Leona would risk all on one final throw at the magni. But she hadn’t reckoned on her Falcons throwing dice of their own.
Evemeal had been quiet, the gladiatii subdued. Whispers of the plan had been passed on in the bathhouse, around the practice dummies. All agreed the chances of success were so thin they’d fall through a crack in the cobbles, and Sid could smell fear in the air. It was one thing to risk death in the arena, another thing entirely to pit yourself against the Republic. The administratii. The Senate itself. Every one of them knew this was a step that could never be taken back. The brands on their cheeks would begin to fade only a few minutes after their deaths, so there was no hiding who and what they were if they wanted to keep breathing. To be an escaped slave in the Republic was to be forever on the run.
Still, better to run than die on your knees.
Even with the few extra turns’ rest, Bladesinger was still wounded, her back and arm wrapped in heavy gauze. Mia’s ribs were yet bruised, but at least she could use both eyes again. Wavewaker and Sidonius had yet to fully recover from their last arena bout, and Butcher was still limping—they weren’t the most fearsome fighting force ever arrayed, to be sure. But they’d have surprise on their side if all went well, and they were trained gladiatii, each and every one.
Their sale was set to happen on the morrow.
Caito had already paid the deposit.
Truth told, it was now or never.
Nevernight had fallen, cool winds kissing ochre walls, dust devils dancing in the yard. After Arkades’s betrayal, Dona Leona had doubled the patrols around the house, and the guards were omnipresent. But still, whispers and secret nods were exchanged among the gladiatii, and all seemed in readiness.
But Daughters, the waiting . . .
They sat in the dark, no one speaking, no one moving. Watching the arkemical globes slowly dim, the sounds of the keep above gradually fading. Sid could hear Bladesinger chanting inside her cell—some final prayer to Mother Trelene for good fortune, no doubt. Looking at the cell across the passage, he saw Butcher on his haunches, rocking back and forth and rearing to go.
He was reminded of his time in the legion. The nevernight before a battle was always the worst. He’d had his faith in Aa to sustain him back then. His loyalty to his justicus. The solace of his brother Luminatii, and the certainty that what they did was Right. All that was gone now—just a clean conscience and a coward’s brand upon his chest to show for it. Instead of brother Luminatii, he had brother and sister gladiatii. Instead of faith in the Everseeing and the commands of his justicus, he was placing all his faith in his seventeen-year-old daughter.
It was a lot to risk on a single girl.
Sidonius heard a soft thud, the faint ring of metal on stone. Butcher heard it too, rising to his feet, hands wrapped around the bars of his cell. Mia had two options to break them free once she stole out from her room; either somehow brute force the mekwerk controls to release the inner cell doors, or acquire the master key from the guard patrol. Sid had no idea which way she’d go. But his stomach thrilled as he saw a silhouette creeping down the stairs to the cellar antechamber, a wooden truncheon clutched in one hand, and what looked to be an iron key in the other.
“’Byss and blood, she did it,” Butcher grinned.
Twisting the key in the mekwerk, Mia unlocked the cell doors, raised the portcullis, Sidonius wincing at the soft grinding of stone on iron. The gladiatii stole out of the barracks, gathering in the antechamber, all fierce grins and bundled nerves. Sidonius gave Mia a quick embrace, his voice a whisper.
“No trouble?”
Mia shook her head. “Four guards down. The other two are in the front yard.”
“Let’s be about it, then,” Wavewaker whispered.
“Aye,” the girl nodded. “And quietly, for fucksakes.”
Mia led the group up the stairs, where the bodies of four of Leona’s houseguards were laid out on the tile. The men were armored in black leather, falcon feathers pluming their helms, Captain Gannicus among them. Each had been bludgeoned into unconsciousness. The gladiatii quickly stripped their armor, Sidonius, Wavewaker, Butcher, and Felix donning the garb instead. Not only would the boiled leather protect them if things turned ugly, but the high cheek guards would do a fine job of covering the brands on their cheeks.
Weapons were handed out—wooden truncheons and shortswords. In the far distance, Sid heard fourbells being rung in down in Crow’s Rest, the crash of waves upon a rocky shore. The garish light of the two suns streamed in through the open windows, silken curtains rippling as the rebel gladiatii stole through the keep.
They moved quietly as they could, down the entrance hall to the locked front doors. Butcher and Wavewaker lifted the bar aside, the gladiatii gathering in a small knot at the threshold.
“Ready?” Sidonius asked.
“Aye.” Bladesinger raised her sword in her off-hand.<
br />
Mia opened the door, and the gladiatii charged soundlessly toward the front portcullis. It took a few moments for the guards to process what they were seeing, and by then, it was too late. One reared back gurgling as Sidonius clubbed him square in the throat. Wavewaker crashed into the other guard, smashing him into the guardhouse wall. The man raised his truncheon, his shout becoming a muffled whimper as Mia clapped her hand over his mouth and buried her knee in his bollocks. He dropped like a stone, and the girl snatched up his club as it fell, cracked it across his head and laid him flat out in the dirt.
Butcher ratcheted up the portcullis as Bladesinger and Albanus stripped the last two guards, began strapping on their breastplates. Mia was too small to wear any man’s kit, and besides, there weren’t enough unconscious guards to go around. Instead, she threw a cloak she’d gotten from only Aa knew where about her shoulders, pulled the hood low over her eyes.
“Right,” she whispered. “We make for the Gloryhound in the harbor.”
“Walk tall, look folk in the eye,” Bladesinger reminded them. “We win this game by appearing as if we belong, aye?”
The gladiatii nodded, and calmly as they could, marched out from the portcullis in neat formation and started tromping down the road. Mia brought up the rear, hood pulled low. Wavewaker’s armor didn’t fit too well across his broad shoulders, Bladesinger’s arm was still swathed in bandages and spotted with blood—under scrutiny, their disguises wouldn’t last. But the hour was late, and the port below the Nest was quiet. Hopefully the subterfuge would hold long enough for them to get aboard.
Marching out in front, Sidonius tried to keep his nerves in check. This die was cast, and whatever happened now was in the hands of fate, but Daughters, it was hard not to just break into a run, get as far as he could as fast as possible. The troupe walked down the dusty road encircling Crow’s Nest, Sid staring out at the blue waters of the Sea of Swords. Marching into the town, they passed a few farmers on the way to market, a messenger rushing about on his master’s business, a handful of urchins gathered around a loaf of stolen bread. Not a one of them paid any mind.
He could see the tall masts of ships looming over the harbor now, his heart beating faster. Thinking of that vast blue ocean, the places they could sail, any place but here. He looked to the other gladiatii, risked a smile, Bryn grinning back, Wavewaker whispering, “Hold steady.” Marching closer, the smell of salt in the air, the screeching of gulls like music in his ears, every step bringing them ne—