“That’s not the point,” Ash replied. “I didn’t ask because it doesn’t matter. Whatever you did, you did it because it needed to be done. Remorse is for the weak, Mia. And regret is for cowards. Whatever you did then meant you can be here in my arms now. That makes it right. And I’m not about to let some bollocks about moons and suns take that away from us.”
Thunder rolled again, as if the Lady of Storms were eavesdropping at the window. Mia blinked as the lightning flickered, shadows strobing on the walls. Dragging on her cigarillo and breathing smoke into the air.
“I’m dreaming, Ashlinn,” she confessed. “Every nevernight. I see my mother and father. Except they’re not my mother and father. They’re arguing. About me. And when I look at my reflection, there’s someone standing behind me. A figure made of black flame, with a white circle scribed on his brow.”
“… What does it mean?”
“I’ve no idea. Hence my desire to see the whole board, Ash.”
“I don’t want to feel like I’m a piece on a board,” Ashlinn said, a touch of desperation in her voice. “I don’t want us to play this game anymore. I want us to get Mercurio out, get Scaeva dead, and then just get gone from all this. Someplace quiet and far, far away. You and me.” Ash pouted. “I suppose Jonnen can come. If the little smart-arse learns to keep a civil tongue in his head. But he gets his own room.”
“Is that how you see this playing out?” Mia asked, cigarillo bobbing on her lips. “Shacked up in some cottage? Flowers in the windowsill and a fire in the hearth?”
Ash nodded. “And a big feather bed.”
“Really?” Mia dragged deep, squinting against the smoke. “Us? Me?”
“Why not?” Ash asked. “My da built a house on the shore of Threelakes. North of Ul’Staad. The hollyhock and sunsbell grow so thick, the whole valley smells like perfume. You should see it. The lake is so still, it’s like a mirror to the sky.”
“I’m…” Mia shook her head. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for a life like that…”
Ash lowered her eyes, her voice a murmur.
“You mean a life with me.”
“I mean…” Mia sighed, trying to form her thoughts into words. “I mean I’ve never even thought about what I’ll do after this. I’ve never imagined a moment where this wasn’t my life. It’s all I’ve been for eight years, Ash. It’s all there is.”
Ashlinn leaned in and kissed her, hand to her cheek, fierce and tender.
“It’s not all there is,” she whispered.
Mia looked into Ashlinn’s eyes, saw them shining with almost-tears. Reflecting the lightning crawling across the dark skies outside.
“I love you, Mia Corvere,” she said. “Everything you are. But there’s so much more to you than this. I know you might not see a life like that for yourself, but you can have it if you want it. I’m not going to lay here and say that you deserve it. You’re a thief and a killer and a hateful fucking cunt.”
Mia couldn’t help but smile. “Truth.”
“But that’s why I adore you,” Ash breathed. “And the more I live it, the more I realize ‘deserve’ has nothing to do with this life. Blessings and curses fall on the wicked and the just alike. Fair is a fairy tale. Nothing’s claimed by those who don’t want it, and nothing’s kept by those who won’t fight for it. So let’s fight. Fuck the gods. Fuck it all. Let’s take the world by the throat and make it give us what we want.”
Ash kissed her again, the taste of burning tears on her lips.
“Because I want you.”
She didn’t wait for reciprocation—Ash wasn’t the kind to declare affections just to hear them parroted back. No insecurity. No bait. The girl knew how she felt, she trusted Mia enough to share it, and that was all there was to it. Mia liked that about her.
But do I love it?
Ash settled in against her side, arms wrapped around her, squeezing tight.
“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, to keep you safe, to see you through.” Ash shook her head, sniffing back her tears. “Nothing.”
“I know,” Mia whispered, kissing her brow.
“I want to be with you forever,” Ashlinn sighed.
“Just forever?”
“Forever and ever.”
Mia lay there for a long time after Ash fell asleep.
Imagining a lake so still, it was like a mirror to the sky.
Staring at the gloom above her head and picturing a pale globe shining there.
Listening to the tempest sing.
And wondering.
* * *
It was growing worse.
The Bloody Maid was almost a hundred and twenty feet of sturdy oak and reinforced cedar, built to cut the ocean’s face like an apothecary’s scalpel. But the swell was rising along with the winds, howling and gnashing about her like a wild thing at rumpus. The ship was tossed like a toy, the Ladies of Storms and Oceans both seemed in a fury. Without Mister Kindly in her shadow, each towering wave brought Mia a threefold fear—the torturous climb, an agonized, weightless quiet, and then a belly-churning drop down into the dark and an impact that felt like the whole earth was ending.
A moment’s pause. And then it all would begin again.
For hours. And hours. On end.
“’Byss and blood,” Ashlinn swore.
Their hammock was hung cross-ship to better sway and roll with the Maid’s motion, but even spent as they both were, sleep had become impossible. As the tempest grew steadily worse, the winds howling, the thunder sounding as if it were right on top of them, Mia found herself rolling out of the hammock and dragging on her leathers and boots. Belly full of butterflies. Hands shaking.
“Stay here,” she told Ash.
“Where are you going?”
“Talk to Corleone. Find out what the fuck is going on.”
She pushed herself through the cabin door despite her fear, staggering with the violent sway and toss. Closing the door behind, she made her way down a corridor lit by arkemical lamps, one hand pressed to either wall for balance. A crewman on his way below squeezed past her with mumbled apologies, soaked under his oilskins. She could see the floorboards were wet, seawater and rain rolling down the stairwell ahead. Passing the Falcons’ cabin, she heard Butcher still puking his guts up, Bryn cursing by the Everseeing and all his daughters. She knocked on the door, Sid stuck his head out a few moments later.
“All’s well in here?” Mia asked.
“F-f-fuggin’ … m-marvelous,” Butcher groaned, his battered face all but green.
“We’re all right,” Sid nodded, grabbing the doorway for balance as they crashed into another wave. “Butcher’s got nothing left in him to puke up, poor bastard. You?”
“Still kicking. I’m headed up to talk to the captain.” She licked her lips, drew a deep breath. “You can all swim, aye?”
“Aye,” Wavewaker nodded.
“Aye,” said Bryn and Bladesinger.
“Fuggin—hhurrrrkkkrkk!” said Butcher.
“I think that was a yes,” Sidonius grinned.
“Keep your wits about you,” Mia said. “Don’t lock your door.”
“We’re gladiatii, Mia,” the big thug smiled. “We’ve each of us looked death in the eye more times than we can count. No fear for us.”
She clapped a hand on Sid’s shoulder, cupped the side of his face. Looking around these men and women who’d fought beside her on the sands, and realizing they were her familia, too. And despite it all, just how glad she was to have them with her.
With a nod, she left them to it, staggered across the rolling floor, down to the stairwell. Seizing the railing, Mia struggled up to the deck above, fighting for balance.
The storm was deafening out here, the rain coming down like spears. Mia was awed by it—the walls of water rising ahead and behind, the sea a dark and sullen steel gray. Her heart rose in her chest as lightning tore the heavens, the wind was a mouthless, hungry howl, underscored by BigJon’s bursts of blinding profanity. Looking
above her head, Mia could see seamen on the rain-slick yardarms, trying to secure a sail that had come free of its ties. They balanced on thin cables, working with sodden rope and heavy, waterlogged canvas, almost a hundred feet in the air. One slip, one stumble, onto the deck or into the water, either way it would all be over.
“The fuck are you doing up here?” Corleone demanded as she climbed to the aft deck. The captain was wet to the skin, his greatcoat soaked through, the feather in his tricorn wilted in the rain. The wheel was lashed in place, and the captain was lashed to it, clinging on like a very handsome limpet.
“I thought you said this storm wasn’t going to break us!” she shouted.
“I admit I may have underestimated its enthusiasm!” he yelled, grinning.
Mia couldn’t find it in herself to smile back, screaming at the top of her lungs over the deafening wind. “Are we going to die?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it! We’ve got a full belly keeping us steady, our storm sails up, and the best salts this side of the Thousand Towers!” Corleone flashed a wink. “Besides, I might feel compelled to tell you my real name if we were about to die!”
“Is it Gherardino?” she managed to shout. “Or Gualtieri?”
“What happened to the B names?”
“Aha!” she roared. “So it does start with a B!”
He grinned and shook his head. “I have a confession to make!”
“So we are going to die?”
“The reason I didn’t want to stop for those Luminatii! They were looking for you and your brother, but I thought they might be after what the Maid’s got in her belly!”
“… And what might that be?”
“About twenty tons of arkemist’s salt!”*
Mia’s eyes bulged in their sockets. “What?”
“Aye,” Corleone nodded.
“You’re saying we’re sailing with twenty tons of high explosive beneath us?”
“Well…” Cloud gave a small shrug. “Probably closer to twenty-one!”
“In the middle of a lightning storm?”
“Thrilling, neh?” Corleone laughed aloud. “Fear not, it’s well stowed. The hull would have to be split apart for the lightning to touch it, and no storm is that fierce!”
“I thought only Iron Collegium brokers were allowed to freight that crap?”
Cloud looked at her a long moment. “You do realize I’m a pirate, don’t you?”
He tossed the sodden feather from his eyes and grinned like a madman, seemingly fearless despite the power on display about him. Watching the lightning illuminate the gleam in this man’s eyes, Mia knew why his men followed him. Seeing him laugh at the bedlam all around them, the danger beneath them, hands steady on the wheel, she couldn’t help but stand a little taller despite it all.
“Get back below, Dona Mia!” he shouted. “Let me and my crew handle this. You go comfort that blond screamer of yours!”
“… You heard us?”
“Four fucking Daughters, I’d have to be deaf or dead not to have heard you!” he cried. “And bravo, by the way. Quite a performance.”
Mia could feel her cheeks burning under the storm’s chill.
“Don’t fret,” he shouted. “Lad or lass, who you roll on my ship is your business. I give no fucks for who you fuck. But if you ever need company…”
Mia found herself grinning despite her fear. “Go fuck yourself!”
“Well, thanks to this storm, the good news is that’s no longer my only option!”
Buoyed up by Cloud’s confidence, Mia decided to get the ’byss out of his way. She made her way carefully down to the quarterdeck, squinting in the rain, knuckles white on the railing. The ship was swept and rocked, and Mia stumbled twice, almost falling, her heart hammering as she peered over the side into the teeth of the sea. She looked up at the men still wrestling with the loose sail on the mast above. Wondering why anyone under the suns would want to be a sailor.
And then she saw him.
He was just a silhouette against the ocean’s steel gray, up past the forecastle. Almost lost under the spray as they crashed bow-first into another trough. He was stood in the bow, arms spread wide, head thrown back, long saltlocks sodden with sea.
“Tric?” she breathed.
Another wave crashed over the bow, tons of freezing seawater running down the deck and over the sides, but there he stood despite it all. Like a rock in the middle of the chaos. He was too far away for her to call, the rest of the crew seemed too intent on managing the storm to heed any lesser concerns. Mia began making her way up the deck, clinging to the railing for dear life as another wave crashed up over the deck. BigJon saw her, shouted a warning, but she ignored the man. Clawing her way on with freezing hands, her nails turning blue, her skin turning white, past the main and foremasts until she was close enough to shout.
“What the ’byss are you doing?” she cried.
He turned his head slightly, then back toward the sea, arms wide. The sleeves of his sodden robe had bunched up as he’d raised his hands, and Mia could see those strange black spatter stains, drenching him from fingers to elbows.
“PRAYING!”
“To who?” she yelled. “For what?”
“TO THE MOTHER! ASKING HER TO QUIET THE LADIES OF OCEANS AND STORMS!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“THIS IS NO ORDINARY TEMPEST!” he cried. “THIS IS THE ANGER OF THE GODDESSES! THEY SENSE ME, THEY SENSE YOU, THEY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU GO!”
“But why do they care?” she shouted over the thunder.
“THEY ARE THEIR FATHER’S DAUGHTERS! IF THE LADY OF STORMS BREAKS OUR MASTS, WE’LL BE AT THE MERCY OF THE SEA!” He turned, fixed her with those dead, black eyes. “AND THE LADY OF OCEANS HAS NO MERCY, MIA!”
He waved her off.
“GO BELOW!” he roared. “A SHARP BLADE AND A SHARPER TONGUE ARE NO USE HERE! THE ONLY WEAPON IN THIS WAR IS FAITH, AND YOU’VE NONE IN YOU TO FIGHT IT!”
“Are you—”
“GO!”
Mia backed away, all the confidence Corleone had instilled in her dissolved under that abyssal stare. Tric turned back to the sea, black hands spread wide again. Another wave smashed down upon the bow, and Mia stepped forward with a cry. But once the spray had cleared, he still stood there, rooted to the spot as if by some dark magik, sodden robes hanging on him like weeds wrapped about a floating corpse. She looked around them, the tiny collection of twigs and canvas that was the Maid; all that stood between her and death. She suddenly felt a small and frightened thing, caught up in something vaster than she could imagine. The image of that pawn on Scaeva’s palm flashed unbidden in her thoughts, his words echoing in her mind.
“If you start down this road, daughter mine, you are going to die.”
Blue fingernails clawing the wood, she dragged herself through the crash and the howl and the bone-deep cold, back across the deck, finally stumbling down the steps to the decks below.
“Maw’s teeth,” she whispered, teeth chattering.
The ship groaned in reply, her timbers in agony. She could hear Cloud roaring to BigJon, and BigJon to the crew, voices almost swallowed in the tempest. Mia made her way back down the corridor toward her cabin, sopping wet, wishing she knew where Mister Kindly was. Wondering in what dark corner or nook he might be hiding. Wanting him back to take this feeling away.
“Fear is what keeps the dark from devouring you. Fear is what stops you joining a game you cannot hope to win.”
Stopping outside her cabin, she looked at the door opposite—Jonnen’s room, closed and locked. She could see a faint light beneath, hear soft sounds under the deafening song of the thunder. Suddenly realizing what she was hearing.
Crying.
She swallowed hard. Remembering her bitter words from earlier, regret swelling in her chest. He was a hateful little shit. A spoiled brat. A rude, ungrateful snob. But he was just a little boy. He was her brother. Her blood.
A few momen
ts’ precarious work with the lockpicks in the heel of her wolfskin boots and the lock was open, the door quickly following. She dragged her sodden hair from her eyes, peered into the room. She saw her brother huddled in the corner, jammed between a heavy chest and the wall, knees up under his chin. Eclipse was sat before him, speaking softly, but it seemed even the shadowwolf wasn’t enough to calm the boy’s fears. Jonnen’s cheeks were wet with tears, his eyes wide and afraid.
“Brother?” Mia said.
He looked up at her, jaw clenched, eyes flashing.
“Go away, Kingmaker,” he snapped.
Mia sighed and stepped into the room, dripping seawater. Padding across the floorboards, she sat down in front of him. After an awkward pause, she tossed her hair from her face and reached out with chilled hands to take his. Amazingly, he didn’t immediately snatch them away.
“Still frightened of storms?”
“… I AM SORRY, MIA, HE WOULD NOT LET ME RIDE HIS SHADOW, BUT DID NOT WISH ME TO TELL YOU…”
Mia ran a hand over Eclipse’s flanks, grateful the shadowwolf had formed so swift a bond with her brother. Though Mia herself was clearly one of Jonnen’s least favorite people under the suns, the boy and the daemon were thick as thieves after only a few weeks together. Thinking about it here in the roaring storm, Mia understood why.
Eclipse misses Cassius.
And Jonnen reminds her of him.
Mia looked at her brother and nodded. He was an exceptional boy, she had to admit, no matter what enmity lay between them. She felt admiration swelling in her, that he’d chosen to face the storm without the daemon to eat his fear.
“A man has to stand on his own two feet, neh?”
The boy glared with those dark eyes of his. So like his father’s. So like hers.
“But you don’t have to stand alone, you know that, aye?” Mia squeezed his little hands in hers. “I’m your sister, Jonnen. I’m here for you if you need.”
He licked his lips. His voice so soft she almost couldn’t hear over the waves and the thunder and the driving rain. “It’s … it’s very loud.”
“I know,” she replied. “It’s all right, brother.”
“Are we going to sink?” he whispered.
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