He shook his head. “Waiting for the right woman.”
The ladies exchanged glances—all except Bryn, who simply nudged her horse closer to Wavewaker’s and gifted him a lingering smile.
“What about you, Crow?” Butcher asked.
“No real disasters, I’m afraid.” Mia shrugged, dragging sodden hair from her eyes and shivering. “Though … I did go out and murder a man immediately afterward.”
“Hmm,” Bladesinger nodded. “Strangely enough, that fits.”
More guffaws. Sidonius looked sidelong at Tric, who’d been walking alongside in silence the whole time, up to his ankles in mud. Being a good commander and not wanting the boy to feel left out, breathing or no, the Itreyan cleared his throat.
“And you?” he asked. “Any calamities on your maiden voyage?”
“NO,” Tric said simply.
Black eyes flickered to Mia and away again.
“NO, SHE WAS WONDERFUL.”
Thunder rolled as if on cue, and at its call, the rain started coming down in earnest—a downpour heavier than Mia could ever recall. Jonnen was huddled beside her, shivering in his boots. The wind was a monster, clawing and howling, tearing their hoods from their heads and reaching beneath their sodden clothes with frozen hands. Mia found it hard to remember the sweltering heat of the arena just a few weeks back, tucking her hands into her armpits to warm them.
“This is horseshit!” Bryn roared, hauling out her bow and firing off an arrow at the clouds above. “BITCH!”
Sidonius squinted in the downpour, scanning the countryside around them.
“We could knock at one of these farmhouses,” Wavewaker shouted, tapping his soldier’s breastplate and the three suns embossed on it. “Declare official business and wait out the worst of it by a nice, cozy hearth.”
“What about him?” Bladesinger called, motioning to Tric. “Any addle-witted peasant worth his pitchfork would be trying to burn him on a stake in a heartbeat!”
“He looks a little more lively of late,” Butcher said, peering at the boy. “A bit more color to him, maybe? Or is it me?”
“There!” Sid called.
Mia looked in the direction the man was pointing. Through the blinding rain, she could see a ruin atop a distant foothill. It was a garrison tower, crumbling crenellated walls and a broken drawbridge, its stonework crushed under the hands of time. It looked like it’d been built during the Itreyan occupation, when the Great Unifier, Francisco I, first marched his armies into Liis and challenged the might of the Magus Kings. A tumbled relic of a world once at war.
“Good view of the countryside!” Sid cried. “With any luck, cellar’s still dry!”
“The horses could use a rest,” Bryn shouted. “This mud’s hard work for them.”
Mia looked at the road ahead, into the gray skies above.
“All right, then,” she nodded. “Let’s take a peek.”
* * *
The tower was three stories of broken stone, crowning a spur of sharp limestone.
Long ago, Mia imagined it might’ve been peopled by hardened legionaries. Men who’d come across the waves under the banner of three suns with conquest in their hearts and blood on their hands. But now, centuries after the legions and the king who commanded them had crumbled to dust, the tower was finally crumbling, too. The hillside would’ve been cleared back in the time it’d been built, but now, nature had reclaimed the ascent and was infiltrating the building itself, prying apart stonework and tumbling walls like no warrior of the Magus Kings ever could.
It stood about sixty feet across. The wall on one side had collapsed, open to the rain and wind. But fully half the stonework was still solid, broad arches on the ground floor supporting the levels above, crumbling stairwells leading up to the reaches and down to an overgrown and, sadly, flooded cellar. An old stone cooking pit sat in the center of the floor, filled with moldering leaves.
The group huddled together on the ground floor, relatively shielded from the tempest, the horses tied up outside with the wagon. The sky was gray as lead, the sunslight dimmed, and Mia could feel the power inside her stirring a little—like her blood after too many cigarillos. Tingling at her fingertips. Numbing the tip of her tongue. She wondered what it might feel like when the two remaining suns were gone from the sky.
What she might become.
“I’LL SCOUT THE SURROUNDS,” Tric declared.
“Aye,” Sidonius nodded. “’Waker, go keep an eye topside.”
“Two eyes,” the big man nodded. “Wide open.”
“I’ll come with you,” Bryn offered, picking up her bow.
Bladesinger glanced at Mia and Ashlinn, and the trio shared a knowing smile. They set about unpacking their gear, getting the feed someplace dry while Butcher and Sidonius searched the tower for something to burn. The timbers had rotted away long ago, but by the time the wagon was unloaded, the pair had managed to drag enough scraps and dead leaves together to fuel a small blaze in the cooking pit.
“Right,” Sidonius said. “Let’s see if I remember how to do this.”
The Itreyan drew the sunsteel blade taken from the Luminatii centurion Mia had killed aboard the Maid. He held the blade in both hands, closed his eyes, muttered a prayer to the Everseeing under his breath. Mia heard a short sharp sound, like an intake of breath, and Sid’s blade abruptly burst into flame.
“’Byss and blood,” Butcher said, squinting against the light.*
“Impressive,”’Singer smiled. “Keep forgetting you were bona fide Luminatii, Sid.”
“Not that impressive,” Sid said, thrusting the sword into the kindling they’d gathered. “Saves fuel from the flintbox, though.”
The scraps and leaves caught and the fire was soon burning merrily. Butcher beckoned Jonnen, his dropped-pie face split in a wide grin.
“Come get warm, boy,” the Liisian said. “Old Butcher doesn’t bite.”
Mia peered at the sunsteel with mild suspicion, but she’d fought Luminatii before, and their blades never had the same effect a fully blessed Trinity had on her. And so, taking her brother’s hand, Mia led him over to the little blaze, now burning fierce. As she drew close, the flames on Sid’s blade flickered brighter, the damp wood crackling and popping. And as she sat Jonnen down …
“Four Daughters,” Butcher murmured. “Will you grab an eyeful of that…”
The fire was reaching for her. Tongues of flame stretching out from the pit and Sid’s sword like grasping fingers, clawing and flickering. Mia glanced at Ashlinn, back to the blaze. She shuffled around the edge of the cooking pit, watching the flames follow, bending at her like saplings in a storm, regardless of the wind’s direction.
“Fuck,” Sidonius breathed.
“Shit,” Ashlinn whispered.
“Aye,” Butcher agreed. “Fuckshit.”
Jonnen glanced about in disbelief. “You all have filthy mouths…”
Mia looked into the fire, up to the storm outside. The Ladies of Flames and Storms were letting their displeasure with her be known, and she felt a flash of anger in her chest. She’d not asked for this ire, nor to be part of this damned squabble. And here she was, drenched to the skin, unable to sail on the seas or warm herself by a happy hearth.
“I’m not afraid of a little wind and rain,” she said. “Nor a damned spark, neither.”
Mia reached into her britches, dragged out a cigarillo, and held it down to Sid’s blade to light it. But like a serpent, the flames lashed out, bright and fierce, and she had to pull her hand back with a black curse lest she get burned.
“Steady on, Mia,” Sidonius warned.
“… perhaps we should do our best not to invoke further enmity from the daughters…”
Mister Kindly materialized in the arches above, head tilted.
“… they seem quite upset with us already…”
“… FOR ONCE, THE MOGGY AND I ARE IN COMPLETE AGREEMENT…,” Eclipse growled.
“… o, well, in that case, smoke all you like, mia…”
/> Eclipse sighed as Sid drew his sword out of the still-burning cooking pit, slipping it into his scabbard to extinguish its flames. Mia felt her comrades’ eyes on her, their slow awakening to the strangeness at work here. They’d seen their share of the world, and none of the Falcons were the kind to indulge blind superstition, but it couldn’t have been easy for any of them to swallow. This was Mia’s life, and she was having trouble fitting it all in her mind. Goddess only knew what was going through theirs …
Still, with a glance to Sidonius and the pragmatism that had served her for three years on the sand, Bladesinger began stringing a rope between the archways to hang their wet clothes on. Butcher braved the rain, dragging in more wood from outside to dry by the flames, and, mumbling something about “perimeters,” Sidonius waded out into the storm to go scout with Tric. Her knots in place, ’Singer gestured to Jonnen.
“Hand it over, young consul,” she said. “You’ll catch your death in that.”
The boy mutely complied, dragging his cloak off and passing it on. Mia could see he was shivering in the chill, his sopping robes clinging to his thin frame.
“You ever swing a sword, little man?” Butcher asked.
“… No,” the boy murmured.
Butcher drew his gladius, ran his eye over the edge.
“Want to learn?”
“No, Butcher,” Mia said. “He’s too small.”
“Bollocks, I had a boy about his age. He could swing a sword.”
Mia blinked. “… You have a son?”
The man glanced at his sword, shrugged once. “Not anymore.”
Mia’s heart sank into her belly. “Goddess, Butcher, I’m—”
“Besides, he’s brother to Mia the Crow,” the Liisian grinned crooked, darting around the subject with more skill than he’d ever shown on the sands. “If he wants to live up to his sister’s feats in the arena, he’d best start learning now, neh?”
“I don’t—”
“I am not small.” The boy stood, his old imperiousness resurfacing. “I’m very tall for my age, actually. And Father said all a man needs to win is the will that others lack.”
Mia sucked her bottom lip, reminded of Scaeva’s words to her in his study. That trinity spinning and burning in his hand. The imperator still standing, still speaking, while she was laid out on the ground in a shivering ball of pain.
Father …
“Can’t argue with that, I suppose,” she sighed.
Butcher’s face split into his gap-toothed grin, and he beckoned to Bladesinger, who tossed him her sword. Mia watched from the corner of her eye as the Liisian began running her brother through basics of grip and stance and tactics (“When in doubt, always go for the bollocks”). She supposed it would keep Jonnen moving, at least. Keep him warm. But truth was, part of her wanted to protect the boy from this world of hers.
All the shit and hurt in it.
Ash sat by the fire, Mia a little farther away so as not to risk a burning. The flames still reached toward her, but not as fierce as when she drew close. ’Singer crouched between, stretching out her hands to warm them. Mia could see the awful scar on her swordarm, earned during their battle with the silkling at Whitekeep. The wound had almost seen her sold off by their domina, and Mia couldn’t help but wonder.
“How’s it healing?” she asked.
Bladesinger glanced at Mia, firelight flickering on her tattooed skin. “Slow.”
“How’s your swordgrip?”
The woman’s lip quirked, her eyes narrowed. “No fear on that front, Crow.”
Mia shook her head and smiled. “Never.”
The Dweymeri watched the flames for a few moments, obviously wrestling inside.
“So, the soulless one,” she finally said. “The deadboy. What’s his tale?”
“He’s a friend of ours.” Mia glanced at Ashlinn. “Well … mine, I suppose.”
“What do you mean soulless?” Ashlinn asked.
“I mean there’s naught to him but meat and bone, lass.” Bladesinger touched her breastplate. “Empty here. What’s he doing traveling with you?”
“It’s…” Mia shook her head, looking at the flames. “It’s a long tale.”
“What Butcher said was true, you know.” Bladesinger glanced out into the rain as if she feared Tric might be listening. “I’ve marked it, too. There’s more color to his flesh now than in Whitekeep. Less chill to the air about him.”
“It’s the sunslight, I think,” Mia replied. “He grows stronger the weaker it becomes. Just like me. But don’t fear, ’Singer. He’s been sent back to help us.”
’Singer raised one dark eyebrow, shook her head. “I studied seven years at the feet of the suffi in Farrow, girl. Learned about every god, every creed under the suns. And I tell you now, the dead don’t help the living. They only hinder us. And they don’t return lest they’ve business unfinished. What dies should stay that way.”
Mia glanced at Ashlinn, found the girl staring back with an I told you so look in her eye. But Ashlinn had the presence of mind to keep silent.
“He’s my friend, Bladesinger.” Mia sighed. “He saved my life.”
“Look at his eyes, Crow,”’Singer said. “No matter the new flush in his cheeks or the fresh spring in his step. Our eyes are the windows on our soul, and I tell you true, his look in on an empty room.”
Sidonius stomped in from the storm, dripping head to feet and looking utterly wretched. He pulled off his helm and sopping cloak, shook himself like a dog.
“Four Daughters, it’s falling harder than an inkfiend on the nod out there…”
He looked about the tower’s belly, noted the strain in the air.
“… What’s amiss?”
“Nothing,” Mia said. “Where’s Tric?”
“Still roaming.” Sid crouched by the cooking pit and stretched his hands toward the blaze. “He headed south, checking the scrubland. Sniffing the air as he went like a hound on the hunt. Strange bastard, that one.”
“Aye,” Ashlinn murmured, looking at Mia. “Deathly strange.”
“Oi, Sid,” Butcher called. “Come over here and show the boy that fancy spin move you do. The one that gutted that scythebear in Whitekeep.”
“Ah, you mean the widowmaker!” Sid grinned, dragging his hand along his scalp. “I’m not sure our young consul is ready for that one.”
“I can do it,” Jonnen insisted. “Watch.”
The boy lashed out with his gladius, one, two, his shadow dancing on the wall, his steps as clumsy as a nine-year-old with five minutes of practice under his belt.
“Impressive,” Sidonius smiled. “All right, I’ll show you. But you must promise not to use it unless at the utmost need. You could kill a silkling with this one.”
The Itreyan stood, trudged around the cooking pit, and began running Jonnen through the move. Mia watched the pair of them for a time, a small, sad smile on her lips. Truth was, this tiny respite, these friends and familia around her—it was the closest she’d had to normalcy for eight years. She wondered what her life might have been. What she might have had before it was all taken away from her. What she would have traded to make it so again. But soon enough, she turned her eyes from the fire, out into the storm. Watching the trees sway in the grip of the wind, the flashes of lightning clawing the ocean of black cloud above.
Black like his hands.
Like his eyes.
Hazel once …
“An empty room,” she muttered.
“What did you say, love?” Ash asked.
But Mia made no reply.
CHAPTER 19
QUIET
Bryn stood close enough to Wavewaker to feel the warmth of his body.
Wondering if she should step closer still.
She’d always had a fancy for him, truth told. Big hands and broad shoulders and a voice that just did things to her. But there was no opportunity for that kind of fraternization under the watchful eye of the executus in Remus Collegium, and the big Dweymeri s
eemed a little ambivalent to her anyways. So Bryn had always kept her feelings in a small room in the back of her skull, only letting them out when she was alone in her cell at nevernight and the desire to scratch the itch became too much to ignore.
But now …
… now they were free.
Free to do whatever they wanted.
The last two years fighting and bleeding on the sands had taught her how thin the thread holding them to this life was. The loss of her brother Byern was still a raw ache in her heart, and Bryn wondered if she’d ever truly feel whole again. But she knew only fools didn’t take their chances when they could, and here her chance was, standing right in front of her. Since Wavewaker’s revelation about “waiting for the right woman” earlier, the urge to tell him how sweet she thought he was burned in her chest. Too bright to ignore. Even if she wanted to.
And I don’t want to.
“Can’t see a damned thing in all this,” the big man muttered.
His big brown eyes were on the countryside around them. The woods and rocks were draped in a gray curtain of chill and driving rain. Crystal clear droplets rolled down his smooth, dark skin, dripped from his black saltlocks and beard. The intricate inkwerk on his cheeks seemed a puzzle for the solving.
“It’s a storm, all right,” she agreed.
Stupid, stupid.
Think of something clever to say, woman.
“Are you cold?” she asked hopefully.
Wavewaker shook his head, eyes still on the wash of gray. Lightning crackled across the skies above the crumbling tower, illuminating the swaying greenery below, the broken stonework, the creeping ruin. The light was bright as the suns for a moment, shadows marked in black, the whole world flashing in strobe.
Bryn stepped closer, laid a gentle touch on his arm.
“I’m cold,” she declared, in what she hoped was a sultry voice.
“You can head downstairs,”’Waker offered, turning to scan the ground to the south. “Smells like they’ve got the fire going. I can keep watch up here.”
Bryn’s eyebrows rose slowly toward her hairline. Wavewaker was utterly oblivious, looking out into the gloom and humming a soft tune in that oceans-deep baritone. She pressed her lips together, pouted in thought—or at least she tried to think. The vibration of those caramel-smooth tones in her loins wasn’t making it easy.
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