by Jay Kristoff
“I take my husband’s body to be buried at Crow’s Nest, in the crypt of his familia.”
“Have you asked permission of Justicus Remus?”
“I congratulate our new justicus on his promotion.” A glance at the wolfish one. “My husband’s cloak fits him well. But why would I need him to grant my passage?”
“Not permission to leave the city, Mi Dona. Permission to bury your Darius. I am unsure if Justicus Remus wishes a traitor’s corpse rotting in his basement.”
Realization dawned in the Dona’s face. “You would not dare…”
“I?” The consul raised one sculpted eyebrow. “This is the will of the Senate, Dona Corvere. Justicus Remus has been rewarded your late husband’s estates for uncovering his heinous plot against the Republic. Any loyal citizen would see it fitting tithe.”
Murder gleamed in the Dona’s eyes. She glanced at the loitering servants.
“Leave us.”
The girls scuttled from the room. Glancing at the Luminatii, Dona Corvere aimed a pointed stare at the consul. It seemed to Mia the man wavered in his certainty, yet finally, he nodded to the wolfish one.
“Await me outside, Justicus.”
The hulking Luminatii glanced at her mother. Down to the girl. Hands large enough to envelop her entire head twitched. The girl stared back.
Never flinch. Never fear.
“Luminus Invicta, Consul.” Remus nodded to his men, and amid the synchronized tromp tromp of heavy boots, the room found itself emptied of all but three people.2
The Dona Corvere’s voice was a fresh-sharpened knife into overripe fruit.
“What do you want, Julius?”
“You know it full well, Alinne. I want what is mine.”
“You have what is yours. Your hollow victory. Your precious Republic. I trust it keeps you warm at night.”
Consul Julius looked down at Mia, his smile dark as bruises. “Would you like to know what keeps me warm at night, little one?”
“Do not look at her. Do not speak to—”
His slap whipped her head to one side, dark hair flowing like tattered ribbons. And before Mia could blink, her mother had drawn a long, gravebone blade from her sleeve, its hilt crafted like a crow with red amber eyes. Quick as silver, she pressed it to the consul’s throat, his handprint on her face twisting as she snarled.
“Touch me again and I’ll cut your fucking throat, whoreson.”
Scaeva didn’t flinch.
“You can drag the girl from the gutter, but never the gutter from the girl.” He smiled with perfect teeth, glanced at Mia. “But you know the price your loved ones would pay if you pressed that blade any deeper. Your political allies have abandoned you. Romero. Juliannus. Gracius. Even Florenti himself has fled Godsgrave. You are alone, my beauty.”
“I am not your—”
Scaeva slapped the stiletto away, sent it skittering across the floor to the shadow beneath the curtain. Stepping closer, his eyes narrowed.
“You should envy your dear Darius, Alinne. I showed him a mercy. There will be no hangman’s gift for you. Just an oubliette in the Philosopher’s Stone, and dark a lifetime long. And as you go blind in the black, sweet Mother Time will lay claim your beauty, and your will, and your thin conviction you were anything more than Liisian shit wrapped in Itreyan silk.”
Their lips were so close they almost touched. Eyes searching hers.
“But I will spare your family, Alinne. I will spare them if you plead me for it.”
“She’s ten years old, Julius. You wouldn’t—”
“Would I not? Know me so well, do you?”
Mia looked up at her mother. Tears welling in her eyes.
“What is it you told me, Alinne? ‘Neh diis lus’a, lus diis’a’?”
“… Mother?” Mia said.
“One word and your daughter will be safe. I swear it.”
“Mother?”
“Julius…”
“Yes?”
“I…”
There is a breed of arachnid in Vaan known as the wellspring spider.
The females are black as truedark, and possessed of the most astonishing maternal instinct in the animal republic. Once impregnated, a female builds a larder, stocks it with corpses, then seals herself inside. If the nest is set ablaze, she’ll burn to death rather than abandon it. If beset by a predator, she’ll die defending her clutch. But so fierce is her refusal to leave her young, once her eggs are laid, she won’t move, even to hunt. And herein lies the wellspring’s claim to the title of fiercest mother in the Republic. For once she’s devoured all the stores within her larder, the female begins devouring herself.
One leg at a time.
Plucking her limbs from her thorax. Eating only enough to sustain her vigil. Ripping and chewing until only one leg remains, clinging to the silken treasure trove swelling beneath her. And when her babies hatch, spilling from the strands she so lovingly wrapped them inside, they partake, there and then, of their very first meal.
The mother who bore them.
I tell you now, gentlefriend, and I vow it true, the fiercest wellspring spider in all the Republic had nothing—I say nothing—on Alinne Corvere.
There in that O, so tiny room, Mia felt her mother’s fists clench.
Pride tightening her jaw.
Agony brightening her eyes.
“Please,” the Dona finally hissed, as if the very word burned her. “Spare her, Julius.”
A victorious smile, bright as all three suns. The beautiful consul backed away, black eyes never leaving her mother’s. He called as he reached the doorway, robes flowing about him like smoke. And without a word, the Luminatii marched back into the room. The wolfish one tore Mia from her mother’s skirts. Captain Puddles mreowled protest. Mia clutched the tom tightly, tears burning her eyes.
“Stop it! Don’t touch my mother!”
“Dona Corvere, I bind you by book and chain for crimes of conspiracy and treason against the Itreyan Republic. You will accompany us to the Philosopher’s Stone.”
Irons were slapped around the dona’s wrists, screwed tight enough to make her wince. The wolfish one turned to the consul, glanced at Mia with a question in his eyes.
“The children?”
The consul glanced to little Jonnen, still wrapped in his swaddling on the bed.
“The babe is still at the breast. He can accompany his mother to the Stone.”
“And the girl?”
“You promised, Julius!” Dona Corvere struggled in the Luminatii’s grip. “You swore!”
Scaeva acted as if the woman had never spoken. He looked down at Mia, sobbing at the foot of the bed, Captain Puddles clutched to her thin chest.
“Did your mother ever teach you to swim, little one?”
Trelene’s Beau spat Mia onto a miserable pier, jutting from the nethers of a ruined port known as Last Hope. Buildings littered the ocean’s edge like a prizefighter’s teeth, a stone garrison tower and outlying farms completed the oil painting. The populace consisted of fishermen, farmers, a particularly foolish brand of fortune hunter who earned a living raiding old Ashkahi ruins, and a slightly more intelligent variant who made their coin looting the corpses of colleagues.
As she stepped onto the jetty, Mia saw three bent fishermen lurking around a rod and a bottle of green ginger wine. The men looked at her the way maggots eye rotten meat. The girl stared at each in turn, waiting to see if any would offer to dance.3
Wolfeater clomped down the gangplank, several crew in tow. The captain noted the hungry stares fixed on the girl—sixteen years old, alone, armed only with a pig-sticker. Propping one boot on a jetty stump, the big Dweymeri lit his pipe, wiped sweat from tattooed cheeks.
“It’s the smallest spiders that have the darkest poison, lads,” he warned the fishermen.
Wolfeater’s word seemed to carry some weight among the scoundrels, as they turned back to the water, slurping and bubbling against the jetty’s legs.
Mildly disappointe
d, the girl offered the captain her hand.
“My thanks for your hospitality, sir.”
Wolfeater stared at her outstretched fingers, exhaled a lungful of pale gray.
“Few enough reasons folk come to old Ashkah, lass. Fewer still a girl like you would brave parts this grim. And I’ve no wish to cause offense. But I’ll not touch your hand.”
“And why is that, sir?”
“Because I know the name of the ones who touched it first.” He glanced at her shadow, fingering the draketooth necklace at his throat. “If such things have names. I know for damned sure they have memories, and I’ll not have them remember mine.”
The girl smiled soft. Put her hand back to her belt.
“Trelene watch over you, then, Captain.”
“Blue below and blue above you, girl.”
She turned and stalked down the pier, the glare of a single sun in her eyes, looking for the building Mercurio had named for her. With heart in throat, she found it soon enough—a disheveled little establishment at the water’s crust. A creaking sign above the doorway identified it as the Old Imperial. A sign in one filthy window informed Mia “Help” was, in fact, “Wonted.”
It was a bucktoothed little shithole, and no mistake. Not the most miserable building in all creation.4 But if the inn were a man and you stumbled on him in a bar, you’d be forgiven for assuming he had—after agreeing enthusiastically to his wife’s request to bring another woman into their marriage bed—discovered his bride making up a pallet for him in the guest room.
The girl padded up to the bar, her back as close to the wall as she could get it. A dozen or so folk had escaped the turn’s heat inside—a few locals and a handful of well-armed tomb-raiders. All in the room stopped to stare as she entered; if anyone had been manning the old harpsichord in the corner, they’d surely have hit a wrong note for dramatic effect, but alas, the beast hadn’t uttered a squeak in years.5
The Imperial’s proprietor seemed a harmless fellow—almost out of place in this town on the edge of the abyss. His eyes were a little too close together, and he reeked of rotten fish, but considering the stories Mia had heard about the Ashkahi Whisperwastes, she was just glad the fellow didn’t have tentacles. He was propped behind the bar in a grubby apron (bloodstains?) cleaning a dirty mug with a dirtier rag. Mia noticed one of his eyes moved slightly before the other, like a child leading a slow cousin by the hand.
“Good turning to you, sir,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “Aa bless and keep you.”
“Come in wiv Wolfeater’s mob, didjer?”
“Well spotted, sir.”
“Pay’s four beggars weekly, but yer get board onna top.6 Twenty percent of anyfing you make turning trick onna side comes to me direct. And I’ll need a sample a’fore yer hired. Fair?”
Mia’s smile dragged the proprietor’s behind the bar and quietly strangled it.
It made very little sound as it died.
“I’m afraid you misunderstand, sir,” she said. “I am not here to apply for employ within your”—a glance about her—“no doubt fine establishment.”
A sniff. “Whya ’ere then?”
She placed the sheepskin purse atop the bar. The treasure within clinked with a tune nothing like gold. If you were in the business of dentistry, you might have recognized that the tiny orchestra inside the bag was comprised entirely of human teeth.
It took her a moment to speak. To find the words she’d practiced until she dreamed them.
“My tithe for the Maw.”
The man looked at her, expression unreadable. Mia tried to keep the tremors from her breath, her hands. Six years it had taken her to come this far. Six years of rooftops and alleys and sleepless nevernights. Of dusty tomes and bleeding fingers and noxious gloom. But at last, she stood on the threshold, a small nod away from the vaunted halls of the Red—
“What’s me maw got tado wivvit?” the proprietor blinked.
Mia kept her face as stone, despite the dreadful flips her insides were undertaking. She glanced around the room. The tomb-raiders were bent over their map. A handful of local wags were playing “spank” with a pack of moldy cards. A woman in desert-colored robes and a veil was drawing spiral patterns on a tabletop with what looked like blood.
“The Maw,” Mia repeated. “This is my tithe.”
“Maw’s dead,” the barman frowned.
“… What?”
“Been dead nigh on four truedarks now.”
“The Maw,” she scowled. “Dead. Are you mad?”
“You’re the one bringing my old dead mum presents, lass.”
Realization tapped her on the shoulder, danced a funny little jig.
Ta-da.
“I’m not talking about your mother you fucki—”
Mia caught her temper by the collar, gave it a good hard shake. Clearing her throat, she brushed her crooked fringe from her eyes.
“I do not refer to your mother, sir. I mean the Maw. Niah. The Goddess of Night. Our Lady of Blessed Murder. Sisterwife to Aa, and mother to the hungry dark within us all.”
“O, you mean the Maw.”
“Yes.” The word was a rock, hurled right between the barman’s eyes. “The Maw.”
“Sorry,” the man said, sheepishly. “It’s just the accent, y’know.”
Mia glared.
The barman cleared his throat. “There’s no church to the Maw ’round ’ere, lass. Worship of ’er kind’s outlawed, even onna fringe. Got no business wiv Muvvers of Night and someandsuch in this particular place of business. Bad for the grub.”
“You are Fat Daniio, proprietor of the Old Imperial?”
“I’m not fat—”
Mia slapped the bartop. Several of the spank players turned to stare.
“But your name is Daniio?” she hissed.
A pause. Brow creased in thought. The gaze of Daniio’s slow cousin eye seemed to be wandering off, as if distracted by pretty flowers, or perhaps a rainbow.7
“Aye,” Daniio finally said.
“I was told—specifically told, mind you—to come to the Old Imperial on the coast of Ashkah and give Fat Daniio my tithe.” Mia pushed the purse across the counter. “So take it.”
“What’s in it?”
“Trophy of a killer, killed in kind.”
“Eh?”
“The teeth of Augustus Scipio, high executioner of the Itreyan Senate.”
“Is he comin’ ’ere to get them?”
Mia bit her lip. Closed her eyes.
“… No.”
“How the ’byss did he lose his—”
“He didn’t lose them,” Mia leaned further forward, smell be damned. “I tore them out of his skull after I cut his miserable throat.”
Fat Daniio fell silent. An almost thoughtful expression crossed his face. He leaned in close, wreathed in the stench of rotten fish, tears springing unbidden to Mia’s eyes.
“’Scuse me then, lass. But what am I sposed to do with some dead tosser’s teeth?”
The door creaked open, and the Wolfeater ducked below the frame, stepping into the Old Imperial as if he owned a part share in it.8 A dozen crewmen followed, cramming into dingy booths and leaning against the creaking bar. With an apologetic shrug, Fat Daniio set to serving the Dweymeri sailors. Mia caught his sleeve as he headed toward the booths.
“Do you have rooms here, sir?”
“Aye, we do. One beggar a week, mornmeal extra.”
Mia pushed an iron coin into Fat Daniio’s paw.
“Please let me know when that runs out.”
A week with no sign, no word, no whisper save the winds off the wastes.
The crew of Trelene’s Beau stayed aboard their ship while they resupplied, availing themselves of the town’s amenities frequently. A typical nevernight would commence with grub at the Old Imperial, a sally forth into the arms of Dona Amile and her “dancers” at the appropriately named Seven Flavors,9 before returning to the Imperial for a session of liquor, song, and the occasional
friendly knife fight. Only one finger was removed during the entirety of their stay. Its owner took its loss with good humor.
Mia sat in a gloomy corner with the hangman’s teeth pouched up on the wood before her. Eyes on the door every time it creaked. Eating the occasional bowl of astonishingly hot (and she had to admit, delicious) bowls of Fat Daniio’s “widowmaker” chili, her frown growing darker as the turning of the Beau’s departure drew ever closer.
Could Mercurio have been wrong? It’d been years since he’d sent an apprentice to the Red Church. Maybe the place had been swallowed by the wastes? Maybe the Luminatii had finally laid them to rest, as Justicus Remus had vowed to do after the Truedark Massacre?
And perhaps this is all a test. To see if you’ll run like a frightened child …
She’d poke around the town at the turn of each nevernight, listening in doorways, almost invisible beneath her cloak of shadows. She came to know Last Hope’s residents all too well. The seer who augured for the town’s womenfolk, interpreting signs from a withered tome of Ashkahi script she couldn’t actually read. The slave boy from Seven Flavors, plotting to murder his madam and flee into the wastes.
The Luminatii legionaries stationed in the garrison tower were the most miserable soldiers Mia had ever come across. Two dozen men at civilization’s end, a few sunsteel blades between them and the horrors of the Ashkahi Whisperwastes. The winds blowing off the old empire’s ruins were said to drive men mad, but Mia was sure boredom would do for the legionaries long before the whisperwinds did. They spoke constantly of home, of women, of whatever sins they’d committed to be stationed in the Republic’s arse-end.10 After a week, Mia was sick of all of them. And not a single one spoke a word of the Red Church.
Seven turns after she’d arrived in Last Hope, Mia sat watching the Beau’s crew seal their holds, their calls rough with grog. Part of her wanted little more than to skulk aboard as they put out to the blue. Run back home to Mercurio. But truth was, she’d come too far to give up now. If the Church expected her to tuck tail at the first obstacle, they knew her not at all.
Sitting atop the Old Imperial’s roof, she watched the Beau sail from the bay, a clove cigarillo at her lips. The whisperwinds rolled off the wastes behind her, shapeless as dreams. She glanced at the cat who wasn’t a cat, sitting in the long shadow the suns cast for her. Its voice was the kiss of velvet on a baby’s skin.