by Jay Kristoff
“Maw’s teeth,” she croaked.
She was wrapped in soft cloth, escorted by one of the Hands to a large antechamber. There, she found Shahiid Aalea, washing herself down in the second of three triangular baths. The woman was rinsing her hair with ladles of warm, scented water. The perfume of flowers hung in the steaming air, but beneath it, Mia could smell death. Blood. Offal and shit.
“Wash yourself in the first,” Aalea said, pointing to a bath filled with blood-stained water. “Soap yourself in the second. Rinse in the third.”
Mia nodded mutely, stripped off her sodden shift and stepped into the first bath. Aalea was soaking in the third and Mia climbing into the second when Ashlinn staggered into the room, painted head to foot, bright blue eyes blinking in a mask of sticky red.
“Well, that was different,” she said.
Aalea laughed, rising from the steam and slipping on a silk robe. She pointed to a painted red door. “When you are ready, you will find clothes through here, loves.”
Smiling, the woman padded away on bare feet. Ashlinn stripped off her slip and jumped into the bath, plunging below the surface and turning the waters a deeper red. She reappeared after a spell, pawing crimson water from her eyes.
“So that’s the Blood Walk,” she explained.
“That’s what they call it?” Mia asked.
“Aye.” The girl tilted her head to knock the water from her ears. “Da said it’s how Blades move about the Republic. A chapel in every major city, devoted to the Mother. Provided there’s a bloodbath there, Adonai can Walk us to any of them. All of them.”
“You mean my master made me trek across the Whisperwastes for nothing?”
Ash shrugged. “They don’t let just anyone Walk, Corvere. Adonai needs to permit you to pass the threshold. The Red Church isn’t about to let every would-be novice know they’ve got access to an Ashkahi blood speaker. If the Senate found out, they’d stop at nothing to get their hands on Adonai. Imagine if the Republic could move its armies about the world at will?”
“But they trust us to know? We’ve only been acolytes for a month or two.”
Ash simply shrugged.
“Maw’s teeth, where do they get it all?” Mia breathed. “There must be gallons.”
Ashlinn wiggled her eyebrows. “You’ll see soon enough.”
“… I’m not going to like it, am I?”
Ashlinn simply laughed and sank below the bloodstained water.
“The Porkery,” Mia breathed. “Of course.”
Looking out over an oinking sea, Mia felt the unpleasant pieces falling into place.
From her childhood spent below the Hips, she knew four abattoirs skirted Godsgrave’s Bay of Butchers—four mountains of offal and stench, spitting fresh meat onto the plates of the wealthy, and shitting their leavings into the bay. Two dealt with cattle, the third in exotic meats, and the fourth only with pigs. Known as “the Porkery,” it was comparatively small, and better appointed than its counterparts. Run by a man known only as “Bacon” and his three sons, “Ham,” “Trotter,” and “Piglet,” it was famous among Godsgrave’s marrowborn for having the finest cuts in all Itreya, and among more questionable folk as an excellent place to dispose of a body, should one happen to create a body the Luminatii might be interested in.3
The female acolytes had dressed in simple leathers and cloaks, armed themselves with plain but functional blades from the large armory off the bathhouse, and been led up a spiraling staircase. The stench of offal and excrement had grown stronger, until finally they’d emerged on a wooden mezzanine. The hour was late and the butchers had gone home for nevernight, but a seething mass of pigs was milling about in a large pen below. On the bloodstained stone of the killing floor, Mia saw drains in the rock, no doubt leading down to the pool beneath. Putting two and two together, the girl discovered she was beginning to hate mathematics.
“We just bathed in pig’s blood,” Carlotta said flatly.
“Probably people blood, too,” Mia said.
“… Tell me you’re jesting.”
Mia shook her head. “A lot of the Godsgrave braavi get rid of their messes down here when they don’t want questions asked.”
Carlotta stared. Mia shrugged.
“Hungry pig will eat just about anything.”
“O, lovely,” the girl muttered, wringing out her long bangs.
“Master Bacon and his sons are Hands of the Church,” Aalea said. “The coin they make from the local braavi assists with Godsgrave operations. And I must confess, the irony is delicious. I wonder if this city’s marrowborn would be as fond of Bacon’s Fynest Cuts if they knew exactly what went into the pigs they were cut from.”4
“Juuuust lovely.” Carlotta deadpanned, wringing harder at her hair.
“Blood is blood, love,” the Shahiid smiled. “Pigs. Paupers. Cattle. Kings. It makes no difference to Our Lady. It all stains alike. And it all washes out the same.”
Mia looked into the woman’s eyes. Beyond the kohl and the paint. Beyond that dark beauty. It would’ve been easy to think that callousness made her talk so. The mark of dozens of murders draining her of all empathy, like Naev had warned. But Mia realized it was something different that drove the Shahiid of Masks in her service to the Lady of Blessed Murder. Something altogether more frightening, simply because Mia didn’t quite share it.
Devotion.
The truth was, she didn’t know if she truly believed. Light gods in the sky watching her? Mothers of Night counting her sins? If the waves drowned a sailor, was it because the Lady of Oceans hadn’t been given proper sacrifice, or the Lady of Storms was in a mood? Or was it all chance? Fate? And was it folly to think otherwise?
Her faith hadn’t always been so shaky. Once she’d been as devout as a priest. Praying to mighty Aa, to the Four Daughters, to anyone who’d listen. Pricking her fingers with needles, or burning tiny locks of her hair in sacrifice. Closing her eyes and begging Him to bring her Mother home. Keep her brother safe. That one turn—one bright, wonderful turn—they’d all be together again. Praying every nevernight before she crawled into bed above Mercurio’s store.
Every nevernight until the truedark of her fourteenth year.
And since then?
Don’t look.
“Go, loves,” Aalea said. “Bring me secrets. Lovely secrets. Return here before the nevernight ends, your pockets full of whispers. And while you venture out into Aa’s sight, may our Blessed Lady watch over you, and shield you from his accursed light.”
“Lady, watch over us,” Ash repeated.
“Lady, watch over us,” the other novices said.
Mia closed her eyes. Bowed her head. Pretending she was that fourteen-year-old girl again. The girl who believed prayers could make a difference, who believed the divinities actually cared, who believed somehow, someway, everything would be all right in the end.
“Lady,” she whispered. “Watch over us.”
Each acolyte knew she’d be judged on the merits of the secrets she brought back, and there was no prize for collaboration. So, although Ash was grand company and Mia was growing to enjoy Carlotta’s gallows humor and quick mind, the acolytes split up as soon as they were able. Mia knew the harbor district like a thirteen-year-old boy knows his own right hand, and she slunk back and forth through the dogleg alleys and squeezeways until she was certain no other followed.
It was strange being out in the sunslight after months of constant darkness. The glare was painful, and though the shadow she cast was sharp and black and deep, she felt her kinship to it as indistinct, rather than the easy control she knew inside the Quiet Mountain. She fished about inside her cloak, slipped on a pair of wire spectacles with azurite lenses she’d lifted from the armory.5
“… where do we go . .?” asked a whisper at her feet.
“If it’s secrets Aalea wants,” Mia smiled, “it’s secrets she’ll get.”
Off through the sprawl, over bridge and under stair, the stink of the bay receding. Never
night had been chimed to the tune of howling winds, and the streets were mostly empty. Patrols of Luminatii in their red cloaks clomped up and down the blustering thoroughfares, and bellboys stood on corners ringing in the hour over the squall, but mostly, the citizenry had retired for the eve. With only Saan in the sky, the weather was turning chill, the winds off the bay were bitterly cold. Mia trod down the twisting canals, shoulders hunched, finally arriving at the squalid stretch of dirt she’d bloomed in. The alleys encircling the marketplace of Little Liis.
Saan hung low, and the shadows were long. She wrapped herself in darkness, stole past the beggars and urchins squabbling over stolen spoils or games of dice. A small shrine to the Lady of Fire was set in one wall, Tsana’s statue surrounded by guttering candles. A goddess of warriors and war, her temples were scattered all over Godsgrave; even in peacetime, there was no shortage of petty grievance or conflict in which Tsana was asked to choose a side. But this particular shrine was unattended.
Mia cast aside her shadow cloak, looked about to check all was clear. Satisfied, she reached up and turned the statue to face northeast. Dipping her fingers in the ashes, she knelt at the shrine’s base and wrote the number “3” and the word “queen” in charcoal between the statue’s feet. Then she pulled the shadows back around herself, and flitted away from the market.
Mia stalked through the Hips, past busking minstrels and overflowing bawdy houses, nodding politely to the Luminatii patrols she passed along the way. She crossed the Bridge of Broken Promises,6 an old man punted along the canal below in a pretty gondola, singing the chorus of “Mi Aami” in a deep, mournful voice.
“… where do we go now . .?”
“The Shield Arm.”
“… i hate the shield arm . .”
“Your objection is duly noted.”
“… you expect to find secrets there…?”
“A friend.”
Shield Arm sits on the upper east side of the Godsgrave archipelago, comprising five main islands. Like many regions of the metropolis—Heart, Nethers, Spine—it is so named for a simple reason; if you were gifted with wings, gentlefriend, or simply turned to the map at the front of this tome, you might notice that the contours of the City of Bridges and Bones bear a remarkable similarity to those of a headless figure lying on its back.
Shield Arm is home to judiciary buildings and an astonishing number of cathedrals, and is the ingress point of Godsgrave’s vast aqueduct. The islands also house the headquarters of the Luminatii—the White Palazzo—along with two of Godsgrave’s ten war walkers. The iron giants loomed over the surrounding buildings, fingers curled into titanic fists.
Mia made her way to the great square at the Shield Arm’s heart, Piazza d’Vitrium. With a polite nod to the watchmen outside, she passed the White Palazzo, with its fluted granite columns and magnificent archways, a great statue of Aa looming out front. The Everseeing One was arrayed in battle garb, sword and shield raised. Remembering her encounter in the Hall of Pockets, Mia found herself averting her eyes from the Trinity emblazoned on his breastplate.
The girl stepped up to a neat taverna on the square’s edge. The sign above the door read “The Queen’s Bed.”7 After a slow reconnoiter around the building’s alleys, she stepped inside and found a booth in a shady corner. She ordered whiskey when a weary barmaid came by to ask her pleasure. And as she took a seat, the cathedrals all around began to strike twelve.
“… here we go…”
“Shhh.”
“… i told you i hate this place…”
Mia found the tolling pretty, truth be told. The notes weaving and crashing together, sleeping pigeons bursting from the bell towers and out into the winds. She watched the guard change outside the White Palazzo as the hour rang in, patrols of Luminatii in their white armor and red cloaks rolling in and out like waves. She thought of her father, arrayed in the same colors, standing handsome and tall as the sky. The men who smiled as he died. Downing her whiskey and ordering another.
And then, she settled in to wait.
Hours passed. The bells struck one, then two. She nursed her drink, listened to the quiet conversations of the few customers still awake at this hour. Wondering where the other acolytes might be, what secrets they might be learning. And as the bells finally struck three, the chimes above the doorway rang, and a figure in a tricorn hat and long leather greatcoat stepped inside. Her stomach flipped to see him, and a smile curled her lips. He glanced about the taverna and spied her in her corner. Ordering a mulled wine, he limped to her booth, walking stick clacking on the boards.
“Hello, little Crow,” Mercurio said.
The maid appeared with the wine, and Mia forced herself to sit still as the girl fussed about. When they were alone, she squeezed the old man’s hand, overjoyed to see him again.
“Shahiid,” she whispered.
“Your face looks … different.” He frowned. “Better.”
“Would that I could say the same for you,” she smiled.
“Still the same smartarse underneath the pretty, then.” Mercurio sniffed. “I won’t insult you by asking if you were followed. Though you picked a fine place for a clandestine meeting.”
She nodded to the White Palazzo across the square. “Chances of running into my fellow acolytes are small in this part of town.”
“I see they haven’t killed you yet.”
“Not for lack of trying.”
The old man smiled. “Spiderkiller, aye?”
Mia blinked. “You knew she’d do that to us? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I didn’t know for certain. They change the testings every year. But initiates are sworn to secrecy, regardless, and if you acted like you knew the punch was coming, they’d start wondering why.” The old man shrugged. “Besides, I obviously taught you what you needed to know. You still being alive and all.”
Mia flapped her lips for a while, but found no retort. It was true what the old man said. He had given her the copy of Arkemical Truths, after all. Thank the Maw she’d actually spent more time reading it than most of the others in her crop …
“… Fair enough,” she finally muttered.
“So. What brings you back to the ’Grave? Aalea?”
“Aye.”
Mercurio nodded. “You’re lucky. They change the city every year. You can’t hurl a rock without hitting a gossip in Godsgrave. My year, Old Shahiid Thelonius sent us to bloody Farrow. Imagine grubbing for tidbits among a pack of Dweymeri fisherwives…”
“I’ve never been all that grand at learning secrets.”
“Shouldn’t you be out practicing, then?”
“I thought you might loan me one so I can spend the time drinking with you instead.”
Mercurio scoffed, blue eyes wrinkling as he smiled. Mia’s heart warmed to be with him again—though it’d barely been three months since she left Godsgrave, she had to admit she’d missed the cranky old bastard. She set about telling him of the Church in hushed tones. The Mountain. Her run-in with Solis.
“Aye, he’s a bleeding prick,” Mercurio muttered. “Damn fine swordsman, though. Mark his teaching well.”
“Hard for me to learn anything when I can’t attend lessons.” She proffered her arm, her elbow now a lovely shade of yellow and gray. “It’s taking bloody ages to heal.”
“That’s bullshit,” Mercurio spat. “It’s hardly even bruised. You get back in that hall on the morrow.” The old man raised his voice over the beginnings of Mia’s protest. “So Solis gave your arse a kicking. Learn from it. Sometimes weakness is a weapon. If you’re smart enough to use it.”
Mia chewed her lip. Nodded slow. She knew he spoke truth, that she should be learning all from Solis that she could. Now that she was back in Godsgrave, her reason for studying at the Church burned in her mind hotter than ever. Everywhere she looked, she saw reminders. The Ribs where she’d lived as a child. The Luminatii and their bright white armor, reminding her so much of her father.
The bastards who took him
from her …
“Any news about Scaeva since I’ve been gone?” she asked.
Mercurio sighed. “Well, he’s standing for a fourth term as sole consul, but that shouldn’t surprise anyone. He’s got half the Senate in his thrall, and the other half are too scared or greedy to raise a ruckus. Looks like the second consul’s chair will remain empty for the foreseeable future.”
Mia shook her head, silently amazed. When the Republic had been founded, when the Itreyans murdered their last king, the system they built in the monarchy’s ruins was meant to make a new monarchy impossible. The Itreyans elected consuls to rule them every truedark, but there were two consul’s chairs in the Senate House, and no consul was permitted to sit two terms in a row. That was the entire point of the Republic. All tenure of power was shared, and all tenure of power was short.
When General Antonius raised his army in rebellion against the Senate, Scaeva had dredged up some anachronistic amendments in the Itreyan constitution that allowed him to sit as sole consul in the Republic’s time of need, but …
“He’s still citing emergency powers?” Mia sighed. “The Kingmaker Rebellion was put down six years ago. The balls on that bastard…”
“Well, he might’ve had a hard time convincing the Senate there was still a crisis, but when an assassin tries to murder the head of the Republic in a cathedral full of witnesses, it gets a touch easier to make the case. The Truedark Massacre showed the Senate just how dangerous this city still is. You’d need a bloody army to get through to Scaeva now. He doesn’t take a piss without a cadre of Luminatii to hold the pot.”
Mia sipped her whiskey. Eyes on the table.
“Cardinal Duomo is still on Scaeva like a babe at his mother’s tit, of course,” Mercurio muttered. “Has his ministers preaching from the pulpits, praising our ‘glorious consul’ and his ‘golden age of peace.’” The old man scoffed. “Golden age of tyranny, more like it. We’re closer to a new arse on the throne than when the Kingmakers raised their army. But the plebs lap it up. Peace means stability. And stability means money. Scaeva’s near untouchable now.”