by Jay Kristoff
The realization came as she took her place in the circle, throwing knives held in her teeth. As Mia tied her long hair back in a braid, Diamo seized the opportunity to catch her unawares, sent his strawman sailing soundlessly at her exposed back. But though she couldn’t see the target rushing toward her spine, somehow, she could still sense it incoming. Stepping aside, she perforated the strawman with three knives, turned on Diamo with a withering scowl.
The boy blew her a kiss.
As more targets had come sailing toward her from the other acolytes, Mia managed to dodge each and every one. Perhaps it was because the dark here had never known sunslight. But Mia realized that even without seeing them, she could feel them.
She could feel their shadows.
Mia managed to avoid every target during her time in the circle. Moving like a breeze among the strawmen, knives singing, grateful she’d finally found something in Solis’s hall she excelled at. She’d heard no word from Chronicler Aelius about his search for a tome that unlocked the mysteries of the darkin. There’d been no sign of Lord Cassius since her torture session in Godsgrave. But slowly, surely, she was discovering more about her gift. A smile curled her lips, and remained there until about halfway through the lesson, when Tric took his place in the circle and Marcellus hit him square in the back with a flying strawman.
Marco flashed a smile (much improved by the weaver, Mia thought) and bowed.
“You’ll have to be quicker than that, Tricky.”
Tric picked himself up off the ground and growled. “You want to wait until I’m ready, next time?”
“That’d defeat the point of the exercise, wouldn’t it?”
“Damn Itreyans,” Tric growled. “You can always count on them to stick the knife in when you turn your back, aye?”
Marco’s handsome smile slowly died. “You’re half-Itreyan yourself, you fool.”
Mia’s heart sank. Tric’s eyes widened. And then it was on. Fists and curses, elbows and snarls, the boys falling into a tumble on the stone. Tric split Marco’s brow with his fist, punched his lip bloody. Solis soon broke it up, thrashing both boys with his belt like children until they stopped fighting. Hauling Marco to his feet, he ordered him to go see Marielle and get his hurts mended.
“And you,” the Shahiid growled at Tric. “Ten laps of the stair. Down and up. Go.”
Tric glared into the blind man’s eyes, and Mia was honestly wondering if he was about to try to take a piece. But with a black scowl, the boy obeyed. Solis roared at the other acolytes to get back to work, and Hush stepped into the circle to begin his round. Mia noticed Tric never returned to the hall after his tenth lap.
She went searching for him when Songs was done, checking his room, the Sky Altar, the athenaeum. She finally found him the in the Hall of Eulogies, thumbs hooked in his belt, staring up at the statue of Niah. A thousand corpses’ names carved on the stone at their feet. Nameless tombs on the walls all around.
“How do, Don Tric?”
He glanced at her briefly. Nodded once.
She edged up to him slowly, hands clasped behind her. The Dweymeri boy had turned back to the statue, looking up at Niah’s face. The statue’s eyes had the disconcerting quality of seeming to look right at you, no matter where you stood. The goddess’s expression was fierce. Dark. Mia wondered who or what the sculptor had imagined Niah staring at when he crafted her countenance. For the first time, she noticed Niah held her scales in her right hand. The sword gripped tight in the other.
“She’s left-handed,” Mia said. “Like me.”
“She’s nothing like you,” Tric growled. “She’s a greedy bitch.”
“… Are you entirely sure it’s wise to call her a bitch in her own house?”
Tric looked at her sidelong. “I though you didn’t believe in the divinities?”
Mia shrugged. “Hard not to when the God of Light apparently hates your guts.”
“Fuck him. And fuck her. What good do they do us? They give us one thing. Life. Miserable and shitty. And after that? They take. Your prayers. Your years.” He waved at the unmarked graves all about them. “Even the life they gave you in the first place.”
Tric shook his head.
“Take is all they do.”
“… Are you all right?”
Tric sighed. Shoulders slumped. “Shahiid Aalea gave me the word.”
Mia waited patiently. The boy pointed to the ink on his cheeks.
“I’ve put it off as long as I could,” he said. “After dinner. My turn with the weaver.”
“… Ah.”
She placed an awkward hand on his arm. Unsure what to say.
“Why were you avoiding it? The pain?”
Tic shook his head. Mia said no more, letting silence do the talking for her. She could see the boy struggling. Feel Mister Kindly in her shadow, gravitating toward his fear like flies to dying meat. He wanted to speak, she knew it. All she had to do was give him the room to—
“I told you about my mother,” he said. “My … father.”
Mia nodded, almost sick with sorrow at the thought of it. Touching his hand again. Sighing, Tric stared at his feet. Words struggling behind his teeth. Mia simply stood beside him, holding his hand. Waiting for the silence to fill.
“You asked about my name when we met,” he finally said. “Told me Dweymeri have names like Wolfeater and Spinesmasher.” A momentary smirk. “Cuddlegiver.”
Mia smiled in return, saying nothing.
“And you told me my name couldn’t be Tric.”
“… Aye.”
The boy looked up to the statue above. Hazel eyes dark and clouded.
“When a Dweymeri is born, the babe is taken to the high suffi on the isle of Farrow. The Temple of Trelene. And the suffi holds the baby up to the ocean and looks into its eyes and sees the path that lies before it. And the first words she speaks are the baby’s name. Earthwalker for a wanderer. Drakekiller for a warrior. Wavedrinker for one fated to drown.
“So like a good daughter of the bara should, my mother took me to Farrow when I was three turns old.” A bitter smile. “Runt, I was. Dweymeri are a big people. Our forefathers born of giants, they say. But I was only a halfblood. Barely a handful. Took after my father, I suppose. The midwife joked I was so small my mother didn’t feel me on my way into the world.”
Tric shook his head. Smile dying on his lips.
“You know what the suffi said when she held me up?”
Mia shook her head. Mute and aching.
“She said tu rai ish’ha chē.”
Mia put the first letters of the sentence together. Found his name. But …
“I don’t speak Dweymeri,” she murmured.
Tric looked at Mia. Rage and pain in his eyes.
“Drown him and be done.” His voice dropped to a trembling whisper. “They were her first words. That’s what she fucking named me. Drown him and be done.”
Mia closed her eyes. “O, Tric…”
“The suffi handed me back to my mother and told her to give me to the waves. Said the Lady of Oceans would accept me, because my people never would.” A bitter laugh. “My people.”
He sat down on the plinth at the Mother’s feet, staring into the dark.
Mia sat beside him, staring only at him.
“Your mother told the priestess to go to the abyss, I take it?”
“She did.” Tric smiled. “She was fierce, my mother. My grandfather agreed she should drown me, so she took me far from Farrow. Far from him. She gave up her birthright for me. Gave up everything. She died of bloodpox when I was ten. But on her deathbed, she gave me this.” He held up the three silver drakes ever circling his finger. “And she told me a way to prove myself as worthy as she knew me to be.”
Tric leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“Dweymeri warriors undergo a ritual when they come of age. At the end of it, our faces are tattooed so all who meet us know we’re Proven. For warriors of the Threedrake clan, the trial was the har
shest. Brave the deepwater, and slay one of the great seadrakes. Storm, saber, or white.
“From the time my mother told me of it, I dreamed it. We lived east of Farrow. A port called Solace. After she died, an old seadog taught me boatmaking. Sailwork. Harpoons. I cut down the ironwood trees for my skiff myself. Took me a year to make her. And when I was fourteen, I turned my back on Solace and set out for the deep.
“See, stormdrakes are big, but stupid. Sabers are smarter, but smaller, too. But the whitedrake … he’s the king of the deep. Big and cruel and clever. So I headed north to the coldwater, where the seals were pupping. All I wanted was to sail into Farrow with the carcass of an eighteen-footer. Stand before my grandfather and hear him say he was wrong about me. I prayed to the Lady of Oceans that she’d bring me a beast worthy of a man. And she answered.”
Tric breathed through gritted teeth, eyes alight.
“Mother of Night, he was fucking huge, Mia. You should’ve seen him. When he hit my line, he almost ripped the skiff in half. But my hook bit deep, and my boat held true. He tried to ram me more than once, but after he tasted my harpoons, he learned not to stray too close. The waves smashed down on us and I didn’t eat or sleep. Just fought. Five full turns, toe to toe, hands bleeding. Imagining my grandfather’s face as I dragged this monster into Farrow Bay.
“He got tired. Couldn’t stay down, swimming slower and slower. And so I rowed up beside him and picked up my best and sharpest. The harpoon I’d saved for last.”
Tric looked at Mia through the curtain of his saltlocks.
“You ever looked into a drake’s eye?”
The girl shook her head. She didn’t dare speak. Didn’t want to break this deathly hush. As Tric spoke again, even the Mother’s statue seemed to be listening.
“Black eyes, they’ve got. Corpse eyes. You look into that black and all you can see is yourself. And I saw him. Me. That terrified little bastard with his matchstick spear and his father’s eyes. And I put that harpoon right through him. Right into that little boy’s heart. Killed him dead and the beast besides. And I thought myself a man.
“I sailed into Farrow Bay with his head lashed to the gunwale. His teeth were big as my fist. Must’ve been a hundred people gathered around me as I ripped them from his gums. Strung them around my neck and headed for my grandfather’s home.
“They wondered who I was. This scrawny halfblood. Too pale and small to be one of their own, but still knowing their ways. And I entered my grandfather’s house and knelt before his seat and told him who I was. His daughter’s son. And I showed him the teeth around my neck and the ring on my finger. And I pointed toward the head on the beach and I asked that he name me a man.”
Tric curled his hands into fists. Veins taut beneath his skin, etched in the muscle. He was trembling, Mia realized. Grief or rage, she didn’t know.
She put a hand on his arm. Spoke soft as she could.
“You don’t have to tell me, Tric…”
She stumbled over the name, wondering if it were an insult. Not knowing what to do or say. Feeling helpless. Stupid. After all Aalea’s lessons. Everything she’d learned.
Powerless.
Tric shook his head. Voice thick with anger.
“He lau…”
The boy’s voice failed him for a moment. He hissed. Cleared his throat.
“He laughed, Mia. Called me bastard. Whoreson. Koffi. Told me when his daughter defied him, she ceased being his daughter. Told me I was no grandson of his.
“‘But you are a man, little koffi,’ he said. ‘So come, take your ink, so others may know you for what you are.’ And his men held me down and he tore the draketeeth from my neck. Used them on my face while I screamed. Poured ink onto the wounds and beat me until the blackness took me.”
Mia felt tears spilling down her cheeks. Her chest ached, nails biting her palms. She put her arms around the boy, hugged tight as she could, buried her face in his hair.
“Tric, I’m so sorry.”
He plunged on, heedless of her touch. It was as if a wound had been lanced now, the poison spewing forth in a flood. How many years had he held it inside?
“They tied me to a mast out front of my grandfather’s home,” he said. “The children would come throw rocks at me. Women spat on me. Men cursed me. The wounds got infected. My eyes swelled up and I couldn’t see.” He shook his head. “That was the worst part. Waiting in the dark for the next rock to hit. The next slap. The next gob of spit. Bastard. Whoreson. Koffi.”
“Daughters,” Mia breathed. “That’s why you wouldn’t wear the blindfold to enter the Mountain.”
Tric nodded. Chewed his lip.
“I prayed to the Lady of Oceans to set me free. Punish those who tortured me. My grandfather most of all. And on the third nevernight, when the winds rose and death was so close I could feel her chill, I heard a whisper in my ear. A woman. Words like ice.
“‘The Lady of Oceans cannot help you, boy.’
“‘I don’t deserve to die like this,’ I said. And I heard her laugh.
“‘Deserve has no truck with death. She takes us all. Wicked and just alike.’
“‘Then I pray she takes the bara slowly,’ I spat. ‘Pray he screams as he dies.’”
“‘What would you give to make it so?’
“‘Anything,’ I told her. ‘Everything.’
“So she cut me down. Adiira was her name. She who’d become my Shahiid. She nursed the infection and set me on the path. Told me the Mother of Night had chosen me. That she’d make me a weapon. Her tool on this earth. And one turn, I’d see him die. My grandfather.” Tric grit his jaw, hissed through his teeth. “Die screaming.”
“I vowed the same,” Mia said. “Remus. Duomo. Scaeva.”
“One of the reasons I like you, Pale Daughter.” Tric smiled. “We’re the same, you and me.”
The boy touched his face. The scrawled ink that told the tale of his torture.
“Every turn, I’d wake and see these in the mirror. Remember what he’d done. Even when Adiira pushed me to breaking, I’d stare into the glass and remember him laughing. I can’t remember what I looked like before. This ink … it’s who I am.” He glanced at Mia. Her now-flawless cheeks and pouting lips. “Marielle will take them away. Adiira warned me. They make me memorable. But what will I be when they’re gone? They’re what makes me, me.”
“Bullshit,’ Mia said.
Tric blinked in shock. “What?”
“This makes you who you are.” She punched the slab of muscle above his heart. “This.” She slapped him atop his head. “These.” The girl took hold of his hands, knelt in front of him, staring into the boy’s eyes. “Slavemarks. Tattoos. Scars. What you look like doesn’t change who you are inside. They can give you a new face, but they can’t give you a new heart. No matter what they take from you, they can’t take that away unless you let them. That’s real strength, Tric. That’s real power.”
She squeezed his hands so hard her fingers ached.
“You hold it safe, you hear me? You picture yourself standing on that fucking bastard’s grave. Spitting on the earth that cradles him. You’ll have it, Tric. One turn, you’ll have your vengeance. I promise. Mother help me, I swear it.”
The boy stared at the hands that held his. “This is a dark road we walk, Mia.”
“Then we walk it together. I watch your back. You watch mine. And if I fall before the end, you get Scaeva for me. Make him scream. And I’ll swear the same for you.”
The boy looked at her. Those bottomless hazel eyes. That scrawl of hatred on his skin. Her heart was pounding. Fervor in her stare, palms sweating in his.
“Will it hurt?” he asked.
“… That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you want me to lie or not.”
Tric laughed, breaking the black spell that held the room still. Mia’s grin died as she looked into his eyes. She moved a little closer. Not close enough.
“Afterward,” she found
herself saying. “If you don’t want to be alone…”
“… Is that wise?”
“After ninebells? Probably not.”
He drifted toward her. Tall and strong and O, so fine. Saltlocks tumbling about her cheeks as he leaned near.
“We probably shouldn’t, then.”
Her lips brushed against his as she whispered, “Probably not.”
They hovered there for a moment more, Mia’s belly tumbling, her skin prickling as he ran a gentle finger up her arm. Knowing exactly what he wanted. Wanting just the same. But it hung between them, the thought of the weaver’s twisting hands. Choking the moment dead. And so, he stood. Staring into the dark and breathing deep.
“My thanks, Pale Daughter,” he smiled.
“At your service, Don Tric.”
She watched him walk away, his absence leaving her aching. And when he was gone, she sat in the dark at the feet of a goddess, and her shadow began to whisper.
“… i think you had best visit the weaver after the boy…”
“And why’s that?”
“… your brain and ovaries seem to have switched places…”
“O, stop. I fear my sides will split.”
She retired to her room, burrowed amid the notes and formulae, lost again in the puzzle. One hand wove idle circles in the air, sending the shadows in the room writhing, Mister Kindly pouncing among them like a real cat chasing mice.
As the evemeal bells rang, she stayed with the riddle, mind drifting to Tric. Wondering how he was faring in the weaver’s room of masks. Emotions were rising among the acolytes; she could feel it. As the competition grew more intense, so too did every other feeling. She felt as if the world were growing louder, everything mattered more. She had no idea what the next turn might bring. She didn’t love him. Love was stupid. Foolish. It had no place in these walls or in her world, and she knew it.
But a part of her hoped she’d not find herself alone this eve …
Hours waiting there in the dark. Butterflies batting at her insides. Wondering if he was all right. What he might look like when that scrawl of hate was torn from his face. Who he might be in the end.
Waiting for the knock on the door. Hour after hour.
“… are you sure about this…?”