by Jay Kristoff
Jessamine glanced to Diamo on the benches. He was watching her closely, still smiling, his eyes bright and wide. He wiped at his upper lip, damp with sweat.
Then he blew Mia a kiss.
“Stop stalling, Corvere,” Jessamine sighed. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Aye,” Mia nodded. “It seems about time.”
Shahiid Solis and his assistants retreated from the ring, leaving the girls alone. Sourceless light gleamed from above, picking out the circle in dull luminance. Mia looked to Weaver Marielle, the smile on those hideous lips. Speaker Adonai leaned against the wall beside her, studying his fingernails. She noticed the Revered Mother, Aalea, Mouser and Spiderkiller had all gathered to watch the final bouts, sitting together on stone benches among the acolytes. Arkemical current seemed to dance in the air. Mia’s skin prickled as her shadow whispered.
“… no fear…”
Ashlinn cupped her hands, hooted from the bench. “Kick her skinny arse, Corvere!”
“Enough!” Solis bellowed.
Mia drew a breath.
Jessamine took up her stance.
A gong rang in the dark.
The redhead lunged, stepping quick across the stone, aiming for Mia’s throat. Mia stepped back, battering aside the rapid flurry with her off-hand, riposte whistling past Jessamine’s jaw. Blades sang, pale light gleaming on polished steel. Both competitors were cautious at first; Mia in deference to Jessamine’s skill, and Jessamine out of respect for the steel in Mia’s hand. But soon enough, the redhead gained her confidence, forcing Mia back to the circle’s edge with impressive footwork, her strikes falling like hail.
Strike, feint, lunge went the verse. Parry, riposte came the chorus. The girls danced about the ring to the song, sweat burning in narrowed eyes. Mia was almost entirely on the defensive, dodging back and forth at the ring’s edge. But after three or four minutes, her gladii were growing heavy. Though she launched a few laudable strikes, Mia was already gasping. Her lack of sleep was beginning to show. No mornmeal in her belly didn’t help matters any. She knew it as well as anyone in the room; Jessamine’s constant barrage with her lighter, quicker weapons would spell her end on a long enough timeline.
Mia was too slow to guard, and Jessamine drew blood once, then twice. A thin line of red opened across Mia’s left forearm, a deep gouge peeled back her shoulder. Mia’s breath came quicker, spit on her lips. The blood made her grip treacherous. Her lungs burned. Jessamine simply smiled, maintaining her tempo of feint strike, strike feint. Keeping Mia busy now. Running down the hourglass a little. No sense risking a solid hit from those gladii when blood loss and fatigue could do the work for her.
“You frightened of me, Jess?” Mia lunged forward to try and lock her up.
“Terrified,” the redhead said, slipping away and slicing another gouge in Mia’s arm. “Can’t you see me trembling?”
The pair circled each other, weapons raised. Damp fringe hanging in Mia’s eyes.
Fingers sticky on her hilt.
Gasping.
“So Diamo cracked the antidote, neh?”
Jessamine smiled, red and poisonous. “So I hear.”
“That idiot wouldn’t know venomcraft if it danced on his bollocks in Liisian heels.”
“Shahiid Spiderkiller doesn’t seem to agree.”
Feint, parry, lunge.
Mia wiped the sweat from her brow on her sleeve. “And I suppose when I go back to my room this eve, everything’s going to be exactly where I left it?”
“You’re presuming you’re going to make it back to your room at all, little girl.”
Jessamine stepped forward, striking at face, chest, belly. Mia staggered, threw a reckless riposte to force the redhead away. Jessamine backed off, blades twirling, moving swift and sure. Still smiling.
“Those big old meat cleavers getting heavy yet?” she asked.
“Think time’s on your side, neh?”
Jessamine simply grinned in response. But Mia grinned wider as the midmeal bells began tolling, a song of brass and echoes filling the hall.
“What about Diamo, you think?” Mia asked. “Think time’s on his side, too?”
Jessamine stole a glance to the boy, now wiping sweat from his brow.
“What the ’byss are you talking about, Corvere?”
Mia smiled all the wider. “I wondered if either of you would be fool enough. I really thought I might have oversold it yesterturn at mornmeal. But you’ve never been the sharpest blades in the bunch. The note you sent from Tric was a nice touch, though. Nothing like the promise of a strapping Dweymeri boy to lure a girl out of her room, neh?”
Jessamine stopped her dance, staring at Mia with widening eyes.
“Still,” Mia continued. “I wondered if Diamo would offer you the notes instead. Lucky for you, you’re better with a blade. And that chivalry’s as dead as he is.”
“You’re full of shit,” the redhead scoffed.
Mia tilted her head.
“Am I.”
“J-Jess…”
The redhead looked to Diamo, her face turning paler still. The boy was staggering to his feet. Drenched in sweat and holding his belly, a thin trickle of blood spilling from his lips. He winced, teeth painted red, groaning. And as the acolytes around him flinched away in revulsion, the boy spewed scarlet all over the floor.
“O, Goddess … Di?”
Jessamine’s face drained of all color as the boy fell to his knees. Quicker than silver, Mia stepped up and smashed the rapier from Jessamine’s nerveless fingers. The girl tried to muster some semblance of guard, but Mia swatted the stiletto aside, and with a shapeless cry of rage, buried her sword deep in Jessamine’s gut.
The redhead clutched the wound, eyes wide. Mia tore her gladius free in a spray of red, kicked Jessamine savagely in the chest, sent her skidding across the polished stone. Solis cried “Point!” A gong rang in the dark. But all about the ring was chaos. Adonai and Marielle knelt beside Jessamine. The speaker began his song, the blood crawling back up into the girl’s body. The weaver’s fingers danced over the hideous belly wound, flesh knitting closed. But Jessamine’s eyes were still locked on Diamo.
The boy was on all fours among the benches. Vomiting another gout of blood over the floor. Acolytes backed away, fearing contagion, the stink of emptied bowel and bladder, but Tric ran to the boy and knelt alongside him, uncertain what to do.
“Someone get some water!” Tric roared. “Help us!”
“You will do no such thing,” Spiderkiller said.
Silence fell in the Hall of Songs, broken only by Diamo’s long and wretched moans. Spiderkiller rose from her seat beside the Revered Mother. Her saltlocks writhed as she walked, a nest of serpents at her brow. Her dark eyes were fixed on Diamo, the boy’s hand outstretched toward her. He was on his back now, trying to speak, blood bubbling thick on his lips.
“Shahiid, please.” Jessamine groaned. “Please, save him.”
Spiderkiller blinked. “You all knew the rules of my trial. Those who try and fail, die. No mercy. No exception.”
“I…” Diamo gurgled at her feet, clutching the hem of her robe. “Sor … reee.”
“O, aye,” Spiderkiller nodded. “I’ve no doubt you are.”
The boy coughed, pink froth bubbling on his lips. He spasmed, flecks of bloody spittle spraying. Tric backed away as the tremors worsened. Diamo clutched his belly and screamed, dark blood bubbling out of his throat. Thrashing on the damp stone. Tears filling his eyes. Fingers clawing his skin. And at last, after minutes of wailing agony, with one last burbling cry, fell still.
Mia stood in the circle’s center.
Bloody gladius in her hand.
“That’s for Lotti, bastard,” she whispered.
“You bitch…” Jessamine was on her feet, blood drying on her tunic and lips. Clutching the place where Mia had skewered her. “You killed him…”
“Me? How? It’s not my fault he poisoned himself. Unless…” Mia tilted her head.
“Unless there was something wrong with the notes he used?”
Jessamine snatched up her fallen rapier, face twisted in a snarl.
“Enough!” Solis bellowed. “Acolyte Jessamine, the bout is done. Weapons down. Point to Acolyte Mia. Resume your places, all of you!”
Jessamine drummed her fingers along her blade’s hilt. Glanced at Solis to take his measure. Finding no pity in his gaze, the girl tossed her blade aside. Hands moved quickly to remove Diamo’s body, mop up the blood left behind. Speaker Adonai licked his fingers clean and watched them work with twinkling eyes.
Jessamine sat down on the benches. Face like stone. Mia sat back at circle, opposite the assembled acolytes. Ash caught her eye, nodded in approval.
Good work, she signed in Tongueless. Ice cold.
Mia shrugged as if she’d no idea what the girl meant. Turned her gaze to Jessamine. The redhead was staring back at her. Fingering the golden chain about her throat, she nodded. Promising.
Mia smiled in return.
And she blew Jessamine a kiss.
Solis dismissed the acolytes to the Sky Altar for midmeal, reminding them to be back within the hour. The final would be fought before all assembled; the victor would wear Solis’s mark of favor. The first acolyte to finish top of hall would be named by turn’s end.
Mia and Tric sat across from each other at midmeal, plates heaped high. Mia plowed through her lunch with all the hunger a skipped eve and mornmeal could provide, trying to ignore Tric’s eyes. The boy didn’t seem hungry, poking at his food and sipping his wine, staring into space when he wasn’t staring at her.
Diamo’s death meant that Spiderkiller’s quandary was still unsolved—Mia could finish top of Truths if she dared take the challenge. But she’d not have to worry about poisoning herself if she won Solis’s trial, and Maw’s Teeth, after all the punishment he’d put her through, it’d be bliss to watch that condescending bastard acknowledge her as the winner.
On the other hand, Mia doubted Tric had a chance of topping anywhere else. He was no master at venomcraft, nor thievery, though she supposed he might have gleaned a secret or two from the ’Grave. Still, if she knocked him out of Solis’s contest, she was cutting his chances of being named a Blade by no small measure.
She could feel him watching her between mouthfuls. Brow creased. Lips thin.
Was he thinking the same as her? Wondering where exactly this was leading? Sooner or later, one of them had to lose. Sooner or later, one of them was going to get hurt. The tension was thick enough to taste it on her tongue.
“Did you do it?” he finally asked.
“… Do what?” Mia blinked.
Tric lowered his voice so the others might not hear. “Your notes. Did you leave them for Diamo to steal? With a false antidote inside?”
Mia looked into those big hazel eyes. Saw a flicker of softness. That same softness he showed in her bed. Holding her close and smoothing back her hair. Problem was, there was no place for it out here. And for all her talk to Mister Kindly of holding on to her pity, she knew there was precious little place for that, either.
Not for Lotti’s murderers, anyway.
Mia put down her cutlery. Eyes narrowing. “And what if I did, Don Tric?”
“When you came to me last night … was that because you wanted to be with me, or you just wanted to be out of your room?”
“Why can’t it be both?”
“I don’t like being used, Mia.”
Mia glanced sidelong at the acolytes around her. Though each pretended to be busy with their meal, she could sense them listening. Feel their eyes. Staring at this shade of Mia Corvere they’d never really seen. Liar. Snake. Fox.
“Look, if Diamo stole my notes and gulped down a bellyful of poison, the idiot deserves whatever he got. Someone that stupid wouldn’t last a month in a real Chapel. I did him a damned mercy.”
“Mercy?” Tric frowned. “He choked to death on his own blood, Mia.”
Mia glared down the bench at Jessamine, back to Tric.
“Like Lotti, you mean?”
Jessamine thumped the table, clutching her roastknife in a tight fist. She glanced at the Shahiid, wary of drawing their eye. Staring at Mia, her voice low and measured.
“We never touched Carlotta.”
“Bullshit,” Ash muttered. “Everyone in here heard you threaten to kill her, bitch.”
“Black Mother, I would have if I had the chance,” Jessamine hissed. “But I’d account for it afterward, Corvere. At least to you. I’d want to see the look in your eyes.” The redhead shook her head, lips curled in a sneer. “But I’d have wanted to see the look in Carlotta’s eyes, too. So I’d have done her head on. Just so she could see my face when I ended her.”
Mia stared at Jessamine, eyes glittering like polished flint.
“Then you’re an idiot too,” she said.
“Mia…,” Tric warned.
“What?” she snapped. “Listen, just because I’m willing to wet the furs with you doesn’t mean you get to judge who I am and what I do. This isn’t a nursery. Maw’s teeth, we’re would-be assassins, Tric. Maybe you should start acting like it. Remember why you came here.” She eyed the phial of ink around his neck, all that remained of his grandfather’s hatred. “Remember who you used to be, even if the mirror has forgotten.”
Tric’s hand went to his necklace, eyes growing wide. Hurt and anger in equal measure. Mia ignored the both of them. Pushed her plate aside.
“See you in the circle.”
And without another word, she rose and walked away.
Mia looked the Dweymeri boy in his eyes. Saw no flicker of softness. Nothing close to what he showed in her bed, holding her close and smoothing back her hair. No trace of the hurt left either. He’d left that behind in the Sky Altar.
No, what she saw was rage.
The acolytes and Ministry were assembled around the circle. Solis and his Hands waiting, silver coin in his palm. Mia and Tric faced each other across ten feet of buffed granite, the stains of Diamo’s ending nowhere to be seen.
“Acolyte Mia, call the toss.”
“Senate.”
A bright chime rang as the coin struck stone.
“Senate it is.”
Tric stalked to the racks, drew out a cruel scimitar and sliced the air. Strapping a small buckler to his off-hand, he stepped back into the ring. Eyes cold. Jaw clenched.
He’s furious. I cut him badly.
Mia walked to the racks, selected a stiletto and rapier.
Good.
The gong rang. The pair joined, steel against steel, speed and agility versus strength and ferocity. Every acolyte knew by now that Tric and Mia shared each other’s bed. She supposed every one of them was expecting one or the other to fight soft. To let the other win.
That’d be the romantic thing to do, aye?
Within ten seconds of the gong fading, that thought was left dead on the circle floor. Tric was out for blood. Face twisted. Teeth clenched. His saltlocks whipped about him as he swung at Mia’s chest and head. The girl was quick, but the big Dweymeri’s footwork was excellent, hemming Mia in on the circle’s edge, where her speed counted for less. Surprise was no longer on her side; everyone knew her swordarm wasn’t as weak as she’d played it, nor she the novice she’d pretended. And so Tric was wary, guard high, never overextending and leaving himself open to her rapier.
His scimitar whistled in the air, bright notes ringing across the hall as their blows met. Mia locked up his sword, blades intertwined, leaning in close as he pressed down on her with all his strength. Sweating. Red-faced. Grinning.
“You seem angry, Don Tric.”
“Fuck you, Mia.”
“Later, lover.”
The girl lashed out with her knee, several acolytes hooting as it connected with Tric’s groin. The boy doubled up as Mia slipped aside, spinning away and back out into the center of the ring. Tric regained his footing, whirled to face her, saltlocks flying. One hand still pressed to his inju
red jewels.
“I can kiss those better, if you like?” Mia called.
Tric bellowed in rage, charged across the circle. Pure fury now. The feel of her in his arms forgotten. Mia danced backward, sliced the boy’s forearm. Another strike pierced his tunic, opened up a bleeding gash in his belly. Mia grinned all the while, watching Tric get angrier and angrier. The acolytes around them reveling in the show. Revered Mother Drusilla watching intently, the weaver, even the speaker on the edge of their seats. Solis’s head was tilted as he listened. Jaw set. Fists clenched.
Mia knocked Tric’s scimitar aside with a swift backhand strike, sent it spinning across the floor. She ducked low as Tric lunged with his buckler, stepped aside as he struck again. And dropping down into a split at his feet, Mia buried her rapier in his belly.
The acolytes gasped. Ash cheered in delight.
Mia looked up at Tric’s pain-filled stare.
Eyes locked with his.
Smiling.
“Koffi,” she whispered.
Tric’s face paled. He grit his teeth, narrowed that pretty hazel stare. Reached out to Mia’s hand and seized it tight, crushing her fingers against her rapier hilt. And white-knuckled, face twisted, blood spilling from his mouth, the Dweymeri boy pulled himself further onto her blade. Dragging Mia up off the floor until her sword’s cross guard was pressed against his bleeding gut.
He drew back his buckler. Smashed it into Mia’s face. The girl reeled away, blood spilling from split lips. She caught her footing, lashed out, burying her stiletto in Tric’s chest. But the boy didn’t flinch, pummeling Mia’s face again, stars bursting in her sight as the shield met her cheek, head lolling on her neck as darkness gathered behind her eyes. A blow to her chest sent her to the floor, fingernails clawing the stone as she tried to rise. A boot met her ribs. Another. Another. Looking up through a haze of red as Tric slid her rapier out from his belly, raising the blade in a two-handed grip and preparing to plunge it into her chest.
“Yield,” Mia whispered.
All the world fell still.
“I yield,” she said again, flopping back onto the stone.
Tric’s chest was heaving. Grip quavering. Eyes locked on Mia’s.