by Jay Kristoff
“Sorry I’m late,” the girl smirked.
Winking to Mia, Ash stepped up to the dais, taking her place at Hush’s side. Mia was amazed. What kind of secret had the girl dredged up? What must it—
“Acolytes.”
Mia straightened, eyes front. The double doors leading into the antechamber had swung silently open. A Hand shrouded in long black robes was waiting on the threshold, a scroll unfurled before her. Beside her stood Revered Mother Drusilla.
“My congratulations to you all,” the old woman said. “Each of you have demonstrated a mastery in one of the four halls of this Church, and considerable proficiency in other areas of study. Of every acolyte in this year’s flock, you stand closest to initiation as Blades. But before Lord Cassius inducts you fully into the secrets of this circle, one final trial remains.”
The old woman turned, disappeared through the double doors in a swirl of black cloth. The Hand carrying the scroll stepped forward, consulted the parchment.
“Acolyte Tric?”
Tric took a deep breath and stepped forward. “Aye.”
“Walk with me.”
Mia watched the boy march forward, Naev beside him. She wondered what awaited him. Tried to put the memory of their last parting aside. The guilt that she’d hurt him, the anger in his eyes … If death lay beyond that door, she wanted to make it right between them. But he was already gone, crossing the threshold without a backward glance, the doors closing soundlessly behind him. Mia could feel Mister Kindly in her shadow, gravitating toward the growing fear around her. She glanced at Hush. Ashlinn. Wondered if the girl’s father had told her what to expect beyond.
The trio waited silently in the statue’s shadow. Minutes past. Long as years. That perpetual, ghostly choir the only sound. Finally, the doors swung open and Tric emerged. Jaw clenched. Slightly pale. Apparently unharmed. He found Mia’s eyes, and she saw a haunted look cross his face. For a moment, she thought he might speak. But without a word to the others, Tric was escorted up the spiral stairwell and out of sight.
Ash was looking straight ahead. Speaking in a whisper, her lips almost motionless.
“Be sure, Corvere.”
“Acolyte Mia.”
The Hand at the double doors was looking at her expectantly. Mister Kindly purred in her shadow. Mia stepped forward, hands in fists.
“Aye.”
“Walk with me.”
Mia stepped off the dais. Naev was beside again, escorting her as she’d done with Tric. As they reached the threshold, the woman touched her hand. Nodded.
“Hold it close, Mia Corvere. Hold it tight.”
Mia met the woman’s eyes, but there was no chance to ask what she meant. The girl turned, followed the Hand through a long passage of dark stone. The only sound was their soft footsteps, the choir muted as the double doors closed behind them. A large domed room waited beyond, set on all sides by vast arched windows of beautiful stained glass. Abstract patterns were wrought in the panes, blood-red spirals, twisting and turning, twelve fingers of light overlapping on the floor.
Standing in the light’s center, Mia saw the Revered Mother Drusilla. Her hands were folded in her robe, and she wore that patient, motherly smile. The obsidian key around her neck glittered with the slow rise and fall of her breast. Mia approached cautiously, searching the shadows, glad for the not-eyes in the back of her head.
She couldn’t help but notice the floor in front of Drusilla was wet.
Freshly scrubbed.
“Greetings, Acolyte.”
Mia swallowed. “Revered Mother.”
“This is your final trial before initiation. Are you prepared?”
“I suppose that depends what it is.”
“A simple thing. A moment and it is done. We have honed you to an edge so fine you could cut the sunslight in six. But before we induct you into the deeper mysteries, first we must see what beats at the heart of you.”
Mia thought back to that torture cell in Godsgrave. The “confessors” who’d beaten her, burned her, near drowned her in Lord Cassius’s test of loyalty. She’d not shattered then. She’d not shatter now.
“Iron or glass,” Mia said.
“Precisely.”
“Haven’t we already answered that question?”
“You have proven your loyalty, true. But you will face death in all her colors if you serve as the Mother’s Blade. Your own death is only one. This is another.”
Mia heard scuffing footsteps in the shadows. She saw two Hands swathed in black, dragging a struggling figure between them. A boy. Barely in his teens. Wide eyes. Cheeks stained with tears. Bound and gagged. The Hands dragged him to the center of the light, forced him to his knees in front of Mia.
The girl looked at the Revered Mother. That sweet matronly smile. Those old, gentle eyes, creased at the edges.
“Kill this boy,” the old woman said.
Three words. One ton apiece.
All the world fell still. The dark pressing in around her. The weight settling on her shoulders and pushing her down. Hard to breathe. Hard to see.
“What?” she managed.
“The time may come when you are asked to end an innocent in service to this congregation,” Drusilla said. “A child. A wife. A man who has lived both good and well. Not for you to question why. Or who. Or what. Yours is only to serve.”
Mia looked into the boy’s eyes. Wide with terror.
“Each death we bring is a prayer,” Drusilla said. “Each kill, an offering to She Who Is All and Nothing. Our Lady of Blessed Murder. Mother, Maid and Matriarch. She has placed Her mark on you, Mia Corvere. You are Her servant. Her disciple. Perhaps, even, Her chosen.”
The old woman held out a dagger in her open palm. Searched Mia’s eyes.
“And if you cut this boy’s throat, you will be her Blade.”
It lasted forever. It lasted a moment. The girl stood there in that stained, blood-red light. Mind racing. Heart pounding. Questions swirling in her mind, never spoken.
She already knew the answers.
“Who is he?”
“No one.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing.”
“Why should I kill him?”
“Because we tell you to.”
“But—”
“Iron or glass, Mia Corvere?”
She took the dagger from Drusilla’s hand. Tested the edge. Thinking perhaps it might be spring-loaded, that this was just another deception, that all she need do was show the will, and all would be well. But the dagger was sharp enough to draw blood on her fingertip. The blade solid as any she’d held.
If she put it in this boy’s chest, sure and certain, she was putting him in his grave.
“The wolf does not pity the lamb,” Drusilla said. “The storm begs no forgiveness of the drowned.”
The girl looked to the wet stone at her feet. Knowing exactly what had been washed away in the moments before she entered the room. Knowing Tric hadn’t quavered. Hadn’t shattered.
“We are killers one,” Mia whispered. “Killers all.”
This was it. All the years. All the miles. All the sleepless nevernights and endless turns. This was the path she’d set her feet on. They’d hung her father. Tore her from her mother’s arms, killed her baby brother. Her house, her familia, her world destroyed.
But was it reason enough? To murder this nameless boy?
In ending him, she ensured her place here. She’d become the Blade to pierce Duomo’s heart, slip into Remus’s guts, slit Scaeva’s throat ear to ear. They deserved to die, Daughters knew. Die a thousand times over. Screaming. Begging. Weeping.
But the boy was weeping too. Ropes of snot streaking his lip. Mia looked down at him and he moaned behind the gag. Shaking his head. She could see the words in his eyes.
Please.
Please, no.
She glanced at Mother Drusilla. Gentle smile. Soft eyes. Wet stone at her feet. And she searched herself for a reason to kill this boy. Som
eone’s brother. Someone’s son. Barely older than she. Digging deep, through the muck and the blood. The tatters of the morality she’d cast aside when she set her feet upon this road, paved with the best of intentions. Diamo’s screams as he died, echoing inside her head. The countless men and women she’d slaughtered inside the Philosopher’s Stone. The Luminatii she’d butchered on the steps of the Basilica Grande.
I am steel, she told herself.
All this had a taken a second. A moment beneath the Revered Mother’s cool gaze. And in the next moment, Mia was kneeling before the boy. Placing the blade at his throat. Heart drumming against her ribs. Speaking the words a believer might.
I am steel.
“Hear me, Niah,” she whispered. “Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.”
The old woman smiled.
The boy whimpered.
Mia took a deep, shuddering breath. Naev’s warning echoing in her head. And to her horror, she finally understood. Finally heard it. Just as she’d heard it above the forum on the battlements where her father hung.
Music.
The dirge of the ghostly choir. The thunder of her own pulse. The gentle sobbing of this poor boy cut through with the memory of applause from a holy brigand and a beautiful consul and the world gone wrong and rotten. And she knew, then. As she’d always known. For all the miles, all the years, all the dusty tomes and bleeding hands and noxious gloom. Iron or glass or steel, what she was made of now made no difference at all. It was what she would become when she killed this boy that would truly matter.
Scaeva deserved to die. Duomo. Remus. Diamo. Those Luminatii at the Basilica Grande were tools of the Senate’s war machine. Even the men and women in the Stone were hardened criminals. In the dark of her bedchamber, she might convince herself their deaths were justified if she tried hard enough. Might find herself believing that everyone she’d killed to this point, the countless endings she’d gifted, the orchestra of screams, and she, the scarlet maestro … all of them deserved it.
But this boy?
This nameless, blameless child?
If she killed him, truth was she deserved it too. And for all the miles and all the years, vengeance wasn’t a good enough reason to become the monster she hunted.
Mia withdrew the knife from the boy’s throat.
Slowly climbed off her knees.
“Not for this,” she said.
Drusilla searched her face, gaze becoming iron-hard.
“We warned you, Mia Corvere. Marked by the Mother, or no. If you fail in this, you fail utterly. All Mercurio’s work, all the turns you have studied at his feet, within these walls. The blood, the death, all of it will be for nothing.”
She looked down into the boy’s eyes. Someone’s brother. Someone’s son.
Her hands were shaking. Tears in her eyes. Ashes on her tongue.
But still …
“Not for nothing,” she said.
And she handed back the blade.
She lay on her bed in the dark. A shadow beside her, not saying a word.
The last of her cigarillos in her hand. A long, broken finger of ash hanging from the smoldering tip. Fringe in her eyes. Black in her head.
What would they do with her? Relegate her to the role of a Hand?
Scourge her?
Kill her?
It didn’t matter, either way. She’d never become a Blade now. Never learn the deeper mysteries of the Church, or the mysteries of who and what she was. Never become as sharp as she’d need to be to stand a chance of ending Scaeva. He was untouchable to her now, just as Mercurio had—
Mercurio …
What would he do?
What would he say?
Keys at her door. She couldn’t even be bothered reaching for her stiletto. Whoever it was, she didn’t care. Placing the cigarillo at her lips, she stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows writhe.
Soft footsteps. The click-clack of a walking stick on cold stone.
A bent and tired figure standing at the foot of her bed.
“Let’s go home, little Crow.”
She looked at the old man. Tears in her eyes.
O, Daughters, how she hated herself, then …
“Yes, Shahiid,” she said.
A handful of possessions was all she left with. Her gravebone dagger. The ironwood brooch she’d worked so hard for. A tightly bound oilskin containing her books, Lotti’s bloodstained notes. Nothing else would make the Blood Walk. Nothing else she could carry.
Naev walked with them, Mia and the old man, down the spiral path to the speaker’s chambers. But the woman refused to step inside Adonai’s domain.
“Think on it for a turn or two,” Naev said from the threshold. “Hurts mend in time. Naev will be glad to see her back here. Naev can speak to Mother Drusilla on her behalf while she is gone. She can accompany Naev on the Last Hope runs. It is good country. A good life. Perhaps not what she wanted”—she looked to the chamber and the speaker beyond—“… but life is seldom that.”
Mia nodded. Squeezed the woman’s hand. “Thank you, Naev.”
They stepped into Adonai’s chambers. The smell of blood thick in the air. The speaker knelt at the pool’s apex, smeared in gore. He actually bowed to Mercurio, eyes to the floor.
The old man looked more tired than Mia had ever seen him. The walk down the stairs had been slow and torturous, his cane beating hard with each step. He’d never have imagined making this walk again, she supposed. Never thought he’d be coming back here to fetch her—his finest, his failure—dragging her back to Godsgrave in disgrace. But the Revered Mother had apparently advised Mercurio it would be best if Mia were not present for initiation. Spiderkiller was furious that her favor had been squandered. Lord Cassius had no time for weakness, or weaklings, and he’d be arriving in the Mountain soon to anoint the others with his blood. Mia was to return to the ’Grave with her Shahiid, think long and hard about her future. She could come back to the Mountain and serve out her life as a Hand. Or she could decide that living in failure was unacceptable, and deal with the matter herself.
Drusilla had made it plain which option she preferred Mia take.
And she’d never had a chance to say goodbye to Tric …
“Come on, little Crow,” Mercurio sighed. “Never could stand these fucking pools. Sooner we get in, the sooner we get out.”
“Wait!” came a call.
Mia turned, heart surging, think perhaps he’d come to see her off. But instead, she saw Ashlinn running down the corridor toward her. Disappointment and joy all mixed together in Mia’s chest, Ash throwing her arms around Mia’s shoulders and squeezing tight, Mia hugging back for all she was worth.
“You were going to leave without a goodbye?” Ash demanded.
“I’ll be back,” Mia said. “A few turns or so.”
Ash took a knowing glance at Mia’s pack, the belongings inside. Saying nothing.
“You’ve the look of someone familiar,” Mercurio said. “What’s your name, lass?”
“Ashlinn,” the girl replied. “Ashlinn Järnheim.”
“You’re Torvar’s girl? How is the old bastard?”
“Same as he’s been for years. Half-blind. Crippled. Mutilated.”
“You did him proud, Ash.” Mia said. “You passed where others failed.”
“You didn’t fail, Corvere,” Ash replied. “Don’t ever think that.”
Mia smiled sadly. “I’m sure.”
“I mean it.” Ash squeezed her hand. “You never belonged here, Mia. You deserve better than this.”
Mia’s smile died. Confusion in her eyes. Mercurio growled with impatience.
“Come on, enough of the hugging shite. Let’s be off.”
Ash scowled at the old man. Looked to Mia, uncertain. She took a deep breath, as if about to plunge into dark water. And then she leaned in slow, cupped Mia’s face, and kissed her gently on the lips.
It lasted
a moment too long. Perhaps not long enough? Warm and soft and honeysweet. Before Mia could decide, it was already over. Ash broke the kiss, squeezing Mia’s hand. A million unsaid words shining in her eyes. A million more on Mia’s tongue.
“… Say goodbye to Tric for me?” she finally asked.
Ash’s face dropped. She sighed. Nodded slow.
“I will. I promise.”
Mia let go of her friend’s hand. Looked around the walls. The glyphs and the blood. Wondering if this would be the last time she saw any of it. Glancing at Adonai, Mercurio, Ash. And with a deep breath, she stepped into the pool.
The red surged around her.
Mia closed her eyes.
And she fell.
Ashlinn stood for an age, there in the dark. She ran her fingertips across her lips, wondering about all that might have been. Watching Adonai watching the blood. That suicide beauty, coiled down here in the gloom. A spider in the center of his scarlet web, feeling for the faintest vibrations along its strands.
“When does the Lord of Blades arrive, great Speaker?” Ashlinn asked.
Adonai blinked. Looked up from the red as if surprised she was still there.
“When he arrives, little Acolyte,” he replied.
Ash smiled, gave a grand, sweeping bow and turned from the chamber. She trudged up the spiral stairs, thumbs in her belt, chewing at the end of one of her warbraids. The bells struck two and she cursed, quickened her pace. Climbing swift through the Mountain’s heart, up to the massive deck of the Sky Altar.
The room had been cleaned, the places set for the initiation feast. The kitchens were jammed and noisy, but the altar itself was deserted. All save for a solitary figure, off in the shadow, leaning against the railing and staring out into the dark.
“How goes, Tricky?”
The boy glanced up, nodded greeting. Turned his eyes back to the rolling wastes below. The endless, beautiful night.
“I never get tired of seeing this,” he said.
“It’s a sight,” Ash agreed, leaning on the rail beside him.
“Oz said you wanted to speak to me,” he murmured. “About Mia.”
“She’s gone back to Godsgrave for a turn or two. Get her head straight.”