Читать книгу Godsgrave - Jay Kristoff - Страница 15

Mia lay naked on the floor, spattered in red, Alenna in her arms. Music still swelled faintly from the ball upstairs, none of the senator’s guests any the wiser that his only son had been murdered right below their heels. Mister Kindly sat on the headboard, staring at the young don’s corpse. Eclipse licked her lips with a translucent tongue, the shadowwolf’s sigh rumbling through the floor.

The girl in Mia’s arms shivered at the sight of them.

“I’m going to take my hand away now, love,” Mia whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to tie you up, put my clothes back on, and then slip out into the sunslight and you’re never going to see me again. Does that sound fair?”

Alenna nodded frantically, blinking the tears from her eyes.

Eclipse’s soft feminine voice seemed to come from below the floorboards.

“… THAT IS FOOLISH …”

“… and you would be the expert on foolishness, pup …,” Mister Kindly sneered.

“… BETTER TO BE RID OF HER. WE HAVE NO REASON TO LET HER LIVE …”

“And no reason to end her,” Mia replied. “Unless someone is paying me. Now, shouldn’t one of you be watching the hallway in case a guard comes down here?”

“… i kept watch last time, when you ended that magistrate …”

“… LIAR, I KEPT WATCH OUTSIDE THE WHOLE TIME. YOU WERE FEEDING LIKE A SOW AT TROUGH …”

“… and how would you know that, if you were keeping watch outside the whole time …?”

“If you two are quite finished? I give less than no fucks for who does it, but one of you better get out there, because someone’s go—”

A soft knock sounded at the door. A deep voice calling beyond.

“Mi Don?”

Mia cursed beneath her breath, grip tightening on Alenna’s throat.

“Mi Don,” said a second voice. “Your father requests your presence.”

Guards, by the sound. At least two of them …

“… IT WAS YOUR TURN …,” Eclipse whispered fierce.

“… lying mongr— …”

Mia hissed for silence, her mind racing. With guards outside the bedchamber door, her chances of slipping out unnoticed were aflame. Dove was waiting with the carriage upstairs, but he wouldn’t be any use to her down here. She could fight easily enough, but she was buck naked, all but unarmed, and the noise would only bring more guards. The shadows down here were deep, but with the bedchambers in the basements, there weren’t any windows for her to climb out o—

Mia gasped as Alenna’s elbow collided with her ribs, and with a black curse, the girl cracked her head back into Mia’s nose. Her grip momentarily loosened, Alenna drew breath and screamed, only partially muffled by Mia’s fingers.

“Murder!” she cried. “Help me!”

Mia slammed her fist into the side of the girl’s head, once, twice, knocking her senseless. She heard a curse, a heavy thump as something crashed into the door.

“Mi Don?” someone shouted. “Open up!”

“… it was your turn …”

“… LIAR …”

“Will the pair of you shut up!”

Mia slung her dress over her head as the door shuddered on its hinges. Fishing about in her abandoned corset, she retrieved her gravebone dagger, the crow on the hilt rebuking her with its glittering amber stare. And reaching to the shadows around her, she dragged them over her head, throwing all the world into black and disappearing utterly beneath it.

The door crashed open, two blurred shapes silhouetted against the light. One of them cried Aurelius’s name, moving in what Mia hoped was the direction of the bed. The other saw the naked, blood-spattered Liisian girl on the floor and crouched beside her. And with the door now clear, Mia slung aside her cloak of shadows and ran.

The guards bellowed for her to stop, but Mia paid no mind, sprinting down the plush hallway toward the broad stairs. Two more guards appeared above, frowning in confusion at the bloodstained girl barreling up the stairs toward them. One held up a hand to stop her as Mia’s dagger flashed, in and out, hiltdeep in his belly. The man gasped and fell, tumbling down the stairs as his comrade cried warning, hefting his shortsword. Mia twisted sideways, gasping as his blade cut deep into her shoulder and upper arm, her whistling counterstrike slicing his neck clean through.

The man collapsed, gargling, and Mia was already gone, up out of the stairwell and onto the ground floor. She burst into the main hall, the marrowborn dons and donas crying out in alarm at the sight of her—bloodied blade in one hand, dark hair strewn around darker eyes, wide with fury.

“Pardon me, Mi Dona,” she begged, smashing some pretty young thing aside as she tore through the hall. More guards burst into the room, unsure who to chase or why. The pair from Aurelius’s bedchamber appeared at the top of the stairs, scanning the confused crowd, finally spotting Mia as she pushed her way through the mob.

“The girl in red!” one bellowed. “Stop her!”

“Assassin!” the other cried. “The senator’s son, slain!”

The hall dissolved into chaos, some folk reaching for Mia, others fleeing before her. She cut some well-heeled administratii from thigh to crotch as he made a grab for her, elbowed another gent in the face and dropped him cold. The knife in her hand and the look in her eye dissuaded the other do-gooders in the crowd, and with a sidestep, a shove, and a rolling tumble, she was through the double doors, sprinting down the plush entry hall. Snatching a tumbler off the drinks tray of a gobsmacked servant, she belted down the goldwine inside before hurling it at the guard rushing at her, bouncing the heavy crystal off his head and sending him sprawling.

Bursting through the doors, out into the courtyard outside Aurelius’s palazzo. The cries of “Assassin!” echoed behind her, three guards rushing up the stairs to meet her, the twin suns in her eyes almost blinding.

“Shit …”

The guards each had a short, double-edged gladius and a murderous stare. Her shoulder was bleeding freely, her gown soaked with blood. Mia was forced into defense; reaching out to the leader’s shadow and fixing his boots to the floor, rolling past their blades, kicking out at a pair of legs as she tumbled, scrambling to her feet. She dashed toward the horses and carriages parked around Aurelius’s front yard, spying one amid the crowd.

“Dove!” she roared.

A teenaged boy among the throng raised his head. He was dressed in a simple rectangular volto masque, servant’s finery, dark hair cropped short. A cigarillo hung from one corner of his mouth. Three bloody tears crawled down his masque’s right cheek. He didn’t much look the part of a Hand in the Church of Our Lady of Blessed Murder, but at the sound of Mia’s second cry, he stood suddenly in the driver’s seat.

“All right?” he called.

“Do I look all-fucking-right?” Mia shouted, sprinting toward him.

Mia’s Hand took in the sight of his wounded Blade, the guards on her tail. Spitting out his cigarillo, the boy reached into his greatcoat and produced two small crossbows. Taking careful aim, he felled the guards closest to Mia with two swift shots.

“Run!” he called, beckoning.

“O, aye, you reckon?”

A whistling sound by Mia’s ear told her more guards had arrived with crossbows of their own, and as she barreled past the astonished coach drivers, a burst of white hot pain in her backside told her at least one of them was a halfway decent shot.

She stumbled, falling with a curse and grating her palms and knees like cheese on the flagstones. Hissing in pain, she scrambled back to her feet, clutching the crossbow bolt protruding from her backside.

“Maw’s teeth, did they just shoot you in th—”

“Just shoot them back, you fucking nonce!”

Dove fired again, dropping another guard with a quarrel in his throat. The boy ducked to reload, and a flurry of quarrels flew over Mia’s head, perforating two of the panicking drivers and one particularly annoyed stallion. Sadly, as Dove rose with his own bows reloaded, one of the bolts caught him in the chest, toppling him back into the carriage roof in a spray of blood. Mia watched her Hand try to rise, lips painted blood, but the boy finally collapsed with a bubbling moan.

“… I DID WARN YOU HE WAS AN IDIOT …”

“… for once, we are in complete agreement …”

Mia was on her feet, seeking cover amid the milling horses and panicked drivers. But with her arm cut to ribbons, there was no way she could steer a carriage and work the whip at the same time, and Aurelius’s guards were closing fast.

Her gravebone dagger flashed, severing leather straps and couplings about a tall white stallion. Wincing at the pain, she dragged herself onto the stallion’s back.

“… have you forgotten how much horses hate you …?”

“Apparently so.”

“… RIDE …!”

Mia kicked the horse’s flanks, the stallion bolted, hooves kicking up the packed gravel of the senator’s yard as the guards roared at her to halt.^fn1 Crossbow bolts flew past her head, grazing her horse’s flank, one bolt thudding into its hindquarters. The beast screamed, tried to throw her, but Mia clung on like a shadow to its owner’s feet. The stallion put on a burst of speed, dashing past the front gate and out into the broad thoroughfares of the city of Galante. Bells tolled in the distance, echoing from dozens of different cathedrals, domes and minarets. The streets were crowded for Firemass, revelers shouting curses as Mia galloped past on her bleeding stallion.

The Blade glanced behind, saw half a dozen guards riding in pursuit. The blood pouring from her shoulder was sticky across her back, her sodden dress clinging to her skin. She was starting to feel light-headed from the loss. With a colorful curse, she snapped off the crossbow bolt in her backside, head swimming with agony. She needed to get off the streets, somewhere dark, hide until the noise died down.

Galante’s streets were packed even here in the marrowborn district—too crowded to run a high-speed chase through much farther. Her stallion’s burst of terrified speed was coming to an end, the horse now limping from the quarrel in its own hindparts. Mia slid off the hobbling beast, down into a crowd of drunken revelers, the cries of the pursuing guards ringing in her ears. She limped down an alley between one of the city’s countless cathedrals and a looming administratii building, twisting into the warren of the Galante backstreets. Gasping for breath, vision swimming, blood loss making her hands shake. Her left arm was entirely numb, Mister Kindly’s voice in her ear urging her on. Finally, she found a wroughtiron fence, a crowded sea of headstones and tombs beyond it, run through with dark weeds and bright flowers.

Galante’s necropolis.

She limped through the gate, stumbled down the tightly packed rows of marble and mossy granite, looming mausoleums, packed with generations of marrowborn dead. Finally, she ducked beneath the eave of a tomb belonging to some rich bastard, long ago forgotten. And reaching out to the shadows, Mia plucked them with clever fingers, weaving them about her shoulders.

As it always did, all the world fell to black beneath Mia’s cloak. But she still heard Aurelius’s guards as they entered the necropolis, boots tromping on the flagstones. Their captain barked an order and the group split up, weaving into the overcrowded labyrinth of crypts and vaults and tombs, cries of “Assassin!” ringing on the pale stone.

But one guard remained.

Mia could only dimly see him through her veil of shadows, but she could tell from his vague silhouette the man was huge. His boots crunched on the gravel as he slowly prowled the mausoleums, muttering softly. Mia held her breath as he walked closer to her hiding place, head moving side to side. She felt a warm trickle down her back, her flash of dread swallowed by her passengers as she realized that, despite her shadowcloak, her blood would have left a trail, and would now be pooling at her feet.

The guard prowled toward Mia’s crypt. And rather than pray he’ d pass her by, the girl simply threw aside her cloak and lunged, stiletto in hand.

The guard was wearing mail beneath his finery, but her gravebone blade pierced the steel rings as if they were butter. Her blow sank to the hilt, but striking blind, she’ d landed shy of the fellow’s heart. The big man cried aloud as she struck again, this time slicing his jugular. A spray of red hit her face, warm and wet, the guard seizing her wrist and delivering a crushing hook to her jaw. Mia was flung back against the tomb wall, lashing out at the hand that held her, the pair of them going down in a tumble.

His windpipe was still intact, and the guard was bellowing, the girl snarling, stabbing again and again. They rolled about on the flagstones, Eclipse and Mister Kindly both whispering warning that the other guards were returning. But her foe was huge, and for all her training, Mia was wounded, bleeding, and anyone who believes there’s no advantage in being twice as big as your opponent has never fought a foe half their size.

She heard thundering boots, face twisted as the guard grabbed a fistful of her hair. Her blade finally found his neck again, sending him back onto the cobbles in a frothing red spray. Mia scrambled upright, saw another four guards approaching.

“… run …!”

“How?” she gasped.

“… HIDE …!”

“Where?”

“Halt!”

The guards fanned out around her, four clad in Senator Aurelius’s finery. She could hear whistles in the distant street, the tromp tromp of legionaries’ boots. Fearless, even staring into the eyes of death, she glared at the tallest guard and twirled her stiletto through her fingers. She thought of Consul Scaeva and Cardinal Duomo. Her familia unavenged. But regret came ultimately from fear, and even there at the finish, she could find none inside her. Only rage that it could end like this.

“Who dies first?” she asked, glaring at the assembled men.

The most sensible of the guards aimed a loaded crossbow at her chest.

“That’d be you, bitch,” he spat.

A chill stole over her, dark and hollow. Goosebumps rippling on her bloodied skin. The suns burned high overhead, but here in the necropolis, the shadows were dark, almost black. A shape rose up behind the guards, hooded and cloaked, blades of what could only have been gravebone in its hands. It lashed out at the crossbow guard, hacked his head almost off his shoulders. The other guards cried out, raised their blades, but the figure moved like lightning, striking once, twice, three times. And almost faster than Mia could blink, all four guards were dead on the dirt.

“Maw’s teeth,” she whispered.

The shadows at her feet shivered, Eclipse coalescing with a growl. Mister Kindly was on her shoulder, puffed up and spitting. Mia felt the chill in her bones, her passengers swallowing her fear as her savior turned to face her.

Not human. That much was clear. O, it was shaped like a man beneath that cloak—tall and broad shouldered. But its hands … ’byss and blood, the hands wrapped about its sword hilts were black. Tenebrous and semitranslucent, fingers coiled about the hilts like serpents. Mia couldn’t see its face, but small, black tentacles writhed and wriggled from within the hollows of its hood, pulling the cowl lower over its features. And though it was near summersdeep, two suns burning high in the sky, its breath hung in white clouds before its lips, Mia’s whole body shivering at the chill.

“… Who are you?”

“ASK THAT OF YOURSELF,” the figure replied. Its voice was hollow, sibilant, tinged with a strange reverberation. “MIA CORVERE.”

The girl blinked.

“… You know me?”

The figure moved closer, in a way Mia could only describe as … slithering. A rime of frost creeping across the tombs and crypts around them.

“I KNOW THAT YOU ARE MEANT FOR MORE THAN THIS,” it said. “YOUR TRUTH LIES BURIED IN THE GRAVE. AND YET YOU PAINT YOUR HANDS IN RED FOR THEM, WHEN YOU SHOULD BE PAINTING THE SKIES BLACK.”

“… o, joys, a cryptic one …”

“YOUR VENGEANCE IS AS THE SUNS, MIA CORVERE. IT SERVES ONLY TO BLIND YOU.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Mia heard shouts, turned toward the sound of approaching boots.

“SEEK THE CROWN OF THE MOON.”

Turning back, she found the thing gone, as if it had never been. Her breath still hung white in the air, the chill receding slow from her bones, its voice ringing in the black behind her eyes. She looked about the graveyard, seeing only corpses and crypts and wondering if she were dreaming awake.

“… mia, they are coming …”

“… WE MUST GO …”

More whistles. Boots coming closer. Blood on her face and skin. Mia snatched up one of the guard’s cloaks—the least bloody of the lot. And pulling the cowl over her head, she limped through the necropolis, quick as she could, struggling over the wrought-iron fence and disappearing into the warrens of the Galante backstreets.

Only bodies in her wake.

The Hanging Gardens of Ashkah are a sight unlike any under the suns.

In Godsgrave, the vast rooftop gardens of Little Liis overflow with sunsbride and honeyrose, helping to smother the sewer reek of the Rose River in their wondrous perfume. In Whitekeep, the garden mazes that King Francisco III built to entertain his mistresses stretch for miles, and an army of slaves toils to keep them trim, even a century after the monarchy’s fall. The Thorn Towers of Elai stand seventy feet high, covered in vast tangles of razorvine. When the vines bloom just before summersdeep, the towers are covered in blossoms than can be seen across the city. But no garden in all the Republic can match the Hanging Gardens of Ashkah, gentlefriends.

Not for their grandeur, nor their horror.

The smell struck Mia first. It rose over the stench in her cage miles from the city. Blood and sweat and blackest misery. She stared at the metropolis rising out of the haze ahead, chewing her lip. Some of the children in her wagon began to cry, younger women alongside them. Mia felt her shadow surge as she looked to their destination.

Never fear.

The Hanging Gardens had been settled by Liisian explorers after the Ashkahi Empire’s fall. In the centuries since the collapse, the port had grown into the largest metropolis on the coast, and now served as the greatest hub in the south seas for the fuel that drove the Itreyan Republic’s heart.

Slavery.

The cityport was red stone, nestled on the edge of a natural bay. The architecture was a blend of old Ashkahi ruins and graceful spires and domes of Liisian design built atop the old city’s remains. And all around the city walls hung thousands of iron gibbets, filled with thousands of human bodies.

Some were decades old, only tattered bones inside. Some were fresh dead. But from the piteous wails rising over the bustling metropolis beyond, Mia knew hundreds still lived. Left to hang in their cages ’til they perished.

The Hanging Gardens of Ashkah. Its flowers made of flesh and bone.^fn2

And Mia was here at last.

The wagon train trundled through broad wooden gates, the stench rising with the heat. The streets were crowded, the harbor beyond filled with ships from all over the Republic, some off-loading, some shipping out laden with stock for resale. This was market season, when the slaver crews returned from their runs up the Ashkahi coast and farther east, their holds laden with fresh meat. Itreyan legionaries rubbed shoulders with Liisian merchants, and the din of coin and sorrow filled the air.

Mia felt someone push up beside her. Turning, she saw a thin woman staring out at the streets, her face pale.

“Everseeing help us …”

Mia squinted at the two suns above.

“I don’t think he’s listening,” she murmured.

The wagon pulled to a halt at the market square’s seething edge. Teardrinker hopped down from the driver’s seat, limping to the rear of the women’s wagon, pulling back the cover and pointing at Mia.

“All right, girl,” she said. “Off to the Pit we go.”

The captain unlocked the cage, stepped back with crossbow in hand. Merchants were already crowded around the wagon, prodding the stock inside and appraising their worth. Thugs in the market’s employ began off-loading men from the rear wagon, shackles singing a rusted song as the captives hopped down on the hardpacked earth. Mia climbed out of the wagon, watching the crowd around them.

I’m here.

She hid her smile behind the matted locks of her hair.

One step closer.

The Pit was dug at the other end of the marketplace, and Mia could hear it well before she laid eyes on it. Ragged cheers and grunts of pain, the clink of coin and the crack of bone. As they made their way across the crowded square, Teardrinker was stopped at least a dozen times by merchants inquiring about Mia’s sale. It took all the girl’s will to keep her temper in check as she felt them pawing her curves, checking her teeth with dirty hands. But Teardrinker declined all offers for Mia’s purchase, indicating she’d be for sale in the Pit soon. The captain’s refusals were met with disbelief or dismay, one merchant declaring it a “waste of good tits.” But Teardrinker held firm, and the pair walked on.

The Pit was exactly that—a hole dug ten feet deep, fifty feet wide, hemmed with limestone walls. A broad stockyard was built beside it, rusted iron bars holding back a multitude of muscular slaves. It was encircled by limestone bleachers, packed with cheering gamblers and shouting bookmakers. And on the innermost ring, attended by the seconds and servants, she saw over a dozen sanguila.^fn3

Mia stood with head bowed at the Pit’s iron gates. Itreyan legionaries in plumed helmets were inspecting another slaver’s stock before allowing him to pass. The girl whispered from beneath her tangled curtains of hair.

“Can you see Leonides?”

“Aye, there.” Teardrinker nodded across the stockyard. “The fat bastard.”

“… They’re all fat bastards.”

“The fattest bastard, then.”

Mia squinted, finally spying an Itreyan man seated under a broad parasol. He was dressed in a long frock coat despite the heat, his cravat knotted tight, pierced with a pin in the shape of a lion’s head. His face was swarthy, his body pudgy from too many years of too much food and wine. Beside him sat another Itreyan, broad and muscular, watching the Pit with a keen eye.

“That’s Titus,” Teardrinker said. “He serves as executus, trains all of Leonides’s stock.”

“I know what an executus does,” Mia muttered.

“Are you certain? Because if was a betting woman, I’d wager my last beggar you had no fucking idea what you’re about.”

“I told you,” Mia replied. “Leonides has trained two of the last three champions of the Venatus Magni. He has qualifying berths in all the arenas. He bribes the right officials, owns the right people. If I’m to win my freedom, my best chance is training under him.”

“But why, girl?” Teardrinker demanded. “You could’ve walked away free in the desert! ’Byss, I’ll let you walk free now! You saved my hide from those raiders, and I pay my debts. Why in the Everseeing’s name do you want to be gladiatii?”

“I made a promise,” Mia said. “And I mean to keep it.”

“What kind of promise could be kept in a place like this?”

“A red promise.”

Teardrinker sighed and shook her head. “This is madness.”

“… she is wiser than she looks …”

The whisper came from the shadow under Mia’s matted hair, too soft for the captain to notice. Teardrinker pulled off her tricorn and dragged her hand over her scalp. She looked at Mia sidelong and sighed.

“A girl like you has no place in this sort of business.”

“Believe me, Captain,” Mia replied. “You’ve never met a girl like me.”

Teardrinker cursed, but true to her word, the slaver made her way to the legionaries at the entrance. Both men nodded greetings, raised eyebrows at the scrawny slip shuffling along in chains beside her.

“You lost, Captain?” the big one asked.

“Pleasure pens are yonder,” the bigger one nodded to the bay.

Teardrinker sniffed hard, spat into the dirt. “Step aside, you stinking whoresons. I’ve a trueborn fighter to hock and no time to jaw unless you’re slinging coin.”

The bigger one blinked at Mia. “… You plan on selling this slip to a sanguila?”

The legionaries burst into uproarious laughter, holding their sides like bad actors in a pantomime. Mia kept her head bowed as Teardrinker squared up to the first guard. Big as he was, the woman could look the man eye to eye.

“Have I ever sold chaff in here, Paulo?” She looked to the next man. “Don’t tell me my business, you cocksure wanker. I know it well, and it’s in the fucking Pit.”

The soldiers looked at each other, a little abashed. And with small shrugs, the pair stepped aside and let Teardrinker and Mia out into the stockyard. A greasy man with a wax tablet took Teardrinker’s name, a young boy with a crooked eye marked Mia’s arm and the back of her tunic with a number in blue paint. She watched him while he worked, wondering where he came from, how he’d come to be here. Staring at the single arkemical circle tattooed on his cheek.^fn4

Taking Mia by the shackles, the boy started dragging her toward the other slaves. The girl resisted for a moment, looked Teardrinker in the eye.

“One more thing, Captain,” she said softly.

“O, aye?” The captain raised an eyebrow. “Owed so many favors, are you?”

“You owe me your life. I’d call that the Largest Kind of Favor There Is.One turn, I might call in that marker. And it’d be lovely if I didn’t have to ask you twice.”

Teardrinker breathed deep. “As I said, girl, I pay my debts.”

Satisfied, Mia let herself be dragged away, standing in the sweltering heat with the other human livestock. Looking around, she realized she was one of only two females, and the other woman was a Dweymeri with hands the size of dinner plates. She kept her eyes straight ahead, watching proceedings out in the Pit and avoiding the curious stares of her pen-mates.

It seemed a simple enough process. Fleshmongers like Teardrinker wandered the bleachers, spruiking their wares to the sanguila. And one at a time, their offerings were handed a wooden sword, and thrown face-first into a fight for their lives.

There were half a dozen professional fighters at work in the Pit’s center, each a mountain of muscle and scars. When a new prospect was pushed into the ring, a random fighter would promptly heft a wooden sword and set about trying to bash their head in. Bets would be placed, the crowd would bay and howl, and if the competitor was still standing after a few minutes, the sanguila were given the opportunity to bid for their purchase. Those who fought with promise were snatched up. Those who failed were dragged away for resale somewhere else in the Hanging Garden.

Mia glanced at Sanguila Leonides. The man was considering matches the way spiders consider flies, but he never made a bid. The Lions of Leonides were the finest gladiatii in the Republic, and Leonides spent six months a year trawling coastal markets, handpicking the finest. If Mia wanted to call him Domini, she’d need to impress.

Fortunately, one didn’t become a Blade of the Red Church by being a slouch with a sword.

The ledgerman called Mia’s number. The holding pen door opened. The crook-eyed boy unlocked her shackles, handed her a dented wooden gladius that she wouldn’t have used for firewood under normal circumstances. And without ceremony, Mia found herself shoved into the middle of the Pit.

Jeers rang across the stands, choking guffaws and fountains of abuse. The sight of the skinny, black-haired girl standing knock-kneed in the center of the ring didn’t seem to be impressing the plebs in the crowd, let alone the blood masters.

“Aa’s burning cock, is this a joke?” one yelled.

Spit and curses rained into the Pit, the various sanguila turning disinterested eyes to their ledgers—whatever this jest was, it was clear not a one of them found it amusing. One of the pit fighters raised an eyebrow at the ledgerman, who simply nodded. The man shrugged and hefted his wooden sword, striding toward Mia. He was a Dweymeri, broad as bridges, brown skin glistening with sweat.

“Hold still, lass,” he growled. “This won’t hurt long.”

Mia did as she was bid, standing motionless as the big man closed. But as the giant raised his blade to stove her skull in, the girl moved. Quick as shadows.

A sidestep, the blade whistling past her head. Mia cracked her wooden gladius down on the man’s wrist, shattering bone. Several sanguila turned to stare as the big man screamed. Mia kicked savagely at his knee, rewarded with a nauseating crunch as the joint bent entirely the wrong way. The big man dropped with a bellow, and with deliberate brutality, Mia slammed her wooden blade directly into his throat, smashing his larynx to sauce.

Red froth spattered the man’s lips as he turned astonished eyes to Mia. The girl slung her hair over her shoulder, whispering soft.

“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.”

And with a gurgle, the pit fighter toppled dead into the dirt.

Bewildered murmurs rippled among the crowd. Mia curtseyed to the sanguila, like a new dona at her debut ball. Then she turned to the next fighter in the row and leveled her wooden sword at his head.

“You’re next, prettyboy.”

The fighter (who was rather pretty) looked to his fellows, the corpse on the ground, and finally to the ledgerman. The greasy fellow glanced up at the sanguila, who were now staring at Mia intently. And turning back to the swordsman, he nodded.

The fighter stepped forward, Mia skipped up to meet him. Their match lasted less than ten seconds, ending with Mia’s bootprint embedded in the man’s crotch and her wooden sword shoved down his pretty throat, all the way to the hilt. The girl turned to the crowd and curtseyed again.

“A hundred priests,” came the call.

“One hundred and ten.”

Mia smiled behind her hair as sanguila began bidding. Within moments, her bid was two hundred silver coins—a decent sum by anyone’s measure. But as she looked up into the bleachers, she saw Leonides and Titus hadn’t uttered a word. Though the sanguila watched her intently, though Teardrinker was whispering in Titus’s ear and he was nodding slow, Leonides didn’t raise his voice to bid.

Time to stoke the flame.

Mia retrieved her wooden blade from the dead fighter’s throat, turned to the third and spoke loud enough for the bleachers to hear.

“You. Next.”

The big man looked at the two corpses at Mia’s feet.

“Fuck that,” he scoffed.

“Bring your friends.” Mia smiled at the fighters beside him. “I’ve always wanted to try three at once.”

The girl tossed her wooden sword onto the dirt.

“Or are you cowards all?”

The crowd hooted and jeered, and the fighters rankled. To be bested on their own soil was one thing, but to eat a plateful of shit from an unarmed girl half their size was another. With flashing eyes and swords raised, the men stepped out into the Pit.

With a dark smile, the girl stepped up to meet them.