Читать книгу Nevernight - Jay Kristoff, Jay Kristoff - Страница 18

‘Two irons and twelve coppers,’ the boy crowed. ‘Tonight we eat like kings. Or queens. As the case may be.’

‘What,’ scoffed the grubby girl beside him. ‘You mean crucified in Tyrant’s Row? I’d rather eat like a consul if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Girls can’t be consuls, sis.’

‘Doesn’t mean I can’t eat like one.’

Three urchins were crouched in an alley not too far off the market’s crush, a basket of stale pastries beside them. The first, the quick-fingered lad who’d bumped into Mia in the marketplace. The second, a girl with grubby blonde hair and bare feet. The third was a slightly older boy, gutter-thin and mean. They were dressed in threadbare clothes, though the bigger boy wore a fine belt of knives at his waist. The proceeds of their morning’s work were laid before them; a handful of coins and a silver crow with amber eyes.

‘That’s mine,’ Mia said from behind them.

The trio stood quickly, turned to face their accuser. Mia stood at the alley mouth, fists on hips. The bigger boy pulled a knife from his belt.

‘You give that back right now,’ said Mia.

‘Or what?’ the boy said, raising his blade.

‘Or I yell for the Luminatii. They’ll cut off your hands and dump you in the Choir if you’re lucky. Throw you in the Philosopher’s Stone if not.’

The trio gifted her a round of mocking laughter.

The black at Mia’s feet rippled. The fear inside her became nothing at all. And folding her arms, she puffed out her chest, narrowed her eyes, and spoke with a voice she didn’t quite recognise as her own.

‘Give. It. Back.’

‘Fuck off, you little whore,’ the big one said.

A scowl darkened Mia’s brow. ‘… Whore?’

‘Cut her, Shivs,’ the younger boy said. ‘Cut her a new hole.’

Cheeks reddening, Mia peered at the first boy.

‘Your name is Shivs? O, because you carry knives, aye?’ She glanced at the younger boy. ‘You’d be Fleas then?’ To the girl. ‘Let me guess, Worms?’ ^fn1

‘Clever,’ said the blonde. And stepping lightly to Mia’s side, she drew back a fist and buried it in Mia’s stomach.

The breath left her lungs with a wet cough as she fell to her knees. Blinking and blinded, Mia clutched her belly, trying not to retch. Astonishment inside her. Astonishment and rage.

Nobody had hit her before.

Nobody had dared.

She’d seen her mother fence wits countless times in the Spine. She’d seen men reduced to stuttering lumps by the Dona Corvere, women driven to tears. And Mia had studied well. But the rules said the aggrieved was supposed to riposte with some barb of their own, not haul off and punch her like some lowborn thug in an alley scra—

‘O …’ Mia wheezed. ‘Right.’

Shivs strode across the alley and slammed a boot into her ribs. The blonde (who in Mia’s mind would ever after be thought of as Worms) smiled cheerfully as Mia vomited on an empty stomach. Turning to the younger boy, Shivs pointed at their loot.

‘Pick that up and let’s be off. I’ve got—’

Shivs felt something sharp and deathly cold dig into his britches. He glanced down to the stiletto poking his privates, the little fist clutching it tight. Mia had wrapped herself around his waist, pressing her mother’s dagger into the boy’s crotch, the crow on the pommel glaring at Shivs with two amber eyes. Her whisper was soft and deadly.

‘Whore, am I?’

Now, if this were a storybook tale, gentlefriend, and Mia the hero within it, Shivs would’ve seen some shadow of the killer she’d become and backed away all a-tremble. But the truth is, the boy stood two feet taller than Mia, and outweighed her by eighty pounds. And looking down at the girl around his waist, he didn’t see the most feared assassin in all the Republic – just a sprat with no real idea how to hold a knife, her face so close to his elbow one good twitch would send her sprawling.

So Shivs twitched. And Mia wasn’t sent sprawling so much as flying.

She fell into the mud, clutching a broken nose, blinded by agonised tears. The younger boy (ever after thought of as Fleas) picked up Dona Corvere’s fallen dagger, eyes wide.

‘Daughters, lookit this!’

‘Toss it here.’

The boy flipped it hilt first. Shivs snatched the knife from the air, admired the craftsmanship with greedy eyes.

‘Aa’s cock, this is real gravebone …’

Fleas kicked Mia hard in the ribs. ‘Where did a trollop like you get—’

A wrinkled hand landed on the lad’s shoulder, slamming him against the wall. A knee said hello to his groin, a gnarled walking stick invited his jaw to dance.^fn2 A double-handed strike to the back of his head left him bleeding in the dirt.

Old Mercurio stood above him, clad in a long greatcoat of beaten leather, a walking stick in one bony hand. His ice-blue eyes were narrowed, taking in the scene, the girl sprawled bloody on the ground. He looked at Shivs, lips peeled back in a sneer.

‘That’s your game is it? Kickball?’ He aimed a savage boot into the ribs of young Fleas, rewarded with a sickening crack. ‘Mind if I join?’

Shivs glared at the old man, down at his bleeding comrade. And with a black curse, he hefted the Dona Corvere’s stiletto and hurled it at Mercurio’s head.

It was a fine throw. Right between the eyes. But instead of dying, the old man snatched the blade from midair, quick as the stink on the banks of the Rose.^fn3 Tucking the stiletto inside his greatcoat, Mercurio took hold of his walking stick, and with a crisp ring, drew a long, gravebone blade hidden within the shaft. He advanced on Shivs and Worms, brandishing the sword.

‘O, Liisian rules, aye? Old school? Fair enough, then.’

Shivs and Worms glanced at each other, panic in their eyes. And without a word, the pair turned and bolted down the alley, leaving poor Fleas unconscious in the muck.

Mia was on her hands and knees. Cheeks stained with tears and blood. Her nose felt raw and swollen, throbbing red. She couldn’t see properly. Couldn’t think.

‘Told you that brooch would be naught but trouble,’ Mercurio growled. ‘You’d have done better listening, girl.’

Mia felt a heat in her chest. Stinging at her eyes. Another child might have bawled for her mother, then. Cried the world wasn’t fair. But instead, all the rage, all the indignity, the memory of her father’s death, her mother’s arrest, the brutality and attempted murder, stacked afresh now with robbery and an alley scrap she’d been on the wrong side of winning – all of it piled up inside her like tinder on a bonfire and bursting into bright, furious flame.

‘Don’t call me “girl”.’ Mia spat, pawing the tears from her eyes. She pulled herself halfway up the wall, slumped back down again. ‘I am the daughter of a justicus. Firstchild of one of the twelve noble houses. I’m Mia Corvere, damn you!’

‘O, I know who you are,’ said the old man. ‘Question is, who else does?’

‘… What?’

‘Who else knows you’re the Kingmaker’s sprog, missy?’

‘No one,’ she snarled. ‘I’ve told no one. And don’t call me “missy”, either.’

A sniff. ‘Not as stupid as I thought, then.’

The old man looked down the alley. Back at the marketplace. Finally, to the bleeding girl at his feet. And with something close to a sigh, he offered his hand.

‘Come on, little Crow. Let’s get your beak straightened out.’

Mia wiped her fist across her lips, brought it away bloody.

‘I know you not at all, sir,’ she said. ‘And I trust you even less.’

‘Well, those’re the first sensible words I’ve heard you hatch. But if I wanted you dead, I’d just leave you to it. Because alone out here, you’ll be dead by nevernight.’

Mia stayed where she was, distrust plain in her eyes.

‘I’ve got tea,’ Mercurio sighed. ‘And cake.’

The girl covered her growling belly with both palms.

‘… What kind of cake?’

‘The free kind.’

Mia pouted. Licked her lips and tasted blood.

‘My favourite.’

And she took the old man’s hand.

‘And I said I’m not wearing that!’ Tric bellowed.

‘Apologies,’ said Mouser. ‘Did I give the impression I was asking?’

At the simplest mountain’s foot, Mia was doing her best to keep a level head. The churchmen were gathered by the cliff face, each with an armload of gear or a weary camel in tow. Mouser was holding out blindfolds, which he’d insisted Mia and Tric wear. For some inexplicable reason, Tric had grown furious at the suggestion. Mia could practically see the hackles rising down the Dweymeri boy’s back.

Though she felt no remnants of the strange cocktail of rage and lust that had filled her earlier, Mia thought perhaps her friend might still be under the influence. She turned to Mouser.

‘Shahiid, our minds weren’t our own when we arrived …’

‘The Discord. A werking placed on the Quiet Mountain in ages past.’

‘It’s still affecting him.’

‘No. It discourages those who arrive at the Church without … invitation. You are now welcome here. If you wear blindfolds.’

‘We saved her life.’ Tric gestured to Naev. ‘And you still don’t trust us?’

Mouser tucked his thumbs into his belt and smiled his silverware smile. His voice was as rich as Twelve Cask goldwine.^fn4

‘You still live, don’t you?’

‘Tric, what difference does it make?’ Mia asked. ‘Just put it on.’

‘I’m not wearing any blindfold.’

‘But we’ve come so far …’

‘And you will go no farther,’ Mouser added. ‘Not with eyes to see.’

Tric folded his arms and glowered. ‘No.’

Mia sighed, dragged her hand through her fringe. ‘Shahiid Mouser. I’d like a moment to confer with my learned colleague?’

‘Be swift,’ the Shahiid said. ‘If Naev dies on the very doorstep, Speaker Adonai will be none pleased. On your heads be it should Our Lady take her.’

Mia wondered what the Shahiid meant – the kraken wounds were fatal, and Naev was already a dead woman. But still, she took Tric’s hand, dragged him across the crumbling foothills. Out of earshot, she turned on the boy, infamous temper slowly rising.

‘Maw’s teeth, what’s wrong with you?’

‘I won’t do it. I’d rather cut my own throat.’

‘They’ll do that for you if you keep this up!’

‘Let them try.’

‘This is the way they do things, so this is the way it’s done! Do you understand what we add up to, here? We’re acolytes! Bottom of the pile! We do it, or they do us.’

‘I’m not wearing a blindfold.’

‘Then you won’t get inside the Church.’

‘Maw take the Church!’

Mia rocked back on her heels, frown darkening her brow.

‘… he fears …’ whispered Mister Kindly from her shadow.

‘Shut up, you black-hearted little shit,’ Tric snapped.

‘Tric, what are you afraid of?’

Mister Kindly sniffed with his not-nose, blinked with his not-eyes.

‘… the dark …’

‘Shut up!’ Tric roared.

Mia blinked, incredulity slapped all over her face. ‘You can’t be serious …’

‘… apologies, i was uninformed i’d been relegated to the role of comic relief …’

Mia tried to catch Tric’s stare, but the boy was frowning at his feet.

‘Tric, are you honestly telling me you’ve come to train among the most feared assassins in the Republic and you’re afraid of the bloody dark?’

Tric was set to yell again, but the words died on his tongue. Gritted teeth, hands curling into fists, those artless tattoos twisting as he grimaced.

‘… It’s not the damned dark.’ A quiet sigh. ‘Just … not being able to see. I …’

He slumped down on his backside, kicked a toeful of shale down the slope.

‘O, sod it …’

Guilt welled up in Mia’s chest, drowning the anger beneath. She knelt beside the Dweymeri with a sigh, put a comforting hand on his arm.

‘I’m sorry, Tric. What happened?’

‘Bad things.’ Tric pawed at his eyes. ‘Just … bad things.’

She took his hand and squeezed, acutely aware of how much she was growing to like this strange boy. To see him like this, shivering like a child …

‘I can take it away,’ she offered.

‘… Take what away?’

‘Your fear. Well, Mister Kindly can, anyway. For a little while. He drinks it. Breathes it. It’s what keeps him here. Makes him grow.’

Tric frowned at the shadow-creature, revulsion in his eyes.

‘… Fear?’

Mia nodded. ‘He’s been drinking mine for years. Not enough to make me forget common sense, mind. But enough to make me stand tall in a knife-fight or snatch-job. He makes me strong.’

‘That makes no sense,’ Tric scowled. ‘If he’s eating your fear, you never learn how to deal with it yourself. That’s not strength, that’s a crutch …’

‘Well, it’s a crutch I’m willing to loan you, Don Tric.’ Mia glared. ‘So instead of lecturing me on my faults, I’d rather you said “thank you, Pale Daughter”, and got your sorry arse inside the Church before they slit our throats and leave us for the kraken.’

The boy stared down at their clasped hands. Nodded slowly.

‘… Thank you, Pale Daughter.’

She stood, pulled him to his feet. Mister Kindly didn’t need to be asked – simply flowed across the join where their shadows intersected. Anxiety began eating Mia’s insides immediately, cold worms gnawing at her belly. But she did her best to stomp on them with her boots, as Tric marched her across the broken ground towards Mouser.

‘You’re ready then?’ the Shahiid asked.

‘We’re ready,’ Tric said.

Mia smiled to hear his voice, almost a full octave deeper. He squeezed her fingers and closed his eyes, allowing Mouser to tie the blindfold. Tying Mia’s, the Shahiid grasped their hands, led them across the broken ground. She heard a word spoken – something ancient and humming with power. And then she heard stone; the great cracking and rumbling of stone. The ground shuddered beneath her, dust rising in a choking pall. She felt a rushing wind, smelled a greasy arkemical tang in the air.

Hands took her own, led her forward, across broken ground and onto smooth rock. The temperature dropped suddenly, the light beyond her eyelids dying slow. They were somewhere dark now; inside the mountain’s belly, she supposed. Mouser leading her by the hand, they reached stairs, climbing up, up in an ever-widening spiral. Twisting and turning, a soft vertigo filling her mind, all track of the direction she’d come from or the direction they were headed fading. Up. Down. Left. Right. Concepts with no meaning. No memory. She felt an almost overwhelming desire to call Mister Kindly back, to feel that familiar touch she no longer quite knew how to live without.

At last, after what seemed like hours, Mouser released his grip. For a moment she faltered. Imagining she stood at the mountain’s peak, nothing about her but a straight fall to her death. Arms outstretched to keep her balance. Breathing hard.

‘Come back,’ she whispered.

She felt the not-cat rush back in a flood, pouncing on the butterflies in her belly and dismembering them one by one. The blindfold was removed and she blinked, saw an enormous hall, bigger than the belly of the grandest cathedral. Walls and floor of dark granite, smooth as river stones. Soft arkemical light shone from within beautiful windows of stained glass, giving the impression of the sunslight outside – though in truth they could be miles within the mountain by now. Tric stood beside her, gazing about the room. Vast pointed archways and enormous stone pillars were arranged in a circle, soaring stone gables seemingly carved in the core of the mountain itself.

‘Trelene’s great … soft …’

Word failed as the boy looked towards the room’s heart. Mia followed his gaze, saw the statue of a woman, jewels hung like stars on her ebony robe. The figure was colossal, towering forty feet above their heads, carved of gleaming black stone. Small iron rings were embedded in the rock, about head height. In her hands she held a scale and a massive, wicked sword, broad as tree trunks, sharp as obsidian. Her face was beautiful. Terrible and cold. Mia felt a chill trickle down her spine, the statue’s eyes following as she walked closer.

‘Welcome to the Hall of Eulogies,’ Mouser said.

‘Who is she?’

‘The Mother.’ Mouser touched his eyes, then his lips, then his chest. ‘The Maw. Our Lady of Blessed Murder. Almighty Niah.’

‘But … she’s beautiful,’ Mia breathed. ‘In the pictures I’ve seen, she’s a monstrosity.’

‘The Light is full of lies, Acolyte. The Suns serve only to blind us.’

Mia wandered the mighty hall, running her hands over the spiral patterns in the stone. The walls were set with hundreds of small doors, two feet square, stacked one upon another as if tombs in some great mausoleum. Her footfalls rang like bells in the vast space. The only sound was the tune of what might have been a choir, hanging disembodied in the air. The hymn was beautiful, wordless, endless. The place had a feeling unlike any other she’d visited. There were no altars nor golden trim, but for the first time in her life, she felt as if she were somewhere … sanctified.

Mister Kindly whispered in her ear.

‘… i like it here …’

‘What are these names, Shahiid?’ Tric asked.

Mia blinked, realised the floor beneath them was engraved with names. Hundreds. Thousands. Etched in tiny letters on polished black stone.

‘The names of every life claimed by this Church for the Mother.’ The man bowed to the statue above. ‘Here we honour those taken. The Hall of Eulogies, as I said.’

‘And the tombs?’ Mia asked, nodding to the walls.

‘They house the bodies of servants of the Mother, gone to her side. Along with those we have taken, here we also honour those fallen.’

‘But there are no names carved on these tombs, Shahiid.’

Mouser stared at Mia, the ghostly choir singing in the dark.

‘The Mother knows their names,’ he finally said. ‘No other matters.’

Mia blinked. Glancing up at the statue looming above her head. The goddess to whom this Church belonged. Terrible and beautiful. Unknowable and powerful.

‘Come,’ said Shahiid Mouser. ‘Your chambers await.’

He led them from the grand hall, through one of the vast pointed arches. A great flight of steps spiralled up into the black. Mia remembered Old Mercurio’s willow switch, the accursed library stairs he’d made her run up and down so many times she’d lost count. She smiled at the memory, even as she thanked the old man for the exercise, climbing in long, easy strides.

They ascended, the Shahiid of Pockets behind them, silent as the plague.

‘Black Mother,’ Tric panted. ‘They should have named it the Red Stairwell …’

‘Are you well?’ she whispered. ‘Mister Kindly helped?’

‘Aye. It was …’ The boy shook his head. ‘To look inside and find only steel … I’ve never felt anything like it. Crutch be damned. Being darkin must be a grand thing.’

They trudged up the stairs into a long corridor. Arches stretching away into lightless black, spiral patterns on every wall. Shahiid Mouser stopped outside a wooden door, pushed it open. Mia looked in on a large room, furnished with beautiful dark wood and a huge bed covered in lush grey fur. Her body ached at the sight. It’d been at least two nevernights since she slept …

‘Your chambers, Acolyte Mia,’ Mouser said.

‘Where do I stay?’ Tric asked.

‘Down the hall. The other acolytes are already settled. You two are the last to arrive.’

‘How many are there?’ Mia asked.

‘Almost thirty. I look forward to seeing which are iron and which are glass.’

Tric nodded in farewell and followed Mouser down the corridor. Mia stepped inside and dropped her pack by the door. Habit forced her to search every corner, drawer, and keyhole. She finished by peering under the bed before collapsing atop it. Contemplating untying her boots, she decided she was too exhausted to bother. And dropping back into the pillows, she crashed into a sleep deeper than she’d ever known.

A cat made of shadows perched on the bedhead, watching her dreams.

She woke to Mister Kindly’s cold whisper in her ear.

‘… someone comes …’

Her eyes flashed open and she sat up as a soft rapping sounded at her door. Mia drew her dagger, clawed the hair from sand-crusted eyes. Forgetting where she was for a moment. Back in her old room above Mercurio’s shop? Back in the Ribs, her baby brother asleep beside her, parents in the next room …

No.

Don’t look …

She spoke uncertainly. ‘Come in?’

The door opened softly and a figure swathed in black robes entered, crossing the room to halt at the foot of the bed. Mia raised her gravebone blade warily.

‘You either picked the wrong room or the wrong girl …’

The intruder raised her hands. She pulled back her hood, and Mia saw strawberry-blonde curls, familiar eyes peering out between veils of black cloth.

‘Naev …?’

But that was impossible. The woman’s guts had been torn to ribbons by those kraken hooks. After two turns rotting in the sun, her blood would’ve been swimming with poison. How in the Maw’s name was she even alive, let alone walking and talking?

‘You should be dead …’

‘Should be. But is not.’ The thin woman bowed. ‘Thanks to her.’

Mia shook her head. ‘You don’t owe me thanks.’

‘More than thanks. She risked her life to save Naev. Naev will not forget.’

Mia shuffled back as Naev produced a hidden blade from within her sleeve, Mister Kindly puffing up in her shadow. But Naev drew the knife along the heel of her own hand, blood welling from the cut and spattering on the floor.

‘She saved Naev’s life,’ the woman said. ‘So now, Naev owes it. On her blood, in the sight of Mother Night, Naev vows it.’

‘You don’t need to do this …’

‘It is done.’

Naev leaned down and began unlacing Mia’s boots. Mia yelped, tucked them underneath her. The woman reached for the ties on Mia’s shirt, and Mia slapped her hands away, backing off across the bed with her own hands raised.

‘Now, look here …’

‘She must undress.’

‘You really picked the wrong girl. And most people offer a drink first.’

Naev put her hands on her hips. ‘She must bathe before she meets the Ministry. If Naev may speak plain, she reeks of horse and excrement, her hair is greasier than a Liisian sweetbread, and she is painted in dried blood. If she wishes to attend her baptism into the Blessed Lady’s congregation looking like a Dweymeri savage, Naev suggests she saves herself the pain and simply steps off the Sky Altar now.’

‘Wait …’ Mia blinked. ‘Did you say bath?’

‘… Naev did.’

‘With water?’ Mia was up on her knees, hands clutched at her breast. ‘And soap?’

The woman nodded. ‘Five kinds.’

‘Maw’s teeth,’ Mia said, unlacing her shirt. ‘You picked the right girl after all.’

Dark figures gathered in the gaze of a stone goddess, bathed with colourless light.

It had been twelve hours since Mia arrived at the Quiet Mountain. Four since she woke. Twenty-seven minutes since she’d dragged herself from her bath and down to the Hall of Eulogies, leaving a scum of blood and grime on the water’s surface that could’ve walked away by itself if given a few more turns to gestate.

The robe was soft against her skin, her hair bound in a damp braid. Soap scent drifted about her when she turned to look among the other acolytes – twenty-eight in all, dressed in toneless grey. A brutish Itreyan boy with fists like sledgehammers. A wiry lass with bobbed red hair, eyes filled with wolf cunning. A towering Dweymeri, with ornate facial tattoos and shoulders you could rest the world on. Two blond and freckled Vaanians – brother and sister, by the look. A thin boy with ice-blue eyes, standing near Tric at the end of the row, so still she almost missed him. All of them around her age. All of them hard and hungry and silent.

Naev stood close by Mia, swathed in shadows. Other quiet figures in black robes stood at the edge of the darkness, men and women, fingers entwined like penitents in a cathedral.

‘Hands,’ Naev had whispered. ‘She will find two kinds in the Red Church. The ones who take vocations, make offerings … what commonfolk call assassins, yes? We call them Blades.’

Mia nodded. ‘Mercurio told me such.’

‘The second are called Hands,’ Naev continued. ‘There are twenty Hands for every Blade. They keep her House in order. Manage affairs. Make supply runs, like Naev. No more than four acolytes in every flock become Blades. Those who survive the year but fail to pass the grade will become Hands. Other folk simply come here to serve the goddess as they can. Not everyone is suited to do murder in her name.’

So. Only four of us can make the cut.

Mia nodded, watching the black-robed figures. Squinting in the dark, she could see the arkemical scar of slavery on a few cheeks. After the acolytes had finished assembling beneath the statue’s gaze, the Hands spoke a scrap of scripture, Naev along with them, each speaking by rote.

‘She who is all and nothing,

First and last and always,

A perfect black, a Hungry Dark,

Maid and Mother and Matriarch,

Now, and at the moment of our deaths,

Pray for us.’

A bell rang, soft, somewhere in the gloom. Mia felt Mister Kindly curled about her feet, drinking deep. She heard footsteps, saw a figure approaching from the shadows. The Hands raised their voices in unison.

‘Mouser, Shahiid of Pockets, pray for us.’

A familiar figure stepped onto the dais around the statue’s base. Handsome face and old eyes – the man who’d met Mia and Tric outside the Mountain. He was robed in grey, his blacksteel sword the only embellishment. He took his place, faced the acolytes, and with a grin that could easily make off with the silverware and the candelabras, too, he spoke.

‘Twenty-six.’

Mia heard more footsteps, and the Hands spoke again.

‘Spiderkiller, Shahiid of Truths, pray for us.’

A Dweymeri woman stalked from the gloom, tall and stately, her back as straight as the pillars around them. Long hair in neat, knotted locks, streaming down her back like rope. Her skin was dark like all her people, but she wore no facial tattoos. She seemed a moving statue, carved of mahogany. Clasped hands were stained with what might have been ink. Her lips were painted black. A collection of glass phials hung at her belt beside three curved daggers.

She took her place on the dais, spoke with a strong, proud voice.

‘Twenty-nine.’

Mia watched on in silence, gnawing at her lip. And though Mercurio had schooled Mia well in the subtle art of patience, curiosity finally got the best of her.^fn5

‘What are they doing?’ Mia whispered to Naev. ‘What do the numbers mean?’

‘Their tally for the goddess. The number of offerings they have wrought in her name.’

‘Solis, Shahiid of Songs, pray for us.’

Mia watched a man stride from the shadows, also clad in grey. He was a huge lump of a thing, biceps big as her thighs. His head was shaved to stubble, so blond it was almost white, scalp lined with scars. His beard was set in four spikes at his chin. He wore a sword belt, but his scabbard was empty. As he took his place, Mia looked into his eyes and realised he was blind.

‘Thirty-six,’ he said.

Thirty-six murders? At the hands of a blind man?

‘Aalea, Shahiid of Masks, pray for us.’

Another woman padded into the soft light, swaying as she came, all curves and alabaster skin. Mia found her jaw agape – the newcomer was easily the most beautiful woman she’d laid eyes on. Thick black hair cascading to her waist, dark eyes smeared with kohl, lips painted bloody red. She was unarmed. Apparently.

‘Thirty-nine,’ she said, with a voice like sweet smoke.

‘Revered Mother Drusilla, pray for us.’

A woman slipped out of the darkness, soundless as cot death. She was elderly, curling grey hair bound in braids. An obsidian key hung about her throat on a silver chain. She seemed a kindly old thing, eyes twinkling as she looked over the group. Mia would’ve expected to find her in a rocking chair beside a happy hearth, grandchildren on her knee and a cup of tea by her elbow. This couldn’t be the chief minister of the deadliest band of—

‘Eighty-three,’ the old woman said, taking her place on the dais.

Maw take me, eighty-three …

The Revered Mother looked over the group, a gentle smile on her lips.

‘I bid you welcome to the Red Church, children,’ she said. ‘You have travelled miles and years to be here. You have miles and years to go. But at journey’s end, you will be Blades, wielded for the glory of the goddess in the most sacred of sacraments.

‘Those who survive, of course.’

The old woman gestured to the four figures around her.

‘Heed the words of your Shahiid. Know that everything you were prior to this moment is dead. That once you pledge yourself to the Maw, you are hers and hers alone.’ A robed figure with a silver bowl stepped up beside the Revered Mother, and she beckoned Mia. ‘Bring forth your tithe. The remnants of a killer, killed in turn and offered to Our Lady of Blessed Murder in this, the hour of your baptism.’

Mia stepped forward, purse in hand. Her stomach was turning flips, but her hands were steady as stone. She took her place before the old woman and her gentle smile, looked deep into pale blue eyes. Felt herself being weighed. Wondered if she’d been found wanting.

‘My tithe,’ she managed to say. ‘For the Maw.’

‘I accept it in her name with her thanks upon my lips.’

Mia sighed as she heard the response, almost falling to her knees as the Revered Mother embraced her, kissed one cheek after another with ice-cold lips. She squeezed Mia tight as the girl breathed deep, blinking back hot tears. And turning to the silver bowl, the old woman dipped one stick-thin hand inside and drew it back, dripping red.

Blood.

‘Speak your name.’

‘Mia Corvere.’

‘Do you vow to serve the Mother of Night? Will you learn death in all its colours, bring it to the deserving and undeserving in her name? Will you become an Acolyte of Niah, and an earthly instrument of the dark between the stars?’

Mia found herself struggling to inhale.

The deep breath before the plunge.

‘I will.’

The Revered Mother pressed her palm to Mia’s cheek, smearing the blood down her skin. It was still warm, the scent of salt and copper filling the girl’s lungs. The old woman marked one cheek, then the other, finally smudging a long streak down Mia’s lips and chin. The girl felt the gravity of that moment in her bones, dragging her belly to her boots. The Mother nodded and Mia backed away, hugging herself, licking the blood from her lips, near weeping, laughing. One step closer to avenging her familia. One step closer to standing on Scaeva’s tomb.

She was here, she realised.

I’m here.

The ritual was repeated, each acolyte bringing forth their tithes one by one. Some brought teeth, others eyes – the tall boy with the sledgehammer hands brought a rotting heart, wrapped in black velvet. Mia realised there wasn’t a single one of them who wasn’t a murderer. That of all the rooms in the Republic there was probably none more dangerous than the one she stood in, right at that moment.^fn6

‘Your studies begin on the morrow,’ the Revered Mother said. ‘Evemeal will be served in the Sky Altar in a half-hour.’ She indicated the row of robed figures. ‘Hands will be available should you need guidance, and I would suggest you avail yourselves until you find your bearings. The Mountain can be difficult to navigate at first, and getting lost within these halls can have … unfortunate consequences.’ Blue eyes glittered in the dark. ‘Walk softly. Learn well. May Our Lady be late when she finds you. And when she does, may she greet you with a kiss.’

The old woman bowed, stepped back into the gloom. The other Ministry members left one by one. Tric wandered over to Mia, greeted her with a smile, his cheeks red with blood. He’d been bathed and scrubbed, and even his saltlocks looked a little less sentient.

‘You shaved,’ she smirked.

‘Don’t get used to it. Happens twice a year.’ He squinted at Naev, recognition slowly widening in his eyes. ‘How in the name of the Lady …’

‘We meet again.’ The thin woman bowed low. ‘Naev gives thanks for his assistance in the deep desert. The debt shall not be forgot.’

‘How are you still walking and breathing?’

‘Secrets within secrets in this place,’ Mia said.

‘Corvere?’ said a soft voice behind her.

Mia turned to the speaker. It was the girl she’d noted; the pretty one with a jagged red bob and green, hunter’s eyes. She was studying Mia intently, head tilted. The tall Itreyan boy with sledgehammer hands loomed beside her like an angry shadow.

‘In the ceremony,’ the girl said. ‘You said your name was Corvere?’

‘Aye,’ Mia said.

‘Are you by chance related to Darius Corvere? The former justicus?’

Mia weighed up the girl in her mind. Fit. Fast. Hard as wood. But whoever she was, Mia was certain Scaeva and his cronies would have no allies within these walls; Remus and his Luminatii had vowed to do away with the Red Church since the Truedark Massacre, after all. Even so, Mercurio had urged Mia to leave her name behind when she crossed this threshold. It was one of the few things they’d argued about. Stupid perhaps. But her father’s death was the whole reason she’d begun walking this road. The name Corvere had been erased from the histories by Scaeva and his lackeys – she’d not leave it behind in the dust, no matter what it cost her.

‘I’m Darius Corvere’s daughter,’ Mia finally replied. ‘And you are?’

‘Jessamine, daughter of Marcinus Gratianus.’

‘Apologies. Is that someone I should have heard of?’

‘First centurion of the Luminatii Legion,’ the girl scowled. ‘Executed by order of the Itreyan Senate after the Kingmaker Rebellion.’

Mia’s frown softened. Black Mother, this was the daughter of one of her father’s centurions. A girl just like her – orphaned by Consul Scaeva and Justicus Remus and the rest of those bastards. Someone who knew the taste of injustice as well as she did.

Mia offered her hand. ‘Well met, sister. My—’

Jessamine slapped the hand away, eyes flashing. ‘You’re no sister to me, bitch.’

Mia felt Tric bristle beside her, Mister Kindly’s hackles rise in the shadow at her feet. She rubbed her slapped knuckles, speaking carefully.

‘I grieve your loss. Truly, I do. My fath—’

‘Your father was a fucking traitor,’ Jessamine snarled. ‘His men died because they honoured their oaths to a fool justicus, and their skulls now pave the steps to the Senate House. Because of the mighty Darius Corvere.’

‘My father was loyal to General Antonius,’ Mia said. ‘He had oaths to honour too.’

‘Your father was a fucking lapdog,’ Jessamine spat. ‘Everyone knows why he followed Antonius, and it had nothing to do with honour. My father and brother were crucified because of him. My mother dead of grief in Godsgrave Asylum. All of them, unavenged.’ The girl stepped closer, eyes narrowed. ‘But not much longer. You’d best grow some eyes in the back of your head, Corvere. You’d best start sleeping light.’

Mia stared the girl down, unblinking, Mister Kindly swelling beneath her feet. Naev drifted closer to the red-headed girl, lisping in her ear.

‘She will step away. Or she will be stepped upon.’

Jessamine glanced at the woman, jaw clenched. After a staring contest that stretched for miles, the girl spun on her heel and stalked off, the big Itreyan boy trailing behind. Mia realised her nails were cutting her palms.

‘You surely do know how to make friends, Pale Daughter.’

Mia turned to Tric, found him smiling, though his hand was also up his sleeve. She relaxed a touch, allowed herself a smile too. Bad as she was at making them, at least she had one friend within these walls.

‘Come on,’ the boy said. ‘We going to evemeal or not?’

Mia looked after the retreating Jessamine. Glanced around at the other acolytes. The reality of where she was sank home deeper. A school of killers. Surrounded by novices or masters in the art of murder. She was here. This was it.

Time to get to work.

‘Evemeal sounds good,’ she nodded. ‘I can’t think of a better place to start scouting.’

‘Scouting? For what?’

‘You’ve heard the saying the quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?’

‘I always wondered about that,’ Tric frowned. ‘Ribcage seems much quicker to me.’

‘True enough. But still, you can learn a lot about animals. Watching them eat.’

‘… You’re a little frightening sometimes, Pale Daughter.’

She gave him a wry smile. ‘Only a little?’

‘Well, most times, you’re just plain terrifying.’

‘Come on,’ she said, slapping his arm. ‘I’ll buy you a drink.’