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

Mia sat on a black shoreline, a war of three colors in her head.

The first was the red of blood. The red of rage. She felt it curl her hands to fists. Fill her to brimming, toe to crown. Spitting curses and fire and stomping about on those anguished stone faces. It was bliss to give in to it for a while, embracing the temper she was so notorious for. At least she knew where it came from now. Swimming in the air about her, the city above her, changing the architecture beneath her skin.

All her life.

The rage of a god laid low.

The second was cool steel gray. Suspicion, slipping into her belly like a knife, cold and hard. There was a moment where she prayed it was all a trick—manipulation from a man who’d always proved himself three steps ahead. But in her darkest depths, it all rang true. The way Scaeva had looked at her that turn in her mother’s apartments. That turn he’d stretched out his hand and taken her whole world away. The gleam in his eyes as he’d looked down at her and smiled, dark as bruises.

“Would you like to know what keeps me warm at night, little one?”

And so fury killed suspicion. Drowned it beneath a scarlet flood.

But after suspicion’s cool gray had come sorrow. Black as storm clouds. Turning her curses to sobs and her fury to tears. She’d slumped down on that voiceless, howling shore and cried. Like a child. Like a fucking babe. Letting her grief, her horror, her anguish spill up out of her lips and down her cheeks until her eyes were red as blood and her throat aching and raw.

Darius Corvere. Justicus of the Luminatii. Leader of the Kingmaker Rebellion. The man who’d given her puzzles for Great Tithe gifts, who’d read her tales before bedtime, whose stubble had tickled her cheeks when he kissed her goodnight. The man who’d propped her little feet upon his own and whisked her about that shining ballroom.

“I love you, Mia.”

“I love you, too.”

“Promise you’ ll remember. No matter what comes.”

The man she’d adored, the man she’d grieved, the man she’d devoted the last eight years of her life to avenging. The man she’d called Father.

Nothing close.

Ashlinn sat behind her as she wept, gentle arms about her waist, forehead pressed cool and smooth against her back. Mister Kindly and Eclipse sat close by, watching silently. Jonnen looked at her with a newfound confusion glittering in those bottomless eyes. Black as crow’s feathers. Black as truedark.

Just like Scaeva’s.

Just like mine.

“His wife can’t have children,” Ashlinn murmured, her voice thick with grief. “Scaeva, I mean. I suppose that’s why he took Jonnen … afterward …”

“All good kings need sons,” Mia whispered. “Daughters, not so much.”

“I’m sorry, love.” Ash took her hand, pressed Mia’s scabbed and bleeding knuckles to her lips. “Black Mother, I’m so sorry.”

Eclipse drifted closer, wrapping her translucent body around Mia’s waist and resting her head in the girl’s lap. Mister Kindly lay across her shoulders, entwined in her hair, tail curled protectively across her chest. Mia drew comfort from their smoky chill, the whisper-light feel of their bodies against hers, Ash’s arms around her. But her eyes were soon drawn back to that black pool before them, the copper stink of blood hanging heavy in the air. She looked down at her empty hands again, the passengers beside her, the shadow beneath her, darker than it had ever been.

The many were one.

And will be again?

She looked to the silent Hearthless boy standing before her. His black eyes were fixed on Ashlinn. On their fingers entwined. She remembered those eyes had been hazel once. That those fingers had touched her in places no one ever had.

His revelation still rang in her ears. The weight of the truth she’d sought all these years, now ill-fitting and crooked upon her shoulders. Part of her still found it impossible to believe—even with the memory of the truedark massacre singing in her head, the power and fury she’d wielded so effortlessly, shadows cutting like swords in her outstretched hands. She’d killed so many men, giving in to the rage that had sustained her through all the years and all the miles and all the sleepless nevernights.

It was creeping back into her now, slipping out toward her from that pool. Toxic. Narcotic. Smothering sorrow’s black beneath waves of familiar, comforting red.

If she was angry, she didn’t need to think.

If she was angry, she could simply act.

Hunt.

Stab.

Kill.

That bastard. The spider at the center of this whole rotten fucking web. The man who’d sentenced her mother to die in the Philosopher’s Stone, who’d ordered her drowned, who’d used her to rid himself of his rivals, and at last, put himself within arm’s reach of his bloody throne. The man who’d manipulated her from afar all these years, pushing her, twisting her, turning her into …

She looked down at her trembling, open hands.

Into this.

So she gave in to the rage. Let it choke the grief inside her. And into the dark, she whispered, “If a killer is what he wants, a killer is what he’ll get.”

Ash blinked. “What?”

Mia stood with a wince. Stretched out her hand.

“Give me the sword, Ash.”

Ashlinn looked down at the longblade at her waist. She’d recovered it from Mia’s chambers in the Godsgrave chapel. It was gravebone, sharp as sunslight, its hilt carved like a crow in flight. The sword had once belonged to Darius Corvere, taken from his study in Crow’s Nest by Marcus Remus. Mia had killed Remus in turn—cut his throat in a dusty shithole on the coast of Ashkah, and claimed the blade as her own.

Avenging her father, or so she thought.

“I love you, Mia.”

“I love you, too.”

“Give it to me,” Mia said.

“Why?” Ash asked.

“Because it’s mine.”

“Mia …” Ashlinn rose to her feet, caution and care turning her voice to velvet. “Mia, whatever you’re thinking … you’re exhausted. You’re wounded. What Tric just told us … it can’t be easy to—”

“Give me the fucking sword, Ashlinn!” Mia shouted.

The shadows flared, the darkness ringing in her voice and turning it to hollow iron. The darkness twisted about her feet, mad patterns and shapes, strobing black. The red-amber eyes of the crow on the hilt twinkled in the ghostly light. The pool behind her rippled, as if kissed by the smallest stone.

Ashlinn went pale beneath her freckles. Mia saw she was actually trembling. But she still stood her ground. Gritted her teeth and curled her hands into fists to stop the shakes. Standing up to Mia like nobody else ever dared.

“No,” she replied.

Mia growled. “Ash, I’m warning you …”

“Warn me all you like,” Ash said, taking a deep breath. “I know you’re angry. I know you’re hurt. But you need to think.” She waved at the dark behind and below Mia. “Away from this cursed pool. With the blood washed off your skin and a cigarillo in your hand and a nevernight’s sleep between you and all this shit.”

Mia scowled, but the iron in her stare wavered.

“Give me my sword, Ashlinn.”

The girl reached out and ran one gentle hand down the cruel scar on Mia’s cheek. Along the bow of her lips. The look in her eyes melted Mia’s heart.

“I love you, Mia,” Ash said. “Even the part of you that frightens me. But you’ve been hurt enough for one turn. I’ll not see you hurt again.”

Tears welled in Mia’s eyes. Black rising from beneath the red. The walls loomed about her, ready to come crashing down. Her hands fluttered at her sides as if she were desperate for an embrace, but too torn to beg for one. With a murmur of pity, a glance to the Hearthless boy watching them, Ashlinn stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Mia. She kissed her brow, pulled her in tight, Mia sinking into her arms.

“I love you,” Ash whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Mia breathed into Ashlinn’s hair, hands roaming her back.

“It’s all right.”

“No.” Mia’s hands moved down over Ashlinn’s hips, her fingers brushing the longsword’s hilt. And with a flourish, Mia drew the blade from the scabbard and stepped back out of Ash’s reach. “It isn’t.”

“You …” Ashlinn’s eyes were wide, mouth open. “You … fucking …”

“Bitch?”

Mia flipped the sword in her hand, wiping her tears away on her grubby sleeve.

“Aye,” she nodded. “But I’m a clever fucking bitch.”

Mia turned to Tric, sniffed hard, and spat.

“How do I get out of here?”

“YOU MUST LISTEN—”

“I must nothing,” Mia snapped. “Julius Scaeva is in Godsgrave, do you understand that? The real Julius Scaeva. A hundred thousand people saw him cut down by an assassin’s blade. He needs to show himself in front of the mob to assure them all is well before the city goes up in flames. And his doppel-gänger is dead. So are you going to show me the way out of this fucking hole, or leave me to wander in the dark playing guess-a-game? Because one way or another, I’m going back up to the ’Grave.”

“I remember the path we walked here on,” came a small voice.

Mia looked to her brother, standing on the black shoreline in his grubby purple robes. The boy was watching her with his big dark eyes, obviously not quite sure what to make of her anymore. He’d not wanted to believe they were siblings, that was plain enough. But if what Ash said about his father still being alive was true, then it all might be true. And when Mia had been the one who killed his da, it was simple—she was an enemy, hated and feared. But now Jonnen knew his father still lived, how did he feel about the sister he’d never known?

“You do?” Mia asked.

The boy nodded. “I’ve a memory sharp as swords. All my tutors say.”

Mia held out her hand to her brother. “Come, then.”

The boy looked up at her, suspicion and hunger swimming in his eyes. But ever so slowly, he took her hand. Mister Kindly sat on Mia’s shoulders, purring softly as Eclipse prowled about her ankles. She lifted the gravebone lantern and took a step into the darkness, but Tric moved to stand in front of her. Looming over her like some beautiful bloodless wraith from a fireside tale.

She could feel the chill radiating off his body, where once she’d felt a warmth that made her ache. Her eyes trailed up the alabaster line of his throat, the cut of his jaw, the soft crease of the dimple at his cheek. Pale as milk. Pale as death.

“You said the Mother sent you to be my guide,” Mia said. “Show me the way.”

“THIS ISN’T YOUR PATH, MIA.” Tric spoke softly. “ASHLINN SPEAKS TRUTH. YOU’RE WOUNDED. ANGRY. YOU NEED SLEEP AND A DECENT MEAL AND A MOMENT TO BREATHE.”

“Tric,” Mia said. “Do you remember that time we were acolytes and you talked me out of doing something I desperately wanted by appealing to my sensible side?”

The boy tilted his head.

“… No.”

“Me either,” Mia replied. “Now show me the way. Or get the fuck out of it.”

The boy glanced at Ashlinn. The dark around them rang with the song of murder. The pool rippling in quiet fury. Tric looked down into Mia’s eyes. Bottomless black. Utterly unreadable. But finally, he heaved a frosty sigh.

“FOLLOW ME.”

To the forum!”

The criers were on every bridge, the bellboys on every cobbled street. The shout rang up and down the thoroughfares and through the taverna, over the canals from the Nethers to the Arms and back again. All of Godsgrave ringing.

“The forum!”

Chaos had tried to take root in their time beneath the city, and Mia could smell blood and smoke in the air. But as they surfaced from the tunnels beneath Godsgrave’s necropolis, she could see all-out anarchy hadn’t broken loose quite yet. Luminatii and soldiers patrolled the streets, shoving folks with shield and truncheon. Gatherings of more than a dozen were swiftly broken up, along with the noses of anyone who protested too vigorously. The legion seemed to have been briefed of trouble ahead of time—almost as if the consul had anticipated chaos after the end of the games.

Always a step ahead, bastard …

And now the announcement was rippling through the streets. Floating up over the balconies and terra-cotta roofs and ringing across the canals. Shushing rumor and quieting unrest and promising the answers all in the city sought.

Was the cardinal really slain? The consul, too?

The savior of the Republic, laid low by the blade of a mere slave?

Mia had stolen a cloak from some washwoman’s line, another strip of cloth to wrap around the scar and slave brand on her face. They made their way through the Sword Arm and down toward the Heart, Ashlinn to her left, Tric to her right, Jonnen in her arms. The boy’s weight made her muscles ache, her spine groan in protest. But even if she was no longer the assassin who killed his father, she was still the abductor claiming to be his long-lost sister, and Mia didn’t trust him not to make a break for it if given half the chance. Even if she didn’t fear the clever little shit doing a runner, she was still loathe to let him go. She couldn’t lose him now.

Not after all this.

With both Eclipse and Mister Kindly riding in his shadow, the boy seemed a little more sedate. Watching her with clouded eyes as they slipped through the Godsgrave streets, over the wending cobbles and through the grand piazzas of the marrowborn district, closer, ever closer to the forum. The crowd around them was alight with fear, curiosity, violence waiting in the wings. Mia saw the flash of hidden blades. The glint of bared teeth. The potential for ruin, just a breath and a wrong word away.

Every grudge. Every slave, every unhappy pleb, every malcontent with a bone to pick. She saw how fragile it all was—this so-called “civilization.” The rage boiling at the heart of this place. Godsgrave felt like a barrel full of wyrdglass, wrapped in oil-soaked rags. Waiting for the spark that would send it all up in flames.

In the forum, a few hundred feet from the first Rib, they found the streets were simply too crowded to get any closer. The thoroughfares and bridges were packed with folk of every kind, young and old, rich and poor, Itreyan, Liisian, Vaanian, Dweymeri. Instead of trying to push on, Mia and her comrades forced their way to the base of the mighty statue of the Everseeing in the forum’s heart.

The effigy towered above the mob, fifty feet high, carved of solid marble. Three arkemical globes representing the three suns were held in one of Aa’s outstretched hands. In his other, he held out a mighty sword. Mia had destroyed this very statue the truedark she turned fourteen, but Scaeva had ordered it rebuilt, paying the fee from his own coffers. One more pious gesture to buy the mob’s adoration.

With Jonnen in Tric’s arms, the quartet climbed the statue, finding a place to rest in the great folds of the Everseeing’s robes. Peering out over the mob below.

“Black Goddess, look at them all,” Ash breathed beside her.

Mia could only stare. The crowd she’d fought in front of at the Venatus Magni had been impressive, but it seemed every citizen of Godsgrave had been ushered here for the announcement. The Ribs rose above them, sixteen gravebone arches, gleaming white and towering high into the sky. Soldiers and Luminatii shoved their way through the mob, cracking skulls and holding order by the throat. Desperation and fear hung in the air like blood-stink in a butchery. At least they had their perch to themselves—though he seemed to be struggling in the truelight as much as Mia, Tric’s chill presence dissuaded other folk from climbing too close.

Mia narrowed her eyes in the truelight glare. The journey up from beneath the city had been long, silent, a hundred twists and turns. She had no idea of how long they’d trekked—time had seemed meaningless in the hollow dark below the city’s skin. But now she was away from it, she longed for it again. That black pool. Those silent, wailing faces. She missed it, like she missed Mister Kindly and Eclipse when they were apart. Missed it like a part of herself had been torn away.

The many were one.

She pushed the thought aside. Focused on the rage. Her knuckles white on the hilt of her gravebone sword. None of it, the Moon, Niah, Cleo, Mercurio, Ashlinn, Tric, none of it fucking mattered.

Not until that bastard’s dead.

Trumpets sounded, ringing crisp and clear in the truelight glare. The suns above were living things, beating upon her shoulders, grinding her beneath their light like a worm under a boot. The shadows in the folds of the Everseeing’s robes were her only respite, and Mia clung to them like a child to its mother’s skirts. But she stood taller as the fanfare sounded, squinting past the great open ring of the forum and the circle of mighty pillars crowned with statues of the Senate’s finest. The Senate House itself stood to the west, all fluted columns and polished bone. The first Rib loomed to the south, the balcony of the consul’s palazzo crowded with Luminatii in gravebone plate and senators in green laurel wreaths and rippling white robes trimmed in purple.

The trumpets rang long and loud, stilling the shouts, the whispers, the uncertainty brewing in the City of Bridges and Bones. Truth told, Mia had never truly considered the consequences of her scheme in the magni far beyond seeing Duomo and Scaeva dead. But with rumor of the consul’s death running rife, all seemed on the verge of calamity.

What would happen to this place if the consul truly fell?

What truly would become of this city, this Republic, if she cut off its head? Would it simply thrash and roil for a time, then grow another? Or, like a god laid low by his father’s hand, shatter into a thousand pieces?

“Merciful Aa!” came a cry from the street below. “Look!”

A shout from a rooftop behind. “Four Daughters, is it him?”

Mia felt her heart drop and thump inside her chest. Squinting in the glare toward the balcony of the consul’s apartments as the Luminatii and senators stepped aside.

O, Goddess.

O, merciful Black Mother.

His purple robe was still drenched with blood, his golden laurel missing. A bandage was wrapped around his throat and shoulder, soaked with red. His face was pale, his salt-and-pepper hair damp with sweat. But there could be no mistaking the man as he stepped forward and raised his hand like a shepherd before the sheep. Three fingers outstretched in the sign of Aa.

“Father,” Jonnen said.

Mia glared at her brother, wondering if he’d be troublesome enough to shout for help—but he seemed afeared enough of the Hearthless boy holding him to keep quiet for now. The crowd, however, were overcome with a wave of jubilance, a deafening, giddy roar rippling from those near enough to see with their own two eyes, out, out into the forum. Folk farther back began shouting, demanding the truth, to see, shoving and brawling. Soldiers stepped in, truncheons at the ready. The streets swayed and rolled, folk shoving and spitting and pushing each other off bridges and into the canals below, chaos budding higher, building upw—

“My people!”

The cry rang through horns scattered about the forum, amplified and echoing on the walls of the Senate House, the gravebone of the Spine. Like some kind of magik, it brought stillness to the chaos. Balance to the edge of the knife.

Though he was too far away for Mia to really see his expression, Julius Scaeva’s voice was hoarse with pain. She could see Scaeva’s wife, Liviana, by his side, her gown red as bloodstains, her throat glittering with gold. Mia looked down to Jonnen beside her, saw his eyes fixed on the woman who’d claimed to be his mother.

The boy glanced up at Mia. Looked away again just as swift.

Scaeva drew a deep breath before continuing.

“My people!” he repeated. “My countrymen! My friends!”

Silence fell in the City of Bridges and Bones. The air was still enough to hear the whispers of the distant sea, the gentle prayer of the wind. Mia had known the love of the crowd in the arena, sure and true. She’d brought them to their feet, roaring in adoration, made them thrill and cry and sing her name like a hymn to heaven. But never once in her time on the sands had she held them in thrall like this.

They called Julius Scaeva “Senatum Populiis”—the People’s Senator. The Savior of the Republic. And though it sickened her to acknowledge, she marveled to see him still the entire city like millpond water with a mere handful of words.

“I have heard whispers!” Scaeva called. “Whispers that your Republic is beheaded! That your consul is slain! That Julius Scaeva is fallen! I have heard these whispers, and in turn, I shout my defiance before you all!” He slammed one bloody fist down on the balustrade. “Here I stand! And by God, here I stay!”

A roar. Thunderous and joyous, spreading like wildfire through the crowd. Mia could see folk below her embracing, cheeks wet with jubilant tears. Her stomach turned, her lips curled, her grip on her sword so tight her hand was shaking.

After a suitable time, Scaeva held up his hand for silence, and the hush fell like an anvil once more. He drew a deep breath, then coughed, once, twice. Hand going to his blood-soaked shoulder, he swayed on his feet before the mekwerk horn. Soldiers and senators stepped forward to aid the consul lest he fall. Dismay rippled through the mob. But with a shake of his head, Scaeva pushed his well-meaning helpers aside and stood tall again, despite his “wounds.” Brave and staunch and O, so very strong.

The crowd lost their collective mind. Rapture and bliss swept through them in a flood. Even as her mouth soured, Mia had to admire the theater of it. The way this snake turned every snag and stumble to bitterest advantage.

“We are wounded!” he cried. “There is no doubt. And though it pains me greatly, I speak not of the knife blow I bear, no. I speak of the blow dealt to us all! Our counsel, our conscience, our friend … nay, our brother, is taken from us.”

Scaeva bowed his head. When he spoke again, his voice was thick with grief.

“My people, it cleaves my heart to bring you tidings ill as these.” The consul steadied himself against the balustrade, swallowed as if overcome with sorrow. “But I must confirm that Francesco Duomo, grand cardinal of Aa’s ministry, and the Everseeing’s chosen on this blessed earth … is slain.”

Dismayed cries rang through the forum. Anguished wails and gnashing teeth. Scaeva slowly held up his hand, like a maestro before an orchestra.

“I grieve the loss of my friend. Truly. Long were the nevernights I sat in his radiance, and I shall carry the heavenly wisdom he gifted me for the rest of my years.” Scaeva hung his head, heaved a sigh. “But long have I warned that the enemies of our great Republic stood closer than my brothers in the Senate would believe! Long have I warned the Kingmaker’s legacy still festers in our Republic’s heart! And yet not even I dared imagine that on this most holy feast, in the greatest city the world has known, the paragon of the Everseeing’s faith might be cut down by an assassin’s blade? In sight of us all? Before the three unblinking eyes of Aa himself? What madness is this?”

He rent his purple robe and howled at the sky.

“What madness is this?”

The crowd roared again, dismay to rage and back again. Mia watched the emotion roll up and down like waves on a storm-wracked beach, Scaeva wringing them for every drop.

The consul spoke again once the bedlam had subsided.

“As you know, my friends, to safeguard the security of the Republic, it was my intention to stand for a fourth term as consul in the truedark elections. But in the face of this assault upon our faith, our freedom, our familia, I have no other choice. As of this moment, by the emergency provisions of the Itreyan constitution, and in the face of the undeniable threat to our glorious Republic, I, Julius Scaeva, do hereby claim title of imperator and all powers …”

Scaeva’s voice was momentarily drowned out by the volume of the mob. Every man, woman, and child was cheering. Soldiers. Holy men. Bakers and butchers, sweetgirls and slaves, Black Goddess, even the fucking senators up there on that awful little stage. The constitution of the Republic was being torn up in front of them. Their voices being reduced to a pale echo in an empty chamber. And still, all of them,

Every

Single

One

They didn’t cry.

They didn’t rage.

They didn’t fight.

They fucking cheered.

When a babe is frightened, when the world goes wrong, who does it cry for? Who seems the only one who can make it right again?

Mia shook her head.

Father …

Scaeva held up his hand, but it seemed even the maestro couldn’t calm the applause now. The people stomped their feet in time, chanted his name like a prayer. Mia stood, bathed in the thunder of it, sick to her bones. Ashlinn reached down, squeezed her hand. Glancing to the deadboy beside her, Mia wasn’t certain if she should squeeze it back.

It seemed an age before the mob stilled enough for Scaeva to speak again.

“Know I do not take this responsibility lightly,” he finally shouted. “From now until truedark, when I am certain our friends in the Senate will ratify my new position, my people, I will be your shield. I will be your sword. I will be the stone upon which we may rebuild our peace, reclaim that which was taken from us, and reforge our Republic so that it shall be stronger, greater, and more glorious than ever it was before!”

Scaeva managed a smile at the elated response, though he seemed now to be wilting. His wife whispered in his ear and he pawed his bloody shoulder, nodded slow. A centurion of the Luminatii stepped forward, began to usher him and his wife away under guard. But with one final show of strength, Scaeva turned back to the mob.

“Hear me now!”

A hush fell at his cry, deep and still as the Abyss itself.

“Hear me!” he called. “And know it true! For I speak to you now. You.”

Mia swallowed hard, her jaw clenched and aching.

“Wherever you may be, whatever shadow has fallen over your heart, whatever darkness you may find yourself in …”

Mia noted the emphasis on “shadow” and “darkness.” The fervor in Scaeva’s voice. And though they stood hundreds of feet apart, with a hundred thousand or more between them, for a second, she felt as if they were the only two people in the world.

“I am your father,” Scaeva declared. “I always have been.”

He held out his hand as the crowd raised theirs.

“And together? Nothing can stop us.”