Darkdawn. Jay Kristoff
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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.”
The flash of a gravebone sword.
A bubbling gasp.
A spatter of red.
Another guard sank to his knees and Mia
to the second man, his eyes going wide as he saw his comrade fall. Her gravebone sword cut through muscle and bone like mist. His muscles slackened, his bladder loosed, piss and blood pooling on the polished stone floor as he sank to his knees and from there, to his end.
Mia dragged the bodies to an antechamber and crouched in the shadows, curtains of long dark hair draped about her face. Listening for footfalls. The forum outside was still awash with sound, people uncertain whether to celebrate Scaeva’s speech or mourn their slain cardinal. Godsgrave was in the grip of a guilty elation, breathing easier after salvation had been snatched from calamity. Their father had defied death. Escaped the assassin’s blade.
Who could now deny he was the chosen of Aa? Who better to claim the title of imperator and lead the Republic through the dangers it now faced?
Mia stole through the gravebone halls, silent and swift. She Stepped between the shadows as easily as another girl might have skipped from one puddle to another in the falling rain. It was a gift she’d practiced for years; though it seemed much simpler since Furian had died by her hand. She recalled her brother using the shadows to blind her in the necropolis, musing idly if she might learn to do the same. She wondered how much truth lay in Tric’s tale of splinters of shattered god inside her. What other gifts she might discover inside herself, if she embraced them and what she was.
The walls about her were hung with beautiful tapestries, lined with statues of solid marble, lit by chandeliers of singing Dweymeri crystal. She could hear music somewhere distant—strings and a harpsichord, a touch of somberness in the shadow of the cardinal’s death. The gravebone longblade in her hand was a comforting weight, the stink of blood in her nostrils a sweet perfume, the wolf made of shadows a soothing growl in her ear.
“… TWO MORE AHEAD …”
They fell as the last two had done, the shadows rippling, the girl coalescing out of nothingness, as if coming into focus before their wondering eyes. The men were Luminatii, gravebone armor and blood-red cloaks and feathered plumes upon their heads. The helms did wonders to smother what little sound they made as they died, and their cloaks a fine job of mopping up the mess afterward.
Her heart was hammering despite the daemon in her shadow. Her thoughts drifting to Ashlinn, Tric, Jonnen. She’d asked the former to guard the latter, watch him as if her life depended on it. “I’m not a fucking nursemaid,” had come the protest, and there was more waiting in the wings. But Mia’s kiss had quickly silenced them all.
“Please,” was all she’d said. “For me.”
And that had been enough for now.
How much longer, she wasn’t entirely sure.
“I’LL BE OF NO USE IN THIS,” Tric had told her. “THE LIGHT IS TOO BRIGHT.”
“You made short work of those soldiers in the necropolis,” she’d pointed out. “Truelight or no.”
“THE WALLS BETWEEN THIS WORLD AND THE MOTHER’S REALM ARE THINNER IN THE HOUSES OF THE DEAD. AND IT’S THROUGH NIAH’S WILL I WALK THIS EARTH, NO OTHER’S. I’LL GROW STRONGER THE NEARER WE DRAW TO TRUEDARK. BUT HERE AND NOW …”
He’d looked about them, shaken his head.
“BESIDES, THIS IS A FOOLISH PLAN, PALE DAUGHTER.”
She’d wanted to give him a quip in reply, but hearing him call her by that name had made her chest ache instead. She’d looked at him, black hands hidden in his sleeves, black eyes hidden beneath his hood. His beautiful alabaster face, framed all in darkness. Wondering what might have been, then choking those wonderings dead.
“Please don’t do this,” Ash had begged.
“I have to,” she’d replied. “He almost never makes public appearances anymore. That’s why we struck at him during the magni, remember? I have to take him now before he goes to ground again.”
“You’re presuming that was him at all,” Ash had protested. “Scaeva could have a dozen doubles for all we know. He’s been in league with the Red Church for years. Who’s to say he’s still in the city? Or if he is, who’s to say he’s not baiting you?”
“He probably is,” Mia said.
“Then