Darkdawn. Jay Kristoff
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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 rumour 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 towards 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 Saviour of the Republic. And though it sickened her to acknowledge, she marvelled 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 theatre 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