Nevernight (29 page)

Another smaller table stood at the room’s head, an ornate, high-backed chair behind it. Among the other apparatus, a glass terrarium sat atop it, lined with straw. Six rats snuffled about within, fat and black and sleek.

Tric had beaten Mia down here, sitting at the far end of the bench and ignoring her when she entered. Taking a seat beside Ash, Mia found herself studying the apparatus; beakers and phials and boiling jars. All the tools of an arkemist’s workshop. As she began to suspect what kind of “truth” they taught here, a honey-smooth voice interrupted her thoughts.

“I once killed a man seven nevernights before he died.”

Mia turned her eyes front, sat up straighter. A figure emerged from behind the curtains at the head of the hall. Tall and elegant, her back as straight as a sword. Her saltlocks were intricate. Immaculate. Her skin was the dark, polished walnut of the Dweymeri, her face, unadorned by ink. She wore a long flowing robe of deep emerald, gold at her throat. Three curved daggers hung at her waist. Lips painted black.

Shahiid Spiderkiller.

“I killed an Itreyan senator with his wife’s kiss,” she continued. “I ended a Vaanian laird with a glass of his favorite goldwine, though I never touched the bottle. I murdered one of the greatest Luminatii swordsmen who ever lived with a sliver of bone no bigger than my fingernail.” The woman stood before the terrarium, the rats inside watching her with dark eyes. “The nectar of a single flower can rip us from this fragile shell with more violence than any blade. And gentler than any kiss.”

Spiderkiller held up a strip of muslin, half a dozen chunks of cheese therein. Unwrapping the morsels, she dropped them inside the terrarium. Squeaking and squalling, the rats set about each claiming its own meal, devouring it within seconds.

“This is the truth I offer you,” Spiderkiller said, turning to the acolytes. “But poison is a sword with no hilt, children. There is only the blade. Double-edged and ever-sharp. To be handled with utmost care lest it bleed you to your ending.”

As Spiderkiller drummed long fingernails on the terrarium’s walls, Mia realized every single rat inside was dead.

The Shahiid lowered her head, murmured fervently.

“
Hear me, Niah. Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. These lives, these ends, my gift to you. Hold them close.
”

Spiderkiller opened her eyes and stared at the acolytes. Her voice breaking the deathly hush that had descended on the room.

“Now. Who will hazard a guess at what brought these offerings their endings?”

Silence reigned. The woman looked among the acolytes, lips pursed.

“Speak up. I have even less need of mice here than I do of rats.”

“Widowwalk,” Diamo finally offered.

“Widowwalk induces abdominal cramps and bloody vomiting before terminus is reached, Acolyte. These offerings died without a squeak of protest. Anyone else?”

Mia blinked in the emerald light. Wiping at her eyes. Perhaps it was her imagination. Perhaps the air down here was of poorer quality. But she was finding it hard to breathe …

“Come now,” Spiderkiller said. “The answer may prove of use to you in future.”

“Aspira?” Marcellus asked, covering his mouth to cough.

“No,” Spiderkiller said. “The onset was too swift. Aspira kills in minutes, not seconds.”

“Allbane,” came the calls. “Evershade.” “Blackmark venom.” “Spite.”

“No,” Spiderkiller replied. “No. No. No.”

Mia wiped at her lip, wet with sweat. Blinked hard. She glanced at Ash, realized the girl was having the same trouble breathing. Eyes bloodshot. Chest rising and falling rapidly. Looking around the room, she saw other acolytes now experiencing the same. Jessamine. Hush. Petrus.

Everyone except …

A smile was growing on Spiderkiller’s black lips. “Think quickly now, children.”

Everyone except Tric …

“Shit,” Mia breathed.

Dragging the saltlocks from his eyes, he offered his spoon to Mia.

“Does this smell strange to you . .?”

Tric looked about in confusion as the acolytes around him began hyperventilating. Belle fell to the floor, clutching her chest. Pip’s lips had gone almost purple. Mia lurched to her feet, stool toppling backward with a crash on the stone floor. Spiderkiller looked to her, one immaculately manicured eyebrow rising slightly.

“Is something wrong, Acolyte?”

“Mornmeal…” Mia looked around at her fellow novices, now all sweating and gasping for breath. “Maw’s teeth, she poisoned our mornmeal!”

Eyes growing wide. Curses and whispers. Fear spreading among the acolytes like a wildfire in summerdeep. Spiderkiller folded her arms, leaned against her desk.

“I
did
say the answer might prove useful in future.”

Mia cast her eyes around the room. Chest constricting. Heart thundering. Thinking back through all her venomlore, the pages of
Arkemical Truths
she’d read, over and over. Ignoring the rising panic around her. Fearless with Mister Kindly beside her. What did she know?

The poison is ingested. Tasteless. Almost odorless.

Symptoms?

Shortness of breath. Tightness in her chest. Sweats. No pain. No delirium.

Looking about her, she saw Carlotta was on her feet, the slavegirl’s eyes scanning the shelves about them as she muttered to herself. Ashlinn’s lips and fingernails were turning blue.

Hypoxia.

“The lungs,” she whispered. “Airways.”

She looked to Spiderkiller. Mind racing. Black spots swimming in her eyes.

“Red dahlia…,” she breathed.

Mia blinked. Another whisper had echoed her own, spoke the answer at the precise moment she had. She looked to Carlotta, found the slavegirl looking back at her, wide eyes bloodshot. But she knew. She
understood
.

“You get the bluesalt and calphite,” Mia said. “I’ll boil the peppermilk.”

The girls staggered to the overcrowded shelves, pawing through the ingredients. Ignoring the pain, Mia dragged her arm from its sling, pushed aside a box of palsyroot, knocked a jar of dried proudweed to the ground with a crash. Up on tiptoes and lunging for a jar of peppermilk at the back of the shelf, she glanced at Tric, pointed to one of the oil burners lining the table.

“Tric, get that lit!”

Hush fell to his knees, gasping for breath. Marcellus toppled backward out of his stool, clutching his chest. Not asking questions, Tric lit the burner, quickly stepping aside as a gasping, sweating Mia dumped a glass boiling chamber onto the flame. She poured the peppermilk inside, the grayish liquid bubbling almost immediately. The room was swaying before her eyes. Jessamine was on her hands and knees, Diamo dropped like a rock. Spiderkiller watched the proceedings silently, that same black smile on her lips. Not lifting a finger. Not saying a word.

Carlotta finally found the bluesalt, stumbled and nearly fell on her way to the burner. Pouring the purplish granules into the boiling flask with shaking hands, she dumped in a handful of bright yellow calphite. A series of tiny pops sounded inside the glass and a thick greenish smoke began spilling from the top. The reek was akin to sugar boiling in an overfull privy, but as Mia sucked it down, she found the tightness in her chest fading, the spots in her eyes dimming. Smoke continued to billow forth, heavy and thick, sinking down to the floor.

Carlotta dragged the semiconscious Hush closer, Mia helped Belle and Petrus nearer to a lungful. Ash and Pip were barely moving. Blue lips. Bruised eyes. But within a few minutes in the reeking smoke, all were breathing normally. Trembling hands. Disbelief on every face.

Slow clapping rang out in the room. The shell-shocked acolytes looked wide-eyed to Spiderkiller, still leaning on her desk and smiling.

“Excellent,” the Shahiid said, looking between Carlotta and Mia. “I’m pleased to see at least two of you have some knowledge of the Truth.”

“And this … is how you test us?” Carlotta gasped.

“You disapprove, Acolyte?” Spiderkiller tilted her head. “You are here to become a mortal instrument of the Lady of Blessed Murder. Do you think life in her service will test you with more kindness?”

Mia was still a little short of breath, but managed to find her voice to speak.

“But Shahiid … what if none of us had known the answer?”

Spiderkiller looked among the acolytes, standing or sitting around the now silent boiling flask. Drummed her fingers again on the terrarium of dead rats.

She looked to Mia. And ever so slowly, she shrugged.

“Resume your seats.”

Still more than a little shaky, the novices slouched to their places. Marcellus patted Mia and Carlotta on the back as he walked past. Hush and Petrus nodded thanks. Belle still looked shaky, sitting with her head between her legs. Ashlinn shot Mia an “I told you so” glance as the girls resumed their seats. The story about Spiderkiller murdering a tardy acolyte didn’t seem so far-fetched now …

“Good show, Corvere,” Ash whispered.

“Show?” Mia hissed. “Maw’s teeth, we could’ve all been fucking killed.”

“All except Tricky, of course.” Ash smiled at the Dweymeri boy. Tric was patting Belle on the back, wide-eyed but none the worse for wear. “Impressive nose he’s got under those tattoos. Remind me to skip the next meal he thinks smells funny, neh?”

Spiderkiller cleared her throat, looking pointedly at Ash. The girl fell silent as the dead.

“So.” The Shahiid clasped her hands behind her back, pacing slowly. “Beyond blades. Beyond bows. Be your victim some legendary warrior in shining mail or a king on a golden throne. A dram of the right toxin can make a garrison a graveyard, and a republic a ruin. This, my children, is the Truth I offer here.”

Shahiid Spiderkiller indicated Mia and Carlotta with a wave of her hand.

“Now, perhaps your saviors will explain how the red dahlia toxin works.”
3

Carlotta took a deep breath, glanced to Mia. Shrugged.

“It attacks the lungs, Shahiid,” she replied flatly, her composure returned.

“Bonds to the blood, so that the breath cannot,” Mia finished.

“You two have read
Arkemical Truths
, I take it?”

“A hundred times,” Carlotta nodded.

“I used to take it to bed with me,” Mia said.

“Surprised you can read…,” someone muttered.

“Beg pardon?” Spiderkiller turned. “I did not hear you, Acolyte Jessamine?”

The redhead, who still seemed out-of-sorts at the Shahiid’s “demonstration,” nevertheless lowered her eyes.

“… I said nothing, Shahiid.”

“O, no. Surely, you were about to explain how the toxin is extracted from the dahlia seed? The lethal dose for a man of two hundred and twenty pounds?”

Jessamine’s cheeks turned red, lips pressed firmly shut.

“Well?” Spiderkiller asked. “I await your answers, Acolyte.”

“Nitric filtration,” Carlotta suggested. “Into a bed of aspirated sugar and tin. Boiled and condensed. The lethal dose for a full-grown man is half a dram.”

Jessamine glared at the girl with undisguised hatred.

“Excellent,” Spiderkiller nodded. “Perhaps, Acolyte Jessamine, you will follow Acolyte Carlotta’s example and
know
the lesson before next you interrupt it. This knowledge may save your life one turn. I would’ve thought that truth already imparted.”

The girl bowed her head. “… Yes, Shahiid.”

With no further ceremony, Spiderkiller turned to a charboard, began speaking about the basic toxic properties. Delivery. Efficacy. Celerity. Her composure was immaculate, her manner, terse. It was hard to believe she’d almost murdered twenty-seven children a few minutes before. Breathing finally returned to normal, Mia looked to Carlotta and nodded.

“
Well done
,” she mouthed.

The girl smoothed her hair over her slavemark, nodded back gravely. “
You too
.”

As Mia turned her attentions to the lesson, she saw Jessamine from the corner of her eye, scribbling on a sheaf of parchment, slipping it to Diamo. The redhead glared at Carlotta with narrowed eyes. Despite the fact that the slavegirl had just saved her life, it looked like Jessamine had two nemeses now. Mia wondered if she’d be willing to throw more than poison looks …

Over the course of the lesson, it became apparent that Mia and Carlotta were head and shoulders above the other acolytes in venomcraft. It made Mia proud. Her beating at the hands of Shahiid Solis had shaken her more than she’d been willing to admit. Her visit with Shahiid Aalea had shown her how little she knew about some facets of this world. But
this
, she knew. As she and Carlotta answered question after question and she slowly earned a grudging smile of respect from the dour Shahiid of Truths, Mia found that, for the first time since she’d arrived, she was beginning to feel like she belonged. That she actually felt happy.

It didn’t last, of course.

Nothing ever does.

1. Listening in over midmeal a few turns later, Mia would learn the boy called himself “Pip,” and that his muttered conversations were not being conducted with himself, but rather with his knife—a long, cruel dagger that he’d apparently dubbed “the Lovely.”

2. Slavery in Itreya is a highly codified affair, with an entire wing of the Administratii devoted to regulation of the market. Slaves come in three flavors, depending on their skillsets, and, thus, monetary value.

The first are the commonplace sort of chattel—laborers, housebodies, and the like—who are branded arkemically with a single circle on their right cheek. The second are those trained for warfare—gladiatii, houseguards, and slave legions, marked with two circles, intertwined. The third, and most valuable, are those with a degree of education, or some valuable skill. Musicians, scribes, concubines, and so forth, who are branded with three interlocking circles denoting their superior worth.

The removal of these arkemical brands is a painful, expensive, and secretive process, tightly guarded by the Administratii. To earn their freedom, a slave must not only save enough coin to buy themselves from their masters, but also pay for the removal of their brand. It is no surprise, then, that most slaves in the Republic wear the mark to their graves.