Nevernight (69 page)

Cassius was already gone, stealing down the stairs without a sound. Mia hurried after him, for all her training feeling like a stumbling drunkard. Even beaten bloody, tortured and starved, Cassius moved like a shadow. His boots made no sound on the stone. His every motion precise, nothing wasted, no flash or showmanship. His hair flowing out behind him as if the breeze were blowing, stolen sword gleaming in his hand as he pushed open the front door and stepped into the street.

A dozen Luminatii were waiting. Centurion Garibaldi, squinting at Mia with vague recognition. A handful of heavily armed legionaries, sunsteel burning in their hands. Justicus Remus, a scarred, hulking mountain of a man in his gravebone armor, looking at Cassius with narrowed, wolfish eyes. And behind Remus, staring at Mia with something between hate and admiration …

“Ashlinn,” Mia whispered.

Remus stepped forward, sword raised and rippling with flame. He’d been a giant when Mia last saw him in the sunslight, just ten years old and clinging to her mother’s skirts. Now, he seemed just a little older. A little smaller.

But only a little.

“I’ve no wish to slay you, heretic,” the justicus growled.

“That makes one of us,” Mia spat.

Remus raised an eyebrow, as if surprised to learn the girl had a tongue. Cassius glanced sideways at Mia, spoke from the corner of his mouth.

“I believe he was talking to me.”

“I believe I couldn’t give a shit.” Mia turned to Remus, flipping her sword back and forth between hands. “Nice to see you again, Justicus. Did the traitorous bitch beside you tell you who I am?”

Remus glanced at Ashlinn, looked Mia up and down with a sneer. “I know who you are, girl. And it surprises me not one whit to see your lot thrown in with a den of heretics and murderers. The apple never falls far from the tree.”

Mia’s eyes narrowed, hair blowing about her face as the wind began to rise. The Luminatii looked to their feet, quavering a little as they realized their shadows were ebbing and pulsing, reaching out to the girl as if they longed to touch her.

“You hung my father as entertainment for a fucking mob,” she spat. “Threw my mother in a hole with no sunslight and let madness eat her. My brother was just a baby, and you let him die in the dark. And you talk to me about murder?”

Mia’s eyes were welling with tears, face twisted in rage.

“Every nevernight since I was ten years old, I’ve dreamed of killing you. You and Scaeva and Duomo. I gave up everything. Any chance I ever had of ever being happy. Every turn, I’d picture your face and imagine all the things I’d say to let you know just how much I hate you. It’s all I am anymore. It’s all that’s left inside me. You killed me, Remus. Just as sure as you killed my familia.”

Mia raised her sword, leveled it at Remus’s head.

“And now, I’m going to kill
you
.”

Remus snarled to the men beside him. “End the girl. Bring me Cassius alive.”

To their credit, an order to capture the deadliest man in the Itreyan Republic alive didn’t stagger the men much. Perhaps prefacing the command with the murder of a sixteen-year-old girl made it easier to swallow. Ashlinn hung back, but the legionaries—a dozen in all—stepped forward, Centurion Garibaldi at the forefront. With prayers to Aa and pleas for strength from the Everseeing Light, they raised their shields and charged. And without a sound, the Lord of Blades stepped up to meet them.

Mia had seen some fighters who moved like dancers, lithe and graceful. Others moved like bulls, all brawn and bluster. But Cassius moved like a knife. Simple. Straight. Deadly. There was no flash to his style. No flair. He simply cut right to the bone. The shadows rose at his call, and, with a wave of his hand, he disarmed the first legionary to meet him, buried his blade in the man’s chest. The second fell flat on his belly, his charge tripped up by a snarl of shadows. Cassius dispatched him with a quick blow to the back of his neck, almost as an afterthought.

Mia was astonished how easily the man wielded the dark. Out here, even in the light of a single sun, a second almost rising, she was hard pressed to even hold up a few of the charging legionaries. But still, she managed to fix the boots of two of the bigger fellows to the floor, hurled the last of her ruby wyrdglass into another’s face, blowing his head clean off his shoulders. A burning sword sliced the air, hissing as it came. Mia bent backward, feeling the heat on her chin. She rolled into a crouch, somersaulting across the dust and hurling her last throwing knife in reply. It thudded quivering into the Luminatii’s neck, left him gushing and choking on the ground.

Mia rose from the dust. Eyes on Ashlinn. The pair faced each other across the shifting sands, the ghosts of two murdered boys hanging in the air between them. Tric. Osrik. Both unanswered. But for some reason Ashlinn hung back, loitering on the edge of the melee as more Luminatii charged at Mia, swords raised.

“You scared of me, Ash?”

Parry. Feint. Lunge.

“I didn’t want it to be like this, Mia,” the girl called. “I said you didn’t belong here.”

“Never picked you for a coward. Your brother put up more of a fight.”

“Trying to goad me into a little toe-to-toe?” Ash shook her head sadly. “Think that’s how this ends, love? Me stumbling into a swordfight I can’t win?”

“A girl can dream.”

“Keep dreaming, then. I studied under Aalea too.”

Mia parried a blow aimed at her throat, kicked a toeful of dirt into her attacker’s eyes. The man clobbered her with his shield, sent her sprawling in the dust. She slipped aside as his burning sword crashed into the sand beside her head, kicking savagely at the man’s knee. She heard a wet crunch, a strangled scream. Scrambling to her feet, all of Naev’s lessons singing in her head. Flaming steel cleaving the air, dust caked on her tongue.

Risking a glance, she saw Cassius was every bit the bladesman his reputation suggested. The dirt around him was littered with half a dozen corpses, another two men lying wounded and groaning in the dirt. Typical of most generals, Remus had hung back to let his foot soldiers do the fighting, but with his men falling like leaves, the man spat in the dust and waded into the fray. The Lord of Blades fell back, feinting with his shadows, the darkness flickering in the face of Remus’s burning blade.

With the dogpile on Cassius, Mia was left fighting a single opponent—Centurion Garibaldi. The man was relentless, battering away with his shield and landing blow after blow atop Mia’s guard. Mia was swift, but the man was heavily armored, and she found the few blows she managed to land turned aside by his plate. Garibaldi slammed his shield into her chest, sent her flying. She rolled away in time to miss having her head split open, scrambling up into a crouch and flinging her last globe of onyx wyrdglass onto Garibaldi’s shield. The arkemical glass burst, throwing up a swirling cloud of black smoke. The centurion staggered, coughing, and summoning up the last of her strength, Mia clenched her fists and took hold of the shadow at the centurion’s feet, tangling his boots as he charged again. The man teetered, arms pinwheeling as he fought for balance, losing at last. Garibaldi fell forward, his heels still stuck fast to the road, his shins snapping clean through as his weight brought the rest of him to the ground.

The man screamed, clutching his legs as Mia released him, pawing the dust from her eyes. Cassius was still brawling with the Luminatii, their bodies a tangle of white and black, flame and shadow. Remus entering the fray had evened the scales—the Lord of Blades was now on the defensive, his sword a blur, the darkness singing.

Mia looked at the justicus, his face twisted in fury. The man who’d helped murder her familia. Drag her old life into ruin. But then she turned to Ashlinn. The girl who’d taken her new life and ripped it to bleeding pieces. Ashlinn stared back, sword in hand, blue eyes narrowed. Turning her back on the girl didn’t seem the smartest play. So Mia tilted her neck ’til it popped, and took a step toward her.

“Don’t do it, Mia,” Ash warned.

Mia ignored her, raising her hand and wrapping the darkness about the girl’s feet.

“This won’t hurt,” Mia said. “Much.”

Ash took a deep breath. Sighed. And reaching into her britches, she drew out a handful of burning flame, spinning at the end of a golden chain.

The Trinity.

Light flared, brighter than all the three suns. The sight of the medallion was like a club to the back of her head, sending her to her knees. From the corner of her eye she saw Cassius stagger, throwing up his forearm to shield his eyes. Remus was in mid-swing as the Lord of Blades dropped his guard. Desperate to keep his prize alive, the justicus turned his blade, hit Cassius with the burning flat. But the legionary beside him—terrified beyond wits at the murder of his fellows, the fall of his centurion, the deathly silence of this black-clad daemon summoning shadows from the abyss to cut his fellows to pieces—shared no such restraint.

As Remus cried warning, the legionary struck, Cassius already staggered from the Trinity’s light and Remus’s turned blow. A burning sword plunged into the man’s ribs, buried to the hilt. The legionary tore the blade free, the Lord of Blades crying out in pain, clutching his punctured chest. Falling to his knees, he coughed red, rolling into a ball, one arm still up to shield himself from that awful, burning light.

“Damned fool!” Remus roared, turning on the man and landing a crushing hook on his jaw. The legionary’s head whipped to one side, teeth flying as he crumpled like paper. “I wanted him alive!”

Mia was on all fours, head bowed, eyes shut against the blazing hatred of the Everseeing held in Ashlinn’s hand. Ash walked across the dirt toward Mia, Trinity held high. Mia rolled over onto her back, scrambling away, heels kicking at the road. Agony. Terror. Mister Kindly curled up in her shadow and writhing, just as helpless as she.

“I’m sorry, Mia,” Ash sighed.

Remus was glaring at Ashlinn, incredulous. “You had that on you this whole time? You could have ended this whenever you wanted? You treacherous little—”

“O, fuck off, god-botherer,” Ashlinn snarled. “I’m not in this for your glorious Republic and I don’t give a
shit
about you or your men. If I wanted a trump card up my sleeve, that’s my business. And in case you missed it, it just saved your miserable life. So instead of bleating about it, maybe you should end the girl who just tried to murder you, then go make sure the rest of the Ministry is still under lock and key? Unless you and your merry band of idiots want to accidentally gut them, too?”

Though she stood at least a foot shorter than Remus, Ashlinn stared the justicus down. With a snarl, Remus hefted his blade, stalked toward Mia, flame rippling down its edge.

Mia crawled backward in the dirt. Wracked with pain, unable even to stand. Terror in her veins now, roaring in her temples, anguished that this was how it would end. All the miles and all the years. To see it finish here? Sprawled in the dust of some forgotten shithole, unable at the last even to raise her sword?

This?

Her teeth were gritted. Eyes filled with hateful tears.

Like this?

The light was blinding; no matter where she looked, it was like staring into the suns. She could see only dim silhouettes. Ashlinn standing in front of her, the Light burning bright in her hand. Remus, towering behind her, a lesser light blazing in his fist. Wounded Luminatii, groaning in the dust. Lord Cassius, his terror reaching out to her own.

Never flinch. Never fear.

She shook her head. Staring up at Remus’s silhouette. Determined to look him in the eye. To show no matter how much it hurt, how much her heart named her liar …

“I’m not afraid of you,” she hissed.

She heard a soft chuckle. The lesser light rising high.

“Luminus Invicta, heretic,” Remus said. “I will give your brother your regards.”

The words hit Mia harder than the Trinity’s light. Turned her belly to water. What was he saying? Jonnen was dead. Mia’s mother had said so. That truedark she’d torn the Philosopher’s Stone to pieces, stood on the steps of the Basilica Grande and fallen before this same bastard, this same accursed light. Crying on the battlements afterward, above the place her father died. Mercurio beside her as she whispered.

“It was so bright,” she whispered. “Too bright.”

The old man had smiled. Patted her hand.

“The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.”

Ashlinn stood in front of her, Trinity blazing in her hand. Remus loomed at her back, sword raised. Behind them both, stretched across the sand and into the justicus’s own, was Mia’s shadow. Black. Writhing. But in the face of that awful light, darker than it had ever been.

She reached out to it. Teeth gritted. Eyes shut. Feeling the darkness without and the darkness within. And clenching her fists, dagger held tight

she stepped down

into her own shadow

and out of the justicus’s shadow behind

His body blocked off the Trinity’s light, the blinding flare rendering him a hulking silhouette. And lashing out with her blade, the blade her mother had held to Scaeva’s throat, the blade Mister Kindly had gifted her in the dark, the blade that had saved her life before, and now again, she buried it to the hilt in Remus’s neck.

The justicus clutched the hole she carved, a fountain of blood spraying between his fingers. Mia staggered away, drenched in red. The light still burning her. Eyes narrowed. Hair draped over her face in tangled drifts as she stumbled and fell.

Remus staggered, sword falling from his grip and quivering in the sand. Both hands to his neck now. Arterial spray hissing through his fingers. Realization dawning in his eyes—
she’s killed me, O, God, she’s killed me
—turning to fury, and he whirled on the girl, hands outstretched, fingers curled into claws. The blood spurted free, gushing down that barrel chest, those wolfish features draining of all their color. The justicus of the Luminatii Legion took one tottering step, two and three. Sinking to his knees. Stare locked on the girl, doing her best to crawl away along the sand.