They almost didn’t make it to Galante.
The storm raged for a solid week, and though no lightning kissed the explosives in the Maid’s belly, the ocean still did her best to drag them all to sailors’ graves. Six of the crew were lost to the deep, swept off the decks or torn from the rigging. The sails on the main and mizzenmast were split like rotten hessian, the foremast almost snapped off at the root. Through it all, Cloud Corleone had stood at the wheel, as if by sheer will he’d keep his ship together. And yet Mia suspected it wasn’t the captain, but another figure up on deck who proved the difference between them all living and dying.
A deadboy.
He didn’t move from the bow for seven turns. Lips moving in silent prayer to the Mother, asking she beseech her twins for respite, for mercy, for quiet. Mia didn’t know for certain if the Mother listened, or if her daughters paid heed, but as the Maid limped into Galante harbor, torn and bleeding but somehow still afloat, Mia made her way up to the bow and leaned on the wood beside him.
He stood with those black hands on the railings, a curtain of damp saltlocks framing his face. The wind still gnashed and snapped at their heels, the water below a sea of jagged whitecaps, rain drizzling in a thin gray veil.
He was still darkly beautiful, his skin smooth and pale, his eyes black as pitch. But Mia could swear there was a little more color to him now. A faint flush of life to his flesh. A hint in the way he moved. Ashlinn had whispered to Mia of it alone in their cabin—how the closer they drew to truedark, the more … alive Tric appeared. It seemed a dark shade of sorcery, like nothing she’d ever heard or read about, but Mia supposed it made a kind of sense. If it was the power of the Night that returned Tric to life, he might seem more alive the closer to night it drew.
She wondered what he was exactly. The magik of him, and the mystery. And how much like the old Tric he might be by the time the suns finally failed.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he asked, glancing at her sidelong.
“Just looking,” she replied.
He nodded, turning to the white jewel of Galante harbor before them. The Cityport of Churches was a curious mix of Liisian and Itreyan architecture, tall minarets and graceful domes, flat rooftop gardens and high terra-cotta roofs, hundreds of thousands milling in her streets. Cathedral bells tolled across the waves, ringing in the hour, all in time. Mia had served in the Red Church chapel here for eight months under Bishop Tenhands, and she knew the city like a boozehound knew the bottle.
“This was the place we met,” she said. “Well … met again. I’d just killed the son of a senator, if I recall correctly.”
“I REMEMBER. YOU HAD A RED DRESS ON. AND A CROSSBOW BOLT IN YOUR ARSE.”
She smirked, tossing windblown locks from her face. “Not my finest hour.”
“YOU LOOKED MORE THAN FINE TO ME.”
The smile dropped away. Uncomfortable silence hung between them like a shroud. A lonely gull swung through the sky overhead, singing a mournful song.
“Did…” Mia shook her head, looking to change the subject. “What you said out there during the tempest, about the Ladies of Ocean and Storms … was that true? About them … knowing?”
“DO YOU HAVE A FLINTBOX?”
Mia blinked at the strange question. “Aye.”
“GIVE IT TO ME.”
Mia reached into her britches, pulled out the small slab of burnished metal. It was a simple device: flint, wick, arkemical fuel. Two silver priests at a market stall.
“Just don’t drop it anywhere belowdecks, aye?”
Tric took the box in his ink-black hands, struggled a moment with the flint. Those fingers of his had once been clever as cats, deft and supple and quick. Her belly sank at another reminder that, beautiful as he was, as close to truedark as they might be drawing, out here in the sunslight, this boy still wasn’t who he used to be. But after a moment, he struck the flame, lifted the flintbox toward her.
The wind was howling, the rain was spitting; the thin tongue of fire should probably have sputtered out entirely. Instead, as Tric held it between them, Mia saw the flame flicker and grow, burning hotter. And though she had the wind howling at her back, the fire stretched out toward her, reached into the gale. Like it …
… like it wanted to burn her.
“THE LADY OF EARTH SLUMBERS AS SHE HAS DONE FOR AN AGE,” Tric said. “BUT SO LONG AS YOU SEEK THE CROWN OF THE MOON, STORM AND OCEAN AND FIRE WILL BE YOUR ENEMIES. THEY ARE THEIR FATHER’S DAUGHTERS, MIA. RAISED TO HATE THEIR MOTHER AND THEIR BROTHER BOTH. AND THUS, YOU.”
Watching the finger of flame reaching for her, flickering and flailing, Mia felt a sliver of cold fear sink into her belly.
“ALL THE PIECES ARE BEGINNING TO MOVE. AND THE CLOSER YOU COME TO THE CROWN, THE HARDER THEY WILL STRIVE TO STOP YOU.” Tric shook his head, pursed his lips. “I’D HOPED WE MIGHT MAKE IT FARTHER UNDETECTED. BUT ALL THREE OF AA’S EYES ARE STILL IN THE SKY. THEY DON’T NAME HIM EVERSEEING FOR NOTHING.”
“You’re saying if we head out onto the ocean again…”
“THE LADIES WILL TRY TO STOP US AGAIN.”
“But Ashkah and the Quiet Mountain are through the Sea of Sorrows from here,” she frowned. “We can’t walk there from Liis. We need to travel by ship.”
Tric looked to the harbor before them, the sea at their back.
“WE COULD TRAVEL BY LAND FOR A TIME,” he offered. “HEAD EAST, ALONG THE COAST. HAVE CORLEONE AND THE MAID SAIL AROUND THE NORTHCAPE WITHOUT US OR THE LADIES’ WRATH, MEET US IN AMAI. THAT WILL LEAVE ONLY A SHORT JOURNEY BY WAVE, ACROSS THE SEA OF SORROWS TO ASHKAH. WE’LL STILL RISK THE TWINS’ IRE, BUT A JOURNEY OF A WEEK IS BETTER THAN THREE.”
Mia shook her head. She hadn’t even made up her mind if she truly believed all this gods and goddesses nonsense. Hadn’t decided if she’d even seek the Crown yet. But it seemed the divinities had decided without her, and she was becoming suddenly and painfully aware of what having a trio of goddesses stacked against her could mean.
“THE CLOSER WE COME TO TRUEDARK,” Tric said, as if reading her thoughts, “THE DEEPER YOUR STRENGTH WILL GROW. YOU KNOW THIS.”
Mia nodded, remembering the power she’d wielded during the truedark massacre. Stepping across shadows in the city of Godsgrave like a little girl skipping puddles. Liquid darkness tearing down the statue of Aa outside the Basilica Grande at her whim. Mother only knew what she might accomplish now that she was older, now that the splinter that had been inside Furian resided in her.
And she could feel it. Those suns sinking toward the horizon. Slow but inevitable. The dark inside her deepening. Quickening.
Shadows at her back, waiting to unfurl in the dying light.
“BUT YOU ARE VULNERABLE NOW,” Tric continued. “AND NOW IS WHEN THEY’LL SEEK TO STRIKE. WE MUST MOVE WITH CAUTION. OVERLAND IS OUR SAFEST ROAD.”
Mia sighed but nodded. “All right, then. I’ll speak to Corleone about meeting us in Amai. If you’re sure they’ll be safe without us aboard?”
“WHEN DEALING WITH THE DIVINITIES, NOTHING IS CERTAIN,” Tric said. “BUT YOU ARE THEIR FOCUS, MIA. YOU ARE THE THREAT IN AA’S EYES.”
“We’ll need to buy ourselves some horses, I suppose.” Mia scowled, spit on the deck. “I fucking hate horses.”
Tric smiled, his dimple creasing his pale cheek. “I REMEMBER.”
She looked at him then. Her voice just a whisper on the wind.
“What else do you remember?”
He tilted his head, and the look in his eyes made her chest ache.
“EVERYTHING,” he replied.
“What news, Crow?”
Mia turned, saw Sidonius and Bladesinger standing behind her. Wavewaker and Bryn were at the starboard, the big man pointing to the city and giving the Vaanian girl a quick tour of the landmarks. Behind them, Mia could see Butcher bent over the railing, dry-retching into the sea. Bladesinger eyed Tric with open suspicion, and Mia wondered what the former priestess-in-training would be thinking of a Hearthless walking among them. But Sidonius’s eyes were fixed on Mia.
“We have to travel overland,” she told them. “In news I needed like a second arsehole, along with Aa’s ministry, the Luminatii and Itreyan Legion, and the Red Church, apparently the Ladies of Storms and Oceans are also displeased with me.”
“You … think?” Butcher managed to gasp. “I’ve puked up both … lungs and one of my fucking jewels since we g-got on this damned shit b-bucket.”
“Mind your tongue, piss-weasel,” came a voice. “Or I’ll hack off your other nut.”
BigJon scowled up at the former gladiatii, fists on hips. The first mate and his captain had joined the group on the bow as the Maid slipped farther toward the Cityport of Churches. BigJon was soaked through to this skin and looking salty to boot, his drakebone pipe hanging from one side of his mouth. For his part, Corleone appeared exhausted from a week of constant battle at the wheel, his clothes clinging to him like the fur on a waterlogged rat. But the fire hadn’t dimmed from the man’s eyes.
“Did I hear tell you’re leaving us?” he asked Mia.
The girl nodded. “For a time. Being aboard is putting you and your men arisk.”
“Bollocks, that was barely a breeze.” Cloud stamped his foot on the deck. “Solid as the earth beneath your feet, my Maid.”
“We should get the bloody foremast looked at, at least,” BigJon said. “Got a split in it deeper than my aunt Pentalina’s bosom. Bilge pumps are running like a three-legged scabdog, and we’ve got badger-spunk for brains if we don’t re-caulk—”
“You know,” Cloud sighed at his first mate, “for a fellow with a dick like a donkey, you do a remarkable impression of an old woman.”*
BigJon chuckled, pipe stem clutched between silver teeth.
“Who told you I was hung like a donkey?”
“Your mother talks in her sleep.”
“We’ll travel overland,” Mia smiled. “That’ll give you a breath for repairs, and you can still meet us at Amai with plenty of time.” She glanced at Tric. “Safer for all of us.”
“AYE.”
Corleone raised his eyebrow. “Have you ever been to Amai?”
“No,” Mia answered.
“NO,” the deadboy replied.
The captain and his first mate exchanged an uneasy glance.
“I…” Butcher groaned from the railing, “… g-grew up there…”
“Enjoyable childhood, was it?” BigJon asked.
“Not really.” The gladiatii wiped his lips, stood with a groan on unsteady legs.
“I’ve heard tell of it,” Bladesinger said. “Rough city.”
“Rough?” BigJon scoffed. “It’s the blackest pit of bastards, thieves, and murderers this side of the Great Salt. Whole place is a pirate enclave. And not the Charming Bastard kind, either. The Rape and Kill Your Entire Family kind.”
Corleone nodded. “High seat of His Majesty, Einar ‘the Tanner’ Valdyr, Blackwolf of Vaan, Scourge of the Four Seas, King of Scoundrels.”
Sidonius blinked. “Pirates have kings?”
Cloud frowned. “Of course we have kings. How did you think it worked?”
“I dunno. I thought you’d be an autonomous collective or something.”
“Autonomous fucking collective?” BigJon looked Sid up and down. “What kind of backward-arse shit-brained government is that? Sounds a recipe for chaos to me.”
“Aye,” Corleone nodded. “We work by a system, matey. Just because we’re pirates doesn’t mean we’re lawless brigands.”
Sid looked astonished. “… That’s exactly what it fucking means!”*
“All right, all right,” Mia sighed. “Is there any way to get from Liis to Ashkah other than crossing the Sea of Sorrows?”
“No,” Corleone said.
“Is there a major port in Liis that’s closer to Last Hope than Amai?”
“No,” said BigJon.
“Right, well, let’s stop fuckarsing about and start walking, shall we?” Mia said. “We’ll deal with his majesty Einar Whatsit, Scourge of Wherever, when we get there.”
Mia’s notion obviously didn’t sit well with Corleone, but with no real alternative to offer, the privateer finally shrugged assent.
“We’ll need supplies,” Sidonius said. “Horses and harness. Weapons. Armor.”
“We can afford the nags,” Mia said. “But we’ll have precious little coin left after.”
“We have the kit from that Luminatii tosser and his lads killed in your cabin,” Cloud offered. “Four marines plus a centurion. Steel, shields, leather, and chain.”
“That could work,” Sidonius said. “Posing as soldiers moving overland, we’re less likely to be troubled by slavers and the like. We’ll have to ditch the uniforms once we arrive, of course. But I was an officer in the legion, so I speak the language if we come across any other army folk on the way to Amai.”
“Looks like you’re leading us, then, Centurion,” Mia said, saluting.
The group agreed, and without much more ado, set about gathering their meager possessions. By the time the Maid made berth in Galante, they were assembled on deck. Sidonius and the Falcons hadn’t changed into their soldier’s kit yet, each still dressed in the common thread they’d bought with their freedom. Ashlinn stood with Jonnen, carrying the small sack of “essentials” she’d purchased in Whitekeep over her shoulder. Eclipse stood in the boy’s shadow, making it dark enough for two. Tric had finally climbed down from the bow, waiting by the gangplank.
“Daughters watch over you and yours, Mia,” Corleone said, extending his hand.
“I’m hoping for exactly the opposite,” she smiled, shaking it.
“We’ll make our repairs, then head around the cape. I’m guessing we’ll still beat you to Amai, but we’ll wait for you there. Watch your step once you’re inside the city, stay the fuck out of the way of other salts. Keep your head well down and yourself to yourself. Head straight to the Pub, we’ll be waiting.”
“I know a nice little chapel to Trelene on the foreshore, Dona Mia,” said BigJon with a silver grin. “That offer of marriage is still open.”
“Thank you both,” she smiled. “Blue above and below.”
“Above and below,” Corleone smiled.
“Bartolomeo?” Mia raised a finger in thought. “No, no … Brittanius?”
The privateer only grinned in reply. “See you in Amai, Mi Dona. Walk carefully.”
The captain and his first mate set about their business. Mia’s comrades marched down the gangplank one by one. Pulling her hood low, the Blade stood and looked out at the Cityport of Churches. Galante was home to a Red Church chapel—they were at risk as long as they stayed in the city. Mia was eager to get moving, thinking of Mercurio at the Ministry’s mercies and praying to the Mother he was somehow well.
She felt a small shiver in her spine. A shadow-thin shape materialized on the railing beside her, licking at a translucent paw.
Mia kept her eyes on the harbor.
“Coming with me, are you?”
“… always…,” Mister Kindly replied.
The wind howled in the space between them, hungry as wolves.
“… are you still angry…?”
She hung her head. Thinking about who and what she was, and why. The things that drove her and the things that made her and the ones who loved her.
Despite everything.
She scowled, reached out, and ran her fingers through his not-fur.
“Always,” she whispered.
Mia hated horses almost as much as horses hated her.
She’d named the only stallion she’d ever been remotely fond of “Bastard,” and even though the beast had saved her life, she couldn’t say she truly liked him. Horses had always struck her as ungainly, stupid things, and her feelings weren’t helped by the fact that every horse she’d met had taken an instant dislike to her.
She’d often wondered if they could simply sense her innate disdain. But watching the horses at the Galante stable react to her brother with the same skittish nervousness they’d always displayed around her, Mia supposed it must be the touch of darkness in her veins. She was more conscious of it now than ever before. The depth of the shadow at her feet. The burn of the three suns overhead, beating on her like hateful fists even through the blanket of storm clouds. The lingering feeling of emptiness, of something missing when she looked at her brother.
She wondered if he felt the same. If that was perhaps why, ever so slow, he seemed to be warming to her.
More than this Liisian prick was warming to Bryn, anyways …
“I’ll give you a hundred silver for the seven,” the Vaanian girl was saying. “Plus the wagon and feed.”
“Piss on you, girl,” the stableman scoffed. “A hundred? Try three.”
They were stood in a muddy stable on Galante’s east side, as far from the Red Church chapel as could be managed. They’d picked up supplies in the marketplace, food and drink, and a good bow of stout ash and three quivers of arrows for Bryn. She stood with feet planted in mud and shit now, fingertips running over the bow at her back and obviously itching to use it.
The stableman stood a foot taller than Bryn. He was clad in dirty grays and a grubby leather apron hung with horseshoes and hammers. He had the lingering stare of a fellow who saw breasts as an obvious yet fascinating impediment to intelligence.
“A hundred,” Bryn insisted, crossing her arms over her chest. “That’s all they’re worth.”
“O, an expert, are we? These are Liisian purebreds, girl.”
The former equillai of the Remus Collegium, and one of the greatest flagillae ever to grace the sands of the arena, rolled her eyes.
“That’s a purebred,” Bryn said, pointing to the largest gelding. “But he’s Itreyan, not Liisian. She’s a purebred,” Bryn said, pointing to a mare, “but she’s at least twenty-five and looks like she’s had a bout of shinwithers in the last two years. The rest of them are racers past their prime or nags barely fit for the knackery. So hammer that purebred nonsense where the Everseeing won’t shine.”
The man finally dragged his stare up from Bryn’s tits to her eyes.
“A hundred and twenty,” she said. “Plus the wagon and feed.”
The man scowled deeper but finally spit into his hand. “Deal.”
Bryn snorted, hocked, and coughed an entire throatful of phlegm into her palm, then shook with a wet squish, staring the dullard in the eye.
“Deal,” she said. “Prick.”
The stableman was still wiping his hand clean as they saddled up. Mia was constantly scanning the streets about them, looking for familiar faces. She could have hidden herself and Jonnen beneath her cloak of shadows, of course, but the agents of the Red Church would likely know Ashlinn just as well as she, and Mia couldn’t hide all three of them. Instead, she relied on Mercurio’s training—sticking to the shadows and lurking beneath the eaves, hood pulled low as she searched the crowd. Ashlinn was stood close by, watching the rooftops. She knew as well as Mia this was a Red Church city, that Bishop Tenhands and her Blades would be hunting for them. But for all their vigilance, it seemed they’d gone unnoticed for now. With luck, they’d be out of the cityport before their fortune and this storm broke.
“Ready?” Sidonius asked.
Mia blinked, looked to their convoy. A loaded wagon, drawn by two tired draft horses. A half dozen geldings and mares, each with a former gladiatii in Itreyan military garb atop them. Sidonius led the column, looking rather resplendent in his gravebone centurion’s armor, despite the rain wilting the blood-red plume on his helm. He reminded Mia of her fa …
… O, Goddess …
I don’t even know what to call him now …
“Aye, sir,” Mia managed to smile.
She helped her little brother up into the wagon. Ash flopped into the tray behind, propping herself against the feedbags and drawing her hood down over her face. Only Tric remained on foot, giving the horses a wide berth—Mia saw they turned wide-eyed and fitful when he strayed too near. Climbing up into the driver’s seat, she settled in beside Jonnen. Thunder boomed overhead and the boy flinched, the rain coming down thicker as lightning licked the skies. Mia dragged his new cloak’s hood up over his head, offered him the reins to take his mind off the tempest and hers off her sorrows.
“Want to drive us?” she asked.
He looked at her, expression guarded. “I … do not know how.”
“I’ll teach you,” she said. “It’ll be simple for someone as clever as you.”
With a snap of the whip and a gentle nudge, the wagon began rolling. Mia and her comrades picked their way through Galante’s streets, over the cobbles and flagstones, past the marble facades and fluted columns and stacked tenements, off toward the eastern gates. The road awaited them, and beyond that, Amai. And over the Sea of Sorrows, the Ashkahi Whisperwastes, her mentor, and whatever devilry the Red Church could conjure. But for now, Mia simply settled in beside her brother, instructing him gently, smiling as he began to enjoy himself. She felt Ashlinn in the wagon behind her, a light touch on her hip. Mia reached down and squeezed her girl’s hand.
Eyes on the boy walking before them.
Out toward the gate, and from there, the open road beyond.
Thunder crashed again, rain beating on the tiles.
Two figures stood on a rooftop in the shadow of a chimney stack, watching the convoy set out with narrowed eyes.
The first turned to the second, hands speaking where his mouth could not.
inform tenhands
The second signaled compliance, slipped away across the rooftops.
Hush remained standing in the rain.
Blue eyes on the traitors’ backs.
Nodding.
soon