not seen my laundry basket,” Mia replied.
Adonai smirked, glanced over his shoulder.
“Sister love, sister mine? Thou hast company.”
Mia saw a misshapen form shuffle into the arkemical glow. The woman was albino pale like her brother, but what little Mia could see of her skin was swollen and cracked, blood and pus leaking through the bandages about her hands and face. She was clad in a black velvet robe, her lips splitting as she looked at Mia and smiled.
“Blade Mia,” Marielle whispered.
“Weaver Marielle,” Mia said, bowing.
“To the ’Grave she goes. At Father Solis’s word, to a new patron’s arms. And though stitched, still she bleeds.” Adonai shivered slightly. “I smell it on her.”
“All thy hurts shall be mended, little darkin,” Marielle lisped. “Sure and true.”
The weaver nodded to the dreaded stone slab that dominated her room. It was set with leather straps and buckles of polished steel—though Marielle could weave flesh like clay and mend almost any wound, the process itself was agony. Mia hated the thought of being bound for the process, truth told. Trussed up like some hog at the spit, britches around her ankles. But, resigning herself to the pain, feeling the shadows within her shadow drink down her fear, Mia limped into the chamber.
As he closed the door behind her, Speaker Adonai caught her arm.
Mia looked up into his glittering eyes, snow-pale lashes. He leaned close, closer, and for a terrible, thrilling moment, she thought he might kiss her. But instead, Adonai spoke with lowered voice, lips brushing her ear, barely a whisper.
“Two lives ye saved, the turn the Luminatii pressed their sunsteel to the Mountain’s throat. Mine, and my sister love’s. Marielle’s debt to thee was repaid the turn she gave Naev back her face. But my debt, little Blade, is still owed. Know this, in nevernights to come. As deep and dark as the waters ye swim might turn, on matters of blood, count upon a speaker’s vow, ye may.”
Adonai fixed her in his scarlet stare, voice as sharp as the gravebone at her wrist.
“Blood is owed thee, little Crow,” he whispered. “And blood shall be repaid.”
Mia glanced to Marielle. Back up into Adonai’s glittering red eyes. Her mind swimming with thoughts of Godsgrave. Braavi. Stolen maps and hidden patrons and a Ministry that seemed to feel nothing but ire toward her.
“… Do you know something that I don’t, Speaker?”
A beautiful, bloodless smile was her only reply. With a swish of his scarlet robe, Speaker Adonai motioned to his sister. Mia turned to the Room of Faces and its mistress, looming above that awful slab. Marielle beckoned her with twisted fingers.
No matter what was to come, it was too late to turn back now.
And heaving a sigh, Mia lay down on the stone.
She almost wept when she saw it.
It rose from the clifftops and pierced the sky, ochre stone bleeding through to gold in the light of two burning suns. A keep carved out of the cliffs themselves, once home to one of the twelve finest familia of the Republic.
Crow’s Nest.
Mia knelt on the deck of the Gloryhound and stared, overcome with memories. Walking in the bustling port, hand in hand with her mother. The shopkeeps calling her “little dona” and bringing her sweets. Her father striding the battlements above the ocean, sea breeze playing in his hair as he stares across the waves. Dreaming, perhaps, of the rebellion that would be his undoing.
She’d been too young to understand, too small to—
Crack!
The whip snapped across her shoulder blades, bright red pain tearing her from her reverie.
“I gave no permission for you to stop! Chin to the boards!”
Mia risked a hateful glance at the executus, looming over her with a long stock whip in hand. Sweat was dripping down her face, hair clinging to her skin. A second strike across her back was her reward for her hesitation. Arms burning with fatigue, she dropped into another push-up and rose again. Black spots swum in her eyes. The two men beside her did the same, grunting with exertion.
The journey from the Hanging Gardens had taken almost three weeks. Every turn, she and the two other slaves Leona had purchased at market were taken up on deck and run through exercises, and the sound of the executus’s stock whip was starting to haunt her dreams.
Her first comrade in captivity was a hard Liisian boy named Matteo. He looked a few years older than Mia, with softly curling hair, strong arms and a pretty smile. Despite his impressive physique, Matteo had been sick as a dog for the first week they’d been at sea—Mia guessed he’d never set foot on a ship in his life.
Her second bedfellow was a burly Itreyan named Sidonius. He was in his late twenties and looked hard as a coffin nail. Bright blue eyes and a shaven head. He seemed the meaner of the pair, and looked at Mia like he wanted to fuck and/or kill her. She wasn’t quite sure in which order. She wasn’t sure Sidonius was either. Strangest of all, the man had a rough brand that looked to have been burned into his skin with a red-hot blade. A single word, carved right across his chest.
COWARD.
He offered no explanation for it, and Mia didn’t like him enough to ask.
After another thirty-two push-ups, the executus signaled the three to stop, and Mia collapsed face-first onto the deck, arms trembling.
“Your upper body strength is a jest,” the big man growled at her. “And yet, my lips are absent laughter.”
“Enough for the turn, Executus,” called Dona Leona from her seat on the foredeck. “They’ll need to be able to walk when they meet their new familia.”
“On your feet.”
Mia stood slowly, staring out at the ocean. The welts on her back tickled with the sting of her sweat. The executus’s salt-and-pepper hair whipped about in the ocean breeze, his beard bristling as he glared. Long minutes ticked by in silence, only the calls of gulls and the sounds of the distant port for company.
“Drink,” the executus finally grunted.
Mia turned and practically dashed for the water barrel lashed to the main mast. The big Itreyan, Sidonius, shoved her aside with a curse, snatching up the ladle and drinking his fill. Mia seethed, half-tempted to knock the thug on his arse as she waited her turn, but the sensible part of her brain counseled patience. When Sidonius finished drinking, Matteo flashed her his pretty smile, waved to the barrel.
“After you, Mi Dona.”
Crack!
The boy winced
