Jay Kristoff - Darkdawn

A ribbon of blackness uncurled from under the imperator’s feet. Slithering across the floor and rising up, thin as paper, licking the air with its not-tongue.

A serpent made of shadows.

‘… She has your eyes, Julius … ’ it said.

The rage flared then, bright as those three suns in the cursed heavens outside. The blood in her veins, the blood that they shared, set to boiling. She didn’t care in that moment, not about any of it. Mercurio or Jonnen. Ashlinn or Tric. The Red Church and the Black Mother and the poor, broken Moon. She’d have opened her wrists for the chance to drown him in her blood right then. She’d have smashed herself to pieces just to cut his throat upon the shards.

She didn’t realize she was running until she was almost upon him, her blade raised high, her lips peeled back, eyes narrowed.

The serpent hissed warning.

Pulse rushing in her ears.

And, turning towards her, Julius Scaeva held up his hand.

A flash of light. A stab of pain. A blinding flare like a punch to her face, sending her sprawling backwards, yowling like a scalded cat. A golden chain hung between Scaeva’s fingers, and at the end of it dangled three brilliant suns – platinum, rose, and yellow gold. The Trinity of Aa, repeated on every chapel spire and church window from here to Ashkah. But this one had been blessed by a servant of true faith.

Eclipse whimpered, the serpent at Scaeva’s feet twisted and writhed in agony. Mia was on her back, fingernails clawing the graven floor as Scaeva raised the sigil into the few feet and thousand miles between them. The light was white fire and rusty blades, lancing into the cool dark behind her eyes. Her belly roiled and her vision burned and her mouth filled with bile, that blinding, blistering, burning light reducing her to a ball of helpless agony.

‘It’s g-good to see you, daughter,’ Scaeva said.

How?

Beyond the pain, she could still feel it – the same longing she’d felt in the presence of every other like her. Scaeva was darkin, she was sure of it. But that Trinity, Black Mother, those three spheres of incandescent flame …

‘H-How?’ she managed.

‘How d-do I … endure it?’

Julius Scaeva’s voice trembled as he spoke, and through her own tears, Mia could see them welling in his eyes also. But still, the imperator of the Itreyan Republic held those awful suns up between them. His hand was shaking. His passenger coiling into knots of agony at his feet. Faint wisps of smoke snaked from between his fingers.

But still, he held on.

‘The same way I just laid c-claim to a throne.’ Scaeva twisted the Trinity this way and that, veins standing taut in his neck, hissing through gritted teeth. ‘A matter of will, daughter m-mine. To claim true power, you need not soldiers … n-nor senators, nor servants of the holy. All you need is the will to do what others will n-not.’

The nausea swelled in her throat, the pain of the Everseeing’s flame almost blinding. But still, Mia managed to reply, her voice dripping hatred.

‘I’m n-not … your f-fucking daughter.’

Scaeva tilted his head, looked at her with something close to pity.

‘O, Mia …’

He knelt in front of her, bringing the Trinity ever closer. Mia scrambled farther away, scuttling backwards on arse and elbows like some crippled crab. Pressed back against the wall, she found herself gasping for breath, tears streaming unchecked down her scarred cheeks, hand raised against the conflagration of those three blessed circles. She could see tendons corded in Scaeva’s arm, sweat glistening on his shaking fist, dripping onto the polished gravebone floor between them.

But still, he held on.

‘M-May I put this away?’ he asked. ‘Do you think … we have it in us to s-speak like civilized people? For a … m-moment at least?’

Fire inside her skull. Hatred like acid in her veins. But ever so slowly, pain-wracked and sickened, Mia nodded.

Scaeva stood at once, slipped the Trinity back out of sight in his robes. The relief was immediate, dizzying, a sob slipping up and over her lips. As Mia struggled to catch her breath, Scaeva walked away across the room, leather sandals whispering on the vast map carved into the floor. With shaking hands, he filled a small glass of water from a singing crystal carafe.

‘May I offer you a drink?’ he asked, his voice once more smooth and sweet as toffee. ‘Goldwine is your favourite poison, neh?’

Mia said nothing, glaring at Scaeva as her pulse slowed to a gallop. Watching him like a bloodhawk. Mercurio had always taught her to study her prey. And though she’d dreamed about Julius Scaeva almost every nevernight for the past eight years, this was the first time she’d seen him up close since she was ten.

The imperator was handsome, she had to admit – almost painfully so. Black curls dusted with the faintest hints of grey at his temples. Shoulders broad, bronze skin contrasting sharply with the snow-white of his robes. A wisdom earned from decades in the halls of power glittering in dark eyes.

Mercurio had taught her to sum folk up in a blinking, and Mia had ever been an apt pupil. But looking Scaeva over – this man who’d bent the Itreyan Senate to his will, who’d carved himself a kingdom in a Republic that murdered its kings centuries ago – she found herself blank. Almost all about him beyond the superficial was hidden. He was a killer. A cold-blooded bastard. But beyond that … he was an enigma.

With the Trinity gone, Eclipse retreated from the shelter of Mia’s shadow, rippling with indignity. Scaeva’s own passenger slipped free and slithered across the floor, watching the not-wolf with something close to hunger. Mia could see the imperator’s shadow was moving on the wall, its robes rippling, its hands reaching out towards hers, gentle as lambs.

‘Well.’ Scaeva turned to face her, sipping from his crystal glass. ‘Reunited at last. This is all rather exciting, neh?’

‘Not as exciting as it’s g-going to be,’ she said, chest still heaving.

‘It is good to see you, Mia. You’ve grown into quite an astonishing young lady.’

‘Go fuck yourself, you unspeakable cunt.’

Scaeva smiled faintly. ‘An astonishing young woman, then.’

He poured a splash of top-shelf goldwine into a singing crystal tumbler. Padding softly towards her, he placed the glass on the floor a good safe distance away, then retired to the other side of the study. She saw a square table there, low to the ground, flanked by two divan lounges. A chessboard was embossed into the table’s surface, a game in full swing. Even at a glance she could tell the white side was winning.

‘Do you play?’ Scaeva asked, eyebrow raised towards her. ‘My opponent was our good friend Cardinal Duomo. We sent runners back and forth with our moves – he didn’t trust me enough to meet face-to-face in the end.’ The imperator motioned to the board, the golden rings on his fingers glinting. ‘He was close to winning this one. Poor Francesco was always better at chess than the true game.’

Scaeva chuckled to himself, which served only to inflame the rage in Mia’s breast. She had no knives, nothing to throw, but she still clutched her gravebone sword. Her mind was awash with all the ways she might bury it in his chest. Unperturbed, Scaeva took a seat near the chessboard, resting his glass upon the divan’s crushed-velvet arm. Reaching into his robe, he pulled out a familiar gravebone dagger, a crow carved on the hilt – the dagger she’d murdered his double with just hours before. It was still bloodstained, its amber eyes sparkling as he placed it upon the table.

‘What can I do for you, Mia?’

‘You can die for me,’ she replied.