BOOK 1
THE DARK WITHIN
CHAPTER 1
BROTHER
Eight years of poison and murder and shit.
Eight years of blood and sweat and death.
Eight years.
She’d fallen so far, her little brother in her arms, fingers still sticky and red. The light of the three suns above, burning and blinding. The waters of the flooded arena below, crimson with blood. The mob howling, bewildered and outraged at the murders of their grand cardinal, their beloved consul, both at the hands of their revered champion. The greatest games in Godsgrave’s history had ended with the most audacious murders in the history of the entire Republic. The arena was in chaos. But through it all, the screams, the roars, the rage, Mia Corvere had known only triumph.
After eight years.
Eight fucking years.
Mother.
Father.
I did it.
I killed them for you.
She’d hit the water hard, the sights and sounds of Godsgrave Arena swallowed up as she plunged beneath the surface. Salt burning in her eyes. Breath burning in her lungs. Crowd still roaring in her ears. Her little brother, Jonnen, was struggling, punching, wriggling in her arms like a landed fish. She could sense the serpentine shadows of stormdrakes, cruising toward her through the murk. Razor smiles and dead eyes.
Truelight was so bright, even here beneath the surface. But even with those three awful suns in the sky, even with all the outrage of the Everseeing pouring down, her own shadows were with her. Dark enough for four now. And Mia reached toward the outflow in the arena floor—the wide spout from which all that salt and water flowed and she
Stepped
into the
shadows
inside it.
It left her dizzied and sick—she could still feel that blinding sunslight in the sky above. Mia sank like a stone in her armor, weighed down by black iron and sodden falcon’s wings. Pulling Jonnen down with her, she hit the bottom of the outflow pipe with a dull clunk. She had only moments, only the breath she’d brought with her. And she’d not planned to have a struggling child in her arms when she did this.
Dragging herself and the boy along the pipe, she found a pocket of air inside the pressure valve, just as Ashlinn had promised. Surfacing with a ragged gasp, she pulled her brother up beside her. The boy sputtered in her arms, wailing, struggling, flailing at her face.
“Unhand me, wench!” he cried.
“Stop it!” Mia gasped.
“Let me go!”
“Jonnen, stop it, please!”
She wrapped the boy up, pinning his arms so he couldn’t punch anymore. His cries echoed on the pipe above her head. Struggling with her armor’s clasps and straps with her free hand, she dragged the pieces away, one by one. Shedding the skin of the gladiatii, the assassin, the daughter of vengeance, sloughing those eight years off her bones. It’d been worth it. All of it. Duomo dead. Scaeva dead. And Jonnen, her blood, the babe she’d thought long buried in his grave …
My little brother lives.
The boy kicked, thrashed, bit. There were no tears for his murdered da, only fury, rippling and red. Mia had thought the boy dead years ago—swallowed up inside the Philosopher’s Stone with her mother and the last of her hope. But if she’d had any lingering doubts he could be a Corvere, that he could be her mother’s son, the boy’s bloody rage put them all to the sword.
“Jonnen, listen to me!”
“My name is Lucius!” he shrieked, his voice echoing on the iron.
“Lucius, then, listen!”
“I won’t!” he shouted. “You k-killed my father! You killed him!”
Pity swelled inside Mia, but she clenched her jaw, hardened her heart against it.
“I’m sorry, Jonnen. But your father…” She shook her head, breathed deep. “Listen, we need to get out of this pipe before they start draining the arena. The stormdrakes will come back this way, do you understand?”*
“Let them come, I hope they eat you!”
“… O, I LIKE HIM…”
“… why does that not surprise me…”
The boy turned to the dark shapes coalescing on the wall beside them, the air around them growing chill. A cat made of shadows and a wolf of the same, staring at him with their not-eyes. Mister Kindly’s tail twitched side to side as he studied the child. Eclipse simply tilted her head, shivering slightly. Jonnen fell silent for a moment, wide, dark eyes looking first to Mia’s passengers, then to the girl who held him.
“You hear them, too…,” he breathed.
“I’m like you,” Mia nodded. “We’re the same.”
The boy stared at her, perhaps feeling the same sickness, hunger, longing she did. Mia looked him over, tears welling in her eyes.