The Hall of Eulogies was quiet as graves. The names of the dead carved on the floor beneath her. The tombs of the fallen faithful on the walls around her. A half-dead Dweymeri boy stood beside her, twin blades in his hands. Drusilla blinked as the darkness rippled in front of her, as Aalea reached down and squeezed her fingers. The lady’s belly sank as she saw a dark shape step out from the shadow of the Mother’s statue. Niah loomed above them, carved of polished black granite. Manacles hanging from her dress. Sword in one hand. Scales in the other.
How will she weigh me? Drusilla wondered. How badly will I be found wanting?
“Mia,” Aalea whispered.
“Good nevernight, Mi Donas,” Corvere replied.
Her longblade was crusted with gore, amber eyes on the hilt as red as the blood painting her skin. Dark hair framed her pitiless stare. Drusilla remembered the first time she’d laid eyes on the girl, here in this very hall. Young and pale and green as grass. Her shaking hands and her little bag of teeth.
“Speak your name.”
“Mia Corvere.”
“Do you vow to serve the Mother of Night? Will you learn death in all its colors, bring it to the deserving and undeserving in her name? Will you become an Acolyte of Niah, and an earthly instrument of the dark between the stars?”
“I will.”
This was the hall where she’d been anointed. The statue she’d been chained against and scourged for her disobedience. The floor she’d found the truth of the Church’s conspiracy carved in. The heart of it all.
The old woman sighed softly.
Goddess, if only we’d known what she’d become …
“Good to see you again, little Crow,” Mercurio said.
“And you, Shahiid,” the girl replied, her eyes never leaving the Lady of Blades.
“Where’s Scaeva?” the old man asked.
Mia’s eyes narrowed in fury. “Not here.”
So the imperator had fled.
Corvere had failed.
Aalea took a slow step forward, hands raised, all honeyed tones and beautiful, blood-red smile. “Mia, my love, we should sp—”
The darkness lashed out, pointed like a spear, sharp as a sword. It sliced through Aalea’s throat, cleaving neatly from ear to ear. The woman’s dark eyes grew wide, blood-red lips parted as she coughed, hand to her neck. She tottered forward, ruby red spilling over milk-white skin. Looking to the Mother’s statue above, she mouthed a final prayer, tears welling in kohled lashes. And then the Shahiid of Masks toppled forward onto the bloody stone, her silvered tongue silenced forever.
Drusilla met Mia’s gaze, saw what awaited her there. She reached into her robe, adrenaline and fear tingling at her fingertips as she grasped the blade she kept between her breasts—the place the Dweymeri boy had been too polite to paw at when he searched her for weapons. The boy cried out now as the steel flashed, as Drusilla flung the poisoned dagger, whistling right at the girl’s throat.
Corvere raised her hand, fingers spread. The dark about her unfurled like a flower in bloom, tendrils of living shadow snatching the blade from the air. The girl lowered her chin, a small, fierce smile on her bloody lips. With a wave of her hand, the darkness carried the knife back across the room, laying it to rest at Drusilla’s feet.
“So much for the Lady of Blades,” she said.
“Mia…,” Drusilla began, her throat tightening.
“There are names missing,” the girl said.
The old woman blinked in confusion. “… What?”
Mia motioned to the granite floor around them. A spiral, gleaming now with Aalea’s blood, coiling out from the statue of Niah. Hundreds of names. Thousands. Kings, senators, legates, lords. Priests and sugargirls, beggars and bastards. The names of every life taken in the service of the Black Mother. Every kill the Red Church had made.
“There are some missing,” Mia repeated.
Drusilla felt a grip on her arms. Strong as iron. Cold as ice. Looking down, she saw the shadows had caught her up, black ribbons encircling her wrists, cutting off the blood. The old woman shrieked as she was dragged along the floor, unearthly strength slamming her up against the base of the Goddess’s statue. Her skull was ringing. Her nose bloodied. She dimly felt the shadows haul up her arms, bind her wrists with the manacles hanging from the Goddess’s robes.
“Unhand me!” Drusilla demanded, struggling. “Let me go!”
Mia’s reply was cold as winter winds.
“I’ve a story to hear, Drusilla,” she said. “And no patience to cut those missing names into this floor. But I should carve something to remember them