blood and dark. Hide deep as they could and seek whatever happiness they could.
“Who was she?” she heard herself ask.
“Cleo?” Aelius shrugged. “Just a girl. Like any other in the newfound city of Godsgrave. Save for the sliver of Anais’s soul that found its way into her heart. Married too young to a brutal man, she killed him the year she first began to bleed. Thing of it was, her husband had a shard of Anais inside him, too. Darkin were more numerous in those turns, you see—Anais’s pieces were still scattered all across the Republic.”
Aelius blew another smoke ring, paused a moment before he spoke again.
“Once Cleo killed her beau, Niah drew what strength she could to herself and came to Cleo in a dream. Told the girl she was ‘Chosen.’ That she’d restore the balance between Night and Day. The way it was in the beginning, the way it was meant to be. And so Cleo set out to find more darkin. Killing them. Consuming their essence and claiming their daemons and growing ever deeper in her powers. And her madness.”
“She was insane?”
“She certainly went that way by the end of it all,” Aelius sighed. “Set aside the messiah complex she’d been instilled with for a minute. The simple truth is you can’t live a life ending the lives of others and expect to escape it unchanged. When you feed a soul to the Maw—”
“You feed it a piece of yourself, too.”
“And soon, there’s nothing left,” Ashlinn murmured, glancing at Tric.
The chronicler nodded, exhaling strawberry-scented gray. “Cleo wandered the City of Bridges and Bones, then the wider Republic. Drawn to other darkin and consuming any she found. Urged on by Niah, amassing an ever-growing fragment of Anais’s soul inside her. Problem was, there was something else growing in her, too.”
“The baby she mentioned in her journal,” Mia said.
“Aye,” Aelius said. “And heavy with child, drenched in murder, she finally journeyed east across the Ashkahi wastes. Seeking the Crown of the Moon, where the brightest and most potent shard of Anais’s soul lay in wait for her. She gave birth, right there at the Crown. Alone, save for her passengers, she brought a boy kicking and screaming into the world. Crouched over bare and bloody rock. Cutting his cord with her own teeth. Such will. Such courage.”
Aelius shook his head and sighed.
“But when she learned the truth, her courage and will both failed her.”
The Athenaeum was deathly still. Mia swore she could hear her own heart beating.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“The Dark Mother wanted Cleo to help bring her dead son back to life,” Aelius said. “But there, at the Moon’s Crown, holding her own newborn son to her breast, Cleo learned the truth of what it would mean to raise Anais from the dead. She learned the body which houses the Moon’s soul must perish in his rebirth. That whoever gives Anais life must give up their own to see it done.”
“For the Moon to live…”
“Cleo had to die. But she had a son now, see. The boy she’d brought into the world with her own two hands. And she was but young herself. Her whole life ahead of her. She felt like a dupe, not a messiah. She felt betrayed rather than Chosen. And so she refused. Cursed Niah’s name. There at the Crown, she chose to remain. And there she remains still. Twisted by madness. Sustained by the shards of Anais she’d gathered to herself, and refusing to let another claim them.”
“Trelene have mercy,” Bladesinger whispered.
“You fucking bastard,” Ash spat.
Mia turned to her girl, saw her glaring at Tric.
“You knew, didn’t you?” Ash said, glowering at the boy. “You knew this shit. Where it would lead her. What it would cost her!”
“I DIDN’T KNOW THE FULL TALE,” Tric said. “I DIDN’T KN—”
“Bullshit!” Ash spat. “You’ve known this whole fucking time.”
“Ash, stop it,” Mia said.
“No, I won’t stop!” Ash cried, incredulous. “You can’t give the Moon life without giving up your own, Mia! That’s what this crusty old prick has been planning for the last three years?” She glared at Aelius, then shoved Tric in his chest. “And this rat bastard has been pushing you right toward your own grave.”
“DON’T TOUCH ME AGAIN, ASHLINN,” Tric said. “I’M WARNING YOU.”
“Warning me?” Ash scoffed. “Let’s remember what happened last time we—”
“All right, stop it!” Mia snapped. “Both of you, enough!”
Silence rang through the library. Somewhere out in the dark, a bookworm roared. Mia looked Aelius up and down, the