Darkdawn - Jay Kristoff Page 0,23

COMMANDED HIS FAITHFUL TO BUILD A TEMPLE TO HIS GLORY. THAT TEMPLE BECAME A CITY, AND THAT CITY BECAME THE NEW HEART OF HIS FAITH.”

“The Ribs.” Ash glanced at the gravebone blade at her waist. “The Spine.”

“This whole place…,” Mia realized, looking around them.

Tric nodded. “A GOD’S GRAVE.”

Heart hammering, mouth dry, Mia pictured the illustration she’d found at the end of Cleo’s journal—a map of Itreya before the rise of the Republic. The bay of Godsgrave had been missing entirely, a peninsula filling the Sea of Silence where the Itreyan capital now stood. And in that spot, three words had been scribed in blood-red ink.

“Here he fell…,” she whispered.

“HERE HE FELL,” Tric nodded. “BUT GODS DON’T DIE SO EASILY. AND THE MOTHER KEEPS ONLY WHAT SHE NEEDS. ANAIS’S SOUL WASN’T EXTINGUISHED.”

Tric drew a long, slow breath, as if before a deep plunge.

“IT WAS SHATTERED.”

His bottomless eyes were fixed upon Mia’s.

“SOME PIECES POOLED HERE, IN THE HOLLOWS BENEATH THIS CITY’S SKIN. THE PART OF HIM THAT RAGED. THAT HATED. THAT WISHED ONLY FOR IT ALL TO END, JUST AS HE HAD.” The wraith glanced at Mister Kindly and Eclipse, now watching him with their not-eyes. “IN TIME, OTHER SHARDS GAINED A SEEMING OF THEIR OWN, CRAWLING FROM THE MIRE BENEATH HIS GRAVE. CUT OFF FROM WHAT THEY’D BEEN, AND KNOWING NOT WHAT THEY WERE, THEY SOUGHT OTHERS LIKE THEM. FEASTING ON FEAR AS ANAIS HAD ONCE DONE, AND TAKING WHATEVER SHAPES AND MANNERISMS THOSE THEY RODE FOUND COMFORT IN.”

“Daemons,” Mia said. “Passengers.”

Those pitch-black eyes returned to the girl’s. “AND LASTLY, THE LARGEST FRAGMENTS OF THE WHOLE, THE PARTS WHICH WERE STRONGEST, FOUND THEIR WAY INTO…”

“… People,” Ash breathed.

“Darkin,” Mia said.

Tric nodded. “BUT AT THE HEART OF YOU—DAEMONS OR DARKIN—YOU ARE ALL THE SAME. SEARCHING FOR THE MISSING PIECES OF YOURSELF. SEEKING TO BECOME WHOLE AGAIN. THE SCATTERED PIECES OF A SHATTERED GOD.”

Eclipse scoffed. “… THIS IS MADNESS…”

“… i mean to cause no one alarm, but i concur with the mongrel…”

“LOOK AT YOUR SHADOW, MIA,” Tric said. “WHAT DO YOU SEE?”

Mia looked to the darkness at her feet. It was still stretching out toward that pool of black blood, just as Jonnen’s was. But even with her passengers sitting on the shore across from her, it was still …

“Dark enough for two,” she said.

“SO IT WAS WITH CLEO,” Tric said. “SHE ALSO LEARNED THE TRUTH OF WHAT SHE WAS. CHOSEN BY THE MOTHER, SHE JOURNEYED ACROSS THE LANDS OF ITREYA, SEEKING TO UNITE THE SHATTERED PIECES OF ANAIS’S SOUL. SHE GATHERED A LEGION OF PASSENGERS TO HER SIDE. SEEKING OTHERS LIKE HER AND—”

“Eating them,” Mia said, recalling the journal.

“TAKING THE SHARDS OF HIS ESSENCE INTO HERSELF.”

Mia frowned. “So the fragment that was inside Furian…”

“IS NOW PART OF YOU. IN SLAYING HIM WITH YOUR OWN HAND, YOU’VE CLAIMED IT AS YOURS. MERGING TWO INTO A LARGER WHOLE. THE MANY WERE ONE. AND WILL BE AGAIN.”

“But Lord Cassius died right in front of me. I didn’t feel any stronger.”

“CASSIUS WASN’T SLAIN BY A DARKIN. THE FRAGMENT IN HIM WAS LOST FOREVER. EVENTUALLY, EVEN GODS CAN DIE.”

Mia’s pulse was thumping in her veins, her belly a roiling slick of ice. She could feel the malice emanating from that blackened pool, the fury in the air around her. She understood it now, at last. It was the same fury she’d reached out and touched during the truedark massacre, the night she’d first truly wielded the power within her. Tearing the Philosopher’s Stone to pieces. Storming the Basilica Grande and destroying the grand statue of Aa outside it. Embracing the black and bitter rage in this city’s bones.

It was the rage of a child, betrayed by the one who should have loved it most.

The rage of a son, by his father slain.

The deadboy’s bottomless eyes bored into her own.

“Cleo’s journal … she spoke of a child inside her,” Mia said.

“… SHE WAS A LUNATIC, MIA…,” Eclipse growled.

“This whole tale sounds like lunacy,” she breathed.

“NO,” Tric replied. “IT’S—”

“… destiny…?” Mister Kindly scoffed.

Tric turned bottomless eyes on the shadowcat.

“IF SHE HAS COURAGE ENOUGH TO SEIZE IT.”

“… this is the darkest shade of nonsense…”

Eclipse concurred with a sneer.

“… YOU HONESTLY WISH ME TO BELIEVE THIS IDIOT MOGGY IS A GOD…?”

“ANAIS’S SOUL SHATTERED INTO HUNDREDS OF FRAGMENTS. YOU’RE NO MORE GODLIKE THAN A DROP OF WATER IS THE OCEAN. BUT YOU MUST FEEL YOU’RE ALL BOUND TO EACH OTHER? DON’T YOU SENSE YOU ARE … INCOMPLETE?”

Mia knew what the Hearthless boy was talking about. The sickness and hunger she’d always felt