closer. The thoroughfares and bridges were packed with folk of every kind, young and old, rich and poor, Itreyan, Liisian, Vaanian, Dweymeri. Instead of trying to push on, Mia and her comrades forced their way to the base of the mighty statue of the Everseeing in the forum’s heart.
The effigy towered above the mob, fifty feet high, carved of solid marble. Three arkemical globes representing the three suns were held in one of Aa’s outstretched hands. In his other, he held out a mighty sword. Mia had destroyed this very statue the truedark she turned fourteen, but Scaeva had ordered it rebuilt, paying the fee from his own coffers. One more pious gesture to buy the mob’s adoration.
With Jonnen in Tric’s arms, the quartet climbed the statue, finding a place to rest in the great folds of the Everseeing’s robes. Peering out over the mob below.
“Black Goddess, look at them all,” Ash breathed beside her.
Mia could only stare. The crowd she’d fought in front of at the Venatus Magni had been impressive, but it seemed every citizen of Godsgrave had been ushered here for the announcement. The Ribs rose above them, sixteen gravebone arches, gleaming white and towering high into the sky. Soldiers and Luminatii shoved their way through the mob, cracking skulls and holding order by the throat. Desperation and fear hung in the air like blood-stink in a butchery. At least they had their perch to themselves—though he seemed to be struggling in the truelight as much as Mia, Tric’s chill presence dissuaded other folk from climbing too close.
Mia narrowed her eyes in the truelight glare. The journey up from beneath the city had been long, silent, a hundred twists and turns. She had no idea of how long they’d trekked—time had seemed meaningless in the hollow dark below the city’s skin. But now she was away from it, she longed for it again. That black pool. Those silent, wailing faces. She missed it, like she missed Mister Kindly and Eclipse when they were apart. Missed it like a part of herself had been torn away.
The many were one.
She pushed the thought aside. Focused on the rage. Her knuckles white on the hilt of her gravebone sword. None of it, the Moon, Niah, Cleo, Mercurio, Ashlinn, Tric, none of it fucking mattered.
Not until that bastard’s dead.
Trumpets sounded, ringing crisp and clear in the truelight glare. The suns above were living things, beating upon her shoulders, grinding her beneath their light like a worm under a boot. The shadows in the folds of the Everseeing’s robes were her only respite, and Mia clung to them like a child to its mother’s skirts. But she stood taller as the fanfare sounded, squinting past the great open ring of the forum and the circle of mighty pillars crowned with statues of the Senate’s finest. The Senate House itself stood to the west, all fluted columns and polished bone. The first Rib loomed to the south, the balcony of the consul’s palazzo crowded with Luminatii in gravebone plate and senators in green laurel wreaths and rippling white robes trimmed in purple.
The trumpets rang long and loud, stilling the shouts, the whispers, the uncertainty brewing in the City of Bridges and Bones. Truth told, Mia had never truly considered the consequences of her scheme in the magni far beyond seeing Duomo and Scaeva dead. But with rumor of the consul’s death running rife, all seemed on the verge of calamity.
What would happen to this place if the consul truly fell?
What truly would become of this city, this Republic, if she cut off its head? Would it simply thrash and roil for a time, then grow another? Or, like a god laid low by his father’s hand, shatter into a thousand pieces?
“Merciful Aa!” came a cry from the street below. “Look!”
A shout from a rooftop behind. “Four Daughters, is it him?”
Mia felt her heart drop and thump inside her chest. Squinting in the glare toward the balcony of the consul’s apartments as the Luminatii and senators stepped aside.
O, Goddess.
O, merciful Black Mother.
His purple robe was still drenched with blood, his golden laurel missing. A bandage was wrapped around his throat and shoulder, soaked with red. His face was pale, his salt-and-pepper hair damp with sweat. But there could be no mistaking the man as he stepped forward and raised his hand like a shepherd before the sheep. Three fingers outstretched in the sign of Aa.