The scraps and leaves caught and the fire was soon burning merrily. Butcher beckoned Jonnen, his dropped-pie face split in a wide grin.
“Come get warm, boy,” the Liisian said. “Old Butcher doesn’t bite.”
Mia peered at the sunsteel with mild suspicion, but she’d fought Luminatii before, and their blades never had the same effect a fully blessed Trinity had on her. And so, taking her brother’s hand, Mia led him over to the little blaze, now burning fierce. As she drew close, the flames on Sid’s blade flickered brighter, the damp wood crackling and popping. And as she sat Jonnen down …
“Four Daughters,” Butcher murmured. “Will you grab an eyeful of that…”
The fire was reaching for her. Tongues of flame stretching out from the pit and Sid’s sword like grasping fingers, clawing and flickering. Mia glanced at Ashlinn, back to the blaze. She shuffled around the edge of the cooking pit, watching the flames follow, bending at her like saplings in a storm, regardless of the wind’s direction.
“Fuck,” Sidonius breathed.
“Shit,” Ashlinn whispered.
“Aye,” Butcher agreed. “Fuckshit.”
Jonnen glanced about in disbelief. “You all have filthy mouths…”
Mia looked into the fire, up to the storm outside. The Ladies of Flames and Storms were letting their displeasure with her be known, and she felt a flash of anger in her chest. She’d not asked for this ire, nor to be part of this damned squabble. And here she was, drenched to the skin, unable to sail on the seas or warm herself by a happy hearth.
“I’m not afraid of a little wind and rain,” she said. “Nor a damned spark, neither.”
Mia reached into her britches, dragged out a cigarillo, and held it down to Sid’s blade to light it. But like a serpent, the flames lashed out, bright and fierce, and she had to pull her hand back with a black curse lest she get burned.
“Steady on, Mia,” Sidonius warned.
“… perhaps we should do our best not to invoke further enmity from the daughters…”
Mister Kindly materialized in the arches above, head tilted.
“… they seem quite upset with us already…”
“… FOR ONCE, THE MOGGY AND I ARE IN COMPLETE AGREEMENT…,” Eclipse growled.
“… o, well, in that case, smoke all you like, mia…”
Eclipse sighed as Sid drew his sword out of the still-burning cooking pit, slipping it into his scabbard to extinguish its flames. Mia felt her comrades’ eyes on her, their slow awakening to the strangeness at work here. They’d seen their share of the world, and none of the Falcons were the kind to indulge blind superstition, but it couldn’t have been easy for any of them to swallow. This was Mia’s life, and she was having trouble fitting it all in her mind. Goddess only knew what was going through theirs …
Still, with a glance to Sidonius and the pragmatism that had served her for three years on the sand, Bladesinger began stringing a rope between the archways to hang their wet clothes on. Butcher braved the rain, dragging in more wood from outside to dry by the flames, and, mumbling something about “perimeters,” Sidonius waded out into the storm to go scout with Tric. Her knots in place, ’Singer gestured to Jonnen.
“Hand it over, young consul,” she said. “You’ll catch your death in that.”
The boy mutely complied, dragging his cloak off and passing it on. Mia could see he was shivering in the chill, his sopping robes clinging to his thin frame.
“You ever swing a sword, little man?” Butcher asked.
“… No,” the boy murmured.
Butcher drew his gladius, ran his eye over the edge.
“Want to learn?”
“No, Butcher,” Mia said. “He’s too small.”
“Bollocks, I had a boy about his age. He could swing a sword.”
Mia blinked. “… You have a son?”
The man glanced at his sword, shrugged once. “Not anymore.”
Mia’s heart sank into her belly. “Goddess, Butcher, I’m—”
“Besides, he’s brother to Mia the Crow,” the Liisian grinned crooked, darting around the subject with more skill than he’d ever shown on the sands. “If he wants to live up to his sister’s feats in the arena, he’d best start learning now, neh?”
“I don’t—”
“I am not small.” The boy stood, his old imperiousness resurfacing. “I’m very tall for my age, actually. And Father said all a man needs to win is the will that others lack.”
Mia sucked her bottom lip, reminded of Scaeva’s words to her in his study. That trinity spinning and burning in his hand. The imperator still standing, still speaking, while she was laid out on the ground in a shivering ball of