He was still searching the sky, rain beaded on his cheeks like a beautiful statue in the forum. But finally, he looked down at her, black eyes swimming with sorrow.
“BECAUSE WHEN I LOOKED AMONG ALL THOSE FACES,” he said, “THE FACES OF ALL THOSE I’D LOVED, THE ONE I LOVED MOST WASN’T AMONG THEM.”
Mia felt her belly flip, her breath catch in her throat.
“I CAME BACK FOR YOU, MIA,” Tric said, black light burning in his eyes. “THAT WAS THE GIFT THE MOTHER OFFERED ME. SHE WASN’T STRONG ENOUGH TO BRING ME BACK HERSELF, SHE COULD ONLY SHOW ME THE WAY.” He held out his hand, stained with black. “I HAD TO RIP MY WAY BACK THROUGH THE WALLS OF THE ABYSS ITSELF. THAT WAS WHAT I GAVE UP MY PLACE BY THE HEARTH FOR. NOT THE CHANCE TO MEND THE BALANCE OR RESTORE THE MOON OR SEE THE WORLD PUT TO RIGHT. I CARE FOR NONE OF THAT.” He took Mia’s hand, pressed it to his chest, and she was astonished to feel a heartbeat, strong and thudding beneath her palm. “BUT I WOULD STRIKE A THOUSAND BARGAINS WITH THE NIGHT FOR ONE MORE MOMENT WITH YOU. I’D DIE A THOUSAND DEATHS AND DEFY THEM ALL, JUST TO HOLD YOU IN MY ARMS ONE MORE TIME.”
All the world fell silent. All the world fell still.
“Tric, I—”
“I LOVE YOU, MIA. AND NIGHT WILLING, I’LL LOVE YOU FOREVER.”
“… Mia?”
Jonnen’s voice. Tearing Mia out of the moment, back into the cold and the wet and the hurt and the blood. But she lingered in the dark pools of his eyes for one moment more. Hand pressed to the muscle of his chest. Glancing at Ashlinn, aching and wondering.
Torn in two.
“Mia?” Jonnen groaned again.
“It’s all right, brother,” she said, turning away from Tric. “I’m here.”
She made her way across the tower, head still pounding, body aching, leg bleeding beneath the strip of dark cloth Tric had no doubt bound it in. Skirting around the fire, she watched the tongues of flame lap at her hungrily, finally kneeling beside her brother with a hiss of pain and gathering Jonnen up in her arms.
He was still groggy from the Swoon, his eyes bloodshot, face pale. But Eclipse slipped into Jonnen’s shadow to calm his fears, and Mia was steeped enough in her venomlore to know he’d recover fully in an hour or so—quicker than the adults, in fact, who were only now beginning to stir.
Mia thanked the Goddess they’d all been clumped together, that the imperative to take Jonnen alive had overridden the assassins’ desire to see the rest of them dead. She could remember the battle, the thunder of her blood, the power rippling in her veins. It’d never felt that way before—she’d never wielded the dark so easy, so quick. It was more than just the fact that only two suns hung in the sky now. The new fragment of the Moon inside her—once Furian’s, now hers—had made her more.
She couldn’t help but wonder about Cleo then. The woman who’d written the old journal Chronicler Aelius had found in the library’s depths. Who’d given Mia the only real clues about darkin she’d ever managed to find. Who’d spent her life collecting Anais’s shattered pieces, only to stumble without ever completing the puzzle Mia herself was now somehow expected to solve.
That journal had spoken of a child inside Cleo. The Mother’s sins.
Might that have had something to do with her failure?
And what had become of the woman herself?
Her daughter?
Son?
Tric was watching her across the veil of rain. His declaration still ringing in her ears, louder than the storm raging above.
“How’s your head?” she asked Jonnen.
“Sore,” he whimpered.
“It’s all right, love. I’m here. When all is blood…”
“… blood is all,” he murmured.
She held him tight, kissed his brow. Thinking about all that might have been, everything that could have happened, her belly cold with fear.
That unfamiliar sensation. The prickling of her skin, the churn in her gut. The absence of a cat who wasn’t a cat like a hole in her chest. A missing piece of herself. But rage flooded in to replace it, and she seized hold tight, desperate, like a drowner to a scrap of driftwood. Letting the bitter, burning anger fill her to the brim.
The Red Church had thrown their dice, sent five of their best, emptied the Galante chapel to strike her down.