Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,115

strange boy, matted hair strung over haunted eyes, Mia realized he did matter.

He mattered to her.

“I didn’t kill Floodcaller,” Tric finally said.

Mia blinked. Truth be told, in all the death since, she’d almost forgotten about the Dweymeri boy’s murder the eve they first arrived here.

“… I believe you.”

“I wanted to. Someone just beat me to it.” He glanced at her sidelong. Voice thick with rage. “He called me koffi, Mia. You know what that means?”

For a moment, she couldn’t find her voice. “Child of…”

“Rape,” Tric spat. “Child of rape.”

She sighed inside.

It’s true, then.

“You father was a Dweymeri pirate? Your mother—”

“My mother was the daughter of a bara.”

“… What?”

“A princess, if you’ll believe it.” Tric chuckled. “Part royalty, me.”

“A bara?” Mia frowned. “Your mother was Dweymeri?”

Mia didn’t understand. From all she’d read, it was the Dweymeri pirate lords and their crews who did the raping and pillaging. But if Tric’s mother was from Dweym …

“Her name was Earthwalker. Thirdborn of our bara, Swordbreaker.” Tric spat the name, as if it tasted rancid. “She wasn’t much older than you are now. Traveling to Farrow for the yearly Festival of Skies. There was a storm. She wound up wrecked on some rock with a handmaid and a bosun’s mate. Three alive out of a hundred.

“An Itreyan trawler found her. The captain brought them aboard. Fed the boy to the seadrakes. Raped my mother and her maid. And when they found out who she was, they sent word to my grandfather he could have her back for her weight in gold.”

“Maw’s teeth.” Mia squeezed Tric’s hand. “I’m so sorry, Tric.”

Tric smiled bitterly. “I’ll say one thing about Grandfather. He loved his daughters.”

“He paid?”

Tric shook his head. “He found out where they were holed up, burned the settlement to the ground. Murdered every man, woman and child. But he got his daughter back. Nine months later, he got a grandson. And every time he looked at my face, he saw my father.”

Mia stared at the boy’s eyes, her chest aching.

Hazel, not brown.

“That’s not who you are, Tric.”

The boy stared back at her, tale dying on his lips. Something in the air shifted, something in his gaze lighting a flame in her belly. Those bottomless eyes. That scrawl of hatred on his skin. Her heart was pounding. Palms sweating in his. Trembling.

“… mia…”

Trembling just like the shadow at her feet.

“… mia, beware…”

“Well, well.”

Mia blinked as the spell of silence shattered. Jessamine stood at the top of the stairs, Diamo alongside. The redhead was dressed for sparring practice; black leathers and a sleeveless tunic. The girl’s hulking sidekick loomed next to her, something ugly lingering in his stare.2

Jessamine hooked her thumbs into her belt, strolled into the hall.

“I wondered how you were spending your nevernights, Corvere.”

Mia rose to her feet, staring the girl down. “I didn’t know you cared, Jess.”

The redhead looked about; the broken swords and training dummies.

“Practicing?” she sneered. “You’d be better off praying.”

“Apologies,” Mia frowned, searching the floor as if looking for something. “I appear to have misplaced the fucks I give for what you think…”

Jessamine clutched her ribs and laughed uproariously for half a second. Then her smile dropped from her face and shattered like glass on the stone.

“You think you’re funny, bitch?” Diamo asked.

“O, bitch,” Mia nodded. “Very creative. What’s next? Slut? No, whore, am I right?”

Diamo blinked. Mia could practically see him striking the words off his mental insult list and coming up empty. Tric was on his feet beside her, squaring up to the big Itreyan, but Mia placed a hand on his arm. Jessamine wasn’t likely to make a play here, and Mia was happy to fence wits all turn. She’d send the pair home limping.

“What do you want, Red?”

“Your skull on the Senate House steps beside my father’s,” Jess replied.

Mia sighed. “Julius Scaeva executed my da just like he did yours. That makes us allies, not enemies. We both hate the sa—”

“Don’t talk to me about hate,” the girl snarled. “You’ve never tasted it, Corvere. My whole familia is dead because of your fucking traitor father.”

“You call my father a traitor one more time,” Mia growled, “you’re going to see your familia again a little sooner than you’d like.”

“You know, it’s funny,” Jessamine smiled. “Your little friend Ashlinn is winning by a clear mile in Mouser’s thievery contest. She obviously has the sneak to break into any room in this mountain. I’d have thought you’d have asked her to take care of business for you. But I stole