Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,142

neck and headed for my grandfather’s home.

“They wondered who I was. This scrawny halfblood. Too pale and small to be one of their own, but still knowing their ways. And I entered my grandfather’s house and knelt before his seat and told him who I was. His daughter’s son. And I showed him the teeth around my neck and the ring on my finger. And I pointed toward the head on the beach and I asked that he name me a man.”

Tric curled his hands into fists. Veins taut beneath his skin, etched in the muscle. He was trembling, Mia realized. Grief or rage, she didn’t know.

She put a hand on his arm. Spoke soft as she could.

“You don’t have to tell me, Tric…”

She stumbled over the name, wondering if it were an insult. Not knowing what to do or say. Feeling helpless. Stupid. After all Aalea’s lessons. Everything she’d learned.

Powerless.

Tric shook his head. Voice thick with anger.

“He lau…”

The boy’s voice failed him for a moment. He hissed. Cleared his throat.

“He laughed, Mia. Called me bastard. Whoreson. Koffi. Told me when his daughter defied him, she ceased being his daughter. Told me I was no grandson of his.

“‘But you are a man, little koffi,’ he said. ‘So come, take your ink, so others may know you for what you are.’ And his men held me down and he tore the draketeeth from my neck. Used them on my face while I screamed. Poured ink onto the wounds and beat me until the blackness took me.”

Mia felt tears spilling down her cheeks. Her chest ached, nails biting her palms. She put her arms around the boy, hugged tight as she could, buried her face in his hair.

“Tric, I’m so sorry.”

He plunged on, heedless of her touch. It was as if a wound had been lanced now, the poison spewing forth in a flood. How many years had he held it inside?

“They tied me to a mast out front of my grandfather’s home,” he said. “The children would come throw rocks at me. Women spat on me. Men cursed me. The wounds got infected. My eyes swelled up and I couldn’t see.” He shook his head. “That was the worst part. Waiting in the dark for the next rock to hit. The next slap. The next gob of spit. Bastard. Whoreson. Koffi.”

“Daughters,” Mia breathed. “That’s why you wouldn’t wear the blindfold to enter the Mountain.”

Tric nodded. Chewed his lip.

“I prayed to the Lady of Oceans to set me free. Punish those who tortured me. My grandfather most of all. And on the third nevernight, when the winds rose and death was so close I could feel her chill, I heard a whisper in my ear. A woman. Words like ice.

“‘The Lady of Oceans cannot help you, boy.’

“‘I don’t deserve to die like this,’ I said. And I heard her laugh.

“‘Deserve has no truck with death. She takes us all. Wicked and just alike.’

“‘Then I pray she takes the bara slowly,’ I spat. ‘Pray he screams as he dies.’”

“‘What would you give to make it so?’

“‘Anything,’ I told her. ‘Everything.’

“So she cut me down. Adiira was her name. She who’d become my Shahiid. She nursed the infection and set me on the path. Told me the Mother of Night had chosen me. That she’d make me a weapon. Her tool on this earth. And one turn, I’d see him die. My grandfather.” Tric grit his jaw, hissed through his teeth. “Die screaming.”

“I vowed the same,” Mia said. “Remus. Duomo. Scaeva.”

“One of the reasons I like you, Pale Daughter.” Tric smiled. “We’re the same, you and me.”

The boy touched his face. The scrawled ink that told the tale of his torture.

“Every turn, I’d wake and see these in the mirror. Remember what he’d done. Even when Adiira pushed me to breaking, I’d stare into the glass and remember him laughing. I can’t remember what I looked like before. This ink … it’s who I am.” He glanced at Mia. Her now-flawless cheeks and pouting lips. “Marielle will take them away. Adiira warned me. They make me memorable. But what will I be when they’re gone? They’re what makes me, me.”

“Bullshit,’ Mia said.

Tric blinked in shock. “What?”

“This makes you who you are.” She punched the slab of muscle above his heart. “This.” She slapped him atop his head. “These.” The girl took hold of his hands, knelt in front of him, staring into the boy’s eyes. “Slavemarks. Tattoos. Scars. What you look like doesn’t change