Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,158

Mia shrieked, staggered back. The light was so fierce, so hot. Hands to her eyes, she squinted through the shocking glare. And there, at the end of the nave, surrounded by two dozen legionaries in polished white and bloody red, she saw him. The beautiful consul with his black eyes and his purple robes and a golden wreath upon his brow. The one who’d smiled as her father died. Consigned her mother to madness. Killed her baby brother.

“SCAEVA!”

“This is Aa’s holy house!” Duomo roared. “You have no power here, daemon!”

Mia clenched her fists, blinded by the light before her. Wind roaring in her ears. The heat beating on her like all three suns. Sickness in her belly, vomit in her mouth. No shadows in front of her to seize hold of. It was too much. Too bright. She saw a huge man in white plate, a wolfish face red with rage, one cheek scarred by a cat’s claws.

Remus …

“Bring her down!” roared the justicus. “Luminus Invicta!”

Mia whirled as the Luminatii charged up the steps toward her. The light behind her was so fierce, the shadow she threw on the stone was as long as sunsset. Something sharp and burning cracked across the back of her skull and she staggered. Dozens of legionaries approaching now. Justicus Remus charging, his sword ablaze. The rage burning bright. The dark inside her roiling. All it wanted was to consume. Open itself wide and drown in the blood it spilled. She could feel it. All around her. Seeping through Godsgrave’s cracks. The agony. The fury. The pure and blinding hatred nestled in this city’s bones.

It hates us.

But in the cold and hollow places, some tiny part of her remained. Some tiny part that was not rage or hate or hunger. Just a fourteen-year-old girl who didn’t want to die.

The justicus barged through the ranks of holy men, swung his sunsteel with all his might. The Trinity on the pommel of his sword burned brighter than the blade itself. Mia staggered back, the sword clipped her arm, blood boiling as it sprayed. Remus swung again, again, the Luminatii surrounding her now, blinding and bright. And with a ragged cry she fell, down into the shadow at her feet and out of the same shadow a hundred feet away.

Crossbows sang. Flame rippled on polished steel. Remus roared. People screamed. But she was away. Stepping between the shadows; the little girl again, skipping from stone to stone. Blood on the back of her neck, burned near blind by the cardinal’s light. And deep down below the hurt and the rage, coiled in the cold and hollow places, the hollowest feeling of all.

Failure.

She found herself on the battlements above the forum. Above the place her father died. The square lit by ruddy arkemical light. Revelers and drunkards dancing along the flagstones. She could hear the cries echoing across the city. Assassin! Daemon! Abomination!

Slumped against the cool gravebone. Shaking hands daubed in blood. The darkness around her whispering, pleading, begging. Just like the darkness inside her. And she, just a child in the midst of it. One little girl in a world so cold and empty, the shadows around her bringing no comfort at all.

She’d no idea how long she sat there. The blood drying to a crust on her hands. The city in chaos. Crowds gathered on the eastern shoreline, looking at the listing ruin of the Philosopher’s Stone, ramparts cracking loose and tumbling into the sea. Luminatii patrols tromping through the streets, trying to bring order amid the swelling panic, the rising, drunken chaos. Fistfights and broken glass.

A shiver in her shadow.

“… mia…”

A soft tread on the stone beside her.

“It said I’d find you here.”

Old Mercurio knelt beside her, his bones creaking. Mia didn’t look at him, eyes fixed on the skyline. The Ribs towering up above them. The War Walkers standing silent vigil. The blazing glow of the Basilica Grande beyond.

“Rough night, little Crow?” he asked.

Tears rolled down Mia’s cheeks. The sob clawed at her throat, demanding to be let out. She bit her lip lest it escape and compound her failure. Tasting blood.

Mercurio took a thin silver case from inside his greatcoat. The girl winced as he struck a flintbox, the momentary flare reminding her of the light in Duomo’s hands, burning on Remus’s sword. The scent of burning cloves stained the night.

“Here,” Mercurio said.

She looked at the old man. He was holding out the cigarillo.

“Settles the nerves,” he explained.

Mia blinked in the dark. Reached out