Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,187

fighting her, he could give her away the second she moved against him. True to form, the speaker valued his own skin above anyone else inside these walls.

Right, then. Nothing for it.

Mia hunkered down in the blood, watching as dozens more legionaries made the Walk. When the group was assembled, a hundred men in total, Centurion Alberius ordered them to fan out across the level. Securing stairs, doorways, passages. With his men on the move, the centurion turned to one his younger recruits.

“Report to the justicus all is secure.”

Beneath the drying scarlet, Mia saw the boy blanch at the thought of stepping back into that awful pool. But he waded back into the red, disappeared down into the flow. Mia watched him go, turning her eyes back to Adonai. This was her last chance to cut off the beachhead. If the speaker died before the First Century came across—

The blood surged about her, undertow sucking at her heels. She staggered, grasped the pool’s edge, slicking the marble with red. Adonai shook his head again, ever so slight, hands fluttering.

Don’t even think it.

Mia grit her teeth. Watching as the First Century began making the Walk. Man after man, minute after minute, dragged from the blood by their fellows. And finally, rising from the red, Mia saw the man she’d dreamed of killing for six long years. Waving aside the soldiers who sought to help him up, stepping from the pool, dripping great floods of gore onto the stone. Dark red, clotted thick in his beard, cascading down his back. Shoulders broad as the Mountain itself.

The justicus of the Luminatii Legions loomed over Speaker Adonai, mouth curled in disgust.

“Godlessness,” he growled. “Godlessness and heresy.”

Adonai said nothing, meeting the justicus’s gaze without flinching. A faint smile at his pretty lips. Remus wiped the blood from his face, turned to his second as an aide began strapping him into a beautiful suit of gravebone armor.

“Centurion, report.”

“The level is ours, Justicus. First and Second Centuries accounted for.”

“Excellent.” He motioned to Adonai. “Bind this apostate bastard good and tight.”

Soldiers marched forward, blood-soaked lengths of rope clutched in their hands. They shoved Adonai to the floor, lashed hands and feet behind his back like a calf awaiting slaughter. A rag was stuffed in his mouth, another tied about his eyes. One of the soldiers put a boot in for good measure, but Remus stopped him with a raised hand.

The justicus looked to Osrik, his tone curt.

“What of the Ministry?”

“Ashlinn knew her job,” Osrik said. “They’ll be trussed up like Great Tithe hogs when you arrive at the Sky Altar. Fear not.”

“Wait here until we return with the vaunted Lord of Blades and his godless flock.” He motioned to Adonai. “Should this heretic even twitch in a manner that displeases you, begin cutting off pieces of his sister until his behavior improves.”

Osrik nodded. Adonai tensed at the threat, but otherwise remained motionless.

Now fully armored, Remus looked around at his men, grim and blood-soaked. He reached to his belt, drew a long, beautifully carved gravebone longsword, crows in flight along the pommel and hilt. Mia’s eyes narrowed as she recognized it—it had hung on the walls of her father’s study beside his collection of maps.

Just how much more can this man take from me?

“Righteous brothers,” Remus began. “This eve, we strike a blow against a blasphemy that has blackened our glorious Republic for decades. The ministers of this godless church are to be brought back alive to Godsgrave for interrogation. But any other night-worshipping bastard you cross within these walls is to be shown no mercy. We are the right hand of Aa, and this eve, we bring this house of heresy to its knees.”

The justicus held his stolen blade to his brow, lowered his head. The legionaries around the room did the same, lips moving in unison.

“Hear me, Aa. Hear me, Father. Your flame, my heart. Your light, my soul. For your name, and your glory, and your justice, I march. Shine upon me.”

Remus raised his head. Nodded at his men.

“Luminus Invicta.”

1. Though much of its heartland is now more a wasteland, the coastal regions of Ashkah are still some of the most beautiful in the world. Leaving aside the natural splendor of sites such as the Thousand Towers, the Dust Falls of Nuuvash, or the Great Salt, there is still something about watching the sunsrise over a magikally polluted hellscape that simply takes the breath away.

Of course, the sand kraken, dust wraiths, and other monstrosities of the