Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,190

He’d have smelled the Swoon in the meal a mile away. How did you stop him noticing?”

Osrik said nothing. Lips working silently.

“… Osrik?”

“Ashlinn, she…”

Mia knew it then. Heard it in his voice. Belly sinking into her toes. Remembering the way she’d felt in his arms. The way he’d kissed her.

She hadn’t loved him, but …

No.

She hadn’t loved him.

Mia opened her eyes. Looked up at Adonai. Breathed deep.

“That’s all I needed to know.”

“Mia, n—”

Osrik’s wail was swallowed up by the pool, the boy wrenched down to his doom.

“… mia, we must move…”

Mia nodded to the not-cat, took a moment to collect her thoughts.

“Adonai, you need to get out of here. Now.”

The speaker stared at her for a long moment, the only sound the faint splashing of his pool. But finally he reached to his neck, grasped a silver phial on a leather thong and snapped it loose. Mia recognized it—the same kind Naev had worn in the desert. The same kind that filled the alcoves in the Revered Mother’s rooms.

“My vitus,” Adonai said. “Shouldst thou triumph, spill it ’pon the floor, write as if the red were a tablet and thy finger the brush. I shall know it.”

Mia retied the phial about her neck, pawing coagulating gore from her lashes. She could feel it drying on her skin, cracking on her lips as she spoke.

“Go.”

Adonai gathered his sister in his arms, trod down the marble steps and into the churning flow. The blood seemed to cling to him as he walked, tiny tendrils rising off the surface and caressing him as he passed. He turned to Mia, nodded once.

“Good fortune to thee, little darkin. Thou shalt have a need of it.”

“When she wakes up, tell Marielle what happened here. Tell her she owes me.”

Adonai shook his head and smiled. “The dead are owed nothing.”

He spoke swiftly, humming discordant notes to the pool, like a father to a sleeping babe. The blood sang in reply, and in a rushing, iron-soaked flood, the pair disappeared beneath the swell. The surface fell still as a millpond. Not a ripple to mark their passing.

Mia wrung her hair out. Upended her boots to empty them of blood as best she could, stowed Osrik’s serrated blade at her shin. Mister Kindly watched the whole time, still and silent. But finally he whispered.

“… i am sorry about tric…”

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for.”

“… you felt what you felt, mia. there is no need to deny it…”

“I’m not.”

A pause, filled with a quiet sigh.

“… no need to lie, either…”

The choir was silent.

It was the first thing she noticed as she stole from the speaker’s chambers, out into the Mountain’s dark. The ghostly tune that had accompanied her every moment within these halls was gone. Her footsteps seemed all the louder for it, breath rasping in her ears. It felt wrong. A splinter beneath her skin. A silence so loud it was deafening.

At the other end of the level, two Luminatii were stationed at the stairwells leading to higher ground. But their eyes were fixed above, of course, waiting for their justicus and his men to return. Mia stole toward them, quiet enough to make both Mercurio and Mouser beam with pride. She was less than a whisper as she rose up behind them. More than a blur as her gravebone blade sliced one man ear to ear, pierced the other’s heart as he turned to watch his comrade fall.

The soldier staggered, collapsing backward against the stairwell, hand to his chest. Eyes searching the darkness for what had killed him. And she threw aside her cloak then, just so he could see. See the pale waif soaked all in black and red, the mask of drying gore, the eyes beyond. See the shadow of a dead boy in her pupils as she reached out and covered his mouth, slicing his throat as she whispered.

“Hear me, Niah. Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.”

The not-cat at her feet swelled and rippled, drinking deep of the soldier’s final terror. And all around her, she could feel it. The dark. Whispering. Urging her on.

It was pleased.

Mia opened her arms, willed the shadows to rise, wrap the bodies up and drag them off into the darkness. She almost wished she could stay and watch as their comrades returned, finding only bloodstains to mark their passing. Watch as the first seeds of fear took root, and these men realized just