Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,194

way down the stairs. But soon enough, she sensed an archway, the vast, sweeping space of the hall beyond. The dead names on the floor. The nameless tombs in the walls. She could see the vague silhouette of Niah’s statue above, picked out against the blurry, stained-glass light.

Creeping slow, near-blind, she crouched behind a nearby pillar. Throwing off her cloak long enough to get a decent view of her surroundings, she stepped into the shadows at her feet and reappeared forty feet off the ground, nestled in the deep shadows of Niah’s folded hood.

One of the Luminatii saw movement above, yelled warning. But by then, Mia was raining wyrdglass down from her perch, thick clouds of Swoon bursting around the room. At least a dozen men dropped after inhaling a lungful, others running from their nooks and crannies to seek better shelter.

As the Luminatii broke cover, Naev, Jessamine and the other Hands charged into the room, black and swift and deadly silent. The soldiers didn’t even know they were facing more than one assailant until five more of their number were dead. The disciples fell on the invaders with a fury that staggered them, Jessamine’s blades a blur, Naev fighting like a daemon despite her broken ribs. Perhaps it was rage at the invasion of their home. Perhaps it was the presence of the goddess, sword and scales poised above them, cold stone eyes following the butchery. But within moments, the Luminatii ambush had turned into a slaughter, and the black ran red with the blood of Aa’s faithful.

Mia stood upon her perch, crossbow in hand, picking off runners and cutting down anyone who thought to strike at a disciple’s back. Ten quarrels later, she drew her blades and stepped out of the statue’s shadow forty feet below, burying a dagger in some poor fool’s back, cutting down another with a fistful of throwing knives. Fighting back to back with Naev, throwing up a wall of bloody steel, the song of their blades filling the empty space left behind by the Mother’s choir, the cries of the slaughtered echoing in the dark after the last man had fallen.

Naev staggered, clutching her ribs and gasping. Jessamine was bloodied and breathless. Two other Hands—a boy named Pietro, not much older than Mia, and an older man named Neraius—had fallen under the Luminatii’s blows.

“… mia…”

The girl stood over Pietro’s body, head hung low.

Staring into his sightless eyes.

“… mia they are at the stables…”

She hung there in the quiet gloom. Trying not to remember.

Trying and failing.

“He was just a boy, Mister Kindly.”

She shook her head.

“Just a boy.”

“… now is not the time to mourn, mia. this boy or any other…”

The girl looked at him then, grief shining in her eyes.

“… avenge them instead…”

Mia nodded slow.

Wiped the blood from her blades.

And she ran on.

The stables were a milling sea of men, animals, dust. The stink of sweat and blood and shit, the barks of centurions, the warbling murmurs of agitated camels and, above them all, Justicus Remus. Roaring.

Mia had only ever hidden one other person beneath her cloak, but Tric had been a giant, and Naev and Jessamine were each half his size. So, leaving the other wounded Hands behind, the trio had stolen down the stairs and out into the stables. Looking through the scrum, Jessamine sighed.

“’Byss and blood, we’re too late.”

The Luminatii had already managed to open the Mountain’s walls, blinding light and fingers of grit blowing in from the Whisperwastes outside. Soldiers had hitched up two wagon trains to camel teams and were leading them into the foothills outside; other Luminatii were saddling individual beasts and dragging them out by the reins. Most of the soldiers had never laid eyes on a camel before, and the process was taking longer than it should have—hence the roars from the aforementioned justicus. But still, the Luminatii were moments from escape.

Mia could see seven bound figures with bags over their heads being loaded into the foremost wagon. Even with their faces hidden, she recognized them immediately. The Ministry, a slender boy who must be Hush, and finally, a figure bound in a cocoon of rope and manacles, being carried by one of the biggest Luminatii Mia had ever seen.

“Lord Cassius,” she breathed.

“Black Mother,” Jessamine hissed. “They killed the other camels.”

Mia looked into the pens, saw Jessamine was right; any beast not currently hitched to a train or being saddled by a soldier had been slaughtered. She cursed softly, staring out into the rocky foothills at