Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,195

the Mountain’s feet.

“Naev, when we first arrived here, there was some kind of magik on the Mountain. A confusion, and kind of…”

“The Discord,” Naev said.

“Aye, that’s it. Will it effe—”

“No,” the woman sighed. “It only wears upon those who seek to enter the Mountain uninvited. These men seek to leave it. The Discord will not sway them.”

“Shit,” Mia hissed. “How do we give chase?”

“Just smuggle us aboard the trains with your shadow-werking,” Jessamine said.

“They’re already outside. My power runs deep in the Mountain because no sunslight has ever touched these halls. But out there … I don’t think I’m strong enough to hide us all. If we get seen, we’re as dead as those unwanted camels. Besides, the wagons are full. It’s not like there’s room for us to hide in them anyway.”

Mia spoke true—even thinning their numbers in the library and Hall of Eulogies, there were still over a hundred Luminatii left standing and only six wagons. Between their fellows and the supplies necessary to survive a weeks-long trek back to Last Hope, Remus’s men were squashed together like strips of salt pork in a barrel.

“Fuck,” Jessamine sighed.

“Aye,” Mia agreed. “Fuck is right.”

The Luminatii were dragging the last few living camels out into the foothills, clambering up on their backs. Remus was already aboard the first train, and through the rising dust, Mia saw Ashlinn, red-eyed and furious, standing atop the wagon and watching the Mountain’s entrance. The half-dozen soldiers Mia had left hamstrung in Adonai’s chamber would have told the girl what happened to her brother. Ashlinn knew Osrik was dead. And more, she knew Mia was responsible.

The girl snarled something at Remus, only to be roared at in response. However much she’d helped in taking down the Church, it seemed the justicus of the Luminatii was in no mood to take lip from a seventeen-year-old heretic.

Glad to be the thorn in your side, bitch …

The last camels were outside. The wagon covers were being drawn, the tackle checked. Naev muttered a prayer, readying to charge, but Mia grabbed her arm.

“You can’t go out there.”

“We cannot let them escape,” the woman hissed.

“There’s too many, Naev. They’ll butcher us before we get ten feet.”

“We can’t just sit here!” Jessamine spat.

Mia chewed her lip. Stared at the hundred-yard dash to the rearmost wagon.

“I can make it,” Mia said. “They won’t see me. I can get aboard.”

“And do what? Take out a hundred Luminatii alone?”

Mia’s shadow rippled. A chill shivered the air.

“… she is never alone…”

Mia looked down at the not-cat, tail switching side to side. And there in the shadows, crouched amid the dust and the dark, the puzzle came together in Mia’s mind. The final piece, the final thought, the final answer falling into place.

Click.

“I know how to stop them,” she breathed. “Are you with me?”

Mister Kindly titled his head quizzically.

“… always…”

Before Naev or Jessamine could speak, Mia was off, tearing up the shadows and throwing them about her shoulders, dashing through the stables and into the open air. The trains were already moving, dirt and grit in her mouth and eyes, and she ran almost blind, just a shifting blur against the rising dust. Stumbling through the gloom, the blur of Luminatii riders to the rearmost wagon, overflowing with grumbling, blood-caked soldiers. Moving by feel, she slipped beneath the tray, crawled forward and slung herself up onto the fore-axel to lay in wait.

The wagon crunched and bounced down the crumbling slope, the drivers whipping the camels hard. Remus obviously wanted to get as far from the Mountain as he could with his prize; the justicus might be a courageous sort when murdering kittens and throwing children into canals, but it seemed when plans went astray, so did his desire for confrontation.

Or perhaps Scaeva simply wanted Lord Cassius more than Mia could imagine.

The girl clung to the wagon’s belly like a leech. But she was safely out of sight for the time being, and so she threw aside her shadow cloak, concentrating only on keeping her grip. She was bounced and jolted, hammered and slammed, her back and arse screaming protest all the while. Dust caked her tongue, gummed up her eyes, caked the dried blood in her hair. She almost slipped a half-dozen times, closing her eyes and praying for strength. The ride seemed to go on forever.

A good five or six hours from the Mountain, the foothills began to even out, and the ride became a little less like torture. The sand grew soft and the drivers