Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,204

only a ragged strip of flesh and a few splinters of shattered bone nailing the Luminatii’s head to his neck as he toppled and fell, his body twitching on the floor until it realized the sad truth that it was dead.

Mia glanced at the shadows, swaying at Cassius’s beck and call. She still felt that painful, oily sickness in her belly, Mister Kindly trembling at her feet.

“Nice trick,” she said.

“Trick?” The Lord of Blades raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you name it?”

“When I met you in Godsgrave … when you’re near me…” Mia shook her head. “Do you feel the way I do when we’re close? Sick? Frightened?”

Cassius waited a long moment before he replied.

“I feel hungry.”

Mia nodded. Her mouth dry. “Do you know why?”

The Lord of Blades looked pointedly at the corpses on the floor. The walls around them. “Perhaps here is not the best place to speak of it?”

“You owe me answers,” Mia said. “I think I’ve earned them by now.”

As if summoned, Eclipse materialized near Cassius’s feet. Mister Kindly hissed softly as the shadowwolf spoke, her voice seeming to come from beneath the floor.

“… THEY COME, CASSIUS. THE LIGHTBRINGER AND HIS MINIONS…”

The Lord of Blades looked at Mia. Nodded downstairs.

“Come,” Cassius said. “Let’s be rid of these curs. I will gift you what answers I have after initiation.”

“Initiation?” Mia frowned. “But I failed the final trial.”

A thin smile curled Cassius’s lips. “Your final trial awaits downstairs, little sister.”

“… Sister?”

Cassius was already gone, stealing down the stairs without a sound. Mia hurried after him, for all her training feeling like a stumbling drunkard. Even beaten bloody, tortured and starved, Cassius moved like a shadow. His boots made no sound on the stone. His every motion precise, nothing wasted, no flash or showmanship. His hair flowing out behind him as if the breeze were blowing, stolen sword gleaming in his hand as he pushed open the front door and stepped into the street.

A dozen Luminatii were waiting. Centurion Garibaldi, squinting at Mia with vague recognition. A handful of heavily armed legionaries, sunsteel burning in their hands. Justicus Remus, a scarred, hulking mountain of a man in his gravebone armor, looking at Cassius with narrowed, wolfish eyes. And behind Remus, staring at Mia with something between hate and admiration …

“Ashlinn,” Mia whispered.

Remus stepped forward, sword raised and rippling with flame. He’d been a giant when Mia last saw him in the sunslight, just ten years old and clinging to her mother’s skirts. Now, he seemed just a little older. A little smaller.

But only a little.

“I’ve no wish to slay you, heretic,” the justicus growled.

“That makes one of us,” Mia spat.

Remus raised an eyebrow, as if surprised to learn the girl had a tongue. Cassius glanced sideways at Mia, spoke from the corner of his mouth.

“I believe he was talking to me.”

“I believe I couldn’t give a shit.” Mia turned to Remus, flipping her sword back and forth between hands. “Nice to see you again, Justicus. Did the traitorous bitch beside you tell you who I am?”

Remus glanced at Ashlinn, looked Mia up and down with a sneer. “I know who you are, girl. And it surprises me not one whit to see your lot thrown in with a den of heretics and murderers. The apple never falls far from the tree.”

Mia’s eyes narrowed, hair blowing about her face as the wind began to rise. The Luminatii looked to their feet, quavering a little as they realized their shadows were ebbing and pulsing, reaching out to the girl as if they longed to touch her.

“You hung my father as entertainment for a fucking mob,” she spat. “Threw my mother in a hole with no sunslight and let madness eat her. My brother was just a baby, and you let him die in the dark. And you talk to me about murder?”

Mia’s eyes were welling with tears, face twisted in rage.

“Every nevernight since I was ten years old, I’ve dreamed of killing you. You and Scaeva and Duomo. I gave up everything. Any chance I ever had of ever being happy. Every turn, I’d picture your face and imagine all the things I’d say to let you know just how much I hate you. It’s all I am anymore. It’s all that’s left inside me. You killed me, Remus. Just as sure as you killed my familia.”

Mia raised her sword, leveled it at Remus’s head.

“And now, I’m going to kill you.”

Remus snarled to the men beside him. “End the girl. Bring