Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) - Jay Kristoff Page 0,69

in one place for long.”

“I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.”

Ash grinned. “Scared of him?”

“Black Mother, aren’t you?”

“O, aye. But you better get over it. If you graduate, it’s him that’ll anoint you at the initiation ceremony.” Ashlinn looked about them, passageways stretching off into the darkness. “Ah, well. He’ll keep. Come on, I’m hungry.”

The pair stole off into the shadows, leaving the Lord of Blades and his business behind. They found the Hall of Songs, the smell of blood still hanging in the air. Mia’s elbow ached as if remembering, and she felt a surge of familiar anger. Recalling Solis’s face as he raised his sword. The agony of her maiming. With a whispered curse, she slipped back down the twisting stairs. Deep in the Mountain’s belly, they found the doors to the athenaeum, though neither girl thought it would be a good idea to have Chronicler Aelius discover them wandering about after ninebells. And after what seemed an age, a delicious smell drifting down one of the stairwells led them up to the kitchens.

Hot bread was baking in long, coal-fire ovens. The coolrooms were filled with cheeses and fresh fruit. The remnants of last eve’s supper were laid out on long platters. There were no Hands anywhere that Mia could see, so she and Ashlinn each stole a plateful, snuck out onto the now empty Sky Altar. Mia was again struck by the enormity of the blackness beyond the platform. The long drop to the wasteland below. The desert that perfectly mirrored the Ashkahi badlands she and Tric had traveled, somehow dwelling in perpetual night.

She was again overcome with the sense of sanctity about this place. The otherworldliness. She could almost feel the black stare of that statue in the Hall of Eulogies. The goddess, to whom this Church was dedicated.

Marked by the Mother, Drusilla had said.

But why? For what purpose?

… Maybe Lord Cassius knows?

Ash sat on the railing overlooking the drop, cross-legged, dragging stray blond from her eyes and wolfing down a chunk of bread and cheese. Mia tore at a chicken leg, idly wondering where the Church got the flour to bake bread and where they kept their livestock. The wagon train from Last Hope had contained only arkemical powders and tools and suchlike. Nothing perishable. Nothing alive.

“How do they feed us? Where do they get the stores?”

Ashlinn spoke around her mouthful. “Didn’t your Shahiid teach you about this place?”

“A little,” Mia shrugged. “But he seemed to hold most of the workings as secret. To be earned, not given freely.”

Ashlinn shrugged, scoffed another mouthful. “Wuh vwat wunugd mufuh.”

“… What?”

The girl swallowed, licked her lips. “I said, well, that’s what you’ve got me for. Da told me and my brother everything about this place. Everything he knew, anyway.”

“He’s a Blade?”

“Was. Worked on retainer for the king of Vaan for years.1 But he got captured on an offering in Liis. Tortured for three weeks in the Thorn Towers of Elai. He escaped, but not before they’d taken his sword hand, one of his eyes and both his bollocks. So the Church retired him.”

“Maw’s teeth,” Mia breathed. “Marielle couldn’t fix his hurts?”

Ash shook her head. “The Leper Priests fed the bits they cut off to the scabdogs. Nothing left to reattach. So Da set to training me and Osrik to replace him.” A shrug. “Couldn’t give the goddess his own life, so he settled for his kin.”

Mia nodded, somehow unsurprised. A lesser man might vow vengeance against the master who had sent him to such a fate. But looking out into the dark waste below the altar, it was easy to understand how this place bred fanatics. She couldn’t help but remember the goddess’s stare in the Hall of Eulogies. The power in it. The majesty.

She glanced down to the shadow at her feet.

Marked for what?

“Did your father tell you anything about Lord Cassius?” she asked.

Ash nodded. “Most wanted man in the Republic. And the most dangerous. More sanctified kills on him than even the Revered Mother. Legend has it he ended his first man at ten. Killed the praetor of the Third Legion in full view of his whole army and got away clean. Murdered the tribune of Dawnspear along with his entire council in the middle of session, and nobody outside chambers heard a whisper.

“He’s been head of the Red Church for years, but like I say, he’s never in one place for long. The Luminatii have been looking to take us down for decades. It’s