me back to this … life, centuries had passed. The Church had become something else entirely. But there was still a sliver of it in the shadows. A tiny fragment of true belief she could use to play a game decades long. Making a few moves with a few pawns every truedark, just once every three years. Looking for another chosen. Seeking the one who might triumph where Cleo failed. Until finally … finally…”
The chronicler met Mia’s eyes.
“Here she is.”
“I’m nobody’s savior,” she said. “I’m no hero.”
“O, bullshit,” Aelius spat. “You know exactly what you are. Look at the things you’ve done. The things you do. You’ve been shaping the world with your every breath for the last three years, and don’t tell me you didn’t feel it was for something more than vengeance.” Aelius pointed at the first two Nevernight Chronicles on his little trolley. “I’ve read them. Cover to cover. More times than I can count. You’re more than just a killer. If you open your arms to it, you’re the girl who can right the fucking sky.”
Aelius shook his head, glaring.
“But we can’t afford to fuck this up again. There’s so little of Anais left, and every piece of him lost brings us one step closer to ruin. The piece in me when those bastards murdered me. The piece in Cassius when he died in Last Hope. Perhaps I should have helped you more. Perhaps I should have told you earlier. But I needed to know you had the will to see this through, Mia. To the end.”
The chronicler looked deep into Mia’s eyes.
“The very end.”
“Scaeva still has my brother,” she said.
“Aye,” Aelius said. “And by the time you reach Godsgrave, he’ll probably have an army waiting for you. But if you claim the power that awaits you at the Crown, once truedark falls, you’ll be able to take your brother back in a black heartbeat.”
“And then I die.”
The chronicler tilted his head and shrugged.
“Everybody dies sometime. Very few of us die for something. You’re her Chosen, Mia. This is right. This is destiny.”
“This is bullshit!” Ashlinn spat, glaring at the chronicler.
The old wraith sighed gray. “You’ve no idea what you’re talking about, girl.”
“Don’t call me girl, you creaky old fuck,” Ash snarled. “How easy is it for you to talk about what’s right when you don’t have to sacrifice a thing to do it?”
Aelius glowered. “Don’t have to sacrifice…?”
The chronicler straightened to his full height, fury burning in pale blue eyes.
“One hundred and twenty-seven years,” he said. “That’s what I sacrificed. Over a century, spent rotting in this fucking Athenaeum, bound to these pages. Not alive. Not dead. Just existing and praying for the right one to come along.” He dragged his cigarillo off his lips, held it up between them. “You know how many times I thought about just tossing one of these into the stacks? Letting this place burn and me along with it? I want to sleep, girl. I want this to end. But no, I sat here waiting in the dark because I believed. You be mad at life all you like. You try to protect your love as hard as you can. But don’t you dare talk to me about fucking sacrifice. Not ever.”
Mia looked about the faces of her comrades. Mercurio looked stricken, Bladesinger and Sidonius were both awed and afraid. Tric was as unreadable as stone, like the faces about the pool beneath Godsgrave’s heart. Ashlinn was simply furious, smoldering, looking at Mia and slowly shaking her head.
“I need to think,” Mia whispered. “I need to think about this…”
“The suns are falling to their rest,” Aelius said, eyes returning to hers. “Truedark approaches. Niah can only breathe life into Anais while Aa’s eyes are closed, and if we miss our opportunity now, who knows what the imperium will look like in another two and half years.”
The chronicler crushed out his cigarillo underheel and nodded.
“So don’t think too long, neh?”
CHAPTER 34
RIBBONS
Bladesinger sat in the Sky Altar, an endless night wheeling above her head.
The platform was carved deep into the Quiet Mountain’s flank, open to the sky it was named for. It protruded from the Mountain’s side, a terrifying drop waiting just beyond its ironwood railings. The Whisperwastes were laid out below, but above, where the sky should have burned with the stubborn light of the failing suns, Bladesinger could see only darkness. Filled with a million tiny stars.
The benches and tables around them, once peopled with assassins and servants of