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People often shit themselves when they die.
A girl some called Pale Daughter. Or Kingmaker. Or Crow. But most often, nothing at all. A killer of killers, whose tally of endings only the goddess and I truly know. And was she famous or infamous for it at the end? All this death? I confess I could never see the difference. But then, I’ve never seen things the way you have. Never truly lived in the world you call your own. Nor did she, really. I think that’s why I loved her.
‘Hear me, Niah,’ she whispered. ‘Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.’ The cat who was shadows watched from its perch on the bedhead. Watched her the way only the eyeless can. It said not a word. It didn’t need to.
‘May I ask you something, Mi Dona?’ ‘… Ask then.’ ‘Why me? Why now?’ ‘Why not?’ ‘That’s no kind of answer.’ ‘You think I should have saved myself, is that it? That I’m some gift to be given? Now for ever spoiled?’
It’s the shadow road for you and me. And you dance it right, no one will ever know your name, let alone the pig-sticker in your belt. ‘You’ll be a rumour. A whisper. The thought that wakes the bastards of this world sweating in the nevernight. The last thing you will ever be in this world, girl, is someone’s hero.’ Mercurio handed back the blade. ‘But you will be a girl heroes fear.’
Only a child of ten, and already she knew the colour of fear.
You picture her now; a mother with her daughter’s face pressed to her skirts. The she-wolf with hackles raised, shielding her cub from the murder unfolding below. You’d be forgiven for imagining it so. Forgiven and mistaken. Because the dona held her daughter pinned looking outwards. Outwards so she could taste it all. Every morsel of this bitter meal. Every crumb.
‘Never flinch,’ she breathed. ‘Never fear.’ The girl felt the words in her chest. In the deepest, darkest place, where the hope children breathe and adults mourn withered and fell away, floating like ashes on the wind.
‘Never flinch.’ A cold whisper in her ear. ‘Never fear. And never, ever forget.’ The girl nodded slowly. Exhaled the hope inside. And she’d watched her father die.
A clever fellow might’ve noticed the girl’s shadow was a touch darker than others. A clever fellow might’ve noticed it was dark enough for two.
It’s truth to say in all save solitude – and in some sad cases, even then – you can always count on the company of fools.
It’s quite a thing, to watch a person slip from the potential of life into the finality of death. It’s another thing entirely to be the one who pushed. And for all Mercurio’s teachings, she was still a sixteen-year-old girl who’d just committed her first act of murder. Her first premeditated act, at any rate.
But the truth is, gentlefriends, she didn’t spare him. Yet, perhaps you’ll take solace in the fact that at least she paused. Not to gloat. Not to savour. To pray. ‘Hear me, Niah,’ she whispered. ‘Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. This life, this end, my gift to you. Hold him close.’
‘What are you?’ she whispered to the black at her feet. No answer. ‘Do you have a name?’ It shivered. Waiting. Wait ing. ‘You’re nice,’ she declared. ‘Your name should be nice too.’ Another smile. Black and eager. Mia smiled also. Decided. ‘Mister Kindly,’ she said.
Imagine the shame of having the piss smacked out of you by a blade called Fluffy.’
‘Cock is just another word for “fool”. But you call someone a cunt, well …’ The girl smiled. ‘You’re implying a sense of malice there. An intent. Malevolent and self-aware. Don’t think I name Consul Scaeva a cunt to gift him insult. Cunts have brains, Don Tric. Cunts have teeth. Someone calls you a cunt, you take it as a compliment. As a sign that folk believe you’re not to be lightly fucked with.’ A shrug. ‘I think they call that irony.’
‘Your mind will serve you better than any trinket under the suns,’ she’d said. ‘It is a weapon, Mia. And like any weapon, you need practise to be any good at wielding it.’ ‘But, mother—’ ‘No, Mia Corvere. Beauty you’re born with, but brains you earn.’
‘Nothing is where you start. Own nothing. Know nothing. Be nothing.’ ‘Why would I want to do that?’ The old man crushed out his cigarillo on the boards between them. His smile made her smile in return. ‘Because then you can do anything.’
‘Well, I’ll be off then. Too many books. Too few centuries.’
‘And you are versed in the blade’s song, little Diamo?’ ‘I know a tune or two.’ ‘Sing to me, then.’
And those who call the Dark …’ – Drusilla looked down to Mia’s shadow – ‘… well, eventually it calls them back.’
‘Hear me, Niah. Hear me, Mother. This flesh your feast. This blood your wine. These lives, these ends, my gift to you. Hold them close.’
‘Blood is blood, love,’ the Shahiid smiled. ‘Pigs. Paupers. Cattle. Kings. It makes no difference to Our Lady. It all stains alike. And it all washes out the same.’
‘We are killers, you and I,’ he said. ‘Killers one, killers all. And each death we bring is a prayer. An offering to Our Lady of Blessed Murder. Death as a mercy. Death as a warning. Death as an end unto itself. All of these, ours to know and gift unto the world. The wolf does not pity the lamb. The storm begs no forgiveness of the drowned.’
Iron or glass? they’d asked. Mia clenched her jaw. Shook her head. She was neither. She was steel.
‘Apologies,’ Mia frowned, searching the floor as if looking for something. ‘I appear to have misplaced the fucks I give for what you think …’
‘The books we love, they love us back. And just as we mark our places in the pages, those pages leave their marks on us. I can see it in you, sure as I see it in me. You’re a daughter of words. A girl with a story to tell.’
‘There are no friends here, Acolyte. The wolf does not pity the lamb. The storm begs no forgiveness of the drowned. We are killers one, killers all.’
‘Never fear, little Crow.’ The old man smiled. Patted her hand. ‘The brighter the light, the deeper the shadow.’
‘So Diamo cracked the antidote, neh?’ Jessamine smiled, red and poisonous. ‘So I hear.’ ‘That idiot wouldn’t know venomcraft if it danced on his bollocks in Liisian heels.’
but kindness should reap kindness even in a field like this
you have one friend inside these walls not carlotta not tric or ashlinn and not me
‘Hear me, Aa. Hear me, Father. Your flame, my heart. Your light, my soul. For your name, and your glory, and your justice, I march. Shine upon me.’
‘… i am sorry about tric …’ ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for.’ ‘… you felt what you felt, mia. there is no need to deny it …’ ‘I’m not.’ A pause, filled with a quiet sigh. ‘… no need to lie, either …’
‘… “the many were one’ …” Mister Kindly read. ‘… “and will be again; one beneath the three, to raise the four, free the first, blind the second and the third. o, mother, blackest mother, what have i become” …’
