Nevernight by Jay Kristoff Read Free Book Online Page A

trying to take down the Church for years. The Truedark Massacre changed the game.”
    “… if ill befell them, there would still be traces …”
    “You suggest we go out into the Whisperwastes and look?”
    “… that, wait here, or return home …”
    “None of those options hold much appeal.”
    “… fat daniio’s job offer still stands, i am sure …”
    Her smile was thin and pale. She turned back to the sea, watching the sunslight glint and catch upon the gnashing waves. Dragging deep on her smoke and exhaling plumes of gray.
    “… mia …?”
    “Yes?”
    “… there is no need to be afraid …”
    “I’m not.”
    A pause, filled with whispering wind.
    “… no need to lie, either …”
    Mia ended up stealing most of her supplies.
    Waterskins, rations, and a tent from Last Hope General Supplies and Fine Undertakers. Blankets, whiskey, and candles from the Old Imperial. She’d already marked the finest stallion in the garrison stable for stealing, despite being as much at home in the saddle as a nun in a brothel.
    She told herself the thievery would keep her sharp, and sneaking back into the robbed stores to deposit compensation on the countertops afterward struck her as good sport. 11 Seated at the Imperial’s hearth, she enjoyed a final bowl of widowmaker chili and waited for the nevernight winds to begin, bringing blessed cool after a turn of red heat.
    Mia glanced up as the front door creaked open, admitting curling fingers of dust.
    The boy who entered looked Dweymeri—leviathan ink facial tattoos (of terrible quality), salt-kissed locks bound in matted knots. But his skin was olive rather than brown, and he was too short to be an islander; barely a head taller than Mia, truth told. Dressed in dark leathers, carrying a scimitar in a battered scabbard, smelling of horse and a long road. When he prowled into the room, he checked every corner with hazel eyes. As his stare roamed the alcoves, Mia pulled the shadows about herself, and faded like a watermark into the gloom.
    The boy turned to Fat Daniio, polishing that same grubby cup with the same grubby cloth. Eyeing the man over, the boy spoke with a voice soft as velvet.
    “Blessings to you, sir.”
    “A’right,” Fat Daniio replied. “What’ll you ’ave?”
    “I have this.”
    The boy placed a small wooden box upon the counter. Mia’s eyes narrowed as it rattled. The boy looked around the room again, then spoke in a tight whisper.
    “My tithe. For the Maw.” 12
    1. The tomcat was, as you probably suspect, named for his fondness for urinating outside designated areas—a name that had been tolerated by her mother, and met with uproarious approval by her dear-departed father.
    2. Captain Puddles lurked under the bed, licking at dusty paws. The aforementioned something lingered yet beneath the curtains.
    3. She’d learned to hear the music by now.
    4. That dubious honor belonged to the Lonesome Rose, a pleasure house in the Godsgrave docklands frequented by syphilitic lunatics and newly released convicts, run by a Vaanian madam so disease-stricken she affectionately referred to her own nethers as “the Orphan Maker.”
    5. The only man in Last Hope who knew how to play it—a local tomb raider nicknamed Blue Paulo—had been found strung up from the rafters in his room two summers previous. Whether his end was suicide or the protest of another resident particularly opposed to harpsichord music was a topic of much speculation and very little investigation in the weeks following his death/murder.
    6. Coins in the Republic came in three flavors—the least valuable being copper, the middle child, iron, and the fanciest, gold. Gold coins were as rare as a likable tax collector, most plebs never laying eyes on one in their lives.
    Itreyan coinage was originally referred to as “sovereigns,” but given the Itreyan’s penchant for brutally murdering their kings, the term had fallen out of vogue decades past. Coppers were now sometimes referred