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Something cared.
    3. The Ribs are perhaps the most spectacular feature of Itreya’s capital; sixteen great ossified towers gleaming at the heart of the City of Bridges and Bones. The Ribs are said to have belonged to the last titan, overthrown by the Light God Aa in the war for dominion of Itreya’s heaven. Aa commanded his faithful to build a temple at the place where the titan fell to earth, commemorating his victory. Thus, the seeds of the great city were planted in the grave of the Light’s last foe.
    A strange thing, gentlefriend, that in no holy scripture or book will you find mention of this titan’s name …
    4. Lady of Oceans, Thirdborn of the Light and the Maw, She Who Will Drink the World.
    5. How drunk would a man have to be to consider romancing a giantess a sensible option, for example? Furthermore, in such a state of inebriation, how could a fellow be expected to safely operate his own equipment, let alone the requisite stepladder?
    6. A poet this one, and no mistake.
    7. One of only six remaining in existence. Plienes and all known copies of his work were put to the torch in 27PR, in a conflagration briefly known as “the Brightest Light.”
    Organized by Grand Cardinal Crassus Alvaro, the pyre destroyed over four thousand “incendiary” works and was considered a resounding success by the Itreyan clergy—until it was pointed out by Crassus’s son , Cardinal Leo Alvaro, that there was no light in all creation brighter than that of the God of Light himself, and that naming any man-made bonfire to the contrary was, in fact, heresy.
    After the grand cardinal’s crucifixion, Grand Cardinal Alvaro II decreed the pyre should be referred to as “the Bright Light” in texts thereafter.
    8. “She may have been the most feared killer in Itreya, murderess of legions, Lady of Blades, destroyer of the Republic, but look , she had good in her also. Mercy, even for rapists and brutes. O, cue the swelling violiiiiiiins!”

CHAPTER 3
    H OPELESS
    Something had followed her from that place. The place above the music where her father died. Something hungry. A blind, grub consciousness, dreaming of shoulders crowned with translucent wings. And she, who would gift them.
    The little girl had slumped on a palatial bed in her mother’s chambers, cheeks wet with tears. Her brother lay beside her, wrapped in swaddling and blinking with his big black eyes. The babe understood none of what was going on about him. Too young to know his father had ended, and all the world beside him.
    The little girl envied him.
    Their apartments sat high within the hollow of the second Rib, ornate friezes carved into walls of ancient gravebone. Looking out the leadlight window, she could see the third and fifth Ribs opposite, looming above the Spine hundreds of feet below. Nevernight winds howled about the petrified towers, bringing cool in from the waters of the bay.
    Opulence dripped on the floor; all crushed red velvet and artistry from the four corners of the Itreyan Republic. Moving mekwerk sculpture from the Iron Collegium. Million-stitch tapestries woven by the blind propheteers of Vaan. A chandelier of pure Dweymeri crystal. Servants moved in a storm of soft dresses and drying tears, and at the eye stood the Dona Corvere, bidding them move, move, for the love of Aa, move.
    The little girl had sat on the bed beside her brother. A black tomcat was pressed to her chest, purring softly. But he’d puffed up and spat when he saw a deeper shadow at the curtain’s feet. Claws dug into his girl’s hands and she’d dropped him into the path of an oncoming maidservant, who fell with a shriek. Dona Corvere turned on her daughter, regal and furious.
    “Mia Corvere, keep that wretched animal out from underfoot or we’ll leave it behind!”
    And as simple as that, we have her name.
    Mia.
    “Captain Puddles isn’t filthy,” Mia had said, almost to herself. 1
    A boy in his middling teens entered the room, red-faced from his dash up the