“If you have a better idea, tell me when we’re back on solid ground.” We returned to Bayan’s balcony, Uphilia in tow. “We can remove shards from any constructs attacking us. Subvert some if we have the chance. I’ll tell you how I rewrote the commands for the spies. I suspect the war construct commands are written in a similar way. We can do this. The constructs are strong, but we have more knowledge. We can control them. All we have to do is get through them to the Emperor.”
“Yes, easy enough.” He was speaking this way because he was scared. I knew these feelings.
“I never said it would be easy.”
Bayan rubbed at his arms, as though trying to wipe away his fear. “I’m sorry. I know you’re right. And if I’m ever to have a life worth living, this is the way through to it. I thought things were hard enough when I had to compete with you for your father’s approval. This is… toppling an Emperor. It’s something your ancestors would have done. Or the Alanga.”
“Again, I am not one of the Sukais. I am a facsimile.”
“You’re as close to a Sukai as one can get nowadays.” Bayan shook his head. “Let’s get Mauga and do this before I change my mind.”
I took his hand in mine. Our fingers twined together as naturally as breathing. “Thank you,” I said.
He didn’t say anything stupid this time, only looked at our hands. With his expression solemn, the resemblance to the Emperor became more pronounced. The Emperor had built a younger copy of himself, cobbled together from who knew how many people. Yet Bayan was different. He gave my hand a squeeze. “I am sorry we couldn’t have been friends.”
“There’s still time.”
The smile he gave me was half-rueful, half-wry. “So she says, before they go into battle against their very creator.”
I squeezed his hand back. “There is always time.”
We slipped into the hallway together, after sending the spy construct to scout the way, Uphilia on our heels. As we stepped toward Mauga’s room, the scent of his lair growing in my awareness, Bayan’s palm slipped against mine. I wasn’t sure if it was my sweat, or his. Either way, we both gripped tighter. If I’d put aside my pride, if I’d figured things out earlier, we might have seen past the rivalry the Emperor had set upon us. He’d manipulated us both, and I’d fallen prey to it. I might have been able to save Numeen and his family. But I couldn’t change what had happened, no matter how much I wished it. And oh – how I wished it.
Mauga was awake when we entered, sitting on his haunches, straw scattered beneath him.
Bayan’s support gave me courage. I did not whisper, or creep forward like a mouse. “Mauga, you must come with me.”
He blinked and then lowered himself to all fours. “I knew you would come for me.”
Uphilia stepped to my side, stretching her wings and resettling them. “It’s time.”
“I need to find my father,” I told the constructs. “I need to set everything right.” As much as I protested, as much as I kept telling Bayan I was not a Sukai, the identity was pressed too deeply into my bones. I’d find a way to leave it behind someday – if I lived through this.
“He is in the dining hall with Tirang,” Mauga said, “plotting a war against the Shardless Few.”
“Ilith?” Bayan asked.
Uphilia shook her head, as though she’d bitten into something distasteful. “No one knows.”
Hopefully she was still incapacitated in her lair. The engraving tool that Numeen had given me was still in my sash pocket. “I’ll need you to cover for me from time to time,” I told them. “The more time I get to rewrite the commands of basic war constructs, the more we’ll have on our side.”
“And if we win?” Bayan said it like he was starting to believe we could.
“We bring back the servants, the soldiers. We open up the palace again. We treatise with the governors and form alliances. We become strong again. The rest…” I thought of the shards within Bayan that even now were draining the lives of the Empire’s citizens. I didn’t know how to reconcile that with who Numeen had wanted me to be. He’d wanted me to stop the trepanning rituals, to provide succor to the people. I closed my eyes, hoping for a vision of the future that made sense. I found only darkness behind my eyelids and my heartbeat pounding like a drumbeat in my ears. But there were rooms I’d not been in yet, and secrets I didn’t yet know. Perhaps I’d find answers there. “The rest we will have to figure out.”
The march to the dining hall felt an eternity. The one servant we saw went pale as she spotted us, retreating into a room, her head bowed over her basket of linens. I’d reclaimed my hand from Bayan’s grip and had fished out the engraving tool. He held his own in his hand like a weapon. His was much more elaborate than mine, carved with vines up and down the handle. Uphilia padded beside us, her footfalls silent, and Mauga strode behind, his bulk a comforting presence at our backs.
For Numeen. For his wife, his brother, his children – his family that he’d entrusted me with.
Bayan waited at the dining-hall door. This was my plan, so this was my move to make. The trick, I thought, was not to think about it at all. I took in a breath, opened the door and stepped inside.
Shiyen, the Emperor, stood over the table, leaning on its surface. Tirang loomed behind him, his wolf’s snout pointed at the map, his clawed ape’s hand holding the edge flat. Both of them looked up as I entered, my engraving tool in hand. A flash of surprise crossed my father’s face, so quickly I barely saw it. It was enough to know – I’d not met his expectations.
This time, I yearned to break them.
As Bayan, Mauga and Uphilia filtered in after me, understanding smoothed Shiyen’s features. “I locked you away. You… you are not supposed to be here,” he said slowly.
“No, I am not. But I’m not who you think I am.”
“That’s because I need to fix you. It’s not your fault.”
I straightened. “I’m happy as I am.”
Shiyen sneered. “You don’t know what happiness is. You don’t know what sadness is. I grew you in a cave beneath this palace from stolen bits of flesh. I put memories into your head. You are my creation. You are mine.”
I was not. But the only language he understood was violence. “Mauga. Uphilia. Kill Tirang.”
They rushed forward. I felt Bayan’s arm, pressed against mine, trembling. I might have been ignored by Shiyen, but he’d suffered Shiyen’s wrath much more often.
Shiyen slammed a hand on the table. “Ossen!” he shouted. The word echoed from the walls. Even as Mauga and Uphilia rushed at Tirang, I heard the drum of distant footsteps.
I’d never expected this to be as simple as killing Tirang, but the confirmation of it made me quail.
Tirang seized Uphilia in his jaws, and Mauga slammed his massive bear-shoulder into Tirang’s chest. With a contemptuous glance at me, Shiyen plunged his hand into Mauga’s side. The construct froze.
“What now?” Bayan said.
“What else?” I sounded braver than I felt. “We fight.”
I strode toward my erstwhile father, my engraving tool held at the ready. Even though I’d studied hard, I knew his library of knowledge was greater than mine. But he was weaker and sick, and I had the strength of youth.
Tirang dropped Uphilia and turned to me, a growl in his throat. Before he could swipe at me, Uphilia sprang from the ground and seized his calf in her teeth.
I grabbed Shiyen’s hand and yanked it from Mauga’s body. He’d already closed his fingers around a shard. The bones of Shiyen’s wrist squeezed together, frail as a songbird’s legs. He grunted as I wrested the shard from his fingers, glanced at it and pushed it back into Mauga where it belonged. Mauga shook his head and bared his teeth.
“Lin!” Bayan called from behind me.
I looked to find Bayan trying to hold the door shut against a tide of constructs. He lost the battle as I watched and war constructs flooded into the room – wide-eyed creatures of teeth and claws. “Turn them!” I cried out. “The
way I showed you.”
He thrust his hand into a nearby construct, but he could only handle so much at a time. I threw my father to the floor and ran back to the doorway, my free hand held in front of me. The first war construct I encountered, I pushed my fingers inside its chest. When it froze, I crouched in it shadow, using its body as cover as I plucked the shard from inside of it and rewrote its contents. Behind me, I heard the tap of my father’s iron-tipped cane as he pushed himself to his feet.
Something snarled, close to my ear. I whipped my head up. The golden eyes of some giant cat met my gaze. The construct’s heavy jaw and long teeth sent a jolt through my veins, my heart kicking at my ribs. It stalked one step closer and I slammed the shard back into the construct I crouched beneath.
“Protect me,” I commanded it.
It met the cat-thing with its teeth bared and I rolled away. I grabbed another construct’s hairy leg. As soon as it stopped to growl at me, I pushed my hand into its chest to pull the correct shard out. I heard yowling as the other two constructs tussled. Two others had stopped in their rush and were approaching me.
I had to keep ahead of it, to keep turning enough so I had protection to turn more. And there was my father to worry about, with his own power to contend with.
Teeth sank into my arm as I finished carving the new command into the shard. A smaller war construct with the face of some sharp-toothed fish. I pulled my arm away and felt flesh tear. Pain flared, a burning sensation, the warmth of blood trickling toward my hand. I shoved the shard back into the construct above me. “Protect me,” I commanded.
I dared a glance at Bayan. He was still near to the door, but he was holding his own – one construct in his control and another he was working on. He wasn’t as quick as I was, but he seemed to be managing.
Too many constructs stood between us – at least twenty of varying sizes. Behind me, my father had risen to his feet. If I kept trying to go to Bayan to help, I’d be giving Shiyen time to wreak more havoc. I didn’t know what else he had in store. Ending this quickly was the best way to protect us both.
I pivoted toward the Emperor.
He had Mauga in hand again. Tirang was still standing, although blood flowed from a wound on his shoulder. A gift from Mauga’s jaws. One of the constructs I’d turned disappeared beneath the onslaught of three others. I couldn’t make it there with only one construct protecting me. I grabbed for another one, my breath tight in my throat, pain running up my arm.
I turned it quickly.
“Lin, help!” Bayan cried out.
He was pinned beneath a construct. Both the constructs he’d turned were lying on the floor, blood pouring from their throats. He was pushing his hand into the chest of the construct holding him down, but his fingers didn’t move past the skin. He was panicking, unable to keep up with the pace.
I couldn’t turn back, not without losing everything we’d come here to do. And I wouldn’t make it in time.
“Protect Bayan,” I said to the construct I’d just turned. I didn’t have time to see if its help sufficed. I’d left myself vulnerable. A war construct that was mostly wolf stalked toward me from the right. The remaining construct I’d turned was occupied keeping two others away from me to my left.
I put my hand out at the ready, hoping I could react quickly enough to plunge my hand inside the wolf construct before it could attack me. I didn’t have surprise on my side; this construct looked me straight in the eyes.
It leapt.
A squeak cut through the air. Hao dropped from the ceiling beams and landed on the wolf construct’s head. The wolf construct snapped its jaw shut on empty air as the spy construct clawed at its eyes.
My heart leapt into my throat. I hadn’t told the spy construct to help me. I’d forgotten it was there at all – it was too small. No one, it seemed, was too small to turn the tide.
Father was finishing an engraving. Uphilia, bleeding, darted at Tirang’s feet. She was no match for him. She wouldn’t last much longer. And then Shiyen pushed his engraving into Mauga’s flesh.
Mauga turned. I could feel the difference in the air as he awoke. He seized Uphilia, and his clawed hands that I’d thought so slow and lazy tore her neatly in two. Blood and bone shards spilled from the halves of her broken body. My mouth went dry. It was what would happen to me if I lost this fight. I leapt to the side to dodge a bite, grabbed the dog-snout of the attacking construct and thrust my hand into its body.
It couldn’t have been that long, but it felt like I’d been fighting for a lifetime. My injured arm burned and numbed in turns. I turned the dog-snout construct, and then another. It was all I could focus on. But then Mauga began shuffling toward me, and I knew I’d have to come up with some way to turn him back. I had no idea what my father had written into his commands. All I saw was a brief flash of triumph on his face – one that sent ice through my veins.
“Bayan!” I called out. I heard no response. He could have been injured, or dead, or too busy with his own battle to respond. I hoped he’d caught my meaning. I’d need time to figure out what the Emperor had done, because we couldn’t afford to have Mauga against us.
For Numeen, for his family, for all the rest of them.
I ran toward Mauga, my fingers tight around my engraving tool. He saw me coming, his brown eyes narrowing. He swiped. I leapt to the side and ducked beneath the swing. Claws caught in my hair briefly, sending a shiver up my spine. Before I could straighten, his other paw caught me in the hip. I felt my flesh tear, the blow sending me tumbling. My vision hazed, the world spinning around me. I licked my lips, tasting copper. A musky, manure smell filled my nostrils.
Get up.
Mauga’s foot appeared in my vision. A piece of straw was stuck between his toes. I tried to focus on it, get my vision cleared. Somewhere behind me, Bayan shouted. I couldn’t tell what he said.
I was Lin. I was not the Emperor’s daughter, but I was stronger than he knew. I would not die here. I would not become his wife.
Gathering all the strength left in my limbs, I launched myself to my feet and pushed my hand into Mauga’s chest. Pain bloomed across my body, radiating from my arm and hip. Grimacing, I ran my hand across Mauga’s shards. There were too many of them. It would take me too long to find the one Shiyen had altered. I closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, Mauga.” I seized a fistful of shards and yanked them free.
Mauga froze.
The second construct I’d turned still protected me, though it was bleeding from multiple wounds and looked about ready to fall apart. I grabbed another construct.
I could see Bayan out of the corner of my eye, working furiously to change the war constructs over to our side. Uphilia was dead now. But I could feel the tide turning. If we could just take out Tirang, we’d win. I turned two more constructs.
A long, low growl sounded from the doorway.
Bing Tai leapt into the room and seized Bayan by the neck. Blood spurted.
I felt as though I watched through a lens from far away, my lips numb. Bayan didn’t scream, Bing Tai’s teeth clamped around his throat. When Bing Tai let go, Bayan dropped to the ground, his body limp. The constructs he’d turned ran about, purposeless, attacking both my father’s constructs and one another.
Bing Tai ran at me from one side. From the corner of my eye, I saw the ruddy fur of Tirang.
Bing Tai growled.
And suddenly, I wasn’t in the dining hall anymore. I was in the library, Bing Tai laid out before me. My hands moved of my own accord. It was me, yet not me. I was sorting shards into rows, laid out on a silk cloth on the floor. I brought one up to my eyes and examined the command.
“It’s quite complex.” I knew the voice that echoed from the shelves. A hand came to rest on my shoulder. Shiyen.
“Yes, well, why do something simple if I have the capability for more?” I kissed the hand. “This will be for both of us. A guardian. A personal protector.” I started pushing the shards into Bing Tai’s body.
The memory
rushed away from me and I was back in the dining hall, blood seeping from my wounds. Bing Tai stood over me.
“Kill her,” Shiyen called out. “I can grow another.”
Bing Tai hesitated.
The shard I’d held in front of my eyes blazed back into my mind. Ossen Nisong en ossen Shiyen. Obey Nisong then obey Shiyen. Nisong took precedence, and I resembled her. I held some of her memories.
“No.” I pushed myself up, my heart and bones aching. I remembered the way Bing Tai had backed away from attacking me when I broke into my father’s rooms. I’d thought my father had commanded him to protect his family; now I knew that his wife had created Bing Tai. And much as I wanted to be my own person, some of her identity was mine. Even as he growled, I put a hand out. I stuffed down all the fear, all the uncertainty. I touched his nose and the beast stilled. “I know you, Bing Tai. You are mine.”
I met my father’s gaze as my war constructs brought down Tirang and savaged him. “Kill Shiyen.”
Bing Tai turned and charged toward my father, my creator, my one-time husband.
He sank his teeth into Shiyen’s neck. The room erupted into chaos.
I collapsed once more, the drip drip drip of my blood on the floorboards like the remnants of a storm that had long since passed.
43
Jovis
Nephilanu Island
By light, Mephi’s changes seemed even more pronounced. His back was waist-high now; his brown fur thicker. A patch of hair on his chin had begun to grow longer, giving him something of a beard. I scratched it absently, and he closed his eyes. “Very good,” he rumbled.
Ranami had been pleased to see me return, Gio even more so. I knew now, though, that their motivations differed. Ranami was a believer in the cause. Gio had his own plans, and I didn’t know what they were. Ranami drew me aside. “Here.” She pressed a package into my hands. “You’ll need a way to get messages to us. There’s a code in there; study it. There’s also a fair approximation of the Imperial seal. At the docks is a woman who sells steamed bread. She flies a white flag at her stall. Give the messages to her, no one else. Send us as few as possible, but keep us updated. If you need help, let us know. She’ll pass messages back to you.”
The Bone Shard Daughter Page 35
