“If we’ve got evidence, let’s have a trial. We’re not going to start assassinating people who disagree with us.”
“I mean, is imprisoning them any better?”
“It is if we have proof. And laws.”
“Just saying, assassination stops their plans completely, and they don’t have to suffer in prison.”
Elaine hadn’t forgotten how terrible the prisons were. Reforming them was on a list somewhere on one of the papers scattered around her. Horrible as it was, she realized Jole had a point. It might be kinder. She shook her head. “Not yet. Let’s think about that more, but I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”
Jole shrugged. “Cool. No assassination, then. I’ll have my guy gather some evidence.”
Elaine made a note on her paper. Is assassination a reasonable alternative to prison? She couldn’t imagine it would be, but it might be a reasonable choice to offer someone, at the very least.
“Where are we on reincarnation?” Jole asked.
Elaine bit her lip. “I don’t know yet. It seems completely impractical to try to outlaw it.” Jole opened her mouth and Elaine cut her off. “But, yes, I agree, it’s causing problems. What if we gave it to everyone instead?”
Jole grimaced. “I don’t see how that fixes anything. Also, how are we going to enforce this? As soon as we’re gone, the person after us will just bring it back. It’s too tempting.”
“Yeah… you have a point.” How to live in a world with reincarnation? How to ensure a good life for everyone with such a fundamental inequality? She made a note on her list. Reincarnation? was all it said. Leave it to their next meeting. Or maybe the one after that.
“Paric, where do we stand with the palace guard?”
Paric turned from the view, uncrossing his arms. “They’re fine. Some grumbling, but I bumped up their pay.”
“Good. Do you need anything else?”
“Three months off.”
“What?”
Paric tucked his hands into his pockets. “I’ve been working nine hundred godsdamned years. I want three damn months off.”
“Oh, um, yeah sure, OK…” Elaine met Jole’s eye to see if she knew what this was about. Jole shrugged. “Is… everything OK?”
“OK? Depends. I was sent here to sow discord and I have now helped put not one but three immortal and absolute rulers into power. First, I liked that girl, then when things went bad, I figured I’d just assassinate her and then I could show my face back home again. Now it looks like I’m never going to. So, I’m going home anyway. Just for a visit. I’m kind of attached to you all now. But your beer sucks. I am going back home and I’m going to have a good Volarian beer and buy myself some quality weapons. Maybe listen to a bard who can actually sing. Then I’ll be back. Alright?”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Elaine consulted a list. “Do you want to go now? I’m sure we can find someone to… what do you think Jole?”
“Can you wait a month? While we see if any of your guys get any ideas?”
Paric waved a hand. “They’re all idiots, but yeah, sure.”
“Great,” Elaine said. “I’ll schedule you for the… third of Xamion.”
“Perfect.”
“Gird, what about you?” Elaine asked, turning. “Time off?”
Gird considered this. “I would like to search for… Master de Tamley. I believed the lady—Lilianna—was keeping tabs on him, but I imagine she isn’t any longer.”
“He was the one who…”
“Went mad, yes. Calls himself something peculiar now… what was it?”
“The Angler,” Jole said.
“The Angler?” Elaine gasped. “I’ve met him.” She told them of her escape from the warehouse and meeting him on the bluff.
Paric shook his head. “Figures. Still helping, even despite everything. Gird, let’s go now, maybe he’s still out there.”
“I’ll come, too. I can show you where I last saw him.”
“Well, if we’re all going…” Jole said, pushing herself off the railing.
The only remaining sign of the campfire was a pile of cool ashes, scattered by the breeze.
“Aron?” Paric yelled, his hands cupped around his mouth.
“Master de Tamley?”
“Angler?” Elaine jogged along the bluff.
Jole leaned out over the edge, peering down at the rocks, then shrugged.
They hiked along the bluff, to where the trail finally petered out amid the tough sea grass. Then they cut inland, following behind Paric as he stomped along.
“Gods, I need a drink,” he muttered.
“I presume you mean of tea,” Gird said.
Paric rubbed his hand over his mouth. “I mean beer. You know I mean beer. I’m giving up the hard stuff, not the joy of living.”
After several hours, they called it quits for the day. Wherever the Angler had gone, he likely had a good, although possibly absurd reason for it.
81
Ava, Goddess of Fortune
Ava took out two birds as she plummeted down the cliffside. Crashed right into them. They were not expecting a large man falling from the sky. This slowed her descent just enough that when she smashed into the water, she didn’t break both her legs.
She plunged beneath the surface, the roar of the ocean filling her ears, the press of water all around her, and struck out, eyes still closed, kicking her legs and feeling the water stream through her hair, flow across her skin, drag against her clothes. She smiled and gasped when she broke through the surface into the air. Humming a half-remembered tune, she kicked out, her stroke light and sure as she swam away from the cliffside.
Only a few minutes later she was hauled, dripping, out of the ocean by a trio of fishermen, first annoyed, then exclaiming amongst themselves when they saw her black eyes. When she asked them to sail north for seventeen minutes, they exchanged glances, but agreed.
Seventeen minutes later, they encountered a large merchant vessel heading for the mainland. The captain of this vessel knew who she was, or rather, who she had been. With the promise of payment from the new government of Mimros, he agreed to drop her at Wight, only a few hours out of his way.
The voyage was blissful. Everywhere she went, the world felt right. Everything was exactly right. Finally, for the first time that she could ever remember. And she could remember a great deal now.
At Wight she encountered some travelling minstrels, but she avoided them. Their singing grated horribly. Instead she wandered along with a shepherd boy, up into the hills, then followed some goat tracks up the side of a cliff. She fell into a ravine and was stuck for a few days until a man came along and pulled her out. She gave him the sack of gold she had found on the disintegrated corpse of someone else who, like her, had been trapped there some time ago, and, unlike her, had not been lucky enough to be rescued.
He wanted to help her more, but she wandered off when he wasn’t looking. She walked for days and days, sleeping when her body fell asleep, watching bemusedly as her legs and arms grew thinner and thinner, carried her less and less far each day before she collapsed. But it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t need this body much longer.
She was nearing the wall when she passed the shallow grave. Ivy had grown over it, and over the shovel still leaning against the rotted log nearby. She paused, smiling, pressing a hand to the earth. You did well. Be at peace.
She continued walking, and a few minutes later she arrived at the wall. She smiled a wide smile, placing her hands flat against the stone and leaning her bearded cheek up against it. She remembered another wall, counting the bricks in it. That had not been the correct wall. This was it. This was the wall she had been looking for. She took a long, slow, deep breath, and began to climb. The vines pulled away in her hands, and she crashed back down to the forest floor several times, the breath driven from her chest. But each time, she only waited patiently for her breath to return. It always did, or always had, in her experience.
At last her fingers fou
nd the top, curled over the edge, and she scrabbled her feet against the wall until she was able to heave herself up onto it. She paused a moment, smiling around at the forest, listening to the birds. She had always liked bird songs.
Carefully, she stood, her toes poking off the edge. She lifted her arms wide again, and, just as she had before, jumped off.
This time, she hit the ground much sooner. And harder. She felt her legs break, and something else inside her broke, too. Pain. Lots of it. But that was all right. It was just another sensation, another thing this body was telling her. This body was telling her that it was broken. And she told it that it was all right, it had done what she had needed it to do. She thanked it as the sky went dark above her and the bird song faded from her mind.
She was in darkness. She looked down at her glowing form, relieved to be… herself again. No longer attached to that… prison. There, up ahead, the gate, cracked, with the water flowing off the side. She smiled. Everything was coming back. Buried so deeply it had taken many, many, human lifetimes to remember it all. We did it, Eclelia. She passed through the gate, smiling as she looked down at herself. Her true self. Buried all these years in forgetfulness.
She scanned the darkness. Where are you?
She felt the pull, that tug from the physical world. It called to her, and she would answer soon enough. But not yet. She needed to find him, first.
She passed through the lines of souls, streaming from the gates, blank and empty. Her brothers and sisters were somewhere among them. Or trapped among the living.
Up ahead. In a place where the darkness was thicker. The souls gave it a wide berth.
She found him sitting, holding a small red pebble in his hand.
“Hello, father,” she said, and he looked up, his face impassive.
“Daughter.”
“I’m back.”
“So I see.”
“And the monastery is safe.”
“Indeed.” He tossed her the red pebble. “Here’s what’s left of your sister.”
She held the glowing stone in her spectral hand. You did it, sister. I don’t know how long it took you, but you broke the gate, like we planned. And now I’ve done my part.
“The rest of us are coming.”
“I still have six gates.”
“You had seven before.”
She felt the tug of life, pulling her back towards the world. She smiled, welcoming it. This time, she would remember who she was. Who she really was. And she was going to find her brothers and sisters.
She smiled as she drifted back, away from her father, out of the realm of death. “Goodbye, father. See you soon.”
The god of death glowered as he faded into the distance.
82
Elaine
Elaine visited her father every day, and together they talked about everything. A few times he started to give her advice, then caught himself.
On the day of his execution, Elaine went to her rooms, made a cup of tea, and lit a candle. She sat, cross-legged, watching the steady flame and thinking about her father, thinking about all the moments she was grateful for. Remembering him teaching her to sail, and to build, and to cook.
The flame flickered, bent as if by an invisible wind, and a small pocket of emptiness opened in Elaine’s heart.
Not long after, Jole knocked on her door.
“Is he—”
Jole nodded. “He is.” She reached into her pocket. “He asked me to give you this.” She held out a delicate silver ring. Swallowing around the lump in her throat, Elaine slipped the ring over her finger, the silver still warm from Jole’s pocket, or from her father’s hand.
Once things were relatively stable again in Mimros, Elaine began travelling from island to island and city to city, collecting reports from citizens and clan leaders alike. Slowly, she began to see changes. Plague deaths decreased as they improved water purification systems, iris dens were replaced with schools, new clans and cities sprang up. She often thought of her father, wishing he could see it, knowing that, somewhere, he was.
83
Ewan
Year Sixteen of the Reign of the Sister Queens.
The dark silhouette of a bird winged through the purple sky. The frayed edges of the clouds burned orange as Ewan stuffed his hands in his pockets to warm them and strode, whistling, up the street. His arms were sore, his back stiff, and his belly empty, but in a few weeks his apprenticeship would be complete, and everything would be different.
He turned left, making his way down the narrow, cobbled lane, to the lights of the temple ahead. Its limestone columns supported the carved image of the face of a woman, her stony hair curling down the façade, encompassing the building protectively.
Ewan whispered a prayer under his breath, ducked his head, and entered, approaching the shrine, surrounded by flickering candles. He knelt and closed his eyes, feeling that presence, that peace he always sensed here.
He moved to sit in his usual seat, enjoying the warmth for a few minutes before the long walk home to his tiny, cold room at the outskirts of town, but his gaze was caught by a young woman, bending over a table, a dusting cloth in her hand. Her dark hair was pulled back in a thick braid, a single curl of it had escaped, resting near her ear. She set the cloth down and began gathering the used candle stubs into it.
She swept the edges of the fabric up expertly, its sides bulging, and turned towards the altar. She froze when her eyes caught sight of Ewan. A corner of the cloth slipped, and bits of candle spilled out, clattering across the floor.
“Here,” he said, moving forward. “Let me help you with that.”
“Oh… thank you.” For a few seconds they collected the pieces of wax in silence. He glanced at her, found her staring at him, and they both looked away.
“Do I know you?” she asked as he handed her the last candle and they stood up.
Ewan shook his head. He would have remembered if he had ever seen her before. “Ewan lo,” he said, then caught himself. He had a clan now. “Ewan lo Tatlock.”
“Finola ni Tereboy.” One of the old clans. She adjusted the package awkwardly in her arms.
“I’m sorry,” he said, stepping aside. She smiled and swept up the aisle, dumping the contents of the cloth into a basket.
“I haven’t seen you here before,” Ewan said.
“I arrived this morning. Here to continue my training.” She smoothed her simple, white linen dress, then glanced at the gathering dark outside. “I need to mail a letter. Would you… like to walk with me?” She blushed, and Ewan’s heart skipped a beat.
“I should have mailed it earlier,” Finola said, descending the temple steps. “But there’s been so much to do since I got here. My family will want to know I’m safe.” She smiled. “I miss them already. What brings you here?”
“I come here every day.” He wished she had a bag or something he could offer to take. “It’s my favorite place in the city.”
“I see why. It’s one of the oldest temples to Ava, you know, and the only limestone one.”
“I didn’t know. It just… feels peaceful.”
“I know what you mean.” She sighed.
All too soon they had dropped her letter off and returned to the temple.
“Well, I should get back to work,” she said. “Go with Ava.” She clasped her hands and gave him a short bow, a small smile flickering across her lips.
“See you tomorrow.” The words slipped out. He cringed and glanced at her. Was she offended?
She ducked her head, that small smile widening. “See you tomorrow.”
Acknowledgments
This book was incredibly confusing to write. It also went through so many different versions. There are word documents littered with dozens of abandoned characters and discarded plotlines. The final version is 130,000 words, but over the course of the project I wrote over 300,000. There is no way I would have been able to finish it without the help of a lot of really generous, kind, and smart people.
> First off, I’d like to thank my two editors, Rebecca Friedman and Stacy Robinson, for their expert advice and help.
Thank you to my cousin Claire St Hilaire, a very talented writer, who read one of the first (very very rough) drafts of this and helped point me in the right direction. I’m glad we’re still friends after I inflicted that on you.
Thank you to Guy Srinivasan who read a later (still very very rough) draft and gave me great guidance on where the meat of the story was, and on what was really, really not working yet.
Thank you to Matt Powell, for educating me about coups and forms of government.
Thank you to beta readers Robb and Josie Effinger. You guys are super smart and insightful and I’m lucky to know you.
Thank you to Karen Dickson and Piper without whose encouragement I might have given up.
Thank you to my mom; the fact that you like my books helps more than I can ever say.
Thank you to my dad, for teaching me how to sail (and just in general being an awesome dad).
Thank you to my family, your encouragement has been incredible.
Thank you to my husband for his creative genius, assistance on magic systems, and for the kick-ass title.
As always, an enormous amount of gratitude to the noir writer Nick Feldman, character genius and unfailing story-fixer, who read endless drafts, talked me through unending problems, and kept me focused on being true to the characters rather than the plot.
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