I hoped she knew I was looking for her.
Something knocked against the side of the boat. I peered over to see a few loose pieces of wood. Although they were weathered, they looked like broken boards and not driftwood. Either remnants of a shipwreck or remains from Deerhead Island. The horror seemed to wash over me anew, thinking of all those people left on the island, sucked down into a watery grave on what should have been dry land. I wrapped my fingers around my right wrist, the bandage I’d tied about it rough beneath my fingertips. There would be no tattoos on most of their bodies; there would be few bodies to find, if any.
I focused on the charts again. At the end of the dry season, the isles of the Monkey’s Tail moved closer together. And they moved north-west this time of year. I made a few quick calculations to find the position of the next isle, adjusting our direction to match.
The wind finally picked up that evening, and Mephi woke up. He chirruped from his spot on the blanket but didn’t get up, so I found myself feeding him pieces of a fish I’d caught. His whiskers tickled my fingers as he ate. He smacked his lips, sharp white teeth flashing, his head bobbing. I stroked his forehead absently.
“My mother would tell you to eat quietly,” I said. “She would say that people all the way on Imperial could hear you chewing.” I waited, holding my breath, hoping he’d speak again.
Mephi looked up at me. “Not . . . good?” His voice creaked out of him like a rusty door hinge.
I laughed. So perhaps he was like a parrot. “Not good,” I confirmed. “Not good at all.”
He took the next piece of fish from me with his cold paws and ate it as delicately as any governor’s son.
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I said, peering into his black eyes.
Mephi only looked back at me until I again felt foolish for talking to an animal. When I really thought about it, I couldn’t believe I’d let the boat go over this. I’d worked my fingers to the bone, I’d stolen from the Ioph Carn, but as soon as this little creature seemed to be in pain, I’d thrown it all away.
There was still time. If I stopped at the next island and sold the melons, I could use the profit from that to buy more goods to sell at a markup. I could save the money to buy more witstone. I’d find the blue-sailed boat again.
That night, Mephi crawled beneath the blanket to curl at my side as I slept. I felt him lean his body against mine, his little heartbeat a thrum against my ribs. Strange, that I’d let him out into the ocean only a few nights before, telling him to find his own kind. I shifted, hoping I wouldn’t somehow inadvertently crush him at night. “Don’t expect this every night,” I muttered to him. “It’s just because you’re not feeling well.”
He only sighed and laid his head on my shoulder.
I woke to a cold, whiskered snout in my ear.
It took me shrugging off the blankets and shoving him away with my free arm to notice that the aches from the Ioph Carn beatings were gone. I froze. I stretched to the side, expecting a sharp lance of pain from my ribs. Nothing. And then I was pushing the last of the blankets away, lifting my shirt, checking for bruises. Oh, they were still there. I pushed at one experimentally, just in case. Aye, that hurt. But they didn’t look as angry as they had the day before.
A splash sounded behind me. “Mephi!” I was calling out for him before I remembered he knew how to swim. My breath caught in my throat as my mind conjured all the beasts I’d seen during my years smuggling – sharks, giant squids, sea serpents, toothed whales. All of whom would see Mephi as a delicious morsel. But I heard him chittering before I even leaned over the side.
He was abreast of the boat, swimming in the water as though born to it, making pleased little noises as he ducked and dove and turned over onto his back.
“No, Mephi. Not good!” I said.
As much as he’d seemed to understand me before, now it truly was like I spoke to a cat. He ran his paws over his whiskers and then dove again, deep, out of sight. I sucked in a breath and held it, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. Part of me worried about him being eaten. Another part of me wondered if he’d seen others of his kind, or if he’d decided we’d journeyed far enough together. Maybe that would be best – I wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to eat fish, or if he was supposed to be getting milk from his mother.
His head popped up again, near the bow, a fish nearly as big as he was in his mouth.
Relieved, I put the net out to help him back into the boat. I deposited his sopping wet body on my deck, and he deposited the fish at my feet. “Don’t do that again,” I scolded him. “You’re still too small.” How big would he grow anyway? He watched me and chirruped.
I looked at the fish and then back at him. “You can have it.” Maybe he didn’t understand my words, but he took my meaning well enough. At least he was recovered.
We reached the next isle that afternoon. I left the melon boxes on the deck as I tied up my boat, a wary eye on the construct at the docks. It had a hawk’s head on an ape’s body, with the clawed feet of a small bear. I wished I could say it was grotesque, but the Emperor did good work.
I did better work, though, when it came to pitting my wits against theirs.
Constructs weren’t people, even if a few bore human parts. The lives of the shards in their bodies powered them, and the commands written on them gave them purpose. But depending on how tightly those commands were written, well, they could be subverted. And despite the smooth work on this construct, it was a dockworker and would be lower-tier. Fewer commands, more loopholes.
And I could sail through a loophole the way I might a gap in the rocks.
As soon as the construct saw me tying my boat, it hobbled over to me. “State your goods,” it said. Its voice was like the buzzing of insects against a lamp.
“I am a soldier of the Empire. Stand aside.” I wished I’d held on to the jacket for more authenticity, but I’d fooled these constructs before without.
The construct tilted its head to the side, examining me like prey. “You are not,” it said.
“I am, and you are instructed to obey the Emperor’s men.” I looked down at my clothes. “Oh, it’s the lack of uniform, isn’t it?” I let out a heavy sigh. “I’m afraid I lost it.”
With a duck of its head, the construct peered at my chin as though it could make sense of me from a different angle. “Lost it?”
“In the shipwreck,” I said.
“There are no records of recent Imperial shipwrecks.”
“But you know what happened with Deerhead Island?” I said. “Allow me to be the first one to report it. We were there for the island’s Tithing Festival, but we were caught in the current of the sinking island.” It was best to sprinkle in as much truth as possible into lies. “I was able to swim free, but I had to lose everything except my underclothes to do it. I’m the only survivor.”
The feathers on its neck ruffled before it shook its head and they smoothed again. “Your Imperial pin—”
“Lost that too,” I said. “But I am a soldier, and you must obey the Emperor’s men. Step aside and let me pass.”
I could almost see the gears working in the creature’s head, and I tried not to sweat. Mephi, still on the ship, stayed thankfully silent. I’d run into a couple of upgraded constructs, who had been instructed not to obey anyone without an Imperial pin. This was a small isle though, and a lower priority. And there was only one Emperor. I hoped this was an older, original construct.
It didn’t press me for the pin. It stamped in place, its claws clicking against the wood of the dock, its fingers winding about one another.
I didn’t wait for further questions. I reached back into the boat, grabbed the melon boxes and swept past the dockworker. When I turned my head to glance back, I found Mephi bounding at my heels. “You shouldn’t be here,” I hissed at him. “You need to stay on the boat.”
Again, his ability to understand me seemed to slip. Instead of turning around, he leapt to my waist, his feet scrabbling for pu
rchase on my belt. Before I could swat him away, he had settled onto my shoulders, his long body draped around my neck. I expected him to feel too warm, like the scarves my father’s people wore. But his fur was as cool as mist against my skin.
“Fine,” I muttered to the creature curled about my ears. “Just don’t get in my way or make a nuisance of yourself.” After thinking for a bit, I added, “Or say anything.” I was here to sell melons, not to spin lies about what sort of creature Mephi was.
It took me asking a few friendly strangers for directions before I found the market. The market here was larger than on the last isle, though still small. This one wasn’t cramped into two narrow streets; it was laid out in an empty square at the center of town.
I did some mental math and tried not to think of the fortune of witstone I’d tossed overboard, possibly still sinking into the Endless Sea. If I could sell the melons at a profit, I could buy a little bit of illegal witstone. The blue-sailed boat was still small, and it wouldn’t be braving the vastness of the Endless Sea. It would hop to another island, and there was only one other island nearby. I was out on the Monkey’s Tail, a string of isles one after another. Farther east, after the Monkey’s Tail, was Hirona’s Net, and the blue-sailed ship might lose itself in that cluster of islands. I didn’t have much food left, but I could fish from the side of my boat – enough to get by, at least. The other ship would have to make stops to resupply and to rest, and if I made decent time, I’d be able to catch it still on the Monkey’s Tail, before the Net.
I bought a hat first, setting it firmly on my head, the straw brim shading my eyes. And then I searched the market for a likely buyer.
When I set my boxes on the table of a nearby farmer, he only looked at me warily. “Melons from Deerhead Island,” I said. “The island is gone, as you’ve no doubt heard, and we’re going into a wet season. It will be years before any of these melons are grown again.”
The thin man glanced at me sideways, rubbing his palms over his pants before he stood. “It’s ill luck, trying to make a profit off of others’ misfortune.” But he gestured for me to open the boxes anyways.
With his permission, I took his pry bar and lifted the first lid off.
The farmer peered inside and then shrugged. Oh, he was a liar almost as skilled as I was. “I grow these on my farm as well.” Both he and I knew that didn’t matter. The season was over and he was likely already getting a good price for them.
“And I’ll wager if you wait even ten more days, you’ll get a better price for them. If you grow them, you know these store for a full year. What more could anyone who is facing a wet season ask for? They’ll get tired of their greens and soft-rind fruits, and they’ll have a sweet melon to remind them of warmer, drier days. The supply will be less than it’s been in prior years. Deerhead grew a lot of them.”
“They’re blemished,” he said, pointing to a nearly imperceptible scar on one of the melons.
Mephi made a little squeak of protest. I reached up to scratch his head, hoping he would keep quiet. “That doesn’t change the taste.”
“Those willing to pay a high price prefer their fruit to be as beautiful as their jewels.”
And so it went, back and forth, until we both declared a deal could not be made – before he grudgingly acceded that perhaps some sort of accord could be reached.
The silver coins filled my purse with a delightful jangle. Finding someone willing to sell me witstone under the table though, now that would take some doing.
“Jovis?”
I didn’t recognize the voice. It was gravelly and low, and didn’t belong to anyone I knew, I was certain of it. I kept my head low, my shoulders pulled so tight that my cheeks were hidden in Mephi’s fur. The hat covered nearly the full top half of my face. Did they put up posters on as small an island as this?
“Jovis!” the voice said again, more insistent.
Just when I was hoping that there was some other person named Jovis in the marketplace, a hand grabbed my arm, pulling the wrapping of my tattoo just far enough to expose the rabbit’s ears.
“I knew I’d find you here.”
13
Lin
Imperial Island
I stared at the spy construct on the shelf, my mouth dry, my heart fluttering at my ribs like a caged bird. It must have come in through one of the high windows, sent to skulk around the palace at night, checking for anything gone awry. It had found what it had been looking for.
It would scurry back to the courtyard and beneath the boulder in the center, down into whatever lair the Construct of Spies lurked in, and it would tell her I’d been found where I didn’t belong. My father would disown me and the Empire would fall into pieces at his death. It would be broken.
Like I was broken.
No. I gritted my teeth. I could not let this be the end.
We moved at the same time – the construct toward the window, and I toward the construct. It reached the end of the shelf at the same time that I reached out my hand.
I expected to close my fingers around empty air, but I was quicker than Bayan or Father had ever been. I caught the creature by its winding tail. It screeched, a terrible, high-pitched sound that rebounded from the walls and shelves. It rang in my ears. By all the isles and the Endless Sea, it would wake even the servants in their separate quarters! I pulled the creature tight to my chest, curling my hands around it. Its teeth clamped down on my palm.
That smarted. I did my best not to cry out. I jerked my hand away and swaddled the construct in the bottom of my tunic. It shrieked at me until I wrapped its head too. It could still breathe through the cloth. If I killed it, where could I hide the body? I could take it outside the palace walls, leave it somewhere or bury it.
But the shards would no longer take life from their former owners. There’d no longer be a need to suck life away to power the construct. And my father always seemed to know when one of his constructs died.
It would raise too many questions. I had to keep the construct alive for now.
Scenarios ran through my head. If I kept it in the palace, I’d be found out. Father didn’t come often to my room, but he did sometimes, and Bayan more often – to fetch me or to bother me. And there were other spy constructs in the palace, always watching.
I could only think of one place to keep the creature.
By the time I reached the blacksmith’s shop, the sun was cresting the horizon. I’d cleaned up the mess in the library and had dropped off the journal in my room. I’d taken another tunic to wrap around the construct. This would be cutting things close. My father and Bayan usually both stayed awake into the night and did not rise until well after dawn. I could not say this was an everyday occurrence though.
The bustle of a waking city was so different from the quiet within the palace walls. Doors open and shut, people strode past me in a hurry, baskets beneath their arms or bags slung over their shoulders. No one looked at me – a girl with her own bundle beneath her arm. They all had their own business to keep. Light filtered golden into the streets, chasing away the blue-tinged shadows of the night before. And the night fishermen were filtering in from the docks, their catches in buckets, filling the air with the ocean-water scent of fresh fish and squid. Water slopped from buckets and onto the street; I had to dodge puddles more than once before arriving at my destination. The drinking hall next door was silent, its patrons long since gone. The blacksmith’s shop was closed, but I heard the sound of a tiny hammer striking metal.
I knocked at the door hard enough to make my knuckles ache.
Numeen answered the door, and he frowned when he saw me. “You shouldn’t be here. You were only just here last night.”
“I know,” I said, and slipped past him before he could stop me. “I’ve come to ask a favor.”
“I can’t do favors.” But he closed the door behind himself. Sweat beaded on my scalp as soon as the door swung shut. Numeen had a small fire going, and despite the chimney and the open window, the
entire shop felt like a furnace.
“A favor for a favor,” I said.
“You found my bone shard?”
“I – no.” Again, the pang of guilt. I shook it off. I’d find a way to retrieve his shard when I had the chance. I had larger things to care about. I reached into my sash pocket and pulled out the witstone I’d taken from my father’s store.
Numeen’s eyes widened when he saw it. The trade of witstone was highly regulated by the Empire. No one was to buy or sell it without the Emperor’s knowledge and consent. But I’d heard the reports from the Construct of Trade. The Ioph Carn stole and sold witstone, and a few others did as well. If you got your hands on some witstone, there was always a way to sell it, with or without the Empire. “What are you asking of me?”
The bundle beneath my arm twitched as though it knew we were speaking of it. “I caught a spy construct,” I said. “I can’t kill it – my father will know. I need a place to keep it until all of this is over. Can you make a cage for it? Keep it somewhere in your shop?”
“If the Emperor finds out, I’m dead. Not just me, but my entire family.”
“Then think of your family and what you could do for them if you sold this witstone. It won’t be for ever, and I’ll be back periodically to check on it.”
“And with more keys,” he said, his tone resigned. This was the truth of it, and I watched the realization dawn on his face. He couldn’t just walk away now. With that first key, he’d tied his fate to my own.
I proffered the bundle with the spy inside. It squirmed, but once in the grip of the blacksmith, the spy quieted. I watched his face, unsure of what to say. My father might have noted all Numeen had to gain in this bargain. He might have simply thanked him. I wondered how good at reading expressions my father really was, or if he just didn’t care – because I saw more than resignation in Numeen’s face. I saw resentment in his tightened lips and brow, his silence. “I’m sorry,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter. But still, I was sorry. “If I could do this without help, I would.”
The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One Page 11
