“And what is it you intend to do?”
Become Emperor. Earn my father’s respect. The words wouldn’t come out. I’d been skulking about, stealing keys, trying to unravel my father’s secrets so that I could prove to him my worth, broken though I was. I’d always been anxious that he might die without leaving me any of his secrets, with only bitter words for me on his lips. I didn’t know how to explain that. So I said instead, “To survive.”
Numeen nodded and closed the curtains. The space inside the shop seemed to grow even hotter, firelight casting everything in red and yellow. “Come back when you need another key.”
I fled the shop, the bell at the door jangling as I let the door swing shut behind me. The streets were already brighter, the faint orange glow of lanterns in windows giving way to dawn. The servants would already be about their work.
I didn’t stop to rest. I ran through the streets, dodging surly, sleepy inhabitants as they prepared for the day ahead, baskets under arms and quick huffs of breath extinguishing lanterns. I was a dancer entering the stage four steps too late – upsetting those already there and unable to find my place.
There wasn’t time to take the servants’ entrance. When I climbed back to the top of the wall, the constructs there eyed me but did not raise the alarm. I picked my way back to the palace by rooftop, doing my best to keep my footfalls soft against the tiles. Below me, I saw the few servants sweeping the empty pathways of this walled city in miniature, or carrying buckets of water from the well to the palace itself. The periphery buildings all remained empty – free of dust but with cracked and fading paint. Someday they’d be alive again, when I was Emperor.
By the time I’d reached the palace itself, the sun had risen above the harbor. Light glittered off the ocean, making jewels of each cresting wave. The seabirds had begun to call to one another. Here, at the palace, I felt a step removed from the ocean – nestled into the foot of the mountains. But I didn’t have time to dwell on that. I found a window at the far end of the palace, swung down from the roof, and slipped inside.
I saw a few constructs on my way back to my room – trade constructs, war constructs, and bureaucrat constructs – here to report to their superiors. I wasn’t in their purview, so they paid me no mind. Still, I only breathed easily once I shut the door of my room behind me.
The journal and the beginner’s book of commands were where I’d left them, shoved hastily beneath my bed. One held the key to my past; the other to my future. I ran my hands over the covers. Here, in the quiet of my room, Numeen’s words turned over in my mind.
What was it that I intended to do?
The spy construct had made it clear: I couldn’t just sit around waiting for my father to die, hoping that if I learned enough, he would choose me as heir. Too many variables, too many things that could go wrong. And Father had taught me this much at least. Do not rely on that which you cannot control.
I had to seize control.
I rubbed at the green cloth cover of the journal, yearning to devour the information within. Reluctantly, I set it down and reached for the book of commands. There would be time for both, but I had to prioritize.
My father ruled his Empire by proxy, all his power and commands distributed to his four most complex constructs: Ilith, Construct of Spies; Uphilia, Construct of Trade; Mauga, Construct of Bureaucracy; and Tirang, Construct of War. It occurred to me that this must be why he guarded the secrets to his magic so zealously.
If I were smart enough, if I were clever enough, if I were careful enough, I could rewrite the commands embedded into their shards. I could make them mine. Father didn’t think I was enough. My memory was lacking. But I knew who I was now. I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter.
And I would show him that even broken daughters could wield power.
14
Sand
Maila Isle, at the edge of the Empire
Sand saw to her own stitches that night, after she’d brought her haul of mangoes back to the village. No one commented that she hadn’t brought a full bag. She wasn’t sure anyone noticed at all. Everyone else was focused on the completion of their own tasks. Once everything was gathered, Grass began to sort through it. That was her task. Sand couldn’t remember a time when it hadn’t been.
Surely, though, there must have been a time? Grass’s face was scarred as a fallen coconut, the brown backs of her hands spotted as a seal’s fur. Her hair was still black, and her back straight. She wasn’t ancient, but she wasn’t young either, and there must have been a time when she’d been young.
The others all lined up for their dinners, waiting patiently for the food to be scooped into bowls at the cookpot. Fish stew by the smell of it, probably with a side of mango and the hard grains Cloud always harvested from seagrasses.
Sand dipped the needle in and out of her forearm, flinching at the pain and yet relishing it. It seemed to sharpen her senses and her mind – which had felt dulled until she’d fallen from the tree.
She tied it off at the end and gnawed at the string to sever it. And then she went to talk to Grass, whom Sand judged was the eldest among them still living.
“When did you come to Maila?” she asked Grass.
Grass frowned up at Sand, her spotted hands sorting everything into piles – things to eat now, things to eat later, things to save for as long as possible. “Come to Maila?” she repeated. “I’ve always been here.”
“You grew up here?” The words tasted strange on her own tongue. She couldn’t imagine a child-Grass, running about the island. With parents, friends, family. The image wouldn’t cohere. And then Sand thought of herself here as a child, and found she had no concept of herself as a child at all. There must have been a time she’d been a child. She frowned. She couldn’t remember her parents. Surely that was a thing one remembered.
“I’ve always been here,” Grass said.
“Yes, but what about before?”
“Before what?”
“Before Maila. Someone must have come from somewhere . . .” Sand trailed off, suddenly unsure what she was asking. They had always been here. The thought reverberated in her skull, like a chime struck true that wouldn’t stop ringing.
No.
It wasn’t true. How could it be true? They hadn’t sprung up from the rocks like some storied monsters. They were people, and people had parents. People had places they’d come from. Her eyes darted over the people waiting in line.
Glass, Cliff, Coral, Foam . . . Coral. There was something about Coral, some memory she couldn’t dig up. It was like a word she knew but couldn’t quite remember. And then it flashed in her mind once, like lightning.
Coral hadn’t been here for ever. The thought tried to wriggle away from her, a fish caught in bare palms. She clamped down on it.
Coral hadn’t always been here.
Sand strode to her, her breath coming short, her limp jolting her injuries. “Coral.”
Coral barely turned, despite the urgency of Sand’s tone. Long eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks. “Yes?”
“When did you get here?”
“I’ve always been here,” Coral said, not meeting Sand’s gaze.
The longer Sand held onto that clamped-down thought, the clearer it became. “Four nights ago, what did you bring back to the village?”
“I always bring a bag of clams.”
Sand resisted the urge to shake Coral by the shoulders. “You don’t. You didn’t. Four nights ago, we had no clams. Someone . . .” The thought fuzzed again, fogging up like her vision after water had splashed on her eyes. Someone else? She tried to focus on it and then gave up.
It didn’t matter. Someone else had done it at some point, though Sand couldn’t remember who. “It wasn’t always you. Think. How did you get here?”
“A boat,” Coral said. Her mouth remained open, as if she were shocked by the words she’d uttered. And then she frowned, twining her hands together. “That can’t be right.”
“It’s right
.” How long would this clarity last? Sand wondered if she’d be back at the mango trees the next day, struggling to fill her bag, not remembering the day before. She pressed a hand to the wound she’d sewn up, and the feel of the thread beneath her palm helped her focus. Today was different. The day that Coral had arrived had been different. Sand didn’t know Coral, not really, but her every movement and gesture said one thing to her: soft. Limpid eyes like tide pools, every word voiced with hesitation. She needed to wring an answer out of her before Coral folded. “What sort of boat?”
“Is it important?”
Sand closed her eyes briefly, and she had some distant memory of praying to old, dead gods, the scent of musky incense thick in the air. She could smell it. She met Coral’s gaze. “It’s the most important thing in your life. It is more important than collecting clams.”
This seemed to have an impact at least. They both shifted forward as the line moved, but Coral pressed her lips together. “It was a small boat, with dark wood, but large enough for passengers. I think I was in the hold. It was dark. I don’t know, I’m sorry.”
“But you left the boat at some point. You had to get from the boat to Maila. You must have seen more.” She wished she could reach into Coral’s mind and pluck the memory from her.
“Yes,” Coral said slowly. The line moved again, only one person between them and the stewpot.
If they made it to the front, Coral would get her food and then she’d forget all over again, lost in the routines of the day. Sand knew it. She watched another ladleful of stew pour into a bowl with a deepening sense of despair. “What did you see? Tell me now. Please.”
Coral bit her lower lip. She raised her bowl, ready to receive her dinner.
Sand seized her wrist. “Think!”
The words fell from Coral’s mouth. “The sails. They were blue.”
And then a ladleful of soup dropped into Coral’s bowl. Her face went blank, as though a hand had brushed across a piece of slate, wiping it clean and leaving only faded marks of chalk behind.
15
Jovis
An island in the Monkey’s Tail
If a man could die of stress, I’d have died several hundred times over in the past few days.
“Jovis,” the voice said again.
I tried to shrug off the hand on my arm, not looking at its owner. “You are mistaken,” I said, making my voice lower, gruffer. “I’m not who you’re looking for.”
But the hand would not be shrugged away.
Mephi, still curled around my neck, leaned up to whisper in my ear. “Not good?”
“I don’t know yet,” I said, louder than he had.
So when I turned to see who had accosted me, the man looked startled by my response. “You don’t know what yet?”
“Who you are and what you want.” Relief made me a little sharper than I’d intended. The man wasn’t Ioph Carn. He had no weapons and had the soft outline of a person who enjoyed the small pleasures of life. But it was just as well I’d been sharp; he knew my name, and there was a reward on my head.
“I heard –” And then he lowered his voice so drastically I had to lean in. – “about what you did on Deerhead.”
He’d what? I’d been on Deerhead for all of an afternoon. What had I done? Escaped it sinking? And how had he heard? Oh wait – of course. I’d been drifting on the waves like some indolent governor’s son, bereft of witstone and wind. Others would have arrived here before me. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” This time, when I jerked my wrist away, he came with it, stumbling and almost falling face first into the street. I caught him and set him on his feet.
I hadn’t meant to pull that hard. Had I? I flexed my fingers when I released him. Huh. No more pain. But I couldn’t check my bruises right now.
“The boy,” he said, his eyes darting about the marketplace. He lifted his hands, his fingers curling as though he wasn’t sure if he should form fists. “Please don’t lie. I had to pay for this information. I had to pay a lot of people. I’ve been watching for you.”
Alon. The boy Danila had bade me save from the Tithing Festival. The rise of apprehension in me was like a tide; I didn’t notice it until I was already wet.
He licked his lips, and I saw sweat beading there. “I have something to ask of you. I have a daughter.”
“No.” When I’d flippantly dismissed the thought of who Alon’s parents might tell, I’d been thinking of the Empire, not other desperate parents. My mistake. I cast my eyes about the marketplace too. How many people had heard my name? I shouldered past the man, trying to find emptier streets.
Mephi shifted on my shoulder, his paws digging into my skin. He made a soft, indignant sound in my ear.
“This is what’s not good,” I said to him. “I get threatened into freeing one boy from the Tithing, and now everyone wants a turn at it.” I turned into an empty alley, refuse pooled in the center of it. Footsteps sounded behind me.
“Wait, please. I’ll pay you.”
If I were a dog, my ears would have pricked. I had too little money and too little time to catch the blue-sailed boat. And besides that, the Ioph Carn were on my heels. My purse had a healthy weight to it, but my circumstances called for it to be plump. I pivoted so quickly that the man nearly ran into me. “I’m in a hurry.”
Mephi curled his tail about my throat and took a step down my arm toward the man, a trill in his throat. The man eyed my shoulder warily. “It wouldn’t take much time. I know someone on another island.”
I waited for him to elaborate. He wrang his hands like his fingers were a washcloth. I sighed. “Everyone knows someone on another island.”
“A friend,” he said quickly. “Someone who is part of the Shardless Few. On Unta.”
I had no love for the Emperor, but I wasn’t keen on the Shardless either. Still, if taking this job could get me closer to Emahla, I needed to chance it. And Unta was on my way and close; only two days’ worth of travel. “And you want me to do what? Out with it.”
“Take my daughter with you. Smuggle her off this island and take her to my friend. She’ll take care of her. I’ll pay you to do it.”
“The Shardless Few are a bunch of fanatics who are always sticking their necks out so the Empire has an easier time of lopping of their heads. You’d be better off trying to get her to a monastery. She’d be protected from the Empire behind their walls.”
He looked affronted. “I’d never see her again. And what if she doesn’t want to be a monk?”
I sighed. “Fifty silver phoenixes.”
“Done.”
I blinked. He didn’t look destitute, not with that belly, but his clothes were still simple. A humble man? I’d misjudged before. I should have asked him for more to begin with. Fifty would get me what I needed though. “This will take a little time,” I said. “And don’t expect me to dig into my own stores to feed your girl. I’ll need you to pick up food, blankets, water.”
“Forged documents?”
So he’d been expecting to pay for those too? I had asked for too little. “No. No need.”
“But how will you get past the trade construct?”
I gave a little flourish with one hand, in considerably better spirits than I’d been just a moment before. “I’ll tell it a story. A beautiful, elaborate lie, if you will.” I turned the flourish into an outstretched palm. “Half the money now, if you please.”
He gave me a dubious look.
“There’s a reason the Empire put a price on my head. I’ll do what you’ve asked, and I’ll do it well. Do you think they’d spend the money to keep putting out posters of some half-witted smuggler fresh off his mother’s breast?”
He counted the money out after that.
“Bring her to the docks at sundown, but don’t approach the boats. I’ll meet you on land.” I stowed the money in my purse and left the alley, pleased with myself.
Mephi evidently was pleased as well. “Good,” his creaky voice said in my ear. He rubbed
a furry cheek against me.
That was interesting. Did he understand the meaning of what he was saying? There were legends of very old sea serpents that had learned our human tongue, and more stories still of magical creatures living in the depths of the Endless Sea – but those were stories. This was a kitten of a creature, and I could almost cup him in my hands if he curled into a ball.
“No,” I said. If he knew what he was saying, I’d teach him right. “The money is good. The task? Not good.”
“Good,” Mephi insisted again.
I sighed. What was the point? Did I really want a creature on my boat who could talk back to me? Despite the thought, I smiled and reached up to scratch Mephi’s head. He chirruped and sank onto my shoulder, his fur tickling my neck. “We should feed you. And I need more information.”
The city wasn’t a bad size, and I soon found I had two drinking halls to choose from. I chose the one nearest to the docks. The smell of fish mingled with the scent of old smoke as I stepped inside. One breath and a pang of homesickness swept over me. My father regularly met his Poyer friends in a place like this. Onyu and I would sometimes wander inside when we knew my father was done with his fishing, sneaking past the veil of pipe smoke to watch them play a game of cards. If we were lucky, my father would let us play a hand. “Your mother won’t like that I’m teaching you two to gamble,” he’d say. Half the time that was the end of it, and half the time, if we waited, he would grumble a little and pull out a chair for us to share. The lacquered cards were written in Poyer, and I made sheepish, half-hearted attempts to learn it. Each mistake I made seemed to highlight the sallow color of my skin, my loose curls, my gangly limbs. Onyu’s pronunciation was always better, though I knew enough to understand when my father’s friends smiled at my brother and said, “Ah, he speaks like he was born to it!”
The same praise was never offered to me.
There were no Poyer playing cards in this drinking hall. It was halfway empty this time of day, but there were still a couple of fishermen at a table, having finished their day’s work. I could hear them muttering to one another. “The only thing the Emperor will say is that Deerhead Island sank because of an accident.”
The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One Page 12
