Ilith’s mandibles clicked. “The Shardless Few is expanding its influence. People are unhappy with your taxes, and the recent destruction of Deerhead Island has stirred up more unrest. They don’t trust you to keep them safe – which brings me to my next report. Your people are ill content with the Tithing Festival. Even some governors are muttering about the necessity of it. It’s been a long time since the Alanga were driven out of the Empire, and people have been less inclined to think them a threat.”
“I work every day to maintain this Empire,” Father growled, his hand closing into a fist. “And these ungrateful brats think they’d be better off without me. The Tithing is a small price to pay for the protection I give them. I spend days of my life making constructs, keeping ever vigilant. In the days of my grandfather, the people were grateful. It was an honor to give up a shard. Now they mewl about how the Tithing kills some of their children, how it drains days of their lives – when I have drained my entire life.”
Both Bayan and I sat silent, knowing that if we spoke the wrong word, his anger would refocus on us. We could feel it like a living thing, a blind snake waiting for a mouse to move.
Finally, he sighed and waved a hand. “Mauga, have the old tales circulated again. Pay a troupe to travel the isles and have them put on a production of Phoenix Rise. Everyone likes the story, and it will remind people of what my ancestors have done for them. What we are still doing for them. Keeping them safe.”
Mauga grumbled a little to himself, claws clicking on the table as he shifted.
Ilith looked to me and Bayan, and then back to my father. “The tales may not be necessary. I’ve had some reports about Alanga artifacts . . . awakening.”
Father clenched his hands. “Artifacts are not the Alanga themselves. We’ll speak on that later.”
I looked to Bayan and found him looking back at me. Father might not have seemed concerned, but Bayan was.
“Very well. But another thing you should know,” Ilith said. “My spies have brought me a rumor. It could be nothing but the spawn of some wild dreams, but there may be someone stealing your citizens away from the Tithing Festivals before they are complete. His name is Jovis.”
The trade construct’s wings twitched, and Mauga lifted his sloth head. “I know that name,” Mauga said. “And so does Uphilia. We had posters made.”
My father leaned on the table, lacing his fingers together, his head bowed. “A fugitive?”
“A smuggler,” Mauga said, his voice a rumble in his throat. He snuffled. “He has been . . . hmmm . . . a problem. Two missing boxes of witstone from the mine at Tos. He does not pay any relevant fees.”
“Of course he doesn’t.” Uphilia’s tail lashed. “He’s a smuggler.”
“He pays his fees to the Ioph Carn. No one escapes both the Empire and them,” Ilith said.
“Ilith, keep your spies listening for more word of this Jovis,” my father said. “But he is a smaller problem next to the Shardless. Tirang, organize a strike against the rebellion on the Monkey’s Tail. Send some war constructs. Gather information first.”
And then he returned to eating his dinner, as though that took care of things. What about reaching out to the governors? What about the island that had sunk? It could have been my imagination, but I thought I felt a tremble beneath me, a tremor.
No one else even so much as glanced downward. Just my mind playing tricks on me.
“Eminence,” Bayan said.
My focus turned to him and I picked up on details I hadn’t noticed before. He’d eaten not even half of his plate. The fingers of one hand curled around his napkin. He was nervous.
Bayan straightened. “The last construct I made – I changed the command out to the one you recommended. But is it possible to keep the original command and modify it to work the same way?”
And that was all that was said about politics. Constructs, my father could talk animatedly about for hours.
Father tilted his head to the side. “It’s possible,” he said, tapping his chopsticks against his plate, “although not necessarily advisable. A command, once written, cannot be erased or overwritten. It can be modified, but you run the danger of a less effective command. If you’re not careful, you can even run the risk of altering the command in a way you didn’t intend. A missed mark, or an unintended one, can change a meaning completely. It’s best to use a fresh shard and carve a new command.”
“But what if you run low on shards?”
Father snorted. “The Shardless Few and this smuggler aside, we will not run out of shards.”
“Nothing lasts for ever. Not even the reign of the Alanga.”
“The Shardless have no plan. They know what they don’t want, but they don’t know what they do want. No movement survives without a vision of the future, because without it, there is nothing to strive for. They rebels aren’t a real threat, and you don’t need to start hoarding shards.”
They spoke not just like teacher and student, but like father and son. In the soft lighting of the dining room, Bayan looked like a younger reflection of my father. No wonder he had chosen to foster him. No wonder he was considering replacing me with him.
I felt my brows furrow as I watched Bayan, and I smoothed the expression away before anyone could notice. His expression was calm, but his fingers still curled into his napkin. He hadn’t asked just out of curiosity. He’d asked because the asking had made Father comfortable. The question that made him twist his fingers was yet to come.
If I were Bayan, I would have been patient. I would have let the mood in the room relax further. But Bayan’s ambition was not a patient thing.
“Will you give me the key to the door with the cloud junipers on it? I’m ready.”
The cloud juniper door – the one I recognized from a past I no longer knew. I tried not to appear interested but I needn’t have bothered. Father’s attention was fully on Bayan. “I give you keys when I deem you ready. If I have not given you a key, you are not ready.”
Father said it calmly, but I watched the way he set his chopsticks to the side even though he wasn’t done eating. There was a warning in such calm. It was the retreat of the ocean from the shore, just before a tsunami.
Bayan didn’t notice. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked of me, and I’ve done things you’ve not even asked. Every time you go through that door, you come back invigorated. I want to know what’s behind it.”
Father’s hand lashed out far quicker than I’d thought possible for his age.
The blow couldn’t have hurt that much, but Bayan cowered, holding a hand to his cheek. And then Father grasped his cane. He started to lift it, and then, thinking better of the action, let it rest back on the floor. The constructs sat on their cushions like statues, watching with disinterested eyes.
He’d beaten Bayan before. It hadn’t occurred to me until now, but Bayan never knew his place, and Father was fond of reminding others of theirs. It must have hurt more, years ago, when my father had been stronger.
“You wait,” Father hissed, his breathing heavy. “And you keep covetous thoughts to yourself. If you ask for things you cannot understand, you’re more imprudent than I thought you were.”
Bayan wiped the spot where Father had struck him. The blow hadn’t been hard, but one of the rings Father wore had left an angry red mark. “If I was your true-born son, would you have shown me?”
So he was jealous of me. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. I’d been so jealous of Bayan I hadn’t thought of how he might feel about my station.
Before I could puzzle out my feelings, Father raised his left hand. “Tirang.”
The Construct of War rose. Father had only to crook one finger and the construct pulled a dagger from his belt and started toward Bayan.
No matter what little power remained in Father’s limbs, his mind was still sharp. And with that came the control of all the constructs on all the islands of the Empire.
Now Bayan was afraid, as he should have been before. I
should have relished this victory. I should have gloated, the way Bayan had so many times over his keys.
Ah. I couldn’t. The idea of watching Tirang carve up Bayan just made me queasy, not glad. It swirled in my belly, spurring me to action.
“I have a question as well,” I blurted out. All four constructs looked to me, and Father’s crooked finger relaxed. Tirang stopped in the middle of the dining hall. “Is imprudence an inherited trait, or is it learned?”
By the Endless Sea and the great cloud junipers – I’m not sure what prompted me to speak except for pity. It worked, in a manner of speaking. Father stopped paying attention to Bayan. He seemed to have forgotten he was there. Tirang went to sit back at his seat by the table. Bayan slumped on his cushion, terror washing away like dust after a wet season rain.
And my father, with all the vast power of an Empire waiting at his beck and call, turned his attention to me.
17
Jovis
An island in the Monkey’s Tail
He offered me five more coins to take the boy too. The boy was the son of a family friend, and his daughter hadn’t wanted to leave without him. It was a pittance in comparison to what the man had given for his daughter, but wasn’t I going that way already? And what was two stolen children if I was already going to be executed for one? The Empire couldn’t very well chop my head off twice. Not that they wouldn’t try, but I’d not heard of the Emperor bringing anyone back from the dead just yet.
These were the lies I told myself, because I didn’t want to admit that it seemed to make Mephi happy, and that mattered to me.
As soon as I’d agreed, the beast had climbed back down my shirt, curling his way around the children’s ankles and begging to be scratched about the ears – delighting and charming them both. I supposed it was just as well. If we all had to share my boat for a couple of days, at least one of us should be good with children.
I watched the man say goodbye to his daughter, both trying to hold back the tears. They’d not see one another again for a long time. He could report her as dead to the Empire. But Ilith’s spies were everywhere, and if he tried to follow they’d put the puzzle pieces together. I missed my own family more than I could say, so I let them have their moment. I hadn’t thought in a long time about how it must be for my mother and father – one son dead at eight years old, and the other gone for years, his face on reward posters from the Empire. I’d not written to them, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that I had a family at all. I didn’t think about it because it hurt to, like lifting the bandage on a wound that had never quite healed.
When they were done, I beckoned to the children. “Come on,” I said to them. “Keep close and don’t say anything.”
“What about the construct?” the girl asked.
I pivoted and lifted a finger. “That. That was saying something.”
“But—”
“If you say the wrong thing, we’ll all be caught, and the Empire will chop my head off.”
They both sucked their lips into their mouths, eyes wide. Mephi rose to his haunches and patted their arms with his paws. I let him comfort them, but there was no point in trying to shield them from this reality. Children understood life and death, though adults liked to think they didn’t. And I wanted to get out of this alive.
“Good? Good. Let’s go.”
I heard the tap of their footsteps as they followed me onto the docks. The construct saw me coming and hurried toward me. I ignored its approach, making a beeline for my boat. Mephi leapt aboard as soon as we were close enough, and I knelt to unwind the rope keeping us moored. Rain began to fall in large, splattering droplets, darkening the wood beneath me. I didn’t stop, even when the construct stopped in front of me.
“The Tithing is five days away,” the construct said. “You are not authorized to remove children from the island this close to the Festival.”
“That’s fine,” I said smoothly. “But I’m a soldier, and I have orders to take these children east.”
“You are not a soldier.” The construct spoke with a note of triumph, as though it had spent all day puzzling out my earlier words.
“I am,” I said. “I was shipwrecked, and I lost my uniform and my pin.”
“The Empire would have reissued them to you,” the construct said, still smug.
“They would have – if I’d the time to request them. But I’m on an urgent mission, and requesting a new uniform and pin would delay the purpose of that mission.”
The construct peered at me with narrowed eyes, the feathers on its head ruffling. “What urgent mission?”
I laughed, rose to my feet and tossed the end of the rope aboard. My boat drifted a little from the dock. The children behind me remained mercifully silent. “Are you trying to trick me? I’m not to speak of the mission objectives. The Emperor himself handed down the order.”
“The Emperor himself?”
“Yes.” I stared into the construct’s face, letting nothing crack. I was a soldier. I could tell this lie to myself and make it feel true. “Now stand aside and let me be on my way.”
“I cannot allow smugglers free passage in and out of the harbor.”
“I’m an Imperial soldier.”
“You have not shown me proof. You could be a smuggler.” The construct’s voice rose to a whine on the last words.
“You also don’t have proof that I’m a smuggler,” I said, reaching behind me to seize one of the children by the shirt. “I’ve got places to be.” I gave the girl a little heave to help her jump onto the boat, and took hold of the boy. The boy, having seen what I’d already done, jumped with my helping hands.
The construct muttered to itself on the dock, its voice like the whine of a boiling teapot.
I didn’t wait to see what conclusion it would reach. I leapt aboard my ship and set to work on the sails. Mephi followed me, chattering at my feet. If I still had bruises from the Ioph Carn’s beating, I couldn’t feel them. The sails hoisted easily, the rope pricking my palms. The rain began to fall in earnest, a gray gauzy curtain between us and the rest of the world. I lifted the cargo hatch as we began to move out of the harbor. “Go in here,” I told the children. “It’s dark and a little wet, and I’m sorry for that, but once we’re out on the ocean and away from other boats, I’ll let you up.”
I think they had a little more confidence in me after what I’d done with the construct. They lowered themselves into the cargo hold with no complaints – not even when I swung the hatch shut over them. Mephi ran from the bow to the stern and back again, trying to bite at the rain. I laughed at his antics. Of course, the creature hadn’t seen rain before. It had been a dry season, and this was the first rain of the wet season. I wondered if, when the dry season came back seven years later, Mephi would even remember what that was like.
“Yes,” I said to him as he dashed past me. “Water from the sky can be an amazing thing.”
He stopped biting at the rain to look at me, and then lifted his head to the sky again. “Water,” he said in his rusty hinge voice. “Water!”
“Rain, actually – it’s just made of—” I stopped and shook my head. I don’t know why I thought it made a difference. “Yes,” I said instead. “Water.”
Mephi let out a little warbling cry, and then ran to me, slamming his tiny body into my shins. “Water. Good!”
“I suppose it is.” I sat at the tiller and let the rain soak my clothes.
It had been a long time since it had rained like this. I was thirteen when the last wet season had begun, at the beach with Emahla. We’d made a little game of seeing what sort of bounty we could pluck from the ocean and from the sand. I’d just captured an enormous rainbow crab, and crowing with delight had nearly shoved it in her face. “What have you got? A few clams and a sea urchin? I’ve got –” I seized the claws of the crab, waving them about. “the biggest and most delicious of crabs. He’s Korlo the Crab and he’s happy to meet you. He sinks boats in his spare time. So, you see, I�
�m not just bringing back food to fill the pot. By capturing this crab, I’ve made myself a hero. They’ll sing songs about me. Jovis, conqueror of crabs! Savior of the seas!”
Emahla only rolled her eyes. “Telling stories again? You’re such a liar.”
The crab twisted in my grip and pinched the meaty flesh between my thumb and forefinger with a claw. “Ow! Dammit!” I shook it loose, and Emahla had laughed.
The rain had started then, all at once. Clouds had been threatening it for days, but had chosen that moment to follow through.
We’d both been born in a wet season, though it had been a long time since. It still rained in a dry season, but not like this. This was as though heaven held an ocean, and the dam keeping it there had finally burst. Water rained from the sky like a waterfall. Emahla had laughed again, throwing her arms and her head back, letting her bucket of clams fall to the sand. Just like that – with the rain sticking her hair to her skull, gathering like glass beads on her eyelashes, running like tears down flushed cheeks – I knew.
“You’re beautiful,” I’d blurted out, and had changed our friendship for ever.
All the joy had rushed out of her. “You’re such a liar,” she said again, but this time, she didn’t sound sure. And then she’d turned and run from the beach, leaving her bucket behind.
She hadn’t spoken to me again for fourteen days, which to me had seemed like a lifetime. I’d knocked on her door several times, only to be turned away kindly by her mother or father. The one time her younger sister had opened the door, she’d bluntly said, “She doesn’t want to see you,” and had shut the door before I’d had a chance to ask for anything.
I’d forgotten what life was like before we’d been friends. I tried to find other boys and girls to play with, and while they accepted me into their groups with little protest, they asked first if I spoke any Poyer, if it was true the Poyer had bears for pets and what did my name mean? Surely it had to mean something. They didn’t laugh at the same jokes Emahla did. They had their own language, and I floundered when I tried to adapt, because I did not want to. I wanted the comfort of Emahla’s presence, the way we understood one another.
The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One Page 14
