It was through this haze that I saw Gio kill one guard, his knife dancing across her throat. And then I watched, helpless, my hands clawing for purchase, as one of the remaining two guards knocked Gio’s cheek with the hilt of her blade. Gio stumbled but didn’t fall. Not until the other guard buried his foot in Gio’s stomach.
The room went silent. The governor straightened, pulling the two halves of his robes tighter together, refastening the belt. Failure, even though it had seemed inevitable, was still a shock. Mephi . . . No answering power swelled in my flesh.
The man holding me cleared his throat. “Should we question them?”
The governor shook his head. “There’s no time. We need to leave before the rebels get here. Kill them.”
35
Lin
Imperial Island
He knows.
I bit my lip until it bled, clutching at my sides with clawed fingers. Something I’d done, something I’d said, a spy construct I hadn’t seen. Something had tipped him off, and now everything was wrong. I wanted to weep. To scream.
Ilith’s body deflated in front of me, her face sagging, her legs curling beneath her. She’d not said anything since. I wasn’t sure she could still speak. Her body was turning soft, malleable, even her exoskeleton losing cohesion. There was something both terrible and familiar about the way she was falling apart.
That night Bayan had come to me. I remembered the give of his ribs beneath my fingers as he gasped at me for help, as his flesh fell away from his eyes.
Had Father done the same thing to Ilith as he’d done to Bayan? No – Father hadn’t done anything to make Ilith fall apart. I’d done this to Ilith. I’d failed in rewriting her commands. I dug my nails into my palms, unable to breathe. The way Father had failed in rewriting Bayan’s.
Bayan was a construct.
I could barely wrap my mind around the thought. He was real; he wasn’t a thing cobbled together from animal parts. But he must have been sewn together from human parts, the seams smoothed over with bone shard magic, the commands written into his bones.
I didn’t live in a palace. I lived in a dollhouse of my father’s making, a living graveyard. Despite the fact that Ilith’s lair was the size of the dining hall, I felt I was being crushed by the weight of the surrounding stone. If he knew, why let me continue? Was this all some sort of test? And if the sickness hadn’t come from Bayan, where had I gotten it from? Tears gathered in my eyes, though I didn’t know why. Were they for Bayan, or for myself?
Ilith didn’t move. I didn’t know how to bring her back, and I wasn’t sure I could figure it out before daybreak.
Think, I had to think. Push down the horror, accept the truth, move to the next action. Stealing the keys was pointless. Bringing them to Numeen to copy was pointless.
Numeen.
Even if this was a test, and I’d passed it, my actions had revealed a traitor among his citizens. Perhaps Bayan was right and Father would not beat me for my insolence, for my overreaching. But Numeen would not fare so easily. I sucked in a breath. Or his family.
I reached for Ilith’s face. If I figured out how to fix her before dawn, I could move forward with my plan, could still pretend—
The flesh of her face was cold to my fingertips. I stopped. What was I doing? If I failed, I wouldn’t be the only one paying the price. Even if I succeeded, there was no telling I’d have the chance to see Numeen again. I knew now, and Father might read it on my face. I’d been moving forward with only one goal in mind: prove to my father that I was fit to be his heir. Prove I could be an Emperor like him. A hollow ache started in my chest. Everything I’d done, and I still couldn’t earn his love or his approval. What did my memories matter? I was still his daughter. I’d nearly forced Numeen into helping me, I’d never fulfilled my end of the bargain and he’d brought me to his family. They’d shown me kindness.
I should have broken into Bayan’s room, given Numeen and his family their shards when I’d had the chance, the Endless Sea swallow the risks. They could have been gone from here, escaped to an island on the fringe of the Empire or found shelter with the Shardless Few. I’d made too many false promises, had told too many lies.
I didn’t know how to make it right, but I had to try. How could I be the Emperor they needed if I was always trying to be some past version of myself?
Father would still be asleep. There was time. I left Ilith’s body on the floor and dashed for the door. My heart pounded in time with each step – up, up, out of the old mines and back to the shard storeroom. The palace was calm, undisturbed. My world had shattered, but the world around me remained unchanged. I tried to keep my breathing steady as I closed and locked both doors behind me.
One more task before I left. I put one foot in front of another, darting down the hallways until I came to Bayan’s room. I pounded on it fit to wake the dead.
He opened the door, bleary-eyed, and my ribs were like a vise around my heart. I still couldn’t quite believe it. But I didn’t have time to waste. I pushed past him.
“Why are you—?”
His room was neat and organized – had my father written that into his bones? It was easy to find the unused shards laid out in rows on the desk. I shuffled through them.
“Hey,” Bayan said from behind me. “I’m using those. What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” I said as I grabbed Numeen’s shard and stuffed it into my sash. “Go back to sleep.”
Bayan grabbed my arm. “You wake me up, rifle through my room and tell me to go back to sleep?”
He didn’t remember. As far as he was concerned, we were still rivals. So I looked him in the eye and thought about what to say. “I’m sorry my father beats you. He shouldn’t. I’m so sorry.”
His eyes went wide, his fingers going slack. “How did you . . . ?”
But I was gone already, out the door, closing it gently behind me. I could only hope he wouldn’t tell my father. I made my way to the palace’s main entrance – because what did it matter now that the spy constructs had no one to report to?
The streets of the city were silent, washed gray by moonlight. It wasn’t raining, but a light drizzle laced my eyelashes with silver. I tried to remember the twists and turns to Numeen’s house, my heart leaping into my throat. Maybe, if I were lucky, I could get there and back and still fix Ilith.
I found the blacksmith shop first. The door and shutters were closed and locked, the lights out. I struggled to orient myself. When Numeen had taken me to his house, it hadn’t been so late. The streets had still been lit, the sounds and smells of dinner cooking wafting from the surrounding buildings. We’d taken a right down the street, that much I remembered. Each of my steps felt hesitant, the darkness a shroud I had to push past.
But I recognized the corner of a house with decorated gutters, another street with uneven cobblestones, a building with a recessed doorway. And all the while my heart beat like I was running, my breath raw. The cold damp of the air met the warm damp of my sweat, mingled into a swampy mixture at the back of my neck.
There.
I wasn’t sure how late it was by the time I found Numeen’s house. Without thinking, I grasped the doorknob and found it locked. Of course.
I knocked.
Nothing but silence greeted me. I knocked again, louder, and waited. Something creaked above me, a dim light shining through the shutters. Shuffling of feet against wood. Light peeked out from below the door.
What if it was one of my father’s constructs? If Bayan wasn’t real, I couldn’t be sure what was real anymore and what was not. I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, shook my head, trying to dislodge the fear. I took a chance. “Numeen, it’s me.”
A long exhalation, and then the doorknob rattled. Numeen opened the door, his expression mixed, a lamp held upraised in his left hand. His brow had furrowed somewhere between annoyance and confusion; his lips pressed together and twisted to one side. He was not happy to see me. Still, he stepped to the side to let me in. “You
shouldn’t come to my house. Only the shop.”
I didn’t enter. Was my face as bloodless as it felt? “Here.” I reached into my sash pocket, pulled out the paper packet I’d tucked the shards into. “Your shard and your family’s. You need to leave Imperial now. Get as far away from here as possible. Beyond the reach of the Empire.”
He didn’t need to know how to read faces to read mine. “Something has happened,” he said.
I nodded confirmation. “My father. He knows.”
And just like that, Numeen’s expression settled on grim. His gaze went to the side of the door. He reached, picking up something heavy. A hammer. Not the sort used for blacksmithing. He handed the packet of shards back to me. “Get my family up,” he said. “Tell them to pack essentials.” He shut the door, locked it and wedged a chair beneath the knob.
Was it possible to die of guilt? “I’m sorry,” I said. It seemed I only came to this house to bring danger and to issue apologies.
He had no reply for me.
I clenched my jaw. Selfish of me to seek absolution. Words wouldn’t help them now. I dashed up the stairs, knocking on doors and walls, calling softly to the occupants. “You need to get up. Now. Get your things.”
The adults roused first, then the children and Numeen’s mother last. I felt like a dog, nipping at the heels of sheep, warning them of wolves. I’d brought this wolf to their doorstep. Foolish Lin, who thought she could have secrets in her father’s palace. They moved slowly at first, and then more quickly, packing bags, shushing the children. Numeen’s daughter Thrana held her paper crane in her hands, her eyes wide, a small bag slung over one shoulder.
“Down the stairs,” I told them. “Numeen is by the door.”
I’d taken the first step when the house shook.
Wood cracked, loud as thunder. I froze by the stairs, my muscles curled so tightly they hurt. Numeen shouted – I couldn’t tell the words. And then I was turning, dizzy, stretching my arms out as though I could protect these people. They stared back at me. “The window,” I said, my words almost lost in my throat. I tried again. “You need to leave through the window.” They turned to the window.
I’d not been quick enough. Always too slow, always a step behind.
No. Not this time. Before I could second-guess my actions, I flung myself down the stairs, taking them two at a time. When I whirled at the bottom, I had to remind myself to breathe.
Tirang stood in the ruined doorway, his claws wet with blood.
The lamp had been knocked over during the fight, the flames licking at the wall, the light shining from Numeen’s bald pate. He’d been bloodied, but he stood with his hammer at the ready, his feet planted. He wasn’t a fighter, though he had the strength of one. Despite his size, Tirang was at least twice his weight.
The Construct of War raised an arm.
“No!” I might as well have been a songbird, crying uselessly into the night.
Tirang’s claws fell. Numeen stepped to the side, swinging the hammer and catching the construct in his ribs. Tirang grunted but seized the head of the hammer in his free hand. He shoved the weapon out of the way and buried his teeth into the blacksmith’s shoulder.
The man let out a gargling cry of agony.
There were too many members of Numeen’s family. They had four children and one old woman. They’d still be crawling out the window, sliding down the roof tiles, finding a way to climb the gutter to the ground.
“Hey!” I picked up a shard of wood from the ground and hurled it as hard as I could at Tirang’s head. It bounced from his skull. He growled, letting Numeen go. I just had to buy them enough time.
“Lin,” he said.
I’d never been the focus of attention for Tirang, not even at the times I’d most disappointed my father. It took everything I had to stand my ground as he stomped toward me, drawing his sword from his belt. I could still rewrite Tirang’s commands if I moved quickly enough.
“You are not supposed to be here.”
As soon as he was close, I moved, ducking beneath his sword and plunging my hand toward his torso. He dropped his sword, catching my wrists. Claws pricked my skin as I tried to wriggle free. “You are in my way.” His gaze searched the ceiling as his commands sorted themselves, determining the course of action.
Numeen dragged himself to his feet, took a few trembling steps to the street. Blood fountained from his shoulder.
The breath left me as Tirang flung me to the side. Hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to bruise.
But his wrath, it seemed, was not for me.
“Stop!” My voice was not my father’s. Tirang did not heed it. He picked up his sword again.
Numeen heard him coming. He swung the hammer. It went wide.
Tirang thrust his sword into the blacksmith’s body, quick and efficient. He pulled the blade free without even giving Numeen a second glance, already moving out the door and on to his next task.
My fault. My tongue was numb and tingling. I tasted blood. “Wait.” I had to try twice to get myself to my feet. Everything hurt.
I stumbled to the doorway, but Tirang had already disappeared.
“Please!” I wasn’t sure who I was begging. I tripped over a cobblestone, catching myself on the wall of the house. I spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground. My ears rang. Someone screamed.
There had to be a way. There still had to be a way. I turned the corner of the house.
I believed it until I saw the blood. Until I saw the broken bodies.
Numeen’s wife. His brother and his brother’s husband. His mother. His nephew. His sons. I knelt by Thrana’s small body. She still held the paper crane in her hand, the blood from her slit throat spattering the wings with red. I picked it up. My need had always felt desperate. It had always felt greater than theirs. Bile crept up my throat, a bitter taste on the back of my tongue.
I’d been lying to myself.
“You couldn’t have saved them.”
Father. The sick in my throat turned to frozen slush.
Did I dare turn around? Did I even dare to face him? Somehow, I gathered the shreds of my courage. He didn’t look angry, or even disappointed.
“Your work with Mauga and Uphilia was good. You almost succeeded with Ilith. But her commands are complicated, and although you studied hard, I have studied for a lifetime. Ilith is one of my finest creations.”
Hot tears rolled down my cheeks, and I couldn’t find the strength to dash them away. “You didn’t have to kill them.”
“I did. They were traitors to the Empire.”
It was as simple as that to him.
“Ilith isn’t my finest creation though.” He watched my face as though looking for something. When he didn’t find it, he gave a short nod and held out his hands. “If you rewrite the commands in a construct, the commands must still all remain in harmony. They still have to make sense together. Having a command out of balance is like removing a block of bricks at the bottom of a tower. The tower begins to teeter and sometimes to fall. Likewise, a construct will fall apart if its commands are out of balance.”
“Bayan.” I picked up the paper crane and stood to face my father. I was going to tear him apart with my own two hands if I had to. He’d have to make Tirang kill me.
“Yes,” Father said. He strode forward with his cane, his limp pronounced. One, two, three – the pattern echoed from the walls of Numeen’s house. He stood before me, and even leaning on his cane he towered over me. He must have been fearsome in his youth. “But even Bayan was not my greatest creation.”
The sickness. No one had brought the sickness with them because it hadn’t been real. My memories. The ones I didn’t have.
He’s growing things down there, Lin. He’s growing . . . people.
I fought against the horror clawing its way out of my belly. It curdled in my throat as a scream, but I didn’t scream. I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter. I didn’t want it to be true.
“You’re still not quite perfect.�
�
And then something struck the back of my head.
36
Phalue
Nephilanu Island
The cell was cold and damp, though not as bad as Ranami had seemed to think it would be. Phalue shifted on the cot and drummed her fingers against the wood. She hadn’t “sorted things out” with her father as she’d thought she might. Her father, who had always seemed as warm and indolent as a dry season afternoon, had been cold when the guards had brought her before him.
“What’s this I’ve heard about you showing up at one of my caro nut farms? You didn’t say you wanted to visit.” He’d sat at the end of the dining-hall table, hands clasped in front of him, no food or drink upon its surface. “You said you were going out for the afternoon with Ranami. Did she go with you?”
Phalue shook her head. She wasn’t going to implicate Ranami in this as well, no matter how angry with her she might be. Despite Ranami’s protestations that Phalue just didn’t understand, she understood that Ranami would suffer far worse consequences. “It was only me.”
Her father had only frowned. “Four boxes of nuts were stolen on the farm the day you showed up. Nothing else changed. And though the foreman was reluctant to tell me, he said you led them on a fruitless chase into the forest after nonexistent bandits. What am I to think?”
“Are you accusing me of having stolen from you?” It wasn’t hard to sound incredulous. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know,” he’d said in a tone that let Phalue know he was indeed accusing her. “I can’t figure it out. I’ve let you run about freely for too long – going out into the city to see your mother, learning how to spar and now running around the caro nut farms. You’re not the governor yet, Phalue.”
She hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d laughed. Perhaps if she’d kept her mouth shut, if she’d just continued to act bewildered, she wouldn’t be in this mess. But she’d laughed. “Father, you don’t do any of those things, and you are the governor.”
The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One Page 30
