I dropped the secret note. I knew the name, though I knew it in conjunction with another. Nisong. Nisong Sukai.
My mother.
Bile mixed into the taste of my tears. I remembered the sad condition of my father’s room, how he wouldn’t let the servants touch any of her things. He never wanted to talk to me about my mother. He’d had all the portraits of her destroyed. I’d thought him fueled by grief, but now I could glean other motives. They explained his experiments, the way he’d shut out human advisers and most of his staff.
He hadn’t discussed the making of me with his wife; he was trying to make me into his wife. He must have used that memory machine on me, hoping somehow to instill me with my mother’s memories. I wasn’t his daughter. She’d died, just as the records said. Of course he’d never loved me. I was a vessel for someone else – a secret, an experiment.
I curled into a ball and wept.
38
Jovis
Nephilanu Island
I’d never thought this would be my end: confined on all four sides by wood and stone. I’d always thought my end would come to me on the open ocean, by a storm, the arrows of Imperial soldiers or a knife between the shoulder-blades from the Ioph Carn. But I suppose death, like life, often doesn’t meet expectations.
I couldn’t seem to stop staring at the governor’s face, feeling that there was something familiar about it. His broad cheekbones, generous lips, even his deep-set eyes. He looked bleary and worn, his chin dappled with stubble. And then I wondered if his face would be the last thing I saw before I died. Gio wasn’t much better – glaring at me as though I’d somehow betrayed him. I looked to the floorboards. Even the grain of wood was a more welcome sight. The guard holding me shifted as he drew a dagger from his belt.
And then I felt a tremor within my bones.
It was like being slapped in the chest with the force of a storm gale. My limbs vibrated with the energy. A moment ago I’d felt weak, helpless. Now I knew I could throw off this man as easily as I might discard a cloak.
And again, I felt a sharp awareness of all the water in the room, down to the sweat on the guards’ faces.
Mephi – he must have awoken.
I ducked forward, and the hands holding me ripped away. I heard a thunk as his dagger dropped, embedding itself into the floorboards behind me. In one fluid movement, I bent a knee, sweeping my staff up from the floor. I didn’t stop, turning the staff in my hands, smashing an end of it into the guard that was holding Gio. I used more force than I’d intended. Her feet lifted from the ground, and Gio went with her.
No time to worry about him.
I felt the air move as the third guard rushed to stop me. I ducked beneath his swing and heard the blade sink into the wood pillar behind me. He yanked at the hilt, trying to pull it free. He’d swung hard enough to part my head from my shoulders. My head was stubborn. He was right to think freeing it would take a good deal of force.
As soon as the guard who’d been holding me recovered, he drew his sword. I sidestepped his slash, stepped within his guard and took his blade from his hand. Just a strike to the wrist with one hand – a tap, really – and his fingers opened. It was like plucking overripe fruit from a branch.
I kicked at the guard still trying to get his sword free, sending him flying to the other side of the room. He went down and didn’t get up.
The governor still stood in the doorway, his fingers tight around the doorknob. The whites of his eyes shown clear around his irises. His chest heaved, straining against the ties of his robe. “What are you?”
“A smuggler,” I said. “The Empire made posters of me.”
Apparently my answer set him not at all at ease because he opened the door to run.
I hesitated, feeling like a dog who’d caught the cart he’d been barking after. I must have looked to him like some avenging monster, my trimmed hair still curling in the heat and humidity, frizzing about my face. “Don’t move,” I said to him. What did Gio want me to do with the man? He’d said we were to assassinate the governor’s guards. He hadn’t said what came after that. Gio was still lying on the ground, struggling to free himself from the unconscious embrace of the guard. He straightened, and I watched as he picked up one of his daggers.
The governor froze.
Of course. No coup was bloodless. In the silence, I heard one of the governor’s personal guards groan. One, at least, was still alive. And then there were footsteps, fast approaching.
A woman appeared in the doorway, alone. I recognized her by the broadness of her shoulders if nothing else. Ranami’s lover. What was she doing here?
Her gaze lowered to the governor. Before I could say anything, she was rushing forward. I thought at first that she meant to kill him, but she knelt at his side. “Father, are you hurt?”
Father? Ranami’s lover was the governor’s daughter? Now what Ranami had said earlier about having heard the governor’s heir was a good woman made sense. She hadn’t heard such – she’d felt such. Whether or not her feelings were a reflection of the truth remained to be seen.
“That man is trying to kill me, Phalue,” he said, his voice hysterical.
I said nothing, only lowered my staff, hoping Phalue would take my meaning. She glanced at me and then back to her father.
“Protect me,” he said, grasping at her tunic.
She smoothed his hair from his forehead with the tenderness of a mother with her child. “I’ll protect you. Don’t worry. No one will hurt you.”
“Then . . .” He looked from me to his daughter and back again. “Then why aren’t you doing anything?”
“I am doing something. I’m letting the Shardless Few depose you.”
His face went pale. “You’re my daughter,” he sputtered. “Are you betraying me?”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t seem to know what else to say.
The beat of many approaching footsteps sounded. I stepped to the side, out of the way. I was an observer in this, nothing else. More than anything, I wanted to get back to the caves to see what had happened with Mephi.
A horde of men and women appeared in the doorway. Some wore armor but most were in only their clothes, with knives and staves in hand. It was a ragged army. What they lacked in finesse, they made up for in numbers.
Ranami pushed past them. When she saw Phalue, she hesitated.
“I’m taking over the governorship,” Phalue said to her father. “It’s time.”
While everyone was focused on the governor and his daughter, I watched Gio. He’d slipped his knife back into its sheath but I could see the line between his brows. This hadn’t been his plan. Phalue wasn’t supposed to be here. She was supposed to be imprisoned. A prickle ran up my spine, settling in at the back of my neck. I’d wager anything that one of Gio’s rebels was heading to the palace prison right at this moment, a dagger in hand.
Before I could stop myself, I was taking a step toward Phalue and her father, my hand on my staff, setting myself between them and the rebels. It was only one step, but Gio noticed. “It appears Nephilanu has a new governor,” I said, because both Ranami and Phalue seemed distracted. Someone had to force the issue before Gio could find a way to spin this. The people behind Gio cheered.
“Round up the survivors,” Gio told them. He fixed me with a glare before turning to help them. Oh, the rebel leader would try again, I was sure, but for now he had no choice.
“Take my father to the prison,” Phalue said to the soldier standing in the doorway. “Treat him as well as I was treated.”
I hazarded a guess that was well indeed, but any prison would be a vast downgrade for this man. Even the bed in this room was elaborately carved, the windows hung with richly embroidered curtains. He was used to his comforts.
As soon as he’d been led from the room, Ranami went to her. “I thought you were imprisoned.”
Phalue took Ranami’s face in her hands and kissed her cheek. “I was. But it gave me time to think. Tythus let me out.”
Ranami buried her face in Phalue’s chest, holding her close. “I’m just glad you’re out. That everything still happened as planned.”
Not quite as planned, but this wasn’t any place to tell her that. I gave Gio one last glance and then tapped Ranami’s arm. I was nearly done here – I could go back to the rebel hideout and check on Mephi. My boat was still hidden in the harbor nearby, ready for me to take it out to sea. The Ioph Carn would still be looking for me, and each day the blue-sailed boat traveled farther away. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve done what I’ve promised. I believe you have information for me.”
Ranami gave Phalue’s arm a reassuring squeeze and then turned to me. “Yes, though I warn you it may not be what you expected.”
“I don’t care.” I didn’t. I’d done what she’d asked. I’d done what those men and women had asked, rescuing their children. There had to be something at the end of this road, some reward.
“The boat made landfall at Maila according to reports we’ve received.”
My mind went blank. Maila was on the north-eastern edge of the Empire. It would take weeks to get there. I’d only been on this island for three days, and I’d been sure I was close. “That’s impossible.”
“It’s not an ordinary boat,” Ranami said. “And there may be two of them. We’re not sure. But what we are sure of is that one of them is moored at Maila.”
I’d heard the stories. Maila was surrounded by jagged reefs. No one went there, though every Imperial navigator knew where it was – so they could avoid it. Why would a boat land there? Why would this boat land there? What she’d said finally registered. “What do you mean it’s not an ordinary boat?”
“There are stories. I don’t know how true they are, but it’s said the boat is made from the wood of a cloud juniper.”
“Don’t tell me lies; you owe me the truth.” Yet when I looked at her I couldn’t detect any falsehood. Cloud junipers were all under the care of the cloudtree monks. Cutting one down would be more than just blasphemous. It meant incurring the wrath of an entire religious order. Either the boat was older than the monks or there had been a cloud juniper they hadn’t known about. Around us, the rebels moved, pulling the curtains from the window, taking the gilt vases from the floor. Phalue directed them, going through the room and searching out its needless luxuries. I struggled to think.
“You have no reason to trust me,” Ranami admitted. “But I have no reason to lie.”
Maila. I didn’t even know if I could make it past those reefs. I had to try.
“Wait,” Ranami said as I turned to leave. “I have another choice to offer you.”
I should have left; I should have told her to keep her words behind her lips. But maybe a part of me was tired and scared, and the thought of sailing all the way to Maila made my bones ache. I didn’t know what I’d find. I stopped.
“Help us. This island isn’t the end of things. We can’t just take back our freedoms here. We need to end the Empire if we’re ever to all be free. No more constructs, no more trepanning, no more fear of enemies that will never return.”
“It’s not my fight.”
“The woman you search for – how long has it been?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling anger rise within. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s been years, hasn’t it? If she was taken by that boat, she’s not coming back. No one comes back, Jovis.”
“And what would you have me do?” She didn’t hear the warning in my tone.
“Go to the heart of the Empire. Infiltrate the palace. If you have any hope of finding out what’s happened to her, you’ll find it there. That boat goes to Maila – it always ends there – but it goes to Imperial too.”
“So I help you overthrow an island’s governor, and now you want me to go to Imperial and spend whoever knows how long there so you can overthrow an Empire. What’s in it for me? Life satisfaction?” She started to speak, but I raised my voice to speak over her. “You’re no different from the Empire or the Ioph Carn. You all use people to get what you want. You might even think you have noble motives. But what I want, what I’ve always wanted, was just to find Emahla and bring her home. What care have you for that when you have your ideals?”
Ranami pursed her lips, her expression pained. “I’d care about it more if it were a thing that was possible. But you can’t bring the dead back home.”
“Don’t speak of her as though she is dead!” I brought my foot down on the floorboards. The tremor I hadn’t even realized had been building inside of me released. It radiated out from me like the ripple in a pond. It toppled everyone in the room to the floor.
Phalue rushed to Ranami’s side to help her up.
Easy enough for her to make these sorts of plans when she had the one she loved with her. She had a life to build here, a purpose. She didn’t know what it was like to exist with a hole where a person had once been.
I strode from the room and no one stopped me.
The city was changed from when I’d set out that morning. Word had traveled quickly, it seemed. Revelers filled the streets by light of lanterns; merchants passed out free cakes, even to the gutter orphans. I wondered how festive they would be when they realized that changing rulers didn’t mean the end to all problems. Not that I could fault them for it.
It was well into the night by the time I made it back to the rebels’ cave. I rushed through the opening, squeezing through so quickly that my shirt ripped. “Mephi!”
I thought he would still be in the main hall, stretched out by the fire. Instead, he came scampering up to me like he’d never been at death’s door. He pushed his head beneath my hand, twining around my legs, his tail wrapping around my waist. I dropped to my knees and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. “I thought you might die.”
He tolerated my hug for a moment before squirming away from me. “Good?” he said.
I gave him one last scratch around the ears. “We’re leaving.”
39
Sand
Maila Isle, at the edge of the Empire
The branches of the mango tree spread overhead like the canopy of an umbrella. Sand studied the leaves, the wan sunlight filtering through, the sound of rain pattering against their broad surfaces. She knew the exact juncture she’d fallen from. The rest was hazy. Somewhere along the way she’d cut her arm on a branch or on the bark. She walked around the perimeter of the tree. Something had changed here, and it hadn’t been just the cut. Sand had been hurt before, they all had. There was something else.
Dead leaves gathered at the base. She kicked at them and they stuck to her sandaled feet. A few steps away, a mango rotted on the ground.
A flash of white caught her eye. There, near the rotting mango. Sand went to it, knelt. It was wedged in a small puddle; it had been raining frequently these past days. She reached into the water and plucked it from the mud. It was the size of her thumbnail, though longer and narrower. It could have just been a piece of rock, but when she brought it up to her eyes and wiped away the mud with her shirt, there were markings on it. Scratches?
No. Writing.
Her fingers trembling a little, she held it up to the gash in her arm. They were the same length.
“Sand.” Shell stood several paces away, a spear in his hand. “Coral thinks she saw sails on the horizon. It’s time. Leaf is gathering the others.”
Sand rose to her feet, pocketing the shard. “Everyone knows the plan?”
“The net is in place. We’re ready.”
Not that it would matter if they were not. The boat was coming, and they didn’t know when it would come again, or if they would still be free of the fog that always threatened to cloud their minds. Sand felt for the knife at her belt. It wasn’t a spear, but it was all she had. “Let’s go.”
They left the mango grove behind. In the distance, a low rumble of thunder sounded. The rain was light and Sand knew it wouldn’t turn into a real storm for some time yet. She’d lived a life wit
h memories and her own purposes. She wasn’t sure how long it had been or what had happened to her to lead her here to Maila, but sometimes when she was still and thinking, a memory would wend its way through her mind. That dining hall with its vast ceiling. The murals. The cloud juniper doors and the tall, handsome man in his silk robes. Heat rose up her neck as she followed Shell through the trees. She’d known that man intimately. And he hadn’t only loved her, he had shown her things – secret things.
The memories hadn’t made clear exactly what. But she had to believe there was a life for her away from Maila. A man like that wouldn’t want an ugly woman of no importance like Sand, but perhaps . . . ? Perhaps they had once meant something to one another.
“Are you all right?” Shell asked.
She’d fallen far behind, lost in her own thoughts. She hurried to catch up. Now of all times was not the moment to get caught up in dreams and memories. They had this one chance to take the ship, and she was mooning about. “I’m fine.”
The sound of their footsteps faded into the rain drumming against the forest canopy, the high, sharp calls of birds. Hope had tightened her throat. She swallowed past it. “Shell, have you ever had memories of a life before this?”
“No,” he said. He used the butt of his spear to shove a branch aside.
A little part of Sand withered. Perhaps she was mad.
A few more steps, and Shell cleared his throat. “But I’ve had dreams. I suppose they could be memories if they were real. But what’s real here?”
“I don’t know.” Her hand snaked into her pocket, closing around the shard with the strange writing.
“I don’t remember much of them. But sometimes, when I wake up, I have this impression. It’s like staring at a sunset for too long and then looking away. You can still see it on your eyelids.” He took in a deep breath, climbed up a rock. “For me, I think I smell fresh ginger. And I feel this warmth on my hands, like I’m near a fire. There’s this comfort in my heart and in my bones. I think it’s a man and a woman that I love, and they’re both with me. There’s a child.” He shook his head, and his lank hair dripped. “I don’t know any more than that. I don’t know where I am, what I do for a living, what their names are, what my name is. How can I think of it as any more than just a dream?”
The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One Page 32
