“Very crowded, I think you mean.” A glint of amusement in her eye. She looked pointedly at the clutter in the kitchen, and the two wooden toys splayed out where someone might trip on them. “There are nine of us here, and we all share a room except Grandmama.”
I wasn’t afraid of offending her by letting the assumption stand, but I corrected her nonetheless. “No. I meant it the way I said it.” I tried to think of how to put into words the feeling of being walled in by Numeen on one side and his daughter on the other, elbowing me accidentally each time she took a bite. There was something comforting in that closeness, in the smiles around the table, in the regard they held for one another. “It’s the people who fill it that make it beautiful.”
Her cheeks reddened, though she seemed pleased. “Well, see?” she said to Numeen. “It’s not messy. It’s beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you.” He brushed his fingers against her jaw.
It was odd to see him in this environment. In his shop he was gruff and silent, and I’d never seen him smile. Here he relaxed, and even the admonishments to his children were soft. He was like a snake with a freshly shed skin – brighter and more polished, made anew.
I’d lifted a bite to my lips, my head low over my bowl, when my gaze trailed to an open window. A spy construct sat on the lip of it, watching us with black, shiny eyes.
It wasn’t my construct.
What had it seen? What had it heard? I shot to my feet before I realized I’d done so, the presence of my construct a buzz in the back of my mind. “Hao! Capture the spy!” I cried out.
The scrabble of little footsteps sounded, and the spy construct stiffened, its ears swiveling. It darted into Numeen’s house. His brother leapt up, alarmed, and all four children screamed.
Hao appeared in the window, looked for the other construct and dashed for it. They leapt over the pots in the kitchen, unseating one and sending it crashing to the floor. Numeen’s wife seized a spatula and began to chase the creatures, trying to beat them with it.
“Not the one chasing!” I said, but no one seemed to hear me.
Finally, Hao cornered the other spy near the table. Hao jumped, scuffled with it and then pinned it to the ground. Before Numeen’s wife could beat either of them to death, I strode over, the etching tool still heavy in my sash. I knelt, seized the other spy and reached into its body. The shard came free easier this time. And then I took the spy in my hands, went to the window and pushed the shard back into its body. It lay there for a moment and then came back to life, leaping to its feet and scampering away, its mission forgotten.
The room behind me had gone silent.
“Lin is a common name,” Numeen’s wife said. “But it’s also the name of the Emperor’s daughter.”
I turned to find them all looking at me. The house, that had seemed so warm a moment before, now felt frigid as snowmelt. Numeen’s wife took a step toward the children, putting her arms over their shoulders, pulling them in just a little. It was a subtle movement, but one I understood. And Numeen’s brother reached for the soft spot on his skull, the place where his scar was.
I was Lin. I was the Emperor’s daughter.
And I had worked bone shard magic in their home. A place where they could at least pretend, for a little while, that they were safe.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted.
I fled.
22
Jovis
Nephilanu Island
We were already late. I crept through an alleyway toward the city’s marketplace, where the Tithing Festival was being held. According to the locals, they cleared the marketplace of stalls for the Festival every year.
Mephi, now as tall as my knee, pressed his body against my leg. “We do a very good,” he said in a stage whisper.
For what felt like the thousandth time, I made a lowering gesture with my hand.
“A very good,” he said, only a little more quietly.
This was becoming a habit. And people always talked about habits like they were a thing that would kill you one day. “Jovis has a habit of gambling” or “Jovis has a habit of drinking too much melon wine” or “Jovis has a habit of steering his ship into storms”. It seemed, apparently, that what Jovis had actually developed a habit of was rescuing children from the Tithing Festival, and thus getting his face painted onto more stupid posters. It was probably the most foolhardy way to get a lot of portraits done for free.
But how was I to turn all those people away? They hadn’t come empty-handed. I needed the money. Back in that drinking hall, among the ruin I’d made of the Ioph Carn, and their awed faces, I’d felt larger than I actually was. A sparrow who’d mistook himself for an eagle.
And they’d written a bedamned song about me. A song.
So many justifications. So many little lies I kept telling myself. I’d even once told myself that Mephi would be disappointed if I didn’t cave to those people’s pleas. So a habit was best to describe it. Habits were things done with little reason, over and over, until momentum made them more difficult to stop than to keep going. Click click click. I looked around for the source of the noise. Oh. There was the tip of my steel staff, clicking against the stones as I walked. Very stealthy of me. I’d commissioned it at the last island, because hands weren’t great at stopping blades. And now I’d formed yet another habit – tapping it against the ground when I was nervous. I stopped, leaned on it and took a deep breath.
Rescuing children before they reached the Festival was one thing. Rescuing them at the Festival was quite another. But the parents had been desperate. And generous.
“Keep out of trouble,” I said to Mephi. “You’re still too small.”
He only waggled his head and clacked his teeth at me, like a dog tasting something bitter, but I didn’t have time to admonish him. I peered around the corner.
The square was hung with multicolored flags, someone softly playing a flute in a corner. Distractions for the children. Several of them had started to cry, even in spite of the lulling effects of opium. The sound of it chilled me, reminded me of my brother sobbing that day before he’d gone to the ritual. Five soldiers that I could see, two of them in front of me at the alleyway’s mouth. Three others in the square. One was keeping the children in line. One consulted the census taker’s notes. One stood in the center of the square, chisel already in hand.
And then I caught sight of the child facing the crowd, kneeling in front of that soldier. My mouth went dry. The boy looked like my brother at that age. I still remembered my mother’s hand tight in mine at the Festival, the smell of sweat thick in the air. She’d been squeezing my fingers harder than she’d intended, I think. I hadn’t understood back then. I couldn’t.
Onyu’s gaze had met mine as the soldier numbed the spot behind his ear and peeled back the skin. Blood trickled down his neck, pooling a little at his collarbone. I’d glanced at the soldier’s sweaty face, his lips pressed together as he’d placed the chisel against my brother’s skull, wondering why he was taking so long.
“Little brother, you worry too much. My friends said only one of twenty-five die in the Festival,” he said. He’d always been braver than me.
When the soldier finally hit the chisel, Onyu had been looking at me, his mouth curved in a slight smile. I think he meant to be reassuring. But I watched the life go out of his eyes as the chisel went too far, as it dug into his brain. One moment there, the next gone, surely as a flame snuffed out by the wind.
I didn’t know. Not until my mother held his limp body in her arms and started wailing.
One in twenty-five. And I’d done nothing to stop it.
I’d only been six then, and too small to make any real difference. Now, here, I had the power to push back. I should have waited to attack, gathered more information. But I found my feet moving forward before I could stop them. Habit.
I struck both soldiers in front of me at the same time, aiming for the same spot on the back of the skull. Both crumpled. My hands ached, only brie
fly. The injuries I’d sustained from my drinking-hall brawl with the Ioph Carn had faded quickly. I wasn’t sure what Mephi was, and I wasn’t sure what this bond between us had done to me, but the precipice had been the day I’d let Mephi back onto my boat. I’d careened past that and now all I could do was see where this led.
Right now it was leading me to pull the soldiers’ unconscious bodies into the alleyway. The milling children and parents in the square were so caught up in their own fears that none of them seemed to notice the soldiers’ absence. When they did, I doubted they’d raise an alarm. That was the problem with ruling a populace that didn’t love you. Few people cared when you got hurt.
Five children, all of them friends and neighbors. The parents had pooled together money to pay me.
I leaned over to whisper in one woman’s ear. “My name is Jovis. I’m here to help the children. When I say ‘stop’, get everyone out of the way. Tell your friends.”
The woman stiffened a little at the sound of my voice, but then nodded and tapped on a man’s shoulder.
I felt something rub against my knee. Mephi, trotting along beside me like some sort of strange dog. People started to notice. When he’d been kitten-sized, he’d been easy to pass over. Now, his odd features couldn’t escape attention. His webbed paws smoothly navigated the uneven streets. His legs had grown only marginally, but his neck had lengthened a little. The nubs atop his head were now prominent, the fur there rubbed bare, though the horns beneath had not broken past skin. And he’d begun to shed. Not fur, but a soft and pale dandruff that shook loose like flour whenever he was dry.
One of the soldiers by the group of children followed a villager’s gaze. His eyes widened.
“Stop!” I cried out.
The square erupted into chaos. People moved toward the alleys. The soldiers all turned to find the source of the shout. Children tumbled toward me, past me, moving like molasses in their drugged states. Mephi, disobedient as ever, darted out to help round them up. “Mephi!” It was useless, it always was.
The soldiers reached for their swords. I lifted my staff and braced it between my hands, ready to meet them.
And then I heard the creak of bending wood from above. On the rooftops, four archers crept to the peak of the roofs and crouched, reaching for arrows. This bond with Mephi gave me speed and strength; what it hadn’t given me was better hearing. Or a bigger brain. I should have known this would happen. One of the parents had told the Empire, and the Empire had set a trap for me. I was oddly flattered – they’d never tried to set a trap for me when I’d been a smuggler, which was probably why I’d been able to get away with that shipment of witstone.
Two more soldiers emerged from an alley. Nine against one.
I took in a breath and the thrumming begin in my bones, like the cavernous breathing of some enormous animal. I tightened my grip on the staff.
“Jovis,” called the soldier who had been consulting with the census taker. She looked battle-worn, her armor scored in places, her face weary. The square had nearly cleared, though a few children without their parents lingered at the edges, stupefied by opium. “By the order of Emperor Shiyen Sukai, I am authorized to bring you in for questioning.”
“And the executioner’s block, I’ve no doubt,” I said.
“So you won’t come quietly?” She took a step forward, and her soldiers stepped with her.
“If you know who I am, then you know I’ve fought off fifteen of the Ioph Carn and won. What makes you think you will have any better luck?” I threw up my chin, giving the lie some weight. Truth was, these were the worst odds I’d faced. I noticed a couple of the soldiers shoot one another sidelong glances.
She opened her mouth to speak, but I didn’t let her.
I stamped on the cobbles with my right foot, and the thrumming within me sank into the earth. The stones beneath me trembled, the buildings shaking. My little quake only had a radius of perhaps thirty feet, but the soldiers didn’t know it. Nor did the people of the town. Someone screamed, and the archers dropped their bows to brace themselves on the roof. Everything else faded from my awareness.
I went to work.
I took out their leader before anyone had recovered, striking her sword from her hand with my staff, kicking it to the side. I brought the other end of the staff around to strike her across the shoulders. She went down.
The next two had the presence of mind to attack me, and I laid them out before they could even land a blow.
The clink of an arrow skittering across cobbles sounded. The archers had recovered. I took a breath and stamped again. The one who’d fired the arrow hadn’t had time to brace. I heard a yelp as he fell from the rooftop to hit the ground with a thud. The last three soldiers on foot tried to give me space, tried to circle around so they could surround me. But my staff was long, and I could wield it with force even when holding the end of it. I pulled the end of it up to my shoulder, the metal cool against my ear, and swung. Two soldiers jumped back. The last tripped on a stone and my staff caught her in the chest.
I heard the impact of the arrow before I felt it. A ripping, wrenching sound. I faltered, barely catching myself before I could fall. And then a fiery gout of pain from my shoulder. Grimacing, I stamped again, but this time, the archer was ready for it. I heard no more archers falling from the roof. I had to end this quickly, lest I become a pincushion. I took two swift steps toward the remaining two soldiers on the ground, punching one in the gut with the end of my staff, bringing the end of it around to clobber the last one in the head. Vicious moves, but they worked.
When I whirled, I saw a familiar figure running across the rooftops.
“Mephi, you idiot!” I didn’t have time to say anything else.
He sank his sharp little teeth into the calf of one of the archers. He was a fair bit larger than when he’d attacked Philine, so I wasn’t surprised when the archer let out a scream and dropped her bow, trying to dislodge this creature from her leg. Two more archers, and one was aiming at Mephi.
I didn’t think. I threw the staff, hard as I could, at his head.
He tried to get his hands up to protect his face, but they were tangled up in the bow and arrow. The staff hit him, and he rolled off the roof. He hit the ground with a thud and did not rise.
The last archer made a run for it.
“Shit.” My staff hit the cobblestones with a clatter, and I went to pick it up. The other archer was still wrestling on the rooftop with Mephi. I needed to learn how to throw knives or something. I had only my staff – and I could help Mephi or stop the other soldier from raising an alarm. Something in the thrumming shifted. I became aware of how wet the square was. The water puddled on the cobblestones, gathered in the gutters, in clay jugs in the building to my right. Even in the bucket someone had left in an alleyway at the edge of the square. They felt almost like . . . pieces of myself. And then, just as quickly, the sensation vanished.
I didn’t have a choice, not really. I threw the staff at the soldier trying to dislodge Mephi. It went just a little wide, clattering against the tiles. But her grip slipped from Mephi at the noise, and he opened his jaws. The slick tiles provided no purchase as she overbalanced. She rolled to the edge of the roof, falling to the ground with a yelp. She lay there, still.
I was surrounded by blood and bodies, a few of which were still groggily coughing up yet more blood.
A squeak sounded from behind me. Right. The children. The whole reason I’d gotten into this mess in the first place. Some of them had escaped with their parents, but some had come from smaller, neighboring islands and were relying on the soldiers to get them home.
“We’re leaving,” I said to them. “Now.”
The arrow still jutted from my shoulder, aching every time I moved. I reached back and, bracing myself, snapped off the end. Pain radiated from the wound in a burst, setting my teeth and making my breathing come short. I’d have to see to it later. Right now, I had to keep moving.
One of these child
ren’s mother or father had betrayed me, had betrayed all of them. But I still had their money jangling in my purse, and besides, it wasn’t the child’s fault. I’d get them away from the ritual and into safe hands. More easily done on this island, where the Shardless Few had dug in a small foothold in the countryside, away from the cities.
I herded the children through an alley and they went, docile as little lambs. Mephi scampered down from the roof, clinging to a gutter pipe. It protested at his weight. And then he was jaunting beside me, overtly pleased with himself. “Did a very good,” he said.
“No. You would say, ‘I did well.’”
“Did well?”
“I did well.” And then I sighed. Was I really teaching the basics of grammar to this creature? “And you didn’t. I asked you to stay out of it.”
Mephi let out a snort that told me exactly what he thought of that command.
“Aren’t pets supposed to do what their masters say?”
He gave me a long look, and despite the pain in my shoulder I laughed. So he wasn’t exactly a pet. A friend maybe. I hadn’t had a friend since I’d left home to search for Emahla, years ago. Even now I worried at my frayed focus. We’d lost the blue-sailed ship, much as I’d tried to convince myself that we hadn’t. I lied to myself each time I woke – Today I will find it again. It had been weeks.
Each time I confronted the truth, my loyalties clashed painfully. Didn’t I care about Emahla? Didn’t I want to help her? But Mephi couldn’t stand the smell of witstone, and he couldn’t explain why. I’d tried to burn it in his vicinity once, and he’d vomited until he could only heave up bile. I’d stolen things I shouldn’t have, had driven hard bargains, had ignored the pleas of those asking for help. But I couldn’t cross this line. I hated myself for it.
But I couldn’t hate him.
At the docks, the dockworker construct tried to stop me, with my five children huddled behind me. “Please state your goods.” I knocked it into the water with a sweep of my staff. I’d long since gone past elegance and lies.
The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One Page 19