The Bone Shard Daughter: The Drowning Empire Book One

by Andrea Stewart

  “I didn’t say that I believed it.”

  Our words were combative, but they didn’t hold the bite they’d had before.

  “Of course it doesn’t say,” Bayan said. “That knowledge is passed from Emperor to Emperor. They didn’t write it down.” He rose and put the book back on the shelf. His sleeve fell to his elbow, exposing bruises on his arm.

  Four bruises, four straight dark lines. All the mirth went out of me. My father’s cane, marked across Bayan’s flesh. “How often does he hit you?” The words spilled out of me. I put a hand up to stop them, but it was too late.

  Bayan stiffened. He was back to the old Bayan again – cold and distant, mocking and cruel. “Only when I make mistakes. Not often.”

  “He shouldn’t hit you at all.”

  Bayan pushed the book into the shelf until it knocked against the back of the bookcase. “I lied,” he said, holding my gaze with his. “He hits me more now. Ever since you started getting your memory back. You skulk around and feed spy constructs – oh yes, I’ve seen you doing that – and act as though you aren’t the favored one. As though you might be cast onto the streets at any moment.”

  “He threw me out once four years ago—”

  “And you didn’t even leave the palace walls before he called you back. You know how he is. He did it to scare you, to light a fire in your belly. He watched your face for what it did to you and knew it was working. But has he ever hit you?” His eyes searched mine, his chin out, head tilted, waiting for a response.

  I didn’t know what to say. All the little diplomacies I’d learned fell away. I couldn’t give Bayan an answer that would satisfy him, that would make him my friend, that would soothe him. “I’m sorry.”

  Bayan seized the ends of several books, pulling them onto the floor. “I don’t want your pity! He doesn’t hit you because you are the favorite. You are the one he wants to win. You think he doesn’t care, but if he didn’t care, he’d hit you twice as hard. You don’t need all your memories back to see what he’s doing.” He stood there for a moment, his chest heaving. And then he swept for the door, the dark blue hem of his flowing pants like a retreating wave.

  He slammed it, and the dust rose from a few shelves by the door.

  It was what I’d wanted, I supposed.

  I took my time searching the shelves and finally pulled down a few more complex books on the bone shard language. One on building constructs that obeyed someone other than its maker, another on effective ways to write over existing commands and another simply on higher-level commands.

  I’d have to rewrite Mauga’s commands at night when my father slept. Mauga spent much of his time in the palace, in a room he’d reshaped into a lair. I’d have to study quickly.

  Bayan’s words wormed their way back into my mind. Was it true? Was I the favorite? Was I somehow playing into my father’s hands? I couldn’t imagine why he might want me to reprogram his constructs and to overthrow him. And what would I do with Bayan once I was Emperor? A cold trickle of guilt bled into my chest. I wondered if there was a way I could keep him here in the palace alive, or a way I could force his fealty to me. I didn’t want to kill him.

  Other days for other problems.

  First was the matter of rewriting Mauga’s commands in a way my father wouldn’t know.

  And I had no guarantee I would live through that.

  26

  Sand

  Maila Isle, at the edge of the Empire

  A boat with blue sails. Every time Sand’s memory threatened to go hazy, she thought of the blue sails. They hadn’t all been here on Maila for ever; perhaps none of them had. A boat had brought them. It followed that a boat could take them away.

  Sand worked at the problem the way a child might worry at a loose tooth with her tongue. Coral had arrived later, and there had been someone before Coral that Sand could not remember. So the next night, when everyone lined up to receive their bowl of food, Sand went to a nearby coconut palm and scratched out a tally. Two hundred and seventeen. That’s how many of them were here right now. If she’d had the time, she would have written out all the names she could remember, but a sense of urgency drove her forward. What if whatever happened to her during her fall from the mango tree just disappeared? What if she became like the rest of them again?

  She searched for another person she couldn’t recall being here for ever. It came to her a little easier this time, like she was exercising a muscle she hadn’t known existed. “Leaf,” she said, approaching a frail-looking young man. He sat near one of the bonfires in the center of town, eating his stew, his glassy eyes reflecting the fire. He didn’t wear a shirt, and his ribs pressed against his skin like fingers across a taut piece of leather. He nearly dropped his spoon when she spoke to him.

  “Yes?” he said.

  Sand didn’t bother trying to coax the memories from him the way she had with Coral. She needed to push farther. “You came here on a dark, blue-sailed boat. You were placed in the hold. But when you came onto deck, when you arrived on this island, where on the island were you put ashore?”

  “I’ve been here for ever,” Leaf said. He held his bowl tight to his chest as though it could protect him.

  “No,” Sand said, and he trembled. She stalked closer. “You were somewhere else before you were here. Tell me where you disembarked.”

  His eyes grew wide. “I don’t remember.”

  But her words were starting to make sense to him, Sand could tell. “Did you see any landmarks? Where was the sun?”

  “A cove.” He looked startled to hear the words coming out of his mouth, like he’d suddenly realized he was spitting up butterflies. “The sun was behind us.”

  A cove on either the east or the west side of the island. Maila wasn’t small, but it wasn’t very large either. If only she’d spent her time exploring instead of going back to the same bedamned mango grove over and over. “Anything else?”

  He shook his head. “No.” Then he frowned. “Wait! There was someone aboard who was not like us. He wore a gray cloak.”

  Not anything that would help with the location, but Sand stored the information away for later use. Leaf went back to his bowl of soup, though he now wore a troubled expression. But Sand didn’t have time to waste on comforting him. If Coral was any measure, he’d forget again soon enough. She looked around at her fellows until she found another who’d arrived more recently.

  When the evening was done, she’d questioned five of them and had more specifics. The cove they were all brought to was on the east or the west side of the island, it was small – large enough to fit the boat and no other vessels – and the beach was rocky, littered with bits of coral. One tall banana tree stood just off the beach. She rubbed a hand over the wound she’d stitched on her arm, feeling the roughness of the threads against her palm. They could find it if they looked for it. She’d spend every day looking, and she was sure no one would notice that they no longer had mangoes.

  A hand tapped her on the shoulder. Sand whirled. It was Coral, eyes large and brown as hulled coconuts. She held a bowl of stew out to Sand. “You forgot to get your dinner,” she said. “Here.”

  Sand took it, a little mystified. No one had ever brought someone else food. You went to the cook pot or you went hungry. “Thank you.”

  “I heard what you’ve been asking the others,” Coral said. “You’re trying to find out where we came from.”

  Sand looked to the bonfires, warming her hands on the sides of the bowl. “No. I’m trying to find out how to get away from here.” She thought Coral might react with alarm or consternation, the way she had when Sand had questioned her the night before.

  Instead, she nodded. “If we came here somehow, then there must be a way off the island. Even with the reefs.”

  Last night it had been as though Coral had been wiped clean; now she spoke like Sand’s plans were her own.

  She caught Sand looking at her. “It came back to me tonight when I sat down to eat, and then more whe
n I heard you asking questions and you didn’t get in line. Before that I was foggy again. But I’m clear now.”

  Sand’s hands shook. She didn’t need to search alone if she could bring the rest out of this fog. She started to set her bowl down, but Coral stopped her.

  “Eat. I’ll start asking the others how they came to be here. You need to eat.”

  “But what if it goes away?”

  “It won’t.”

  Still, Sand devoured the stew, burning the top of her mouth. She was making progress, and that meant they could get off the island.

  Even with the both of them, it still took two more nights before any others seemed to find their way out from the fog. Grass found his way first, when he went to Sand and asked her why they were all on this island in the first place. Leaf was soon after, along with Frond and Shell. As they began to clarify their thoughts, Sand began to plan.

  “We need to scour the island for the cove we arrived at,” she told them over dinner. “We’ve been arriving in waves, yet we don’t seem to remember when it happened. The boat doesn’t sound big enough for all of us. If the boat brought us here in groups, then it is possible it will come again. If we prepare, if we bring others out of this mind-fog, then when the boat comes again, we can seize it.” The words felt wrong in her mouth somehow, though she couldn’t place it. “We can find this one on the boat who is not one of us, and we k—” We kill them. She could barely even think the words. It was like trying to see through clouded water. She just couldn’t work her way to the bottom. She looked to Coral. “What would you do to the one sailing the boat?”

  “I would—” Coral stopped and frowned. She tried again. “Obviously, we have to—”

  Sand held up a hand to forestall any further effort. “There’s something stopping us from violence.” It was as though she wore a collar and each time her thoughts went in that direction, someone pulled on the leash.

  “Direct violence,” Coral said, her large black eyes focused on the tree line.

  Sand felt a little ashamed that she’d ever thought Coral soft and weak. “An accident might have to suffice.” She could say “accident”. She could think about it too.

  “I can start looking for the cove on the east side of Maila,” Leaf said.

  “The west side of Maila is larger,” Frond said. “Shell and I can look on that side.”

  Sand looked to Coral. “Talk to more people. See who we can lead out of the fog. The more of us there are, the easier this will be.” She stood, her bowl still in her hands. Something about the movement triggered a memory. Sand wasn’t here by the bonfires – she was rising to her feet in the dining hall of a palace. The beams above her were painted in red and gold; the wall panels were murals of cloud junipers and leaping deer. The air smelled faintly of fish sauce and green tea.

  Across from her, at the table, a man watched her. Straight-backed and handsome, dark eyes regarding her with wariness. His blue silk robes spilled about him like a waterfall. “What is it exactly that you want to know?”

  Sand found her mouth opening, and a voice that wasn’t hers emanating from her throat. “Everything.”

  A blink, and she was back on Maila once more, her empty bowl in hand, Coral’s hand at her elbow. “Are you all right?”

  These memories that weren’t hers – whose were they? She knew instinctively that she wouldn’t find her answers here on Maila. “Fine,” Sand said. “But the sooner we find the cove, the better.”

  27

  Lin

  Imperial Island

  I waited by my window, watching the sun set over the city. I ran my hands over the green-covered journal, trying to calm my racing heartbeat. Tonight, I would reprogram Mauga. Numeen’s engraving tool pulled on one side of my sash, its weight a constant reminder. I had to do this now, before I was caught.

  I’d rewritten the spy guarding the cloud juniper in much the way I’d done with the first one. Two of the trees berries nestled against the engraving tool in my sash pocket. If I ate them, they’d give me strength and speed, but I wasn’t a cloudtree monk. I didn’t know how long that would last. Still, I might need the advantage.

  The journal entries hadn’t at all been as enlightening as I had hoped. I sounded like a younger, much more carefree version of myself, excitable at small things, like seeing dolphins in the Endless Sea.

  The sun was lowering itself to the horizon, slow and steady as an old man into a too-hot bath.

  I flipped the journal open again, finding a random entry. “I went to Imperial City today. It was beautiful – all the roofs here are tiled, and the streets narrow. So many food vendors!”

  I frowned. I’d written as though I’d never been to Imperial City.

  The previous entries had all been small highlights. Little experiences that any young woman would write about, but with few identifiers on the specific place or even the people I’d been with.

  “It’s much larger than back home.”

  Back home? The palace? I flipped pages, scanning, trying to glean something useful. Just the mundane activities of a girl.

  The light from the window dimmed. I looked up to find the city bathed in the pale light of a fading sunset. By the clouds on the horizon, it would rain tonight or tomorrow.

  I snapped the journal shut. It was time. If I didn’t move now, I’d never move, frozen by indecision.

  I’d read the books on advanced commands and overwriting commands over and over, and had pulled several more off the shelf for good measure. I’d had to return twice to the storerooms for more oil for my lamps. My mind felt stuffed with the strange, smooth tones of the command language; I couldn’t fit anything else into the tired recesses of my head. I wasn’t sure it was enough.

  I wished I’d had years to study it.

  Mauga would be in the dining room, reporting to my father. Mauga wasn’t my father. He had no reason to lock his room when he was away.

  My spy construct appeared on my windowsill, ready to report.

  “Later,” I said, holding up my hand. “Check the halls on the way to Mauga’s room. Tell me if there’s anyone there.”

  The construct squeaked. Sighing, I fished around in my drawers for a nut, which I handed over. “Did you ask Ilith for nuts too?”

  It only chattered and scampered away.

  “I’ll bet you don’t,” I said to the empty room. “I’ll bet my very bones.”

  I went to my door and cracked it open. No one, not even a servant.

  I watched the end of the hall until my construct appeared there, running toward me. I stepped back to let it pass.

  Its tiny chest heaved. “Nothing,” it said in a quiet, highpitched voice.

  Hearing it speak still unnerved me. It was too much like a person, even though I knew it wasn’t. Somehow it felt different for the higher constructs, which behaved more like servants than animals.

  “Give me your report tomorrow.” I left my room and stalked down the halls. No one had lit the lamps yet; the sunlight hadn’t completely faded.

  For once, I was grateful Father didn’t keep enough servants.

  I smelled Mauga’s room before I saw it – a musky, earthy scent. I came abreast of Bayan’s room. Perhaps he was right that I was the favorite. My nose wrinkled. I certainly had a better room.

  For a moment, I stopped, overcome by curiosity. What did Bayan do when he had hours to himself? He’d brought the sickness with him – at least I could always be sure I didn’t have buried memories of him. The relationship we had was the one we’d always had. In the quiet of the hallway, I could hear him moving within his room. The floorboards squeaked as he stepped. If I put my ear to the door, I might even be able to hear him breathing.

  I shook my head and stepped away. What did it matter what Bayan was doing? Why did I even care? Just because he’d been kind to me once or twice didn’t mean we were friends.

  Mauga’s door was still three doors down. I held a sleeve to my mouth and nose and focused on my goal.

 
The hinges creaked as I slipped inside Mauga’s room. Darkness shrouded me; only a sliver of light peeked in through the heavy curtains.

  Mauga didn’t need a bed or a desk. Straw had been spread across the floor, likely in an attempt to contain the smell. A pile of blankets had been shoved into a corner next to a bowl of water and an empty bowl that smelled like raw meat left too long in the sun. I felt I was exploring an animal’s den, not a room.

  When Mauga was done with his reports and Father has dismissed him, he’d return. I wasn’t sure what Mauga did at night. Sleep? Meditate? The thought of Mauga sitting in a meditation pose made me want to laugh. Exhaustion could make even the most solemn of occasions silly. I closed my eyes and breathed. I needed to focus.

  There had to be a place to hide. I’d need to take him unawares.

  What was I supposed to do – bury myself in the blankets?

  It took me another moment before I realized: yes, that was exactly what I had to do. Feeling a little ill, I went to the blankets and picked one up between thumb and forefinger, my other hand still holding my sleeve to my nose.

  It was covered in Mauga’s coarse, dark hair. I’d never thought I was squeamish, but then I’d not truly had the chance to test my stomach. Blood and flesh from the constructs was one thing; filth was another.

  A scratching, scrabbling sound came from the door. Father must have dismissed Mauga early. I took a deep breath and then ducked beneath the blanket, leaving a corner tilted up so I could see out of it. Could a smell smother a person until they could no longer draw breath? I supposed I was about to find out. Mauga lumbered into the room, heaving out a sigh as he closed the door behind him with his great claws. He shuffled about, his path meandering, his sloth nose near to the ground.

  He froze. Slowly, he lifted his head and sniffed the air.

  I let the corner of the blanket fall, my palms sweaty. Could he smell me even through his own stink? I didn’t see how, but then, I was human, with a far less sensitive nose. I waited in the dark, my breath heating the pocket of air below the blanket. I could feel the moisture of my breath gathering on the cloth, making it damp. Retching would give me away, so I took in a breath and held it, listening carefully for any sounds.